back to article Five unbelievable headlines that claim Tim Berners-Lee 'INVENTED the INTERNET'

Newspapers and blogs are quite rightly back-slapping Brit inventor Tim Berners-Lee today – the man who brought the world wide web to the, er, world 25 years ago today. It's a pity, then, that mainstream publications continue to stumble over the concept by lazily and wrongly saying that Berners-Lee birthed the internet. Sub- …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Idiots

    We all know that Al Gore invented the Internet.

    1. Steve Knox
      Boffin

      Re: Idiots

      No, they both invented slightly different versions on different sides of the pond at around the same. That's why we have TCP and IP.

      1. Big_Ted

        Re: Idiots

        Isn't TCP something you gargle if you have a sore throat ?

        1. Grikath

          Re: Idiots

          and IP that thing that gets garbled by the US patent and copyright lawyers?

        2. fritsd
          Pint

          Re: Idiots

          "Isn't TCP something you gargle if you have a sore throat ?"

          That's correct: "Tea, Camomile, Piss-warm. Make it so (cough cough)"

          But seriously, 1 Internet is a lot easier than BITNET, UUCP, whatever the VAXen had, etc. etc.

        3. Charles Manning

          Re: Idiots

          "Isn't TCP something you gargle if you have a sore throat ?"

          Never use UDP - that's what gives you viruses.

        4. Ole Juul

          Re: Idiots

          "Isn't TCP something you gargle if you have a sore throat ?"

          You're probably thinking of Tri Codium Phosphate.

      2. This post has been deleted by its author

      3. Peter Simpson 1
        Paris Hilton

        Re: Idiots

        It's a series of tubes.

        There's an adapter mid-Atlantic (and Pacific) to change from imperial to metric size tubes.

        // Paris, because that's where the metric tubes were defined

        1. VinceH

          Re: Idiots

          "It's a series of tubes.

          There's an adapter mid-Atlantic (and Pacific) to change from imperial to metric size tubes."

          Exactly, as Steve Knox said.

          The tubes on one side of the adapters use Imperial Protocol (IP) - that's ours - and the tubes on the other side use, er, Their Crappy Protocol.

          (Okay, okay, I couldn't think of a synonym for metric that begins with C!)

          1. Bunbury

            Re: Idiots

            In England surely it's referred to as "The Continental Protocol"

            1. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: Idiots

              "The Continental Protocol"...

              Which is also a euphemism for anal sex.

    2. Ian Michael Gumby

      Yes, fear the wrath of Al Gore! Re: Idiots

      It won't actually be Al Gore, but his publicist who will contact you and correct your misconception.

      The funny thing is that Al Gore claimed to have sponsored the bill that gave money to DARPA to fund the R&D for the internet. If memory serves... I don't believe he was the bill's sponsor but a co-sponsor...

      (A bit of a big difference.)

      1. Sporkinum

        Re: Yes, fear the wrath of Al Gore! Idiots

        Sort of.. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Performance_Computing_and_Communication_Act_of_1991

        ARPANET was the real birth of IP communication, which preceded the internet. When I was in the military back around 1986, we had a node in our computer room. Periodically someone from BBN http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBN_Technologies would call me to input some commands into the teletype. Later, when I was going to get out, the guy that I talked to wanted me to submit a resume and apply for a job. I didn't, and in retrospect, I wish I had.

        1. Michael Wojcik Silver badge

          Re: Yes, fear the wrath of Al Gore! Idiots

          ARPANET was the real birth of IP communication, which preceded the internet.

          Not exactly.

          ARPANET originally used NCP, which was first specified in 1969.

          IP was first specified in 1974.

          ARPANET switched from NCP to TCP/IP in 1983 (the Big Switch). If you consider ARPANET "the Internet" (as opposed to just "an internet") prior to '83, as many do, then the Internet was NCP before it was TCP/IP.

          You may have some other definition of "the Internet" and its point of origin, but internets definitely existed before IP was defined, much less before ARPANET switched to it.

    3. Anomalous Cowshed

      Re: Idiots

      Al Gore? Isn't he the one who invented global warming?

      Oops.

      I'll get me coat...no my swimsuit and suntan lotion...oh, no! A spade then, to dig myself out of a hole...

    4. bean520

      Re: Idiots

      "We all know that Al Gore invented the Internet."

