[ih] Reconstitution Protocol (was When the words Internet was design to survive a nuclear war appeared for the first time? thanks)

[Greg Skinner]

I found some more information about the Reconstitution Protocol (RP) project.

SRI published a final report <https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a184755.pdf> in June 1987 describing RP architecture, implementation, and experiments.  The report cites Radia Perlman’s improved network partitioning paper <https://www.rfc-editor.org/ien/ien146.txt>, which was also a topic for discussion at an Internet Meeting <https://www.rfc-editor.org/ien/ien145.txt> held at MIT in May 1980.

Jim Mathis presented a set of slides called “Automated Reconstitution Using Airborne Packet Radios” at IETF 1 <https://www.ietf.org/proceedings/01.pdf>   One of the slides is of an experiment that took place in 1981, involving the reconstitution of a packet radio network.

I remember there was a demo of RP, perhaps early in 1986, for several IETF members, including Dave Clark.  (I remember him specifically because after the demo ended, he wanted to have dinner, so he was inquiring “foodp?” of other attendees.)

—gregbo

> On Feb 19, 2019, at 4:38 AM, Vint Cerf <vint at google.com> wrote:
> 
> Barbara is right about the SRI role in the SAC tests - I may be
> misremembering the reconsittution protocol solutions and would be happy to
> get better information from Jim or Zaw-Sing if they are still around. I
> think the tests I remember were done in 1982. Charlie Brown was involved as
> an Air Force officer at the time.
> 
> Vint
> 
> 
> On Mon, Feb 18, 2019 at 11:18 PM Jack Haverty <jack at 3kitty.org> wrote:
> 
>> 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
>> 
> 

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