[ih] When the words Internet was design to survive a nuclear war appeared for the first time? thanks
Jack Haverty
jack at 3kitty.org
Mon Feb 18 19:07:15 PST 2019
I vaguely remember being at a meeting sometime in the mid-80s. Some
government/military/contractor site, but can't remember where. It was a
large (15 or 20) group of people, none of whom I knew. They were using
lots of jargon I didn't recognize too. I had come in a bit late.
One of the terms that cropped up was "New Dets Per Second". I knew what
bits/second were, and kilobits/sec., and similar networky things, but
had never heard "New Dets Per Second".
After a while, the meaning became clear from context.... It was
actually "NuDets/Second", shorthand for "Nuclear Detonations Per Second".
I then finally realized I was in the wrong meeting.
So someone was thinking about such things...
/Jack
On 2/18/19 6:10 PM, Barbara Denny wrote:
> I don't remember Radia Perlman's ideas for supporting network
> partitioning and coalescing.
>
> SRI did have a project where we did a few experiments at SAC
> demonstrating a solution to this problem using the ARPAnet and Packet
> Radio networks. We did go out to Offutt for demonstrations using
> their aircraft. This was in the mid 80's. I also think I may have
> given a demonstration of the protocols during IETF 4 at SRI to a few
> people.
>
> I believe Zaw-Sing Su and Jim Mathis worked on the design of the
> Reconstitution Protocols. I took part in the development and
> demonstration . Mark Lewis also participated in the project as a
> developer and maybe more since I was not part of the project
> initially. I am pretty sure there was a paper at MILCOM about this work.
>
> I believe there was also a RFP in this same time frame asking for
> solutions to islands of connectivity that may happen as a result of
> military conflict. I worked on the SRI proposal at least twice if my
> memory is correct. (I think there may have been a protest to the
> original award so that is why the second proposal.) I don't remember
> if this project was ever awarded to anyone.
>
> barbara
>
>
> On Saturday, February 16, 2019, 9:26:54 AM PST,
> internet-history-request at postel.org
> <internet-history-request at postel.org> wrote:
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> Today's Topics:
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> 1. Re: When did "32" bits for IP register as "not enough"?
> (Craig Partridge)
> 2. Re: Fwd: Re: When the words Internet was design to survive a
> nuclear war appeared for the first time? (John Day)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Sat, 16 Feb 2019 09:35:10 -0700
> From: Craig Partridge <craig at tereschau.net <mailto:craig at tereschau.net>>
> Subject: Re: [ih] When did "32" bits for IP register as "not enough"?
> To: Bob Hinden <bob.hinden at gmail.com <mailto:bob.hinden at gmail.com>>
> Cc: internet history <internet-history at postel.org
> <mailto:internet-history at postel.org>>
> Message-ID:
>
> <CAHQj4Cc_D5Ee4Oj1VTNKCoY3t4iAvLoY1mHRxOf=Smwxk7krjQ at mail.gmail.com
> <mailto:Smwxk7krjQ at mail.gmail.com>>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
>
> Hi Bob:
>
> You are right about the implementations being in parallel for a
> while. I'm
> going to get the dates slightly wrong but Bill's code came out in 4.1c
> (1982?) and BBN kept maintaining its implementation (Dennis Rockwell and
> then Bob Walsh) until c. 1985. Indeed, as I recall there was a debate c.
> 1985 at DARPA about whether to force Berkeley to use the BBN code (which
> had been modified to use the sockets API, which everyone agreed was better
> -- I had a small part in the port to sockets).
>
> I believe that when the TCP/IP project transitioned to me (c. 1987?), I
> stopped effort on the BBN TCP/IP. I think we had to maintain it a bit as
> we'd licensed it to a workstation vendor (Apollo????). Karen Lam and
> David
> Waitzman switched to the BSD TCP/IP and we did things like help Steve
> Deering implement multicast and such.
>
> Thanks!