      And the moment he commisioned the NSA for the purpose of spying on the world for traces of ManBearPig, we knew the hunt became super cereal

  2. D@v3

    www = internet

    While this is genuinely amusing, especially for the likes of us Regtards. I work with people everyday for whom 'the web' and 'the internet' are exactly the same thing, and in many cases, both terms mean almost nothing.

    Actual conversation i had while trying to help someone access an online database.

    me - open your browser

    them - what's that?

    me - (realising my mistake) the thing you use to get on the internet

    them - oh, you mean google.

    (the worst thing here, is the didn't even have google as their home page)

    i really, really wish this is the only time this has happened to me, but it's not, and i suspect it's because generally speaking, the general public don't care what this fancy tech stuff is called, as long as they can get what they want from it.

    Which i realise is missing the point a little, and yes, those who report the news, really should know better.

    1. psychonaut

      Re: www = internet

      ahh mate tell me about it.

      the best one this week was a customer asked if the new printer i advised him to buy could print on plain paper.

      1. Bunbury

        Re: www = internet

        In circa 1983 I knew of a secretary in our office, near to retirement, who'd had her manual typewriter removed and replaced by "one of those word processor thingies" with a screen, printer and everything. Bless her, she struggled with the delete key. Well, actually I assume she couldn't find it if the amount of correction fluid on the screen was anything to go by...

        1. Terry 6 Silver badge
          Facepalm

          Re: www = internet

          Slightly off-topic. But I used to have meetings in a school with a SEN teacher who didn't know you could save documents (only a few years back). So each time she got called away from her office in the middle of a confidential report she'd turn the machine off and then have to start again later..

          1. William Old

            Re: www = internet

            Ah... I was going to ask if, by "SEN teacher", you meant a teacher of SEN pupils, or [laugh...!] a teacher with special educational needs.

            Then I worked out the answer, from your post...

        2. Allan George Dyer
          Pint

          Coffee cup holder, someone's got to mention the coffee cup holder! Re: www = internet

          Insert rewrite of old users-are-idiots joke here...

          1. Brenda McViking
            Angel

            Re: Coffee cup holder, someone's got to mention the coffee cup holder! www = internet

            Text Message from the Mother:

            "Darling, can you stop changing the internet every other day"

            [reply]

            "What do you mean?"

            [mum]

            "the google, you keep changing the google on my computer. I like yesterdays one better. Just keep it as that"

            [reply]

            "No mum, I don't change the google logo, google changes that."

            [mum]

            "You don't run the google?"

            [reply]

            "No, if I did I wouldn't be driving a fiesta"

            1. Captain Scarlet Silver badge
              Pint

              Re: Coffee cup holder, someone's got to mention the coffee cup holder! www = internet

              Oh dear lord what happens when she goes to Facebook or a news website where things change on a regular basis.

    2. Terry 6 Silver badge

      Re: www = internet

      I wish that were the end of it. If I had a £ for every user who's called me and said "The email won't work". When they actually mean, The computer is completely dead. I'd have a lot of £s

      1. Rufus McDufus

        Re: www = internet

        Or 'the internet's down'. Okee - the internet's down or your PC is screwed. it's bound to be the entire internet isn't it?

        1. Sarah Balfour

          Re: www = internet

          No, usually, at least from the techy-support stuff I've done it's "MY Internet's down"; what, you have your own personal Internet now…?! This article validates my pedantry; the number of times I've corrected folk and got "Same thing, innit…?!" I've tried to analogise by saying that calling the WWW 'the Internet' is like calling Windows 'your computer', but they NEVER seem to get it… You'd have thought that, with most of 'em being able to recall a time prior to the WWW's existence, they'd be a little more savvy. My father's been working in tech on-and-off for much of his working life (though never in a 'techy' capacity (he's an accountant by training, and did a lot of work for Sinclair and Prism (the software arm of Sinclair Ltd, for those who don't know, and it's why our loft is an homage to early-mid '80s tech) and I know at least one of the companies he worked for used a BBS (this was back in the days before BBS came to stand for 'Boobs, Beavers and Sex'. Remember all those '0898' premium-rate BBSs that used to be advertised in the classified sections of some computer mags…? I SWEAR I've some old Amiga Actions somewhere with ads for 'PornHub' boards…

          "All Your Internet Are Belong To Us"

    3. schotness

      Re: www = internet

      Google is the new Hoover then

    4. AbelSoul

      Re: www = internet

      Reminds me of good, ole' Rinkworks which never fails to raise a smile:

      http://www.rinkworks.com/stupid/cs_web.shtml

      e.g.

