[46118] in North American Network Operators' Group
RE: Purpose of the Internet
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Borchers, Mark)
Thu Mar 14 14:01:45 2002
Message-ID: <53B67F09399475429CA50ED0FC6FA6A77A90E5@hsexch01.splitrock.net>
From: "Borchers, Mark" <mborchers@splitrock.net>
To: 'Daniel Golding' <dgolding@sockeye.com>,
Alan Hannan <alan@routingloop.com>, nanog@merit.edu
Date: Thu, 14 Mar 2002 13:00:26 -0600
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> 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.
>