>
> Craig
>
>
>
> On Sat, Feb 16, 2019 at 9:24 AM Bob Hinden <bob.hinden at gmail.com
> <mailto:bob.hinden at gmail.com>> wrote:
>
> > Craig,
> >
> > > On Feb 15, 2019, at 12:38 PM, Craig Partridge <craig at tereschau.net
> <mailto:craig at tereschau.net>>
> > wrote:
> > >
> > > Important historical nit. I was the manager of the BBN UNIX TCP/IP
> > effort after Rob Gurwitz left (I think Rob inherited it from Jack
> Haverty,
> > but not sure). The BSD stack with sockets *was not written by BBN*. It
> > was written by Bill Joy at Berkeley -- using the earlier BBN 4BSD
> code as a
> > reference. Entirely new code, but originally bug-for-bug compatible
> > (indeed, years later, when a bug was found in the BSD TCP, the BSD folks
> > stood up and said "that's a bug from BBN?)
> >
> > My memory is that they both were maintained in parallel for several
> > years. Also, Bill Joy's TCP stack also had the ?trailers? feature where
> > the headers were at the end of the packet. Documented in RFC893 (
> > https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc893). Probably not so good for packet
> > switching, but better performance on some host implementations.
> That faded
> > away at some point.
> >
> > Bob
> >
> >
>
> --
> *****
> Craig Partridge's email account for professional society activities and
> mailing lists.
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> Message: 2
> Date: Sat, 16 Feb 2019 12:18:27 -0500
> From: John Day <jeanjour at comcast.net <mailto:jeanjour at comcast.net>>
> Subject: Re: [ih] Fwd: Re: When the words Internet was design to
> survive a nuclear war appeared for the first time?
> To: Steve Crocker <steve at shinkuro.com <mailto:steve at shinkuro.com>>
> Cc: internet-history at postel.org <mailto:internet-history at postel.org>
> Message-ID: <32E6E6ED-2C77-47A4-B374-EAB335638B69 at comcast.net
> <mailto:32E6E6ED-2C77-47A4-B374-EAB335638B69 at comcast.net>>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
>
> In the FWIW category, I remember that network partitions (between the
> East and West Coasts) occurred, not often but often enough to be
> noticeable, until the 3rd cross-country line went in. Then they were
> pretty much a rarity, if they occurred at all. Illinois was one of the
> jumping off points between East and West, so perhaps we just noticed
> them more.
>
> John
>
> > On Feb 16, 2019, at 11:25, Steve Crocker <steve at shinkuro.com
> <mailto:steve at shinkuro.com>> wrote:
> >
> > My brother forwarded the appended thread. It reminded me that I had
> previously been unsuccessful at joining this list, but I am now on the
> list.
> >
> > Over the years I have heard many times from many different people
> and also seen in print the idea that the Arpanet was motivated and
> built for nuclear survivability. Moreover, Steve Lukasik, the
> director of (D)ARPA for several of the critical years, included this
> as one of his reasons for signing the checks for the Arpanet.
> >
> > I think it will be helpful to make a couple of distinctions
> regarding network survivability. Let me offer two dimensions and at
> least two levels of disruption for each.
> >
> > Equipment outage: When a link or a router becomes unusable, it's
> necessary to route around the loss. It makes a big difference if only
> a few links or routers are down versus a significant fraction are
> down. In normal circumstances, it is expected some lines and some
> routers will be out of service from time to time. In contrast, if
> there is an attack, the outages might be substantial and perhaps
> purposefully coordinated.
> >
> > Traffic level: In normal operation, the total traffic is within the
> capacity of the network. In extraordinary times, the traffic level
> surges beyond the capacity of the system. Surges happen for various
> reasons. There might be a very popular web site, e.g. the Victoria
> Secrets incident, or a DDoS attack.
> >
> > Arguably the Arpanet design addressed survivability for the case
> when a small number of links or routers were out and traffic levels
> were normal. Alex colorfully describes Frank Heart's concerns for the
> risks to individual IMPs placed in the very risky environments of
> universities.
