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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach; ShadowAce
Geez, folks. This news is not shocking nor surprising in the least.

Doesn't anybody recognize the term "ARPANET", as in "(Defense) Advanced Research Projects Agency Network" -- the original name of the internet???

Doesn't anyone remember that the original purpose of the internet was to be a communications network between the military, government, selected research institutions, and selected businesses -- SPECIFICALLY IN TIME OF WAR???

And that its very design was robust and self-healing in order to withstand nuclear attack, including on critical nodes???

And that its explosive commercial growth in the last 15 years takes advantage of, but has nothing to do with, the basic operation of the internet???

Of course the military also have their own private networks, in part because their ARPANET internet was populated by a bunch of unfriendly interests and it would be rather silly to expose critical military systems to the modern internet at large. But that was always the case to some degree -- the internet cannot be effectively "policed", by intentional design (see above).

So why is this "news" a surprise to anyone older than 15 years old???

Sheesh. Whadda buncha noobs.

Present company excepted, of course. :)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARPANET

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Internet

22 posted on 07/14/2011 7:40:16 PM PDT by dayglored (Listen, strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government!)
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To: dayglored; Ernest_at_the_Beach; ShadowAce
Minor update to comment above:

> ... the original purpose of the internet ... withstand nuclear attack ...

There are those who deny that the ARPANET was about survivability in time of war. I personally think they are revisionists. The ARPANET/internet was conceived in 1963 -- at the very height of the Cold War and Cuban Missile Crisis. They weren't thinking about Facebook. they were thinking about nuclear war. Give me a break.

The sarcasm in my earlier comment is meant lightheartedly.

23 posted on 07/14/2011 8:04:47 PM PDT by dayglored (Listen, strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government!)
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