Accurate, Focused Research on Law, Technology and Knowledge Discovery Since 2002

The untold history of how the internet almost didn’t happen

Inc. Magazine: “My name is Christine Haughney Dare-Bryan, and my dad is a founding father of the internet. From 1979 through 1981, my father, Major Joseph Haughney, ran one of the earliest versions of the internet, called the Arpanet. Back then, the Arpanet was a military-run project that allowed academics to do research if they had a defense angle. But of course, it wasn’t long before word got out about how much fun could be had on the Arpanet. The Arpanet started filling up with people meeting, debating their favorite Chinese restaurants, and even falling in love — all online. That’s what drove my dad crazy and frankly scared him. He drafted letters, articles, and reports warning of the “computer freaks” he feared could turn his beloved Arpanet into something incredibly destructive. Like any well-meaning dad, my father tried to protect me from many things. He applied that same protective instinct to the broader world, being the internet’s original content moderator — the Cassandra warning about online harm, the “not on my watch” guy trying to rein in a raucous crowd. For years, my dad encouraged me to tell the story of his work during that time. He hinted at the egos and the infighting that took place with every step of innovation that led to the modern economy and the world we live in now. But I always told him I was too busy for his story. His worries were overblown. The internet economy was an invention I saw drive my career, where businesses were built and fortunes were minted. Then I became a tech editor who has shepherded dozens of stories about the terrible things that have happened on the internet. I also became a mom trying to keep up with what the internet has done to my own children. Now that my father has dementia, time is running out to find out what happened in those early days. So I spent the past 10 months traveling the country interviewing my father and other people he worked with who built the first internet, sent some of the first messages, and conceived of the precursors to wireless to collect their stories before it’s too late. I learned about the battles for credit that some founders have even waged on their deathbeds, explored whether the French actually deserve more credit for the internet, and studied how much some founding fathers foresaw the consequences of their early inventions. This podcast is a tribute to my dad in his final days to let him know how much this history matters and to honor his role in creating the world we live in now…”

Researcher Captures Contents of ‘DEI.gov’ Before It Was Hidden Behind a Password

404 Media [unpaywalled] “A German researcher captured the contents of the White House’s “DEI.gov” during a brief period when it was not password protected. The capture shows that the site contains a list of vague, alleged government-funded tasks and their costs, without sources or context, like “$1.3 million to Arab and Jewish photographers,” “$1.5 million… Continue Reading

Commencing the Reduction of the Federal Bureaucracy

EXECUTIVE ORDER February 19, 2025. By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, it is hereby ordered: Section 1.  Purpose.  It is the policy of my Administration to dramatically reduce the size of the Federal Government, while increasing its accountability to the American… Continue Reading

America’s Last Best Thing

Frederick Joseph, On Trump’s National Park Layoffs and the Erosion of America’s Public Land: “…The national parks, they tell us, were created to preserve America’s most beautiful places. This is the story, the myth of preservation, the thing Ken Burns made into poetry. But what they do not tell you—at least, not loudly—is that these… Continue Reading

Trump expected to take control of USPS, fire postal board, officials say

Washington Post [unpaywalled]: “This is something that does not belong to the president or the White House. It belongs to the American people. That goes for everything else they’re trying to steal too.” The move threatens to upend trillions of dollars in e-commerce business and the 250-year-old Postal Service. President Donald Trump is preparing to… Continue Reading

AI can now model and design the genetic code for all domains of life with Evo 2

“Arc Institute researchers have developed a machine learning model called Evo 2 that is trained on the DNA of over 100,000 species across the entire tree of life. Its deep understanding of biological code means that Evo 2 can identify patterns in gene sequences across disparate organisms that experimental researchers would need years to uncover.… Continue Reading

Falsehood of DOGE savings tracker that wants you to think it’s transparent

Fast Company: “The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has updated its website, and in theory, it’s a model of government transparency. The site lists savings the department claims to have made from cuts, along with bar charts and tables that purport to show the department’s work and the size and scope of the federal government.… Continue Reading

Were you fired by President Trump?

The Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, Democratic Staff, is surveying the impact of the Trump Administration’s mass firings of federal employees from science agencies. If you were terminated from your position since January 20, 2025, please fill out this brief survey. While anonymous submissions will be helpful to the Committee’s efforts, we encourage you… Continue Reading

 A Digital Extension of Historical Bias: Arab Americans and the New Frontier of Algorithmic Discrimination

Via LLRX – A Digital Extension of Historical Bias: Arab Americans and the New Frontier of Algorithmic Discrimination – The integration of artificial intelligence into U.S. national security operations has automated and amplified discriminatory practices established in the post-9/11 era, creating unprecedented barriers for Arab Americans. This paper by Natalie Abdou examines how AI systems… Continue Reading

Site tracks how much of Project 2025 has been implemented

Project 2025 Tracker – The site tracks overall progress now at 34% as well as well as detailed objectives specific to each government agency. This is a significant and very disconcerting tool. Thanks go out to the folks at the free project you can support via Patreon. See also Searchable Full Project 2025 Text: Mandate… Continue Reading

How to find climate data and science the Trump administration doesn’t want you to see

Via LLRX – How to find climate data and science the Trump administration doesn’t want you to see – Research librarian Alejandro Paz and policy scholar Eric Nost, who belong to a network called the Public Environmental Data Partners, a coalition of nonprofits, archivists and researchers who rely on federal data in our analysis, advocacy and… Continue Reading