Re: [irtf-discuss] [Internet Policy] Why the World Must Resist Calls to Undermine the Internet

[David Lloyd-Jones <[e-mail]>]

Steve,

You're quite right: the Mansfield Amendment was about *all* military money
being separated from all civilian research and ARPA as a whole, not just
the computer part, was a small part of that. Nevertheless it scared the
bejeezus out of the universities and they ran around in circles and
panicked a lot. The simple addition of the D during the winter of '71~72
seemed to solve things -- but Mansfield no longer being in the Senate may
have been what mattered.

Best,
-dlj.


On Tue, 15 Mar 2022 at 09:42, Steve Crocker <[e-mail]> wrote:

> David,
>
> Thanks for the immediate response.
>
> I don't believe the Mansfield amendment was specific to DARPA.  DARPA was
> and always has been a very small part of the overall Department of Defense
> budget.
>
> Re "the Net," I'm not sure which network you're referring to.  The first
> several nodes of the Arpanet were all in the U.S.  Many, many lists and
> maps have been published documenting the growth of the Arpanet.  Given your
> reference to bangs, perhaps the net you're referring to was the UUNET,
> which used uucp to copy messages from one Unix machine to the next.  I'm
> less familiar with the details of its growth.
>
> Steve
>
>
> On Tue, Mar 15, 2022 at 9:28 AM David Lloyd-Jones <
> [e-mail]> wrote:
>
>> Steve,
>>
>> A fine piece, though you take the Official Truths a little too seriously.
>>
>> "Structured as an agile operation," may be said to be a sweet and nice
>> way of saying "slush fund."  "Overseen by both DoD management and the
>> relevant Congressional committees and subcommittees" is a fine joke for the
>> morning. In those days Federal budgets tended to be published about half
>> way through the fiscal year, but I believe Junior Bush achieved the
>> astonishing trick of publishing a budget after the entire year was over.
>> Even today, with Congressional staffs quadruple what they were back then,
>> DARPA is so small that I doubt it gets more than a couple of staffers'
>> mornings of serious consideration in a year.
>>
>> The addition of the D was entirely cosmetic, purely for the purpose of
>> paying lip-service to the Mansfield Amendment. The name had nothing to do
>> with the evolution of the agency itself. In 1962 it was just loose money
>> contributed by whichever Pentagon office could be made to cough it up
>> toward the end of the year. By ten years later, when then-Senator Mansfied
>> was concerned about the possible corrupting influence of military money, it
>> had a relatively fixed name, offices, and staff. The solidification has
>> continued, as you detail.
>>
>> FWIW, at the time when "the Net" had seven nodes two of them were in the
>> UK, the Defence Establishment, in London, and the fine artificial
>> intelligence group up in Edinborough. Both ARPAnet and DARPAnet were rare.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Tue, 15 Mar 2022 at 09:00, Steve Crocker <[e-mail]> wrote:
>>
>>> Adding to Vint's comments:
>>>
>>> I was at (D)ARPA from mid 1971 to mid 1974.  Bob Kahn arrived in late
>>> 1972.  Vint came a few years after I left.
>>>
>>> The Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) was created in 1958 in
>>> response to the launch of Sputnik.  It was placed within the Defense
>>> Department's Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD).  I believe OSD was
>>> about 2,000 people.  ARPA was approximately 150 people.  It was
>>> purposefully structured as an agile operation, authorized to define its own
>>> projects and get them moving quickly.  Its authority and operation were
>>> overseen by both DoD management and the relevant Congressional committees
>>> and subcommittees.  "Slush fund" is a pejorative term that mischaracterizes
>>> the organization.
>>>
>>> In 1972, following a decision to reduce the size of OSD, ARPA was moved
>>> out of OSD and became a Defense agency.  This put it in the same status as
>>> the other Defense agencies, e.g., Defense Mapping Agency (DMA), Defense
>>> Intelligence Agency (DIA), Defense Nuclear Agency (DNA), et al.  In the
>>> process, "ARPA" acquired the "D" and became DARPA.  There was no
>>> appreciable change in the mission, structure or operation of the agency.
