---
tags: [internet, ARPANET]
created: Sunday, October 27, 2024
---

# 82f9c228_dissolution_of_ARPANET

By 1984, the US military became concerned about the expansion of the ARPANET and
its growing non-military applications (see the film _War Games_ released in
1983!). They split the network into the _ARPANET_ for academic research and the
_MILNET_ for non-civilian users where transmission was encrypted and protected.

Throughout the 1980s, the US National Science Foundation began promoting private
networks that used the ARPANET as their _backbone_. (Private in the sense of not
publicly-funded.)

Later, these became commercial and
[subscription-based](cfbef1c4_web_precursors.md). A plethora of ..._NETS_ grew
up (NSFNET, USENET, CSNET, TELENET etc.), all based on #packet-switching, the
ARPANET nodes as the backbone and [TCP/IP](Link_Layer_of_Internet_Protocol.md)
host communication.

These networks, although accessible to the public through subscriptions,
remained unwieldy and inconsistent to access until the Web.
