The year the Internet changed

If I had to put my finger on the most recent major inflection point for the Internet, it would be 1995. That year saw the following big changes:

• the introduction of SSL
• the introduction of Javascript
• the introduction of SSH
• the introduction of cookies
• the beginning of widespread adoption of middleboxes using Network Address Translation ("NAT")
• the widespread adoption of the second generation of browsers and search engines (Netscape Navigator and Altavista)

This meant a redistribution of transaction costs (lower for receivers of information due to search engines, higher for providers of information due to NAT).

It was also an escalation in the conflct between netheads and bellheads:

• Javascript made the edges of the network smarter and indeed provided a standardised Turing-complete virtual machine; a dumb network with smart edges became a dumb network with edges that were sometimes too smart
• NAT made the network more intelligent, but SSL and SSH reduced the ability of middleboxes to interpose themselves on traffic between the smart edges