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For those who are interested in that sort of thing, Baran's full 11 publications outlining the design goals and principles of packet-switched networks in Januar

For those who are interested in that sort of thing, Baran's full 11 publications outlining the design goals and principles of packet-switched networks in January of 1964 are available from RAND as downloadable PDFs: <https://www.rand.org/about/history/baran.html https://www.rand.org/about/history/baran.html> The first document introduces the basic problem: Let us consider the synthesis of a communication network which will allow several hundred major communications stations to talk with one another after an enemy attack. As a criterion of survivability we elect to use the percentage of stations both surviving the physical attack and remaining in electrical connection with the largest single group of surviving stations. This criterion is chosen as a conservative measure of the ability of the surviving stations to operate together as a coherent entity after the attack. This means that small groups of stations isolated from the single largest group are considered to be ineffective. <https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_memoranda/RM3420.html https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_memoranda/RM3420.html> "Attack" isn't defined, but it's clear that resilience against broad assaults was a key consideration from the very beginning.

throw0101a 2y ago
> "Attack" isn't defined, but it's clear that resilience against broad assaults was a key consideration from the very beginning. It was a consideration for Baran's work, but not for ARPAnet: From chapter two of Wizards: > Roberts also learned from Scantlebury, for the first time, of the work that had been done by Paul Baran at RAND a few years earlier. When Roberts returned to Washington, he found the RAND reports, which had actually been collecting dust in the Information Processing Techniques Office for months, and studied them. Roberts was designing this experimental network not with survivable communications as his main—or even secondary—concern. Nuclear war scenarios, and command and control issues, weren’t high on Roberts’s agenda. But Baran’s insights into data communications intrigued him nonetheless, and in early 1968 he met with Baran. After that, Baran became something of an informal consultant to the group Roberts assembled to design the network. […] * https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/281818.Where_Wizards_Stay_Up_Late https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/281818.Where_Wizards_Sta... * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Roberts_(computer_scientist) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Roberts_(computer_scient...
- dredmorbius 2y ago
  Influences can be manifold and subtle. What's clear is that in 1964, as packet-switched networks were first being considered, resilience against "attack", however defined, was a key consideration for one significant set of innovators. I suspect some of that logic was incorporated into ARPANET's eventual design, whether the nominal head designer was aware of this or not. One underappreciated aspect of complex projects is how different goals and intentions may exist simultaneously, and how much active participants even at a high level may not be awarer of this. A friend had a uni professor who'd been part of the Glomar Explorer scientific mission which served as a cover for Project Azoran, the clandestine recovery of a Soviet nuclear submarine. The professor was unaware of the actual mission until well after the mission had concluded, when he read about it in the newspaper. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Azorian https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Azorian> I tend to strongly discount personal-experience denials of covert or secondary mission roles by people otherwise connected with an activity (e.g., company employees, contractors, government workers, contractors, etc.). It's not that these are never, or even mostly incorrect. It's simply that for a large enough project, some secondary goal might well exist without the conscious awareness of many of those involved. And again, in the case of Baran, we have the receipts.
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throw0101a 2y ago

> "Attack" isn't defined, but it's clear that resilience against broad assaults was a key consideration from the very beginning. It was a consideration for Baran's work, but not for ARPAnet: From chapter two of Wizards: > Roberts also learned from Scantlebury, for the first time, of the work that had been done by Paul Baran at RAND a few years earlier. When Roberts returned to Washington, he found the RAND reports, which had actually been collecting dust in the Information Processing Techniques Office for months, and studied them. Roberts was designing this experimental network not with survivable communications as his main—or even secondary—concern. Nuclear war scenarios, and command and control issues, weren’t high on Roberts’s agenda. But Baran’s insights into data communications intrigued him nonetheless, and in early 1968 he met with Baran. After that, Baran became something of an informal consultant to the group Roberts assembled to design the network. […] * https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/281818.Where_Wizards_Stay_Up_Late https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/281818.Where_Wizards_Sta... * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Roberts_(computer_scientist) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Roberts_(computer_scient...

dredmorbius 2y ago
Influences can be manifold and subtle. What's clear is that in 1964, as packet-switched networks were first being considered, resilience against "attack", however defined, was a key consideration for one significant set of innovators. I suspect some of that logic was incorporated into ARPANET's eventual design, whether the nominal head designer was aware of this or not. One underappreciated aspect of complex projects is how different goals and intentions may exist simultaneously, and how much active participants even at a high level may not be awarer of this. A friend had a uni professor who'd been part of the Glomar Explorer scientific mission which served as a cover for Project Azoran, the clandestine recovery of a Soviet nuclear submarine. The professor was unaware of the actual mission until well after the mission had concluded, when he read about it in the newspaper. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Azorian https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Azorian> I tend to strongly discount personal-experience denials of covert or secondary mission roles by people otherwise connected with an activity (e.g., company employees, contractors, government workers, contractors, etc.). It's not that these are never, or even mostly incorrect. It's simply that for a large enough project, some secondary goal might well exist without the conscious awareness of many of those involved. And again, in the case of Baran, we have the receipts.
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