Internet Turns 40. But How Old The Internet Really Is?

What determines when a concept or idea is born? Is it when somebody conceives it in their head, or is it when somebody actually materializes that idea and makes it reality? Internet just seems to be one of those things with an undefined birth date. One of alleged ones is celebrated today, October 29. But, this year, it is not just another birthday, it is actually the 40th anniversary of Internet creation.

On October 29, 1969, two nodes of the ARPANET were connected. The ARPANET stands for Advanced Research Projects Agency Network and is the predecessor of the modern Internet, created during Cold War. Prophetically, the newly launched Internet has crashed just after two letters of the electronic dispatch were typed in. Instead of keying in the word "login," only "lo" was entered when the system crashed. The blooper was fixed with an hour and the intra-computer message was indeed sent out, giving the era of Internet its beginning.

In just 40 years, a dramatic change, whereby so much of business, academic and security infrastructure is based on the Internet, is making Internet a human necessity. Internet satisfies our desire for information, entertains us, educates us, lets us connect to people we have never met, while also making us lazy and self-centered.

Like it or not, Internet is here to stay. But, just how long has it been here for?

• Well, if you believe in ARPANET, then Internet is 40 years old
  
  
• But, there are speculations Internet was born way earlier in 1961 with the publication of paper written by Leonard Kleinrock describing packet-switching technology, so that would make Internet 48
  
  
• While others still claim the birth of the Internet as we know it today happened on January 1, 1983, with the switch from Network Control Protocol to Transmission Control Protocol and Internet Protocol; hence, Internet would only be 26 by this measure