good idea Less we forget Whitehouse.gov

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Ross Stapleton-Gray <ross () stapleton-gray com>
Date: January 21, 2009 12:39:07 PM EST
To: dave () farber net, Jock Gill <jg45 () me com>
Subject: Re: [IP] Less we forget Whitehouse.gov

At 07:38 AM 1/21/2009, Jock Gill wrote:
> First White House web site, Oct. 1994
>
> Legitimizing IP email addresses, not just X.400

Oh this is bringing back memories... sounds like we actually beat out  
the White House, in getting the CIA on the web earlier in 1994 (in the  
form of the DCI's office, with ODCI.GOV... there was a thrash for some  
time about CIA.GOV, and UCIA.GOV was how that first appeared, due to  
CIA.GOV being associated with a classified network).  Those of us who  
were Internet evangelists pitched the public relations value of  
getting the CIA World Factbook on line (on our own server... it was  
out there in other forms), and it worked.  We were hosted at DIGEX (I  
think this was after they moved operations from above a Chinese  
restaurant, but long before they went public for the first time);  
amusingly, it was only after the CIA moved the web site inside that it  
got defaced by hackers (c. 1997 or so).  (And ODCI.GOV no longer  
exists, as the office vanished with the creation of the Director of  
National Intelligence.)

And I remember attending a meeting, either in 1994, or perhaps early  
in 1995, in the Old Executive Office Building, where it was stated  
that because the largest plurality of e-mail addresses and directory  
systems in government were X.400/X.500, that was going to be the  
primary standard to adopt.  Vint Cerf was there, and I think you could  
have seen steam coming out of his ears!  (Vint, if you're on the list,  
you can confirm, deny, or embellish...)  It was superficially true  
(owing to the large number of X.400 addresses living in the DoD), but  
everything that wasn't either that or TCP/IP was heading in the latter  
direction, fast, and growing... I don't know how the policy debate  
thrashed out, but we got to where we are now...

Lastly, I remember talking with a contractor supporting USGS, c. 1995,  
who asked me about how they ought to be structuring their deal with  
USGS... they were then getting A NICKEL A HIT (!) for web support.  I  
told them that they were extremely lucky, and that it probably  
wouldn't last.  ;-)

Is someone writing up a history of USG as user of the Internet?  It'd  
be great to chronicle such folks as Jock has already mentioned, and  
others, like Elliot Christian, who were evangelizing IT in an era  
where it was strange and different, in the world of IBM Selectrics.

Ross


----
Ross Stapleton-Gray, Ph.D.
Stapleton-Gray & Associates, Inc.
http://www.stapleton-gray.com






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