History of infosec and www

This began as a footnote of my security intro.

It’s interesting how the face of InfoSec has changed over the years. UNIX came around in the 1970s, at least in research facilities. From that time forward, the goal was to share information readily with anyone that had a computer and data connection to another computer. Everyone was about spreading information, transparency, and people were excited to share everything.

Things were going great. There was sharing and getting anything they could get their hands on digitized! Keep in mind, the Internet is a new place and that data isn’t going to get there on it’s own. New content was being added to the Internet wherever possible, some intended for public consumption, some not. But this Internet thing is really starting to take off, I can put anything here and I can share with everyone!

Fast forward to the 1990s. Internet access was first offered commercially, and the world clamored to get on the “information superhighway". This is really where we start to go off the rails. You didn’t need to be at a major university or company that can afford computers the size of rooms to get on the Internet anymore. People could get online, albeit rather slowly, and start getting emails, browsing the World Wide Web, and relishing in the information age.

Now everyone can get on the web. Great, right? Not exactly. As with most things in life, someone seems to come along and fuck up a good thing. The Internet was no exception, but this was going to change everything. Not only was everything shared, but it was also shared for everyone. As more and more people got online, it was a race to keep the things people really wanted private, just that. And so, it begins ...