<LI>Used electronic mail technology and extended it to conferencing
</UL>
</DL>
<p>
<DL>
<DT><b>1970</b>
<DD>ALOHAnet developed by Norman Abrahamson, U of Hawaii (:sk2:)
<UL>
<LI>connected to the ARPANET in 1972
</UL>
<p>
<DD>ARPANET hosts start using Network Control Protocol (NCP).
<p>
<DT><b>1971</b>
<DD>15 nodes (23 hosts): UCLA, SRI, UCSB, U of Utah, BBN, MIT, RAND, SDC,
Harvard, Lincoln Lab, Stanford, UIU(C), CWRU, CMU, NASA/Ames
<p>
<DD>Ray Tomlinson of BBN invents email program to send messages across a
distributed network. The original program was derived from two others:
an intra-machine email program (SNDMSG) and an experimental file
transfer program (CPYNET) (:amk:irh:)
<p>
<DT><b>1972</b>
<DD>International Conference on Computer Communications with
demonstration of ARPANET between 40 machines and the Terminal
Interface Processor (TIP) organized by Bob Kahn.
<p>
<DD>InterNetworking Working Group (INWG) created to address need
for establishing agreed upon protocols. Chairman: Vinton Cerf.
<p>
<DD>Telnet specification (RFC 318)
<p>
<DT><b>1973</b>
<DD>First international connections to the ARPANET: University College of
London (England) and Royal Radar Establishment (Norway)
<p>
<DD>Bob Metcalfe's Harvard PhD Thesis outlines idea for <A HREF="../../../../../tppmsgs/msgs0.htm#32" tppabs="http://wwwhost.ots.utexas.edu/ethernet/">Ethernet</A> (:amk:)
<p>
<DD>Bob Kahn poses Internet problem, starts internetting research program
at ARPA. Vinton Cerf sketches gateway architecture in March on back
of envelope in hotel lobby in San Francisco (:vgc:)
<p>
<DD>Cerf and Kahn present basic Internet ideas at INWG in September at U of Sussex,
Brighton, UK (:vgc:)
<p>
<DD>File Transfer specification (RFC 454)
<p>
<DT><b>1974</b>
<DD>Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn publish "A Protocol for Packet Network
Intercommunication" which specified in detail the design of a
Transmission Control Program (TCP). [IEEE Trans Comm] (:amk:)
<p>
<DD>BBN opens Telenet, the first public packet data service (a commercial
version of ARPANET) (:sk2:)
<p>
<DT><b>1975</b>
<DD>Operational management of Internet transferred to DCA (now <A HREF="../../../../../tppmsgs/msgs0.htm#33" tppabs="http://www.disa.mil/">DISA</A>)
<p>
<DD>"<A HREF="../../../../../tppmsgs/msgs0.htm#34" tppabs="http://www.msue.msu.edu/jargon/">Jargon File</A>", by Raphael Finkel at SAIL, first released (:esr:)
<p>
<DD>Shockwave Rider written by John Brunner (:pds:)
<p>
<DT><b>1976</b>
<DD>Elizabeth II, Queen of the United Kingdom sends out an e-mail
(various Net folks have e-mailed dates ranging from 1971 to 1978;
1976 was the most submitted and the only found in print)
<p>
<DD><A HREF="../../../../../tppmsgs/msgs0.htm#35" tppabs="http://cs.weber.edu/home/rlove/HTML/uucp.html">UUCP</A> (Unix-to-Unix CoPy) developed at AT&T Bell Labs and distributed
with <A HREF="../../../../../tppmsgs/msgs0.htm#36" tppabs="http://www.columbia.edu/~rh120/ch001j.c11">UNIX</A> one year later.
<p>
<DT><b>1977</b>
<DD>THEORYNET created by Larry Landweber at U of Wisconsin providing
electronic mail to over 100 researchers in computer science
(using a locally developed email system and TELENET for access to
server).
<p>
<DD>Mail specification (RFC 733)
<p>
<DD>Tymshare launches Tymnet
<p>
<DD>First demonstration of ARPANET/Packet Radio Net/SATNET operation of
Internet protocols with BBN-supplied gateways in July (:vgc:)
<p>
<DT><b>1979</b>
<DD>Meeting between U of Wisconsin, DARPA, <A HREF="../../../../../tppmsgs/msgs0.htm#37" tppabs="http://www.nsf.gov/">NSF</A>, and computer scientists
from many universities to establish a Computer Science Department
research computer network (organized by Larry Landweber).
