Computer Freaks
By Christine Haughney Dare-Bryan
This is the untold history of how the internet almost didn’t happen. It’s an ode to fathers and daughters. And it’s a tale about the origins of the man-computer symbiosis that’s still profoundly relevant to our society today.
Host Christine Haughney Dare-Bryan is a James Beard Award-winning journalist who has worked for NBC News as well as three of the nation’s largest newspapers, and who created the Emmy-nominated Netflix series Rotten. Dare-Bryan’s connection to the story is deeply personal—her father, Joseph Haughney, was one of the internet’s founding fathers.
S1 E6: The Unintended Consequences
We return to speaking to Joseph Haughney about his hopes for the Arpanet. We ask other founders how they feel about what the internet has become. We also speak to internet early founder Hans Werner Braun’s daughters about how they reconcile themselves the world their father helped create.
S1 E3: Let’s Have a Ball
It’s the 1970s and both the government and academia are doing everything they can to spread the word of the Arpanet. But as the Arpanet gains popularity everywhere after its 1972 coming-out ball in Washington, D.C., through its new phone book, it also faces detractors who don’t want it to be available to all.
S1: Trailer
Season one of Computer Freaks is a "love letter" from host Christine Haughney Dare-Bryan to her father, Major Joseph Haughney, who managed the Arpanet for the Department of Defense from 1979 to 1981.
Driven by her father’s diagnosis of dementia, the season uses over 100 hours of audio interviews to chronicle the early, "untold" history of how the internet almost didn't happen.