Internet Revolution Has Started
30 Years 2 Centuries Ago
12/02/2015 @PayPal Office SG
By Mathieu François
Director, Product at Epigami
mat@epigami.com
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What is the greatest communication disruption ever?
…Internet?
Since writing…
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This is the “Mother of all Networks”
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From New York to Paris: Time required to send news?
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US Independence (1776) = 6 weeks
It was before telegraph…
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Lincoln president election (1860) = 2 hours
…It was after telegraph
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Kennedy president election
(1960) = 1 second
It was before Internet…
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Obama president election
(2008) = 1 second
…It was after Internet
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6 Weeks Æ 2 Hours
1 Second Æ 1 Second
??!!@$% =8-(
So, which one is the greatest disruptor?
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I. The mother of all networks
II. Hackers and geeks in the XIXth Century
III. Internet revolution, really? 1865 vs 2015
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By the way, Telegraph is a French invention
Optical telegraph used by Revolution and Napoleon
Remind Minitel anyone?
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Remember, Internet = “Interconnected Networks”
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It’s fair to call it the
“Victorian Internet”
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2010 innovation: “How do I share my pictures online
with my friends?
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1860 innovation: “Let’s pull a 6,000 km telegraph
cable across the Atlantic Ocean”
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Brunel, one of the crazy guys: his giant ship was
reconverted for cable laying
The “Death Star” of XIXth Century
Watch TED “Tim Brown urges
designers to think big” for more…
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Asia/Australia connection via Singapore and Penang
SG Telecom Hub already!
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Rubber was a strategic commodity, used for the cable
insulation
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Telegraph lasted only 1 century, but it changed
everything!
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I. The mother of all networks
II. Hackers and geeks in the XIXth Century
III. Internet revolution, really? 1865 vs 2015
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There was an elitist hacker/geek culture among the
Telegraph operators community
Your ability was
evaluated based
on your speed
and accuracy to
send messages…
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Here is the most famous Telegraph hacker
By the way, he is a real
m***** f***** but this
is another story
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The sysadmins of the Telegraph...
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… and pre-Internet nerds:
Telegraphers in remote outposts often preferred on-
line chat to socializing in real life with the locals
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A key difference : many operators were ladies T_T
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I. The mother of all networks
II. Hackers and geeks in the XIXth Century
III. Internet revolution, really? 1865 vs 2015
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“The Highway of Thought” was the more poetic
surname of Telegraph
Information Superhighway?
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The Internet Telegraph, by linking everyone in a
worldwide network, was expected to promote peace
and democracy
World Peace Utopia?
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New Telegraph companies became the source of
insane speculation
Stock market bubble?
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AKA the “International Telegraph Union” (1865)
Standards organizations?
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Dots and Dashes versus 1s and 0s
Digital?
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Routers? Trunking?
Telegraph wires to send short "texting" digital data
Pneumatic tubes to send longer messages and small
items (even cats!)
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During quiet times and after business hours,
operators on-line would break out the IMs and
chatrooms
Online Chat?
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"Ordinarily an operator can tell a woman the moment
he hears her working the wire […] He tells by her
touch on the key. Women, as a rule, do not touch the
key of their instruments as firmly as men do"
Online Dating?
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Thomas Edison: “Most of the Tales of the Wires went
unpublished because they were too rude or explicit”
Online Sex?
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Online Wedding?
1840: the first online wedding, with the bride in
Boston and the groom in New York
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1,500 telegraph operators remotely attended
the last telegraph ceremony for Samuel Morse
Social Network?
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Banks could send money via telegraph wire, leading
to the foundation of Western Union
E-Commerce?
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One of the first MiM attacks: operators of an optical
telegraph were bribed so they altered business
transaction information
Online Fraud?
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Users developed their own cryptic code of "smileys"
and abbreviated words to solve network limitations
Compression? Encryption?
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Lincoln used the telegraph to stay connected to the
forces in the field in almost real time
Online President?
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Last and most advanced telegraphy mechanism
designed (Phelps, 1880)
Multimedia?
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Telegraph was perceived as a major threat for
newspapers… the number of current newspapers with
“Telegraph” in their title proves the contrary
Threat for newspapers industry?
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Epilog
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Not even digital, what a shame!
1880
The Telegraph Killer
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What if…
Babbage’s computers had gone into widespread use?
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…Steampunk would not be a SciFi genre
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Sources 1/2
• Must-Read!
• Great historical analogy
book written with a
delightful British style
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Sources 2/2
• Mother Earth Mother Board
– (looong) but very insightful article about the
cabling industry challenges by the Science-Fiction
author Neal Stephenson
• How the World Was One: Towards the Tele-
Family of Man
– Sir Arthur C. Clarke elaborated similar theories
• Plyojump - Computer History
• Mr. Lincoln's T-Mails