<p>
<DD><a href="../../../../../tppmsgs/msgs0.htm#38" tppabs="http://www.columbia.edu/~rh120/ch106.x10">USENET</a> established using UUCP between Duke and UNC by Tom Truscott,
Jim Ellis, and Steve Bellovin. All original groups were under
net.* hierarchy.
<p>
<DD>First MUD, MUD1, by Richard Bartle and Roy Trubshaw at U of Essex
<p>
<DD>ARPA establishes the Internet Configuration Control Board (ICCB)
<p>
<DD>Packet Radio Network (PRNET) experiment starts with DARPA funding.
Most communications take place between mobile vans. ARPANET
<DD><A HREF="../../../../../tppmsgs/msgs0.htm#39" tppabs="http://www.cren.net/.www/bitnet.html">BITNET</A>, the "Because It's Time NETwork"
<UL>
<LI>Started as a cooperative network at the City University of New York,
with the first connection to Yale (:feg:)
<LI>Original acronym stood for 'There' instead of 'Time' in reference to
the free NJE protocols provided with the IBM systems
<LI>Provides electronic mail and listserv servers to distribute
information, as well as file transfers
</UL>
<p>
<DD>CSNET (Computer Science NETwork) built by a collaboration of
computer scientists and U. of Delaware, Purdue U., U. of Wisconsin,
RAND Corporation and BBN through seed money granted by NSF to
provide networking services (specially email) to university
scientists with no access to ARPANET. CSNET later becomes known
as the Computer and Science Network. (:amk,lhl:)
<p>
<DD>Minitel (Teletel) is deployed across France by France Telecom.
<p>
<DD>True Names written by Vernor Vinge (:pds:)
<p>
<DT><b>1982</b>
<DD>DCA and ARPA establishes the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) and
Internet Protocol (IP), as the protocol suite, commonly known as TCP/IP,
for ARPANET. (:vgc:)
<UL>
<LI>This leads to one of the first definitions of an "internet"
as a connected set of networks, specifically those using TCP/IP,
and "Internet" as connected TCP/IP internets.
<LI>DoD declares TCP/IP suite to be standard for DoD (:vgc:)
</UL>
<p>
<DD><A HREF="../../../../../tppmsgs/msgs0.htm#40" tppabs="http://www.eu.net/">EUnet</A> (European UNIX Network) is created by EUUG to provide email and
USENET services. (:glg:)
<UL>
<LI>original connections between the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, and UK
</UL>
<p>
<DD>External Gateway Protocol (RFC 827) specification. EGP is used for
gateways between networks.
<p>
<DT><b>1983</b>
<DD>Name server developed at U of Wisconsin, no longer requiring users
to know the exact path to other systems.
<p>
<DD>Cutover from NCP to TCP/IP (1 January)
<p>
<DD>CSNET / ARPANET gateway put in place
<p>
<DD>ARPANET split into ARPANET and MILNET; the latter became integrated
with the Defense Data Network created the previous year.
<p>
<DD>Desktop workstations come into being, many with Berkeley UNIX which
includes IP networking software.
<p>
<DD>Need switches from having a single, large time sharing computer
connected to Internet per site, to connection of an entire local
<DD><A HREF="../../../../../tppmsgs/msgs0.htm#42" tppabs="http://www.earn.net/">EARN</A> (European Academic and Research Network) established. Very
similar to the way BITNET works with a gateway funded by IBM.
<p>
<DD><A HREF="../../../../../tppmsgs/msgs0.htm#43" tppabs="http://www.infonet.net/showcase/fidonet/">FidoNet</A> developed by Tom Jennings.
<p>
<DT><b>1984</b>
<DD><A HREF="../../../../../tppmsgs/msgs0.htm#44" tppabs="http://ds.internic.net/rfc/rfc1480.txt">Domain Name Server</A> (<A HREF="../../../../../tppmsgs/msgs0.htm#45" tppabs="http://www.is.co.za/dnsrd/">DNS</A>) introduced.
<p>
<DD># of hosts breaks 1,000
<p>
<DD>JUNET (Japan Unix Network) established using UUCP.
<p>
<DD><A HREF="../../../../../tppmsgs/msgs0.htm#46" tppabs="http://www.ja.net/">JANET</A> (Joint Academic Network) established in the UK using the
Coloured Book protocols; previously SERCnet.
