The Internet’s design, then, wasn’t the result of some grand theory or vision that emerged fully formed like Athena from the head of Zeus. Rather, these engineers were looking for a specific technical fix. Their solution was indeed ingenious, but only later would it become clear just how important it was. Cerf describes the open design of the Internet as necessitated by the particularities of the specific engineering challenge he faced. “A lot of the design,” Cerf said, “was forced on us.
