Arpanet - Tumblr Posts
1 year ago
Did secure online transactions begin with weed? Groceries? Pizza? Nope.
The first known online transaction took place in 1971 when students at Stanford University used the ARPANET (a precursor to the internet) to arrange the sale of a small amount of marijuana. The transaction was between students in the artificial intelligence lab at Stanford and students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). However, it doesn't technically qualify as a transaction because no money was exchanged online; the network was solely used to coordinate a meeting place. So, what was the first thing ever sold online?
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