History of the Internet: From the First Login to the Age of AI is a concise yet remarkably comprehensive journey through the evolution of the global network. The book guides readers from the early concepts of packet switching and the very first login to ARPANET, through the development of foundational protocols such as NCP, TCP/IP, and DNS, the rise of RFC documentation, the expansion of NSFNET, and the moment when the Internet connected continents across the world from Europe and the United States to Asia, Africa, and Latin America.
It explores the origins of essential Internet services and tools: FTP, e mail, Telnet, Usenet, BBS networks, Gopher, the World Wide Web, search engines, portals, instant messengers, blogs, CMS platforms, social networks, video platforms, e commerce, and peer to peer systems. A dedicated section presents the beginnings of the Internet in Poland from KASK and PLEARN to the first portals and the rise of commercial access.
This updated edition also covers modern developments: Web 2.0, mobile connectivity, IPv6, Big Data, Web 3.0, cyberterrorism, digital exclusion, surveillance, the dominance of GAFA, 5G, Starlink, and the full history of artificial intelligence from Dartmouth and ELIZA to ChatGPT and generative language models. It is an ideal guide for anyone who wants to understand how the Internet was built, how it transformed the world, and where it is heading next.