      Overheard in a computer lab:

      Boy #1: "The domain doesn't have a www. What does that mean?"

      Boy #2: "It means it's not on the world wide web."

      1. Jamie Jones Silver badge
        Facepalm

        Re: www = internet

        My mum phoned me recently to say her google wasn't working (meaning the internet, and not specifically google). I can't complain though. It was only a few months ago that I finally got her to use a computer.

        I remember back in the days of dial-up, (when I was back living with the folks for a while) my dad would assume all his non-networked programs would run really slowly if I was downloading something on my computer at the same time!

        Yeah, we can laugh, but computers and the internet have long been a consumer product - but it still doesn't excuse the newspapers from making the mistake. That's just sloppy journalism.

    5. Lusty

      Re: www = internet

      What ever happened to the Information Super Highway? It seems to have become roadblocked with porn and cat videos :(

    6. Mark 85

      Re: www = internet

      Add to that: "my hard drive is down" when they mean that big box that we call a PC.

    7. DropBear
      Facepalm

      Re: www = internet

      One of my "favourites" are people who cannot possibly be dissuaded from typing perfectly good, fully qualified web addresses into... the Google search page (instead of the address bar), then just clicking on the first hit.

    8. localzuk Silver badge

      Re: www = internet

      Its an extension of the "Word is my PC" users who try to open every file in Word and get all flustered when you explain that a photograph isn't a Word document. Usually ends with them saying "I've never had to do that before!"

    9. Tom 13

      Re: www = internet

      We can make of fun of people who act this way and bemoan their ignorance, but there is a sense in which they have a valid point. Without the www the internet wouldn't be what it is today. It might be better, it might be worse, but it wouldn't be what it is.

      That's not to belittle all the work done by all of the folks who transformed ARPA into the internet, just to recognize that without the www, most people would care even less about them.

  3. Randy Hudson

    At least those other publications…

    correctly capitalized the word.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Headmaster

      Re: At least those other publications…

      And they didn't call it the "worldwide web" either.

      Is that your petard I see being hoisted, Kelly Fiveash?

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: At least those other publications…

        Irony = Correcting someone's misuse of a phrase with the comment "Is that your petard I see being hoisted?"

        1. AndrueC Silver badge
          Boffin

          Re: At least those other publications…

          Beat me to it. And I bet not many people off the top of their head know what a petard was and why it was bad to be "hoisted" by it (quotes intentional).

          Petard

          Probably somewhat worse than shooting yourself in the foot.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: At least those other publications… @AndrueC

            "Beat me to it. And I bet not many people off the top of their head know what a petard was and why it was bad to be "hoisted" by it (quotes intentional)."

            Hate to burst your little superiority bubble, but most people who've been here for - three years or so?are well aware. We've had the supercilious lectures before when the petard quote has been used/mis quoted. You *were* right about being beaten to it, though you don't seem to realise by how much, so not a complete failure.

          2. busycoder99

            Re: At least those other publications…

            And here I was assuming hoisted petard = Brit slang for garden variety retard.

        2. Anonymous Coward
          FAIL

          @ AC Re: At least those other publications…

          As the OED says about petards and hoisting:

          Have one’s plans to cause trouble for others backfire on one

          Ms Fiveash's article was intended to "cause trouble" for the non-tech media because they got a word wrong only to get a word wrong herself.

          It may be the middle of the night here and I may be dyslexic but I don't see a problem with my comment about her use of "worldwide" instead of 'world wide".

          1. VinceH

            Re: @ AC At least those other publications…

            It's the way you rephrased it that people are pointing out.

            As you say, "hoist with his own petard" is a reference to a plan backfiring, but note that in the saying the word is hoist, rather than hoisted. Hoisted is a past tense of hoist, but so is hoist itself, and since that's the word used in the saying, I've long since concluded that people expect it to be the word used in reference to it (and some people just frown on the word "hoisted" anyway).

            Also, your rephrasing you didn't in any way suggest Kelly was hoist with the petard - so your variation isn't a reference to something backfiring anyway.

            At least, one or both of those is what I think people are getting at, anyway.

            1. Bunbury

              Re: @ AC At least those other publications…

              Surely not backfiring but "upfiring"? Otherwise they wouldn't be hoist...