> >
> > The Arpanet design did not address the issue of large scale outages
> nor did it include strategies for dealing with overload. In contrast,
> a serious design to address post-nuclear operation would have had to
> address the combination of substantial loss of equipment and a huge
> spike in urgent traffic.
> >
> > In the conversations I've had with Lukasik on this matter, he says
> he had in mind the technology could lead to designs that would have
> that level of survivability, and that it was helpful to include this
> in defending the funding for the network. And, as Vint says,
> subsequent projects explored reconstitution in the event of certain
> kinds of disconnections. However, I believe the level of outages
> explored in those projects were well below the levels that would have
> occurred in a large scale nuclear confrontation.
> >
> > In 2017, I ran this question past Larry Roberts. His short reply
> was he would have had to connect each IMP to four others instead of
> only two or three others.
> >
> > Steve
> >
> >
> > -------- Forwarded Message --------
> > Subject: Re: [ih] When the words Internet was design to
> survive a
> > nuclear war appeared for the first time?
> > Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2019 12:30:36 -0500
> > From: Vint Cerf <vint at google.com <mailto:vint at google.com>
> <mailto:vint at google.com <mailto:vint at google.com>>>
> > To: Alex McKenzie <aamsendonly396 at gmail.com
> <mailto:aamsendonly396 at gmail.com> <mailto:aamsendonly396 at gmail.com
> <mailto:aamsendonly396 at gmail.com>>>
> > CC: internet history <internet-history at postel.org
> <mailto:internet-history at postel.org>
> <mailto:internet-history at postel.org <mailto:internet-history at postel.org>>>
> >
> >
> >
> > Alex is essentially correct. Paul Baran's work WAS aimed at
> post-nuclear
> > survival but he never got to try his ideas out as they
> > were rejected as unimplementable or uninteresting by a
> circuit-switching
> > oriented Defense Communications Agency.
> >
> > Larry Roberts was clear that the ARPANET was intended to support
> > resource sharing.
> >
> > By the time Bob Kahn and I started working on Internet with its
> focus on
> > command/control, the issue of survivability
> > was back on the table. The multi-network design contemplated multiple
> > networks operated by distinct entities
> > (in the DoD perspective it was multiple countries or aggregates like
> > NATO) and resilience was important. I went
> > so far as to commission a test in which we flew packet radios in
> > Strategic Air Command aircraft, artificially "broke"
> > the ARPANET up into fragments and re-integrated them through ground to
> > air packet radio connectivity. I was
> > particularly worried about the partitioning of a constituent network
> > which would cause great confusion for the
> > routing algorithm (a source gateway might know know to which "half" of
> > the fragmented network a packet should
> > be sent. My hazy recollection is that Radia Perlman came up with a way
> > to solve that problem that involved
> > creating new autonomous systems out of each "piece" and re-enabling
> > routing algorithms.
> >
> > vint
> >
> >
> > On Thu, Feb 14, 2019 at 12:18 PM Alex McKenzie
> <aamsendonly396 at gmail.com <mailto:aamsendonly396 at gmail.com>
> <mailto:aamsendonly396 at gmail.com <mailto:aamsendonly396 at gmail.com>>
> > <mailto:aamsendonly396 at gmail.com <mailto:aamsendonly396 at gmail.com>
> <mailto:aamsendonly396 at gmail.com <mailto:aamsendonly396 at gmail.com>>>>
> wrote:
> >
> > Miles,
> >
> > I believe the emphasis on survivability came from Frank Heart.
> > Building the early ARPAnet was a very risky project, in the sense
> > that there was a tight deadline, it would be easy to see if it
> > worked or not, and most people didn't believe it would work.
> > Frank's reputation was very much on the line. The ruggedized IMP
> > cabinet was part of his emphasis on controlling everything the team
> > could control, to minimize risk. But the particular risks the
> > ruggedized cabinet was intended to protect against were:
> > - careless site personnel, who cared about their own computers but
> > might be expected to stick the IMP in a storage closet where
> > maintenance workers would bump it, and
> > - graduate students who might be inclined to study it, perhaps with
> > destructive results. (Lest this seem outlandish, the TIP in Hawaii
> > was a sore spot of unreliability when I was running the NCC -
> > turned out a graduate student was crashing it every day by taping
> > into its power supply which was just right for his project.
