Alp on Nostr: The idea of free, uninterrupted speech has been embedded from the very beginning in ...
The idea of free, uninterrupted speech has been embedded from the very beginning in the technology of the internet. The precursor to the internet, ARPANET, followed an idea from 1962 of an "Intergalactic Computer Network," which already included almost everything that makes up the modern internet today. Then, in August 1968, the concept of "packet switching" was introduced, which is still the basis of TCP/IP today.
During the same period, the Unix operating system and the underlying programming language C were developed. Unix could be easily ported to different computer architectures using C, which made it a quasi-standard in ARPANET, facilitating the development of communication applications and protocols. It significantly contributed to the emergence of the modern internet in the early 1980s. ARPANET provided a unified way to communicate over long distances, just as is commonplace today.
To this day, a persistent false rumor exists that ARPANET was associated with the creation of a decentralized network resistant to nuclear war. According to statements from ARPA, the goal was rather to find a method to better utilize the limited computing capacities of individual universities through data exchange. ARPANET was later expanded to compensate for network losses, but the main reason was the sensitivity of network connections even without nuclear attacks.
Nevertheless, Stephen Joseph Lukasik, then director of DARPA, made the statement:
“The goal was to exploit new computer technologies to meet the needs of military command and control against nuclear threats [...]”
Thus, the resilience of the internet against external censorship attacks was already built into its foundation. And this is exactly what we still deal with today, except that these attacks no longer come from an external enemy but from our own governments, which want to protect a certain narrative based on lies.
Nostr is another protocol built on top of the modern internet that is designed to withstand these attacks even better. The narrative war we are still fighting today is therefore in good agreement with the tradition of the internet's beginnings.
During the same period, the Unix operating system and the underlying programming language C were developed. Unix could be easily ported to different computer architectures using C, which made it a quasi-standard in ARPANET, facilitating the development of communication applications and protocols. It significantly contributed to the emergence of the modern internet in the early 1980s. ARPANET provided a unified way to communicate over long distances, just as is commonplace today.
To this day, a persistent false rumor exists that ARPANET was associated with the creation of a decentralized network resistant to nuclear war. According to statements from ARPA, the goal was rather to find a method to better utilize the limited computing capacities of individual universities through data exchange. ARPANET was later expanded to compensate for network losses, but the main reason was the sensitivity of network connections even without nuclear attacks.
Nevertheless, Stephen Joseph Lukasik, then director of DARPA, made the statement:
“The goal was to exploit new computer technologies to meet the needs of military command and control against nuclear threats [...]”
Thus, the resilience of the internet against external censorship attacks was already built into its foundation. And this is exactly what we still deal with today, except that these attacks no longer come from an external enemy but from our own governments, which want to protect a certain narrative based on lies.
Nostr is another protocol built on top of the modern internet that is designed to withstand these attacks even better. The narrative war we are still fighting today is therefore in good agreement with the tradition of the internet's beginnings.