<p>
<DD>Moderated newsgroups introduced on USENET (mod.*)
<p>
<DD>Neuromancer written by William Gibson
<p>
<DT><b>1985</b>
<DD><A HREF="../../../../../tppmsgs/msgs0.htm#47" tppabs="http://www.well.org/">Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link (WELL)</A> started
<p>
<DD>100 years to the day of the last spike being driven on the cross-Canada
railroad, the last Canadian university is connected to BITNET in a one
year effort to have coast-to-coast connectivity. (:kf1:)
<p>
<DT><b>1986</b>
<DD>NSFNET created (backbone speed of 56Kbps)
<UL>
<LI>NSF establishes 5 super-computing centers to provide high-computing
power for all (JVNC@Princeton, PSC@Pittsburgh, SDSC@UCSD, NCSA@UIUC,
Theory Center@Cornell).
<LI>This allows an explosion of connections, especially from
universities.
</UL>
<p>
<DD>NSF-funded SDSCNET, JVNCNET, SURANET, and NYSERNET operational (:sw1:)
<DD>The first Freenet (<A HREF="../../../../../tppmsgs/msgs0.htm#48" tppabs="http://inswww.ins.cwru.edu:8000/net/easy/fn/">Cleveland</A>) comes on-line 16 July under the auspices
of the Society for Public Access Computing (SoPAC). Later Freenet program
management assumed by the National Public Telecomputing Network (<A HREF="../../../../../tppmsgs/msgs0.htm#49" tppabs="http://www.nptn.org/">NPTN</A>)
in 1989 (:sk2,rab:)
<p>
<DD>Network News Transfer Protocol (<A HREF="../../../../../tppmsgs/msgs0.htm#50" tppabs="http://www.academ.com/academ/nntp.html">NNTP</A>) designed to enhance Usenet news
performance over TCP/IP.
<p>
<DD>Mail Exchanger (MX) records developed by Craig Partridge allow
non-IP network hosts to have domain addresses.
<p>
<DD>The great USENET name change; moderated newsgroups changed in 1987.
<p>
<DD>BARRNET (Bay Area Regional Research Network) established using high
speed links. Operational in 1987.
<p>
<DT><b>1987</b>
<DD>NSF signs a cooperative agreement to manage the NSFNET backbone with
<A HREF="../../../../../tppmsgs/msgs0.htm#51" tppabs="http://www.merit.edu/">Merit Network, Inc.</A> (IBM and MCI involvement was through an agreement
with Merit). Merit, IBM, and MCI later founded ANS.
<p>
<DD><A HREF="../../../../../tppmsgs/msgs0.htm#52" tppabs="http://www.uu.net/">UUNET</A> is founded with Usenix funds to provide commercial UUCP and
Usenet access. Originally an experiment by Rick Adams and Mike O'Dell
<p>
<DD><A HREF="../../../../../tppmsgs/msgs0.htm#53" tppabs="http://ds.internic.net/rfc/rfc1000.txt">1000th RFC</A>: "Request For Comments reference guide"
<p>
<DD># of hosts breaks 10,000
<p>
<DD># of BITNET hosts breaks 1,000
<p>
<DT><b>1988</b>
<DD>1 November - Internet worm burrows through the Net, affecting ~6,000
of the 60,000 hosts on the Internet (:ph1:)
<p>
<DD>CERT (Computer Emergency Response Team) formed by DARPA in response to
the needs exhibited during the Morris worm incident.
<pre>
Year Reports Advisories | Year Reports Advisories
---- ------- ---------- + ---- ------- ----------
1988 x 1 | 1993 1,300 18
1989 x 7 | 1994 2,300 15
1990 12 130 | 1995 2,412 18
1991 23 x |
1992 21 800 |
</pre>
<p>
<DD>DoD chooses to adopt OSI and sees use of TCP/IP as an interim. US
Government OSI Profile (GOSIP) defines the set of protocols to be
supported by Government purchased products (:gck:)
<p>
<DD>Los Nettos network created with no federal funding, instead supported
by regional members (founding: Caltech, TIS, UCLA, USC, ISI).
<p>
<DD>NSFNET backbone upgraded to T1 (1.544Mbps)
<p>
<DD>CERFnet (California Education and Research Federation network) founded
by Susan Estrada.