> The TIP
> > was NOT in a ruggedized box.)
> > The group was not trying to protect against EMP.
> >
> > More generally, if the ARPAnet had been designed to survive a
> > nuclear attack it would have been necessary to insure that the
> > IMP-to_IMP circuits did not go through the small number of Telco
> > offices which made up the Telco backbone. No effort was made to
> > influence the provisioning of these circuits, and it can be
> presumed
> > that loss of only a few major cities would have resulted in most of
> > the leased lines disappearing.
> >
> > Cheers,
> > Alex
> >
> > On Thu, Feb 14, 2019 at 10:48 AM Miles Fidelman
> > <mfidelman at meetinghouse.net <mailto:mfidelman at meetinghouse.net>
> <mailto:mfidelman at meetinghouse.net
> <mailto:mfidelman at meetinghouse.net>>
> <mailto:mfidelman at meetinghouse.net <mailto:mfidelman at meetinghouse.net>
> <mailto:mfidelman at meetinghouse.net
> <mailto:mfidelman at meetinghouse.net>>>> wrote:
> >
> > Bernie,
> >
> > On 2/14/19 9:28 AM, Bernie Cosell wrote:
> >
> > > On February 14, 2019 09:13:42 Alejandro Acosta
> > > <alejandroacostaalamo at gmail.com
> <mailto:alejandroacostaalamo at gmail.com>
> <mailto:alejandroacostaalamo at gmail.com
> <mailto:alejandroacostaalamo at gmail.com>>>
> > > <mailto:alejandroacostaalamo at gmail.com
> <mailto:alejandroacostaalamo at gmail.com>
> <mailto:alejandroacostaalamo at gmail.com
> <mailto:alejandroacostaalamo at gmail.com>>> wrote:
> > >
> > >>
> > >> Today I was reading some news about Internet and in one of
> > >> them I
> > >> found the phrase (that all of you have listened before):
> > >> "Internet
> > >> (ARPANET) was intended to survive a nuclear war", however, as
> > >> far as I
> > >> know, this is kind of a myth, right?, ARPANET was intended as
> > >> a research
> > >> network and the "war" part if very far away from the thuth.
> > >
> > > my take on that is that there were two lines of thought
> > > leading up to the
> > > ARPAnet. very very roughly: one was paul baran's, who was
> > > thinking
> > > about how the military command and control might be able to
> > > continue functioning in the event of an attack, and JCR
> > > Licklider, who was thinking
> > > about how wide-spread researchers could share resources, ideas
> > > and results
> > > to better collaborate.
> > >
> > > when the ARPAnet got funded by the DoD, Baran's story was the
> > > easier to
> > > understand to the average person, raather than the more
> > > diaphanous idea
> > > of researcher collaboration. so Baran's take kinda caught the
> > > public
> > > imagination, but the reality for those of us working on it was
> > > the it was
> > > {somehow :o)} to be a research tool.
> > >
> > You were involved a lot earlier than I was. Perhaps you could
> > comment on how much folks thought about fault-tolerance in the
> > early days. It's always struck me that things like
> > continuity-of-operations, in the face of node & link outages,
> > and no-single-point-of-failure, were baked in from the
> > beginning. You know - all the stuff that would allow the net to
> > survive everything from backhoes to natural disasters, and
> > coincidentally, nuclear war.
> >
> > On the physical side, the early IMPs were pretty rugged boxes
> > (not so much C/30s and such). Were any of the IMPs built to
> > withstand EMP?
> >
> > Miles
> >
> >
> >
> > -- In theory, there is no difference between theory and
> > practice.
> > In practice, there is. .... Yogi Berra
> >
> > _______
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> >
> > --
> > New postal address:
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> >
> > --
> > Dave Crocker
> > Brandenburg InternetWorking
> > bbiw.net <http://bbiw.net/>
> > <Attached.txt>_______
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