            2. Fibbles

              Re: @ AC At least those other publications…

              "At least, one or both of those is what I think people are getting at, anyway."

              I assumed it was because he said the petard was being hoisted. You don't hoist a petard, a petard hoists you (if it goes wrong).

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: At least those other publications…

      I strongly agree with Randy Hudson. Surely the correct forms are "the Internet" and "the [World Wide] Web". These are proper names, and therefore should be capitalized. I can't imagine why you (and others) lower-case them, unless it's simply a matter of trying to look trendy by avoiding as many capital letters as possible.

      When working as an editor, I always advise writers that, if in any doubt about spelling a name, they should comply with the spelling used by its owner. I think you will find that the IETF refers to "the Internet" and W3C to "the World Wide Web".

      1. myarse
        Coat

        Re: At least those other publications…

        I think the thinking goes that while there is only one the are distributed so follow the same rule as the sky and the national grid.

      2. Allan George Dyer
        Meh

        Re: At least those other publications…

        Why is "the internet" a proper noun? It isn't one organisation, person or place, any more than the sea is.

        I prefer "the internet" without capitalisation, but feel free to capitalise as you prefer in your sentences.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Yay, happy birthday WWW

    Pity Google were too busy plundering you, to come up with a doodle.

  5. deadlockvictim

    Zuckerberg

    It could be worse.

    Imagine the headlines in 15 years' time if Facebook stays at its presence prominence: 'Zuckerberg talks about founding the Internet 25 years' ago'.

    1. Bronek Kozicki
      Trollface

      Re: Zuckerberg

      wont happen.

      I hope.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Zuckerberg

        I wouldn't mind.. as long as the headline was:

        Zuckerberg, the inventor of the internet, would be 45 year old today, if he had not been shot in the face repeately 15 years ago.

    2. TRT Silver badge

      Re: Zuckerberg

      *shudder*

  6. Amorous Cowherder
    Pint

    The Internet!

    ...now none of us has to remember anything 'cos someone has already written it ( probably incorrectly! ) on a webpage somewhere!

    A fact I was only made aware of the other day, Google only indexes about 3-4% of all public webpages in it's searches, that's a lot of pages left lurking out there!

    1. Grikath

      Re: The Internet!

      "...now none of us has to remember anything 'cos someone has already written it ( probably incorrectly! ) on a webpage somewhere! "

      As opposed to the Good Old Times where you had to rely on often-outdated sources in local libraries, or pay $$$$ for subscriptions to publications that *may* contain what you're looking for, or..... And getting your hands on information that was available ( and could be traced) could take weeks, if not months.

      Call me hopelessly modern, but I really do not want to go back to the "Good Old Days"..

      1. Amorous Cowherder

        Re: The Internet!

        Granted but there's something to be said for exercising your brain by remembering and using key facts like your times-tables for example.

        As we have info at our finger-tips you may join me and witness the death of the pub quiz evening, although in the current climate actually finding a pub that hasn't already been shut down would be the first challenge!

      2. Imsimil Berati-Lahn

        Re: The Internet!

        Soon only the Google certified version of history will be studied.

    2. VinceH

      Re: The Internet!

      "...now none of us has to remember anything 'cos someone has already written it ( probably incorrectly! ) on a webpage somewhere!"

      A comment that reminds me of something my step dad said to me, many many (MANY!) years ago - when the intertube of webbiness was much smaller than it is today.

      I forget what it was specifically about, but he wanted to know if there was a web page about something or other. I didn't have a computer to hand, so couldn't do a search in order to find out, so I said "I don't know."

      He got a bit annoyed, and said "You know all about the internet, so you must know!"

      Since then, of course, I have read the entire internet three times. It does seem to change every time, though, which keeps it interesting.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Happy

    Ahh the WWW

    the only acronym (may be wrong, I often am), that has more syllables and takes longer to say than the words it derives from.

    1. Anonymous John

      Re: Ahh the WWW

      TWTWTW

      WW1

      WW2

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Thumb Up

      Re: Ahh the WWW

      The Kiwis say it as "dub dub dub" which is a but faster.

      1. Rob

        Re: Ahh the WWW

        I prefer 3 dub, it's even faster.

      2. Jacksonville

        Re: Ahh the WWW

        I thought the standard pronounciation was "wuh wuh wuh"

        1. VinceH

          Re: Ahh the WWW

          "I thought the standard pronounciation was "wuh wuh wuh""

          I'm glad it's not just me that says that, then.

