This is an attempt to chronicle the history of internet. I wish the reader to comment and improve the write-up
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Introduction
During World War II need for decrypting the messages transmitted by Germans was essential for the west forces which lead to increased importance of the station Bletchley park for breaking the encrypted text that was transmitted by the Germans. In Bletchley park people who were one of the finest men in the field of mathematics, technology and communications were brought in from across the west world majorly from USA.
People
Alan Turing one of the pioneers in the field of computers and considered as the father of computers played a crucial role in bletchley park during the war time. Though it was not Turing alone who solved all the complex problems so quickly but a team of one of the finest men like Gordon Welchman, keen, Max Newman and others from the academia played their part. The work done by polish Cypher Bureau which included Marian Rejewski, Jerzy Rozycki and Henryk Zygalski helped a great deal in understanding of how to break the enigma code. And also people who were involved in creating enigma machine especially Arthur Scherbius and his company that was used to transmit the messages were as important as the British counter parts.
Information
The need for Germans to transmit information between troops on the ground, in the sea and in the air back and forth with the bases required them to go wireless because the troops were constantly moving. Since the messages have to be transmitted wirelessly they can be easily tapped and read over by the allies. In order to secure the messages Germans communicated cyphered text through the wireless which lead to a degree of security that was hard to break.
Technology
The BOMBE which was build and designed by Turings team was based on the a machine developed by polish called BOMBA which is considered as one of the first machines that successfully deciphered German messages that were sent using enigma. BOMBE was capable of simulating 36 enigma machines. As the war progressed Germans were suspecting that their messages were deciphered by allies and they started using a different machine which was called Lorenz SZ42. This machine was capable of sending five-bit teleprinter codes instead of mores code that was used by enigma machines. Lorenz SZ42 was used for transmitting long and descriptive messages between Hitler and his commanders and these messages were hard to decode. A typical message took 6 weeks to break. Turing was involved in some of the approaches used to crack these messages. Some of the approaches of turing were converted to colossus which was one of the first electronic computers that used Vacuum tubes.
Conclusion
It was the necessity that lead to the development of initial networks. The creation of TCP/IP and use of leased lines by various universities lead to the development of initial internet. Since the cost of leased lines were high normal people couldn’t afford it and was confined to universities, banks, and military.