From: Samantha Atkins (samantha@objectent.com)
Date: Mon Dec 30 2002 - 02:36:25 MST
Harvey Newstrom wrote:
>
> On Sunday, December 29, 2002, at 11:57 am, Extropian Agro Forestry
> Ventures Inc. wrote:
>
>> We designed the Internet to be able to evolve into a global
>> consciousness
>
>
> No, we didn't. The Arpanet/Milnet/Internet was designed to be a robust
> communications network that could dynamically reroute around failures in
> case the Russians nuked the U.S. during the cold war.
I don't think so. It was mainly linking research centers at
universities originally and most of them were not military
research. In any event, that is something so far in ancient
history that it has little to do with subsequent evolution.
> I was one of the
> early network engineers on the Arpanet. I can assure you that evolution
> and consciousness were not part of the design. The RFCs and Internet
> Protocols still don't support or specify evolution or consciousness today.
>
Now, you are certainly right about that, generally speaking.
However the Net does tend to evolve.
>> I assume that the military developers are not focusing on this because
>> their objectives are focused to the security issues of the day.
>
>
> You act as if the military developers and the Internet developers were
> not one and the same until Al Gore's Internet Act created public access
> to the Internet. Before that, the Internet was military only with
> educational sites allowed on if they supported the military agenda.
>
That is not my memory of the situation by mid 1970s at least.
And again, what does that have to do with what the Net is now or
can become?
- samantha
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