The message between two computers that started the Internet

Thanks to Leonard Kleinrock , today we have at our fingertips the greatest information container of all time: the Internet. In 1969, he took the first step with the primitive Arpanet project, the basis of what is now the Internet. Two computers located several kilometers apart were connected by a network that provided 50 kilobytes per second, with which the goal was to send the word "login." Although only the two letters (L and O) were received on the first attempt, he played an important role in the development of the first line of data communication. Today, at 81 years old, Kleinrock continues to teach at the University and remains an avid observer of the development of new technologies, as he told ABC in Madrid, the day before receiving the BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in the Information Technology category.

-When you achieved this milestone, were you aware of what you were creating and what it would end up being?

When I was a student, I was surrounded by computers. And at some point, I realized that in the future, they would have to communicate with each other. It was a fantastic engineering challenge. Of course, I never imagined that my mother and my grandchildren could be on that network at the same time. The idea of ​​social networks never occurred to me. I thought of it as computers talking to each other and people talking to computers, but never as a connection between people.

Are you surprised by the scale the Internet has generated?

Surprised is one way of putting it. I'm grateful, excited, gratified, pleased, thrilled... I have a feeling it will continue to offer great benefits to humanity because it gives everyone a voice. It has changed the way we live, play, interact, work, teach, have fun... It's a wonderful phenomenon that, of course, also has its dark side.

-What is the state of maturity of the Internet?

The internet is in its infancy. It still exhibits erratic, disobedient behavior, but, of course, these are years of having fun. It has time to mature. It could grow up and become a responsible adult, or, on the other hand, it could transform into an evil and criminal being. I think it will continue to evolve in both directions at the same time. My big concern is that entire states have now joined the dark side. It's not just spam, pornography... it's profound evil. And the worst part is that there's no way to predict where it's going to go. This could lead organizations to disconnect from the internet and start creating their own private networks to control people's security and data. We could end up with a kind of fragmented network without a connection to the free internet for everyone.

- Don't you think they failed to take some measures to avoid that dark side?

It emerged in a culture of openness, trust, ethics, and knowledge sharing among a few individuals. And there were tactical rules. At the beginning, I knew everyone on the internet. They were my friends; I trusted them. If someone did something wrong, we'd all find out and criticize them. At the time, no one considered the need to integrate a security aspect. On the other hand, it never occurred to us that this would reach billions of people.

-What can be done now?

-Since we have a legacy system made up of billions of computers, it's almost impossible to create security technology like a patch that can be superimposed on what already exists to correct everything that came before. However, there is a very interesting development that some have considered, called homomorphic encryption, which allows files and programs to be encrypted and transmitted without decoding. This way, even if that data is stolen, no one will be able to read it.