<p>
<DD>Internet Relay Chat (IRC) developed by Jarkko Oikarinen (:zby:)
<p>
<DD>First Canadian regionals join NSFNET: ONet via Cornell, RISQ via
Princeton, BCnet via U of Washington (:ec1:)
<p>
<DD>FidoNet gets connected to the Net, enabling the exchange of e-mail
and news (:tp1:)
<p>
<DD>Countries connecting to NSFNET: Canada, Denmark, Finland, France,
Iceland, Norway, Sweden
<p>
<DT><b>1989</b>
<DD># of hosts breaks 100,000
<p>
<DD><A HREF="../../../../../tppmsgs/msgs0.htm#54" tppabs="http://www.ripe.net/">RIPE</A> (Reseaux IP Europeens) formed (by European service providers) to
ensure the necessary administrative and technical coordination to
allow the operation of the pan-European IP Network. (:glg:)
<p>
<DD>First relays between a commercial electronic mail carrier and the
Internet: MCI Mail through the Corporation for the National Research
Initiative (CNRI), and Compuserve through Ohio State U (:jg1,ph1:)
<p>
<DD>Corporation for Research and Education Networking (<A HREF="../../../../../tppmsgs/msgs0.htm#55" tppabs="http://www.cren.net/">CREN</A>) is formed
by the merge of CSNET into BITNET
<p>
<DD><A HREF="../../../../../tppmsgs/msgs0.htm#56" tppabs="http://www.ietf.cnri.reston.va.us/home.html">Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF)</A> and Internet Research Task
Force (IRTF) comes into existence under the IAB
<p>
<DD>AARNET - Australian Academic Research Network - set up by AVCC and
CSIRO; introduced into service the following year (:gmc:)
<p>
<DD>Cuckoo's Egg written by Clifford Stoll tells the real-life tale of a
German cracker group who infiltrated numerous US facilities
<p>
<DD>Countries connecting to NSFNET: Australia, Germany, Israel, Italy,
Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Puerto Rico, UK
<DD><A HREF="../../../../../tppmsgs/msgs0.htm#57" tppabs="http://www.eff.org/">Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF)</A> is founded by Mitch Kapor
<p>
<DD>Archie released by Peter Deutsch, Alan Emtage, and Bill Heelan at McGill
<p>
<DD>Hytelnet released by Peter Scott (U of Saskatchewan)
<p>
<DD>The World comes on-line (world.std.com), becoming the first commercial
provider of Internet dial-up access
<p>
<DD><A HREF="../../../../../tppmsgs/msgs0.htm#58" tppabs="http://www.iso.org/">ISO</A> Development Environment (ISODE) developed to provide an approach for
OSI migration for the DoD. ISODE software allows OSI application to
operate over TCP/IP (:gck:)
<p>
<DD>CA*net formed by 10 regional networks as national Canadian backbone
with direct connection to NSFNET (:ec1:)
<p>
<DD>The first remotely operated machine to be hooked up to the Internet, the
Internet Toaster, (controlled via SNMP) makes its debut at Interop. [<A HREF="../../../../../tppmsgs/msgs0.htm#59" tppabs="http://www.internode.com.au/">picture</A>]
<p>
<DD>Countries connecting to NSFNET: Argentina, Austria, Belgium, Brazil,
Chile, Greece, India, Ireland, South Korea, Spain, Switzerland
<p>
<DT><b>1991</b>
<DD>Commercial Internet eXchange (CIX) Association, Inc. formed by General
Atomics (CERFnet), Performance Systems International, Inc. (PSInet),
and UUNET Technologies, Inc. (AlterNet), after NSF lifts restrictions
on the commercial use of the Net (:glg:)
<p>
<DD><A HREF="../../../../../tppmsgs/msgs0.htm#60" tppabs="http://www.wais.com/">Wide Area Information Servers (WAIS)</A>, invented by Brewster Kahle,
released by Thinking Machines Corporation
<p>
<DD><A HREF="../../../../../tppmsgs/msgs0.htm#61" tppabs="gopher:">Gopher</A> released by Paul Lindner and Mark P. McCahill from the U of Minn
<p>
<DD><A HREF="../../../../../tppmsgs/msgs0.htm#62" tppabs="http://www.w3.org/">World-Wide Web (WWW)</A> released by <A HREF="../../../../../tppmsgs/msgs0.htm#63" tppabs="http://www.cern.ch/">CERN</A>; Tim Berners-Lee developer (:pb1:)
<p>
<DD>PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) released by Philip Zimmerman (:ad1:)
<p>
<DD>US High Performance Computing Act (Gore 1) establishes the National
Research and Education Network (NREN)
<p>
<DD>NSFNET backbone upgraded to T3 (44.736Mbps)
<p>
<DD>NSFNET traffic passes 1 trillion bytes/month and 10 billion packets/month
<p>
<DD>Start of JANET IP Service (JIPS) which signalled the changeover from
Coloured Book software to TCP/IP within the UK academic network.