          Or, rather, thinks it as "wuh wuh wuh" - I'm scared to actually say it as that to anyone in case I get ridiculed.

      3. Frumious Bandersnatch

        Re: Ahh the WWW

        The Kiwis say it as "dub dub dub" which is a b[i]t faster.

        I've been trying for years (unsuccessfully) to convince people that it's pronounced "sextuple-u".

        edit: didn't notice the other poster making a similar point above. So there are two of us at least :)

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Ahh the WWW

      the only acronym (may be wrong, I often am), that has more syllables and takes longer to say than the words it derives from.

      Well as "w" is "double u" then "www" would be "sextuple u" ... again that's a bit long so shorten it to "sex you" and basically sums it up fo rmost users!

    4. Fibbles
      Joke

      Re: Ahh the WWW

      It's only longer if you use upper-case.

  8. Sparx

    Although technically incorrect "the internet" being WWW is an feature of popular misnomers describing 'complicated' technologies that are taken over by the ease of access to non-techies.

    like

    'my ipad' actually being an android tablet

    'my pc' being a desktop mac

    etc etc etc

    'the internet' is one we all use daily and could be forgiven for (surely?) eg:

    "have you seen that 'thing' on 'the internet'"

    but granted, maybe shouldn't the larger news sources actually be correctly headlining for the masses :

    "Technology underpinning the way Web Pages are created and displayed turns 25"

    cant see it happening, more likely they'll choose a more colloquial

    "internet turns 25"

    As we are talking colloquially: What Evs.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Macs ARE PCs.

      Are you saying a desktop Mac isn't a PC? What is it then?

      1. 45RPM Silver badge

        Re: Macs ARE PCs.

        I think this is an example of a typical newbie error - the conflation of 'PC' with 'Windows'.

        Commodore 64s, Apple IIs and the like were (correctly) called PCs when they first came out. Then 'IBM PC Compatible' was contracted to 'PC' and noobs who wanted to seem au-fait with this new fangled technology stuff got all confused. Bless 'em. PCW magazine didn't help, in the nineties, when it pretty much dropped coverage of anything that didn't run Windows.

        If it's a computer, and it's personal, then it's a PC - whether or not it runs Windows (and, of course, Macs are perfectly capable of running Windows these days). The Raspberry Pi is a PC. So, probably, is your phone. It's a bit of a meaningless term, really.

        1. Trevor Marron

          Windows?

          I think you probably mean Microsoft Windows as the WIMP type OS was around before then, the Commode Amiga and Atari ST spring to mind, but I am sure there will be others who also pre-date the Microsoft OS.

        2. ElPoto

          Re: Macs ARE PCs.

          Right but Mac-morons promoted the error with their commercials "I'm a Mac I'm a PC"

        3. jonathanb Silver badge

          Re: Macs ARE PCs.

          Apple's "I'm a Mac, I'm a PC" ads also claimed that a PC is something that runs Windows.

      2. Sparx

        Re: Macs ARE PCs.

        By the same token as correcting a colloquial term like internet to www

        correcting a PC to a "windows based desktop computer" would be correct.

        My point is semantics - and you are making it for me.

        1. Jonathan Richards 1
          Stop

          Re: Macs ARE PCs.

          > correcting a colloquial term like internet to www

          Now you're making me think that you don't understand... The Internet is a network of packet-switching networks; the World Wide Web is something that runs on top of the Internet, along with any number of other protocols, like ftp, f'rinstance, and who remembers gopher? Lots of us here were using the Internet before there was a World Wide Web on port 80.

          1. thondwe

            Re: Macs ARE PCs.

            I think you're describing http and https which are the protocols that run over the Internet which delivers the web page to your browser... I'm being a pedant I know, but I've just upgraded my iPad to 7.1 and it still has the refresh app bug - so am not best happy!

          2. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Jonathan Richards 1

            And I used a variety of "the internet" (more like ARPANET) in 1984 to communicate with an IBM Mainframe to get up to the minute parts pricing and availability for a forward thinking international valve company. Sure wasn't any WWW there, all ascii text at 9600 baud

          3. fritsd
            Thumb Up

            Re: Macs ARE PCs.

            I found the WWW a BIG improvement over gopher.. the way you had to climb all the way to the top (in Minnesota IIRC) and then search back down again, if you forgot where you wanted to go.. lot of bother.

