Hacker News Reader

Comment by Frogolocalypse | Hacker News Reader

I use email almost every day, yes.

You realize the arpanet is the internet right? It wasn't replaced, it was expanded. Call it layers if that would make it easier to understand.

View on HN

ARPANET refers to a specific network that was decommissioned in 1990. And for 13 years of it's 21 years in existence, it was using NCP rather than TCP/IP.

And the bitcoin node software i use today is version 0.15.1, not 0.8.0. The segwit block structure is different to the original implementation. One turned into the other. Nothing is stopping you running a 0.8.0 node of course. But the newer implementation has more functionality.

I worked at BBN Technologies in the early 2000's. I was always amazed at how a company that essentially co-founded the internet and had the second domain name ever registered[1] could basically go out of business.

You just made me think that Bitcoin could definitely be the ARPANET of blockchains and Core devs could be BBN. Don't get me wrong, I worked with some extremely smart people, but in the end, Raytheon bought the whole company.

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_oldest_currently_r...

The difference of course, is that bitcoin isn't a company. And the arpanet turned into the internet. But companies come and go. By your analogy, raytheon owns the internet.

You're right, Bitcoin is not a company, it's a technology. This is the analogy I'd make.

Then (Internet) / Now (Cryptocurrencies)

  NCP[1] == Blockchain based decentralized consensus
  ARPANET == Bitcoin
  BBN Technologies == Blockstream
  TCP/IP == We are figuring this out right now
  Internet == We are figuring this out right now

The ARPANET turned into the Internet in the fact that parts of it were used to build TCP/IP and the modern Internet. Just like concepts from Bitcoin will eventually be used to build whatever decentralized byzantine fault tolerant mechanism we end up with in ten years. I don't think Bitcoin is the Internet, Bitcoin is the ARPANET. Also, I wouldn't say Raytheon owns the Internet. Today the Internet is owned and controlled by many different parties all built on the TCP/IP stack. Countries like China own their own internet.

In my mind, all of this work to find different decentralized consensus algorithms is work to build transport layer (OSI Model[2]). Bitcoin is an early application, but thousands of applications are now popping up, competing, and building healthier communities.

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_Control_Program

[2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OSI_model

Reply on news.ycombinator.com