IP was initially 'tunnelled' within X.25. (:gst:)
<p>
<DD>Countries connecting to NSFNET: Croatia, Czech Repulic, Hong Kong,
Hungary, Poland, Portugal, Singapore, South Africa, Taiwan, Tunisia
<p>
<DT><b>1992</b>
<DD>Internet Society (ISOC) is chartered
<p>
<DD># of hosts breaks 1,000,000
<p>
<DD>First MBONE audio multicast (March) and video multicast (November)
<p>
<DD>IAB reconstituted as the Internet Architecture Board and becomes
part of the Internet Society
<p>
<DD>Veronica, a gopherspace search tool, is released by UofNevada
<p>
<DD><A HREF="../../../../../tppmsgs/msgs0.htm#64" tppabs="http://www.worldbank.org/">World Bank</A> comes on-line
<p>
<DD>Internet Hunt started by Rick Gates
<p>
<DD>Countries connecting to NSFNET: Cameroon, Cyprus, Ecuador, Estonia,
Kuwait, Latvia, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Thailand,
Venezuela
<p>
<DT><b>1993</b>
<DD><A HREF="../../../../../tppmsgs/msgs0.htm#65" tppabs="http://www.internic.net/">InterNIC</A> created by NSF to provide specific Internet services: (:sc1:)
<DD>Communities begin to be wired up directly to the Internet
(Lexington and Cambridge, Mass., USA)
<p>
<DD>US Senate and <A HREF="../../../../../tppmsgs/msgs0.htm#68" tppabs="http://www.house.gov/">House</A> provide information servers
<p>
<DD>Shopping malls arrive on the Internet
<p>
<DD>First cyberstation, RT-FM, broadcasts from Interop in Las Vegas
<p>
<DD>The National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST) suggests that
GOSIP should incorporate TCP/IP and drop the "OSI-only" requirement
(:gck:)
<p>
<DD>Arizona law firm of <A HREF="../../../../../tppmsgs/msgs0.htm#69" tppabs="ftp://d.armory.com/pub/user/leavitt/html/cands.report.html">Canter & Siegel</A> "spams" the Internet with email
advertising green card lottery services; Net citizens flame back
<p>
<DD>NSFNET traffic passes 10 trillion bytes/month
<p>
<DD>Yes, it's true - you can now order pizza from the Hut online
<p>
<DD>WWW edges out telnet to become 2nd most popular service on the Net
(behind ftp-data) based on % of packets and bytes traffic distribution
on NSFNET
<p>
<DD>Japanese Prime Minister on-line (<A HREF="../../../../../tppmsgs/msgs0.htm#70" tppabs="http://www.kantei.go.jp/">http://www.kantei.go.jp/</A>)
<DD><A HREF="../../../../../tppmsgs/msgs0.htm#73" tppabs="http://www.fv.com/">First Virtual</A>, the first cyberbank, open up for business
<p>
<DD>Radio stations start rockin' (rebroadcasting) round the clock on the Net:
WXYC at UofNC, WJHK at UofKS-Lawrence, KUGS at Western WA U.
