Weekend Gedankenexperiment - The Kill Switch

Sun Feb 6 04:29:44 UTC 2011

On Feb 5, 2011, at 6:11 PM, Dave CROCKER wrote:

> 
> 
> On 2/5/2011 6:43 AM, Fred Baker wrote:
>> On Feb 4, 2011, at 9:49 PM, Hayden Katzenellenbogen wrote:
>>> Not sure if it has been said already but wasn't one of the key point for
>>> the creation of the internet to create and infrastructure that would
>>> survive in the case of all out war and massive destruction. (strategic
>>> nuclear strikes)
>> 
>> Urban legend, although widely believed. Someone probably made the observation.
> 
> 
> Maybe not quite an UL...
> 
>   <http://www.rand.org/about/history/baran.html>
> 
> On the average, The Rand Corp is extremely careful about what it publishes, yet here it is, repeating the claim.

But Len Kleinrock adamantly disputes it.

> Back in the '70s, I always heard "survive hostile battlefield conditions" and never heard anyone talk about comms survival of a nuclear event, but I wasn't in any interesting conversations, such as in front of funding agencies...

To survive an EMP, electronics needs some fancy circuitry. I've never worked with a bit of equipment that had it. It would therefore have to have been through path redundancy.