The Internet that you’re posting on was built on top of a military network intended to provide redundant communication in the event of a global thermonuclear war.
Responding to this part alone: that’s not actually true.
The intent of arpanet, the direct predecessor to the Internet, was to make it easier for universities to use high powered computer resources located at national laboratories, as well as making it easier to distribute software updates. The person who initially pushed for it’s creation wanted “an electronic commons open to all, 'the main and essential medium of informational interaction for governments, institutions, corporations, and individuals '”. They secured funding for the initial computer science labratories, os research that underpin everything, and the foundation for the “INTERgalactic NETwork”.
Arpa was, at the time, the advanced research project agency. They were under the DoD, but they filled a role closer to the NSF today.
In designing the system they referenced work done by people who were studying robust communication networks. At the time that meant the phone system and nuclear weapons. The research, however, was applicable to any unstable network, and so had particular interest to them because computers had terrible reliability and they wanted to not have to call people if they discovered they had turned off a computer halfway between New York and LA.
The closest thing it has to a cold war military objective is to help us win the research race and spite the Soviets. It can withstand a nuclear attack, but that’s just because that’s the easiest way to make it survive a farmer with a backhoe accidentally hitting a wire.
DARPA was originally ARPA. They were under the department of defense but their project scope wasn’t limited to defense projects. The reorganization that rebranded the agency as DARPA and made it defense focused ostensibly saw the non-defense oriented moonshot project responsibility transfer to the NSF, although the funding shift wasn’t proportional.
The order of creation isn’t exactly relevant to how responsibilities have shifted.
It’s kinda like how, for the longest time, presidential security was handled by the Treasury department. It wasn’t because presidential security was considered a financial matter, but because that’s where it fit.
Secure communications and information-sharing between geographically dispersed research facilities were among the ARPANET’s original goals.
From your link to the arpanet wiki:
Building on the ideas of J. C. R. Licklider, Bob Taylor initiated the ARPANET project in 1966 to enable resource sharing between remote computers.
Sutherland and Taylor continued their interest in creating the network, in part, to allow ARPA-sponsored researchers at various corporate and academic locales to utilize computers provided by ARPA, and, in part, to quickly distribute new software and other computer science results.
There’s a big difference between ARPA funded labs and general university usage.
I’m not sure why it would matter that you worked for them in the early 90s. That doesn’t exactly give you a privileged insight into the creation of ARPANET.
Responding to this part alone: that’s not actually true.
The intent of arpanet, the direct predecessor to the Internet, was to make it easier for universities to use high powered computer resources located at national laboratories, as well as making it easier to distribute software updates. The person who initially pushed for it’s creation wanted “an electronic commons open to all, 'the main and essential medium of informational interaction for governments, institutions, corporations, and individuals '”. They secured funding for the initial computer science labratories, os research that underpin everything, and the foundation for the “INTERgalactic NETwork”.
Arpa was, at the time, the advanced research project agency. They were under the DoD, but they filled a role closer to the NSF today.
In designing the system they referenced work done by people who were studying robust communication networks. At the time that meant the phone system and nuclear weapons. The research, however, was applicable to any unstable network, and so had particular interest to them because computers had terrible reliability and they wanted to not have to call people if they discovered they had turned off a computer halfway between New York and LA.
The closest thing it has to a cold war military objective is to help us win the research race and spite the Soviets. It can withstand a nuclear attack, but that’s just because that’s the easiest way to make it survive a farmer with a backhoe accidentally hitting a wire.
DARPA was defense projects funded by the military for the military. NSF predates DARPA by 8 years. DARPA did not fill a role closer to the NSF today.
It was after ARPANET was created for the military that it was expanded into general university use by NSF into NSFNet in 1986.
(I worked for Bob Kahn and Vint Cerf in the early 90’s.)
DARPA was originally ARPA. They were under the department of defense but their project scope wasn’t limited to defense projects. The reorganization that rebranded the agency as DARPA and made it defense focused ostensibly saw the non-defense oriented moonshot project responsibility transfer to the NSF, although the funding shift wasn’t proportional.
The order of creation isn’t exactly relevant to how responsibilities have shifted.
It’s kinda like how, for the longest time, presidential security was handled by the Treasury department. It wasn’t because presidential security was considered a financial matter, but because that’s where it fit.
https://www.darpa.mil/news/features/arpanet
From your link to the arpanet wiki:
There’s a big difference between ARPA funded labs and general university usage.
I’m not sure why it would matter that you worked for them in the early 90s. That doesn’t exactly give you a privileged insight into the creation of ARPANET.
Research facilities doing DOD research.
The president of the company got Vint and Bob on board because he was their military liason at Darpa.
The project I worked on was partially funded by Darpa. We reported weekly updates to a Lt Colonel.
The Internet was originally by the military and for the military and only later handed off to universities.