That's a really good question. The phrase is sometimes called [John] Gilmore's Law. http://www.chemie.fu-berlin.de/outerspace/internet-article.html http://www.c

That's a really good question. The phrase is sometimes called [John] Gilmore's Law. http://www.chemie.fu-berlin.de/outerspace/internet-article.html http://www.chemie.fu-berlin.de/outerspace/internet-article.h... It has certainly been said many times that DARPA was "researching a decentralized system that would be robust enough to survive and function even if most of the network were destroyed". http://www.inetdaemon.com/tutorials/internet/history.shtml http://www.inetdaemon.com/tutorials/internet/history.shtml http://www.ciec.org/trial/complaint/facts1.html http://www.ciec.org/trial/complaint/facts1.html But that was in the event of a nuclear attack - presumably a bit more random than governments with Big Switches. Of course, NO networks, NO re-routing.