US and UK row over invention of net

The Internet celebrated its 30th birthday in October, but as often happens the party ended in a fight over who the father was.

It's generally accepted that the Internet's roots lie in research which was carried out in the 1960s by the US Defense Department's Advanced Research Projects Agency.

ARPA was looking at ways of transmitting data between minicomputers using the telephone network. On October 1st 1969, it was successful and ARPANet - the precursor to the Net - was born.

But last October, in a speech at the UK Internet Summit, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown, claimed that the Internet was actually a British invention.

In fact evidence has recently surfaced to suggest that packet switching - the method of transmitting data that makes the Internet possible - was invented at Middlesex University.

However, a lack of funding by the then Labour government resulted in the work being carried on abroad.

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