TCP, the backbone of the Internet, turns 40

The Internet may be much older than many of us think: while it gained mass appeal in the 1990s, the protocol that serves as its foundation dates back to 40 years ago.

 

On May 10, Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn created the specification for Transmission Control Protocol (TCP), which emerged as the undisputed standard for connecting computer networks.

 

"Forty years ago, it was not at all clear that there would be an Internet. And today we take it for granted, in our daily lives, as we work and as we play," said Mei Lin Fung of the NextNow Community, as she invited the public to a picnic at Palo Alto in California to a May 10 picnic celebrating the "birth" of TCP/IP.

 

A website on TCP/IP's 40th anniversary referenced by Google noted that the TCP Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) is in use by as many as three billion people today.

Celebrating the 40th anniversary of the first publication of Internet design, on the TCP/IP Protocol Suite http://t.co/BvjEmiKDZn

— A Googler (@google) May 10, 2014

 

In the early 1970s, several researchers worked on a "network of networks," a process known as "internetworking" or "internetting."

 

Kahn, who was funding the creation of PRNET and SATNET, needed to connect the two military networks to each other and to the existing ARPAnet, and collaborated with fellow ARPANET alum Vint Cerf.

 

During one "inspired session" in May 1974, they created the first specification for ARPA's internetting protocol, Transport Control Protocol (TCP).

One of the fundamental features of TCP is the ability to transmit information not as a continuous stream, but in "packets" that can be routed along multiple pathways. The technique, called "packet switching", allowed information to be exchanged without the need for a centralized communications network that would other wise be vulnerable to attack or unforeseen downtime.
 

But it would not be until 1977 that TCP would be fully tested, and 20 years before TCP emerged as the standard protocol for the Internet.

 

"Together, the Web running over the Internet beat out earlier alternatives from Minitel to CompuServe, and our familiar online world took off," TCP40.com said. — Joel Locsin/TJD, GMA News