Most of you may not believe it, but the internet as we know it didn't really exist a mere 20 years ago. Paul Baran, an engineer of the ARPANET (an early attempt at networked information superhighway) has passed away today at the age of 84. As the father of packet-switching -- the basis of all online information exchanges -- he was initially scoffed at by major communications players like AT&T, who thought the tech was too advanced to be realized at the time. However, after the US Department of Defense saw the need for an effective large-scale information network following WWII, the ARPANET was eventually -- and successfully -- built based on these packet-switching concepts and ultimately evolved to form the cur