<p>
<DD>Trans-European Research and Education Network Association (<A HREF="../../../../../tppmsgs/msgs0.htm#74" tppabs="http://www.terena.org/">TERENA</A>) is
formed by the merge of RARE and EARN, with representatives from 38
countries as well as <A HREF="../../../../../tppmsgs/msgs0.htm#63" tppabs="http://www.cern.ch/">CERN</A> and ECMWF. TERERNA's aim is to "promote
and participate in the development of a high quality international
information and telecommunications infrastructure for the benefit
of research and education"
<p>
<DD>Countries connecting to NSFNET: Algeria, Armenia, Bermuda, Burkina Faso,
China, Colombia, French Polynesia, Jamaica, Lebanon, Lithuania, Macau,
Morocco, New Caledonia, Nicaragua, Niger, Panama, Philippines, Senegal,
Sri Lanka, Swaziland, Uruguay, Uzbekistan
<p>
<DT><b>1995</b>
<DD><A HREF="../../../../../tppmsgs/msgs0.htm#75" tppabs="http://www.ra.net/routing.arbiter/NSFNET/NSF.transition.html">NSFNET reverts back to a research network</A>. Main US backbone traffic now
routed through interconnected network providers
<p>
<DD>Hong Kong police disconnect all but 1 of the colony's
Internet providers in search of a hacker. 10,000 people are
left without Net access. (:api:)
<p>
<DD>RealAudio, an audio streaming technology, lets the Net hear in near real-time
<p>
<DD><A HREF="../../../../../tppmsgs/msgs0.htm#76" tppabs="http://www.radiohk.com/">Radio HK</A>, the first 24 hr., Internet-only radio station starts broadcasting
<p>
<DD>WWW surpasses ftp-data in March as the service with greatest traffic on NSFNet
based on packet count, and in April based on byte count
<DD>A number of Net related companies go public, with <A HREF="../../../../../tppmsgs/msgs4.htm#419" tppabs="http://info.isoc.org/guest/zakon/Internet/History/www.netscape.com">Netscape</A> leading the pack
with the 3rd largest ever NASDAQ IPO share value (9 August)
<p>
<DD>Thousands in Minneapolis-St. Paul (USA) lose Net access after transients
start a bonfire under a bridge at the U of Minn. causing fiber-optic
cables to melt (30 July)
<p>
<DD><A HREF="../../../../../tppmsgs/msgs0.htm#80" tppabs="http://rs.internic.net/announcements/fee-policy.html">Registration of domain names is no longer free</A>. Beginning 14 September, a
$50 annual fee has been imposed, which up until now was subsidized by NSF.
NSF continues to pay for .edu registration, and on an interim basis for .gov
<p>
<DD>The Vatican comes on-line (<A HREF="../../../../../tppmsgs/msgs0.htm#81" tppabs="http://www.vatican.va/">http://www.vatican.va/</A>)
<p>
<DD>The Canadian Government comes on-line (<A HREF="../../../../../tppmsgs/msgs0.htm#82" tppabs="http://canada.gc.ca/">http://canada.gc.ca/</A>)
<p>
<DD>The first official Internet wiretap was successful in helping the Secret
Service and Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) aprehend three individuals who
were illegally manufacturing and selling cell phone cloning equipment
and electronic devices
<p>
<DD><A HREF="../../../../../tppmsgs/msgs0.htm#83" tppabs="http://www.worldshop.com/HomeFront/">Operation Home Front</A> connects, for the first time, soldiers in the field with
their families back home via the Internet.
<p>
<DD>Richard White becomes the first person to be declared a munition, under
the USA's arms export control laws, because of an RSA file security
encryption program emblazoned on his arm (:wired496:)
<p>
<DD><i>Technologies of the Year:</i> WWW, Search engines
<DD><i>Emerging Technologies:</i> Mobile code (JAVA, JAVAscript), Virtual environments (VRML),
Collaborative tools
<p>
<DT><b>1996</b>
<DD><A HREF="../../../../../tppmsgs/msgs0.htm#84" tppabs="http://park.org/">The Internet 1996 World Exposition</A> - the first World's Fair to take place
on the Internet
<p>
<DD>Internet phones catch the attention of US telecommunication companies
who ask the US Congress to ban the technology (which has been around for years)
<p>
<DD>The controversial US Communications Decency Act becomes law in the US
in order to prohibit distribution of indecent materials over the Net.
A few months later a three-judge panel imposes an injunction against
its enforcement.
<p>
<DD>9,272 organizations find themselves unlisted after the InterNIC
drops their name service as a result of not having paid their domain name fee
<p>
<DD>American OnLine (AOL) suffers a 19 hour outage, bringing into question
whether ISP's will be able to handle the growing number of users
<p>
<DD>Restrictions on Internet use around the world:
<UL>
<LI><i>China:</i> requires users and ISPs to register with the police
<LI><i>Germany:</i> cuts off access to some newsgroups carried on Compuserve
<LI><i>Saudi Arabia:</i> confines Internet access to universities and hospitals
<LI><i>Singapore:</i> requires political and religious content providers to register with
the state
<LI>New Zealand: classifies computer disks as "publications" that can be censored
