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The New Westphalian Web The future of the Internet may lie in the past. And that's not a good thing. BY KATHERINE MAHER | FEBRUARY 25, 2013

But 30 years ago, humanity gave birth to one of the most disruptive forces of our time. On Jan. 1, 1983, the implementation of TCP/IP -- a standard protocol to allow computers to exchange data over a network -- turned discrete clusters of research computers into a distributed global phenomenon. It was essentially the work of three men: two engineers to write the protocol, and one to carry out the plan. It was a birth so quiet no one even has a photo of the day; a recent post by one of TCP/IP's authors, Vint Cerf, was able to turn up only a commemorative pin.

In the popular consciousness, the Internet was simultaneously a place of possibility and danger. In 1993, Time magazine warned, "People who use … the Net may be in for a shock.… Anybody can start a discussion on any topic and say anything." It was precisely this structural independence that transformed the Internet from a mere tool for information-sharing to the world's open forum.

The rise of self-publishing tools like Blogger transformed the "third space" of cyberspace into a modern speaker's corner, offering any motivated writer a platform for his or her political views. Initially, this online free expression was often marginalized or dismissed -- the term "blogosphere" was originally a joke. But bloggers kept plugging away. In liberal democracies their free expression was guaranteed, and in closed societies connectivity was often too limited to draw any real attention.