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Thank you to @BryanDenlingerKJVM for putting this book on my radar: https://youtu.be/EMpuUjcOOH8

The internet wasn't just "invented." It was fought over. Between 1968 and 1988, a secret war was waged between entrenched giants like AT&T and IBM, government researchers, and the military . This is the hidden history of the protocols, routers, and technologies that define your life today.

In this deep dive, we expose the shocking story of how corporate monopolies actively tried to suppress the very innovations that power our world. We uncover:- How AT&T fought in court to stop you from attaching any device to their network (even a simple privacy cup!) .- The modem's secret origin in the SAGE nuclear defense system .- Why the core idea of the internet (packet switching) was a doomsday plan to survive nuclear war, built because AT&T's network was too fragile .- The moment AT&T executives were "visibly pleased" to watch ARPANET, the internet's precursor, crash during its first demo .

We'll trace the direct line from these early battles to the chaotic, insecure, and monopoly-driven internet we have today . The giants that tried to stop the future lost billions , but the monopoly problem never really went away.