French Engineers Alumni Network

Singapore #2 25/07/2013 @Savant Degrees

By Mathieu François

blog.matieux.net

No source code today…

What is the greatest communication disruption ever?

…Internet?

Since writing…

This is the “Mother of all Networks”

From New York to Paris: How long to send news?

US Independence (1776) = 6 weeks

It was before telegraph…

Lincoln president election (1860) = 2 hours

…It was after telegraph

Kennedy president election (1960) = 1 second

It was before Internet…

Obama president election (2008) = 1 second

…It was after Internet

So, who is the greatest disruptor?

Before

6 weeks 1 second

After

2 hours Er… still 1 second, no change meh?

I. The mother of all networks

II. Hackers and geeks in the XIXth Century

III. Internet revolution, really? 1865 vs 2013

By the way, Telegraph is a French invention Optical telegraph used by Revolution and Napoleon

Remind Minitel anyone?

Remember, Internet = “Interconnected Networks”

It’s fair to call it the “Victorian Internet”

2010 innovation: “How do I share my pictures online with my friends?

1860 innovation: “Let’s pull a 6,000 km telegraph cable across the Atlantic Ocean”

Brunel, one of the crazy guys: his giant ship was reconverted for cable laying

The “Death Star” of XIXth Century

Watch TED “Tim Brown urges designers to think big” for more…

Asia/Australia connection via Singapore and Penang Quizz: Why were they chosen as Telegraph hubs?

Answer: Rubber Strategic commodity, used for the cable insulation

Telegraph lasted only 1 century, but it changed everything!

I. The mother of all networks

II. Hackers and geeks in the XIXth Century

III. Internet revolution, really? 1865 vs 2013

There was an elitist hacker/geek culture among the Telegraph operators community

Your ability was evaluated based on your speed and accuracy to send messages…

Here is the most famous Telegraph hacker

By the way, he is a real m***** f***** but this is another story

The sysadmins of the Telegraph...

… and pre-Internet nerds: Telegraphers in remote outposts often preferred on-line chat to socializing in real life with the locals

A key difference : many operators were ladies T_T

I. The mother of all networks

II. Hackers and geeks in the XIXth Century

III. Internet revolution, really? 1865 vs 2013

“The Highway of Thought” was the more poetic surname of Telegraph

Information Superhighway?

The Internet Telegraph, by linking everyone in a worldwide network, was expected to promote peace and democracy

World Peace Utopia?

New Telegraph companies became the source of insane speculation

Stock market bubble?

AKA the “International Telegraph Union” (1865)

Standards organizations?

Dots and Dashes versus 1s and 0s

Digital?

Routers? Trunking?

Telegraph wires to send short "texting" digital data Pneumatic tubes to send longer messages and small items (even cats!)

During quiet times and after business hours, operators on-line would break out the IMs and chatrooms

Online Chat?

"Ordinarily an operator can tell a woman the moment he hears her working the wire […] He tells by her touch on the key. Women, as a rule, do not touch the key of their instruments as firmly as men do"

Online Dating?

Thomas Edison: “Most of the Tales of the Wires went unpublished because they were too rude or explicit”

Online Sex?

Online Wedding?

1840: the first online wedding, with the bride in Boston and the groom in New York

1,500 telegraph operators remotely attended the last telegraph ceremony for Samuel Morse

Social Network?

Banks could send money via telegraph wire, leading to the foundation of Western Union

E-Commerce?

One of the first MiM attacks: operators of an optical telegraph were bribed so they altered business transaction information

Online Fraud?

Users developed their own cryptic code of "smileys" and abbreviated words to solve network limitations

Compression? Encryption?

Lincoln used the telegraph to stay connected to the forces in the field in almost real time

Online President?

Last and most advanced telegraphy mechanism designed (Phelps, 1880)

Multimedia?

Telegraph was perceived as a major threat for newspapers… the number of current newspapers with “Telegraph” in their title proves the contrary

Threat for newspapers industry?

Epilog

Not even digital, what a shame! 1880

The Telegraph Killer

What if…

Babbage’s computers had gone into widespread use?

…Steampunk would not be a SciFi genre

Sources 1/2

• Must-Read!

• Great historical analogy book written with a delightful British style

Sources 2/2

• Mother Earth Mother Board – (looong) but very insightful article about the

cabling industry challenges by the Science-Fiction author Neal Stephenson

• How the World Was One: Towards the Tele-Family of Man – Sir Arthur C. Clarke elaborated similar theories

• Plyojump - Computer History

• Mr. Lincoln's T-Mails

Questions? Dinner / Makan ?