Purpose of the Internet
Borchers, Mark
mborchers at splitrock.net
Thu Mar 14 19:00:26 UTC 2002
> This is a great book, BTW. All network engineers should read
> it.
Just happen to have it handy. Both of the earlier posters were
correct. The book cites both Bob Taylor's priority on R&E
networks and Baran's goal of a resilient communications system
that could survive a nuclear holocaust. *Inspiration* - instead
of measuring nuclear weapon destructive power in megatons, it
would perhaps be useful to express it in megabackhoes.
I suspect
> this misunderstanding grew out of the idea that some of the
> original papers
> on packet switching used as one of their criteria, that the
> networks be highly survivable.
> With regards to the purpose of the internet, I recall reading
> in the Prologue to _Where Wizards Stay Up Late_, by Katie Hafner
> and Matthew Lyon, a true anecdote about Bob Taylor. The authors
> quote Mr. Taylor as refuting that the purpose of the arpanet was
> to provide communications in spite of a nuclear attack.
>
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