3 ms·

>The internet supposedly exists because it provided a more reliable way to order nuclear missile launches. Not sure about that: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/

by nix23 6y ago

>The internet supposedly exists because it provided a more reliable way to order nuclear missile launches. Not sure about that: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARPANET#Debate_on_design_goals https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARPANET#Debate_on_design_goals

KineticLensman 6y ago
Agree, the internet was NOT created as a missile command and control system. Baran's seminal work on packet-switching was a RAND C2 study whose concepts were rejected by the extant defence contractors as impractical. When DARPA later wanted to interconnect it's collection of computers to create ARPANET for researchers, Baran's theoretical ideas were dusted off and the rest is history.
dredmorbius 6y ago
Reliable Digital Communications Systems Using Unreliable Network Repeater Nodes (1960) https://www.rand.org/pubs/papers/P1995.html https://www.rand.org/pubs/papers/P1995.html
- nix23 6y ago
  >It was from the RAND study that the false rumor started, claiming that the ARPANET was somehow related to building a network resistant to nuclear war. This was never true of the ARPANET, but was an aspect of the earlier RAND study of secure communication. The later work on internetworking did emphasize robustness and survivability, including the capability to withstand losses of large portions of the underlying networks
  - dredmorbius 6y ago
    I was simply pointing to original source docs from one of the co-inventors of packet-based switching, on which the Internet is based. There's a larger series of Baran's works at RAND: https://www.rand.org/about/history/baran.html https://www.rand.org/about/history/baran.html Nukes were definitely part of the Zeitgeist: In 1962, a nuclear confrontation seemed imminent. The United States and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) were embroiled in the Cuban missile crisis. Both were in the process of building hair-trigger nuclear ballistic missile systems. Each country pondered post-nuclear attack scenarios. U.S. authorities considered ways to communicate in the aftermath of a nuclear attack. How could any sort of “command and control network” survive? Paul Baran, a researcher at RAND, offered a solution: design a more robust communications network using “redundancy” and “digital” technology.
    - TeMPOraL 6y ago
      I think it's worth bringing up at this point that the famous "The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it." quote is true only for the layer 3 of the ISO/OSI stack. The Internet as most people understand it is layer 7, and is incredibly centralized.

by nix23 6y ago

KineticLensman 6y ago

Agree, the internet was NOT created as a missile command and control system. Baran's seminal work on packet-switching was a RAND C2 study whose concepts were rejected by the extant defence contractors as impractical. When DARPA later wanted to interconnect it's collection of computers to create ARPANET for researchers, Baran's theoretical ideas were dusted off and the rest is history.

dredmorbius 6y ago

Reliable Digital Communications Systems Using Unreliable Network Repeater Nodes (1960) https://www.rand.org/pubs/papers/P1995.html https://www.rand.org/pubs/papers/P1995.html

nix23 6y ago
>It was from the RAND study that the false rumor started, claiming that the ARPANET was somehow related to building a network resistant to nuclear war. This was never true of the ARPANET, but was an aspect of the earlier RAND study of secure communication. The later work on internetworking did emphasize robustness and survivability, including the capability to withstand losses of large portions of the underlying networks
- dredmorbius 6y ago
  I was simply pointing to original source docs from one of the co-inventors of packet-based switching, on which the Internet is based. There's a larger series of Baran's works at RAND: https://www.rand.org/about/history/baran.html https://www.rand.org/about/history/baran.html Nukes were definitely part of the Zeitgeist: In 1962, a nuclear confrontation seemed imminent. The United States and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) were embroiled in the Cuban missile crisis. Both were in the process of building hair-trigger nuclear ballistic missile systems. Each country pondered post-nuclear attack scenarios. U.S. authorities considered ways to communicate in the aftermath of a nuclear attack. How could any sort of “command and control network” survive? Paul Baran, a researcher at RAND, offered a solution: design a more robust communications network using “redundancy” and “digital” technology.
  - TeMPOraL 6y ago
    I think it's worth bringing up at this point that the famous "The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it." quote is true only for the layer 3 of the ISO/OSI stack. The Internet as most people understand it is layer 7, and is incredibly centralized.