What is the Most Important Document Ever Published on the Internet? \ stacker news ~bitcoin

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What is the Most Important Document Ever Published on the Internet?

1195 sats \ 15 comments \ @kr 27 May 2023 bitcoin

Earlier today I was having this discussion, and couldn’t come up with an internet-native document that was more important than the Bitcoin whitepaper.

Although Satoshi’s whitepaper is probably among the most influential pieces of writing on the internet, I’m sure there are many other great pieces of writing I’m overlooking.

What are your nominations for the most important document to ever be published on the internet?

To be clear, I’m looking for documents that were first published on the internet, not ones that started off as physical books or manuscripts.

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827 sats \ 3 replies \ @Bitman 27 May 2023

When my access to the net was super slow I downloaded an offline hyperlinked concise version of Wikipedia (mostly for developing countries).

This offline version for me felt a pretty important thing - you could classify that as a hyperlinked 'document' I guess. This potted history of everything that had gone on so far reminded me of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - thankfully without any examples of Vogon 'Poetry'.

Here's a bit of trivia for you. Back in the early days. I used to buy magazines to learn about interesting sites (before search engines maybe?) The guy who wrote 'Hitchhiker's' (Douglas Adams, who was very into the 'net) came up with what I can only describe as a prototype to what we know as Wikipedia now. The site was h2g2 dot something or other.

Grandpa will shut up and go back to sleep now...

268 sats \ 1 reply \ @IanMalcolmPhd 27 May 2023

It looks like it was h2g2.com, thanks for posting.

66 sats \ 0 replies \ @Bitman 27 May 2023

Yeah, that's it. Kinda brings a tear to my eye.

If I remember it right the BBC had archived it after the author's death - I really thought it was just an archived relic! Really good to see it's still surviving.

Hope someone on, say instructables, has put it on a tablet with a good 'DON'T PANIC!' home screen on it.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @kr OP 27 May 2023

had no idea, very cool!

673 sats \ 0 replies \ @Chep 28 May 2023

https://www.eff.org/cyberspace-independence This was a pretty based internet-native document

484 sats \ 2 replies \ @DarthCoin 27 May 2023

I think is the WEB itself... 1991 August 6. The first WWW page that ever existed (and is still online), by Tim Barbers-Lee http://info.cern.ch/hypertext/WWW/TheProject.html

Until then internet was just a network of sending files to each others, nothing special for publishing stuff.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @benstern 28 May 2023

Corresponding message from the author regarding decision from 1993, ten years after it was made: https://videos.cern.ch/record/615845/embed

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @kr OP 27 May 2023

good one!

767 sats \ 0 replies \ @IanMalcolmPhd 27 May 2023

There was a seminal paper describing public key cryptography. It was pre-internet. He was at MIT copied and mailed to different CS researchers in the 1970s. He realized how astoundingly important it was for all of mankind and he was really adamant about the government not squelching or classifying it, or someone patenting all of it (he did not become part of RSA). (interestingly, the oz govt coming in and making Assange's CS work classified without his permission is one of the reasons he created wikileaks) It led to bitcoin and many other things. I don't recall his name but it is in one of the Bitcoin documentaries.

Without such visionaries and pioneers, we'd all be using ISDN 128k and text terminals.

254 sats \ 0 replies \ @Undergotten 27 May 2023

Is this a trick question? It's the unabomber's manifesto, isn't it? jk, jk. I can't read.