            1. Oninoshiko

              Re: Macs ARE PCs.

              That's what veronica was for.

          4. This Side Up
            Headmaster

            Re: Macs ARE PCs.

            "The Internet is a network of packet-switching networks "

            There is no one thing that is The Internet. "Internet" means "between networks". There is Internet Protocol by which computers on different but connected networks can communicate.

      3. hplasm
        Facepalm

        Re: Macs ARE PCs.

        Most 'users' call it 'The hard drive'... grr.

        1. Fibbles

          Re: Macs ARE PCs.

          "Most 'users' call it 'The hard drive'... grr."

          Whilst pointing at the monitor...

          1. Alan Gauton
            Happy

            Re: Macs ARE PCs.

            My daughter used to refer to it as "the engine".

          2. DropBear
            Facepalm

            Re: Macs ARE PCs.

            Clearly. After all, everyone knows that the fastest way to completely destroy a computer (and obviously all data on it) is to shoot at the monitor. Just watch any movie...

        2. Terry 6 Silver badge
          Facepalm

          Re: Macs ARE PCs.

          God yes!

          "The hard drive has crashed".

    2. Simon Harris

      "'my pc' being a desktop mac"

      Since personal computers predate the IBM-PC and Macs, I don't see any problem with people calling their computer a PC whatever manufacturer put it together.

  9. This post has been deleted by its author

  10. ukgnome

    and for the yoof

    UK's TBL 25YO WWW 2DAY

    1. Kubla Cant

      Re: and for the yoof

      I don't think the yoof will be able to understand anything that contains an apostrophe.

    2. 's water music

      Re: and for the yoof

      UK's TBL 25YO WWW 2DAY

      tl:dr

      1. Sir Runcible Spoon

        Re: and for the yoof

        "tl:dr"

        ~

  11. Big_Ted
    Holmes

    Nah your all wrong....

    Sandra Bullock invented it and took control in 1995

    http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0113957/

    1. ravenviz Silver badge

      Re: Nah your all wrong....

      Well then that made an agoraphobic Sygourney Weaver an early adopter in Copycat, sealing herself inside an expensive hi-tech apartment, conducting her entire life from behind a computer screen.

      M.J.

      How did you do that?

      HELEN

      That computer's wired into INTERNET.

      dailyscript.com

    2. Fibbles

      Re: Nah your all wrong....

      "Sandra Bullock invented it and took control in 1995"

      Bullock may have invented it but it didn't take long for Jolie to hack her Gibson.

  12. stu 4

    Protocol breakdown by traffic

    Would be interesting.

    What with the insurgence of web mail, I'd imagine you could make a pretty good case that the internet IS WWW now more or less by % traffic anyway.

    usenet is pretty much just hanging on, when was the last time you had to use an FTP server (on the internet not intranet), gopher ?

    I suppose torrent traffic is going to be in there alongside HTTP/S but I'd be surprised if anything else makes much of an impression theses days.

    1. DPWDC

      Re: Protocol breakdown by traffic

      Kind of see where you're coming from... But that's only traffic.

      Almost like saying motorways are cars because they use it the most % wise.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Protocol breakdown by traffic

      Well, there are still VPNs, IP cameras, online games, remote desktop stuff, Skype and similar things, Cleartext commands to nuclear power station cooling rod servo systems, etc etc... plenty of stuff uses IP without http when you think about it.

      1. The Real Tony Smith

        Re: Protocol breakdown by traffic

        ssh

        1. hplasm
          Pirate

          Re: Protocol breakdown by traffic

          nmap

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Protocol breakdown by traffic

            loic...

        2. Jamie Jones Silver badge

          Re: Protocol breakdown by traffic

          "ssh

          But he wasn't shouting.....

      2. Pascal Monett Silver badge
        Coat

        Re: Protocol breakdown by traffic

        What, no mention of <gasp!> porn ?

        What is the world coming to ?

      3. Ken Hagan Gold badge
        Thumb Up

        Re: Protocol breakdown by traffic

        "Cleartext commands to nuclear power station cooling rod servo systems, etc etc... "

        I see what you did there.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Protocol breakdown by traffic

          ""Cleartext commands to nuclear power station cooling rod servo systems, etc etc... "

          I see what you did there."

