INTERNET: October 30, 1969 (ProCOR)

ProCor colleagues,

The internet was born in 1969, on October 30. Originally created by the Pentagon for military use during the Cold War, four decades later it is becoming truly global--non-Latin characters will soon be used for web and email addresses.

"The internet's birth was in the depths of the Cold War, created for scientists to exchange some very hot data--the design and testing of nuclear weapons, for instance. Its transformation from its militaristic beginnings to where it stands now should be seen as the greatest 'swords into plowshares' story in the history of mankind. Because today, while its origins are at best dimly remembered, what it has morphed into has gone far, far beyond the original intent--and changed our planet and our way of life as a result." (Chris Weigant, "From the Pentagon To Monty Python: The Internet Turns 40" Huffington Post. Read full article: www.huffingtonpost.com/chris-weigant/from-the-pentagon-to-mont_b_337774.html)

In 1985, Dr. Bernard Lown received the Nobel Peace Prize for co-founding International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War and used the prize money to purchase a low-earth-orbit satellite and create a new organization, SatelLife, which began transmitting health information to people in developing countries. His goal was to transform the technology of "star wars" to "star health," he said at the time. ProCor was founded in 1997 to promote cardiovascular disease prevention using low-cost communication technologies, which have emerged far beyond the internet to include a range of digital formats and wireless devices that augment or even replace the internet in many settings.

Internet addresses containing non-Latin characters will be online soon thanks to a decision announced on the internet's 40th birthday. More than one billion people worldwide are using the internet. China tops the list, representing nearly 20% of its audience. Japan is third, with 6%, India seventh. Russia and South Korea also are among the top 15 countries. "The coming introduction of non-Latin characters represents the biggest technical change to the Internet since it was created four decades ago," said Peter Dengate Thrush, President of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) at a board meeting in Seoul, South Korea. "Right now internet address endings are limited to Latin characters--A to Z. But the Fast Track Process is the first step in bringing the 100,000 characters of the languages of the world online for domain names. This is only the first step, but it is an incredibly big one and an historic move toward the internationalization of the internet." (Read more: www.icann.org/en/announcements/announcement-30oct09-en.htm)

Some things never change, though. During transmission of its first message, "LOGIN," the internet crashed and "LO" was all that was delivered. With the advent of instant messaging and text messaging, a new electronic language has developed, and reading about the inaugural internet crash made me LOL ("laugh out loud").

While acknowledging that the internet has limitations and presents challenges, let's today celebrate the birthday of an innovation that has done much, and holds much more potential, to connect and contribute to our global community.

Catherine Coleman
Editor in Chief, ProCor

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Dear Catherine,

Thanks for your message that I will post on our Blog. My first intention was to send you our greetings from Brazil, but immediately I realized that it is now nonsense; geography doesn't matter today; but I wish to say to you and ProCor: GREETINGS FROM THE AMICOR!

Even though shocking, perhaps, the creation of the INTERNET as a war effort may have some lesson to us -- perhaps as an answer to the question Professor Bernard Lown asked me in 2003, during a breakfast in New Orleans: "Why are so few of our colleagues enthusiastic about networking in ProCor?"

Probably we doctors are feeling ourselves excessively sure. We are healthy and socially well supported for a while. We are not conscious of the dangers hidden in our profession. Perhaps networking patients, and people socially in danger, it would be more rapidly convincing.

Time passed, with the efforts and persistence of you and other friends from ProCor we are seeing a progressive awareness.

Sincerely yours,

Aloyzio Achutti (and all AMICOR)
http://amicor.blogspot.com