Teaching a new dog old tricks

What the history of the Internet can teach the Internet of Things

Transcript of the talk I gave at The Things Network Conference in February 2018.

As a group developers tend to think far more about the future, than the past. Well, unless that is, we’re obsessing about retro video games. But every once in a while it’s worth it to take a step back and look at history, and then decide whether we want to repeat our mistakes, and also triumphs, just one more time. Or whether we should be doing something different this time around.

Because we’ve been here before. Because while the Internet of Things is very much in its infancy the other Internet, the digital one, while perhaps not having yet reached its middle years has, at least, started to outgrow its adolescence.

The IMP log with the very first message sent on the Internet. (Image credit: Andrew Adams)

The first message ever sent over the ARPANET—the network that’s widely regarded as the most direct predecessor to the modern Internet—was by student programmer Charley Kline from a computer at UCLA at 10:30 pm on October 29th, 1969, when he attempted to…