          SH

          PT1,1,1,1

          DP0,0,0,0

          TL*=9.98

          AC*=2000000

          DC*=0

          SP*=10000000

          PA-1000000,-1000000,-1000000,-1000000

          *BLAM*

    3. fritsd
      Paris Hilton

      Re: Protocol breakdown by traffic

      I watched a lecture about a decade ago, about an Internet researcher who was upset that she couldn't understand the content of the Internet traffic anymore. Meaning: less than 50% was documented protocols like HTTP, HTTPS, SMTP, NNTP, FTP etc. and more than 50% was god knows what. (probably Bittorrent??). I don't know what it is now. There's some info at isc.sans.edu.

    4. This Side Up

      Re: Protocol breakdown by traffic

      Webmail really only front-ends email, so the traffic is SMTP, POP/IMAP etc. - only http as far as the web server. Same with a lot of web forms that generate email messages.

      Usenet I use regularly. Didn't it use UUCP originally? I first used it on a Unix system and that was pre-WWW.

      I do run FTP servers and use FTP to upload files to web sites. Never used gopher though.

  13. Unep Eurobats
    FAIL

    Could be worse

    An Observer headline on Sunday had Major Tim Peake as the first Brit in space. Confusing web and internet is mild in comparison to such egregiousness.

  14. J.G.Harston Silver badge

    29 October 1969

    The internet is the same age as me... god I feel old.

    1. This Side Up

      Re: 29 October 1969

      "The internet is the same age as me... god I feel old."

      Yes that was its birthday. It was conceived (as ARPANET) in 1962 (iirc) and christened Internet around 1973, I guess when it escaped from being a purely military protocol.

  15. Tim99 Silver badge
    Windows

    Oh dear

    A lot of the people that I know believe that the Internet is the big blue E on the screen thingy...

    1. DropBear

      Re: Oh dear

      Fools! If only they knew it's actually a small black box... Just ask Jen!

  16. Identity
    Facepalm

    Sort of like...

    elephants can have fleas but fleas can't have elephants. The web is just part of the Internet — it just happens that that's the part most people use most (excepting, perhaps, e-mail).

    1. Gav

      Re: Sort of like...

      Most people who use email use it from a browser; i.e. the web

      And the ones who use email most aren't people, they're spambots.

      1. Shonko Kid
        Linux

        "Most people who use email use it from a browser; i.e. the web"

        True, quite a few people do use the web as their interface to email, but email messages are still routed over the internet using SMTP, which incidentally, is what your average spambot talks.

    2. 's water music

      Re: Sort of like...

      email is still a thing? who knew

      :-)

  17. Chris_B
    Coat

    You're all wrong

    It's called the Interweb

  18. Irongut

    So that small black box with the red light on it is 25 years old? Wow.

    1. Bloakey1

      "So that small black box with the red light on it is 25 years old? Wow."

      No the light is 25 years old, the box is 51 and is still sporting a buzz cut.

      I will Gopher my hat and coat.

      Whoami? I will get my self out of here before I am fingered and someone is made to kill me, feed me to the lynx or hang me from an elm.

      Those were the days, a 1200 baud modem, Unix commands and a yellow or green terminal.

      Yoof of today, try and tell them that and they would laugh at you Zebediah.

  19. Stevie

    Bah!

    Only one thing for it: Berners-Lee vs Gore smackdown!

    We demand Thunderdome!

  20. Anonymous Coward
    Alert

    I thought it was...

    Wasn't it Stephen Fry who invented the internet just before he invented Blogging and infrared remote controls?

  21. Panicnow

    Difference between Web and Internet?

    The Web is the toilet, the Internet is the sewer!

    1. Frumious Bandersnatch

      Re: Difference between Web and Internet?

      The Web is the toilet, the Internet is the sewer!

      That may still be too complicated for some people. Many times I've heard people confusing "sewage" and "sewerage".

      On another topic, I can remember the first time I got into using the web. We weren't allowed direct access to the net, so I had to use usenet to get the address of a web remailer. You'd send a mail message somewhere and you'd get a set of uuencoded emails back containing the content of the page you requested. It was the need to piece the mails back together in the right order and decode them that started me learning Perl (though I probably wrote the thing in Awk first). Then fire up Mosaic (ugh) to view the decoded HTML file locally. Come to think of it, there was probably no Internet involved in delivering web pages in this way (mail probably being delivered by uucp over dedicated x.25 links).

      When I was trying to figure out how the whole thing worked, I assumed that the whole web worked like a store-and-forward network (like usenet or fidonet), with intervening nodes caching any requested pages. I was wrong about that, but not totally because caching proxies did come later and are a pretty essential thing in many places.

  22. TallPaul

    TBL invented SMS too apparently

    On BBC Five Live this morning they went for it in style. TBL inventing the Internet was just for starters. Then they said "send us a text you wish you'd sent 25 years ago". Errr ...

    1. RFC822

      Re: TBL invented SMS too apparently

      Not that far off - I was certainly using SMS 20 years ago (though I was working at BT's Research Labs at the time).

  23. Bunbury

    Yes but

    While many people confuse the Internet and the World Wide Web, it's mostly because it doesn't matter to them. Coming from England I refer to "putting petrol in my car", whereas somebody in the late 19th century might quibble that I am actually putting "refined petroleum in my horseless carriage's internal combustion engine" or similar. Petrol being Eugene Carless's trade name for his product.

    It could be wourse; at least we're not celebrating the anniversary of TBL inventing Twitter.

    1. Adam 1

      Re: Yes but

      Just for clarification, proper spelling doesn't mandate the use of a 'u' in between every instance of 'o' and 'r'.

      1. Sir Runcible Spoon

        Re: Yes but

        At least you aren't trying to put Gas in your tank.

        I often wondered how Americans managed to stop it escaping into the atmosphere, but then I guess their Gas is heavier than air.

  24. Squander Two

    The Guardian goes one better.

    https://witness.theguardian.com/assignment/532026eae4b09b68d7845879?INTCMP=mic_232579

    Now it’s hard to imagine a world without Google and Facebook, but 25 years ago when the internet was still called the world wide web, the landscape was very different.

  25. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I thought the worldwide inter tubes were built on twitter. #iamsoclever

  26. heyrick Silver badge
    Stop

    "naively switches between the web and the internet"

    Isn't this the same thing for most users?

    I bet, if I went in to work, and posted a note on the noticeboard saying I'd give a crisp fiver to the first person that can tell me what IMAP, SFTP, and https are in a sentence each, the only way I'd get an answer is if somebody bothers to Google each one.

    For oldies, the "internet" is the spinny 'e'. For the more astute, it's the phoenix-rodent thing. For everybody, it's Google and Facebook[*]...

    * - we're talking about people that Google the name of the company to find the company website, even though the company domain IS the name of the company! (with a .com at the end, but Firefox can work that out for itself)

  27. J.G.Harston Silver badge

    I remember my email address

    ...that I used in 1985: cs870638@uk.stir.cs

    Yes, the domain *was* the wrong way around. We had a bulletin circulated explaining why we were changing it around.

    (I can't remember the email address I used in 1985, it was buried under layers of proxies and redirections.)

    1. J.G.Harston Silver badge

      Re: I remember my email address

      And my internet site! ftp:uk.stir.cs/~cs870638/pub or something.

    2. Jamie Jones Silver badge
      Happy

      Re: I remember my email address

      msc@uk.ac.cardiff.bute.eng1 and eimaj@uk.ac.ed.cs.tardis

      , though you beat me by a couple of years!

      What was the uucp gateway to Janet? I seem to remember using something like ...genvax!tardis.cs.ed.ac.uk!eimaj

      Oh, and the domain wasn't the wrong way around.. NOW it's the wrong way around! !

  28. DropBear

    So then who invented cyberspace?!?

    I am so confused...

  29. PSLUDGE

    "We all know that Al Gore invented the Internet."

    This silly myth has long since been corrected, and replaced by a trendy, newer, more truthful version:

    Actually, Al Gore invented THE DRONE.

  30. Anonymous John

    A second entry from the Mail.

    "25 years after a Briton dreamed up the internet... Who knew a biting baby and a sneezing panda would be such World Wide Wonders!"

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2581461/25-years-Briton-dreamed-internet-Who-knew-biting-baby-sneezing-panda-World-Wide-Wonders.html#ixzz2w2TPuKam

  31. William Old

    Great article, Kelly... and no doubt that you also spotted that the mighty BBC (British Bumbling Corporation) was proclaiming the same thing yesterday evening on terrestrial and satellite TV, captioning Sir Tim as the "Inventor of the Internet" on every appearance and describing him as such late last night on BBC Radio.

    Sigh.

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