>>> On paper, the director of DARPA now reported directly to the Secretary of
>>> Defense instead of the Defense Director for Research and Engineering
>>> (DDR&E).  In practice, the reporting lines remained the same.  I don't
>>> believe the transition had anything to do with the Mansfield amendment.
>>> (D)ARPA was unabashedly doing work on a wide range of military technologies
>>> both before and after the transition.  Each internal funding  memo included
>>> a section describing the relevance of the effort being funded to the
>>> overall DoD mission.  I wrote my share of these, as did every program
>>> manager.  See the next paragraphs for a key point related to this.
>>>
>>> Internally, (D)ARPA is divided into a handful of Offices.  Each Office
>>> focuses on specific technologies.  Offices are created, folded down, and
>>> renamed at various times.  In the beginning, ARPA focused on the space
>>> program.  In 1962, the Information Processing Techniques Office (IPTO) was
>>> formed to focus on advanced computer science technology.  JCR Licklider was
>>> the first director.  The Office funded research across a broad spectrum of
>>> computer science topics ranging from time-sharing systems, graphics,
>>> multiprocessor architectures, and artificial intelligence.  Many of these
>>> ideas had already been articulated and pursued in a few labs around the
>>> country.  IPTO was able to put considerably more money into these areas.
>>>
>>> The Offices were how the agency was structured from a personnel point of
>>> view.  From a budget point of view, the agency was structured in terms of
>>> "programs."  Each program had a budget and an objective.  These were
>>> documented and reported to DoD management and Congress each year.
>>>
>>> Most of the Offices had programs that were intended to yield results
>>> within a few years.  However, IPTO, the Materials Science Office, and the
>>> Behavioral Sciences Office funded research with a *much* longer time
>>> horizon.  These were considered "basic research" offices, in contrast to
>>> the other "development" Offices.  The aggregate funding for basic research
>>> was just a small fraction of the overall (D)ARPA budget, which meant that
>>> most of (D)ARPA's funding was producing visible results fairly regularly.
>>> The budgets and progress of the basic research Offices were still reviewed
>>> annually, but the expectations were adjusted.
>>>
>>> The terms "basic research" and "development" correspond to the budget
>>> designations "6.1" and "6.2."  Line 6 in McNamara's famous reorganization
>>> of the Defense budget was Research, Development, Test and Engineering
>>> (RDT&E), with designations of 6.1 through 6.4.  The funding levels were
>>> significantly different, i.e. 6.1 << 6.2 << 6.3 << 6.4.  (D)ARPA's funding
>>> was limited to just 6.1 and 6.2 programs.
>>>
>>> In terms of its budget, IPTO evolved and became a hybrid Office with two
>>> programs, one with 6.1 funding and one with 6.2 funding.  The artificial
>>> intelligence work was part of the 6.1 budget.  The big system developments,
>>> e.g., Illiac IV and Multics, were part of the 6.2 budget.
>>>
>>> As noted, the idea of a network had been written about and was
>>> definitely part of the vision.  There were a handful of small efforts to
>>> connect two or three computers.  The Arpanet was conceived and initiated in
>>> 1965-66.  After a couple of years of planning, the Request for Quotation
>>> for the IMPs was released in 1968.  Bolt, Beranek and Newman (BBN) in
>>> Cambridge, MA was selected, and work began in 1969.  The first IMP was
>>> delivered to UCLA at the beginning of September that year.
>>>
>>> When the Arpanet was up and running, IPTO began to look at packet radio
>>> and packet satellite networking.  With strong support from the director of
>>> the agency, Steve Lukasik, a third budget line item was created, also
>>> within the overall 6.2 budget, that focused on communications.
>>>
>>> ============================
>>>
>>> I believe the use of the exclamation point (!), informally called
>>> "bang," was part of the UUNET routing scheme, not the Arpanet routing or
>>> email addressing.
>>>
>>> Steve
>>>
>>>
>>> On Tue, Mar 15, 2022 at 7:59 AM vinton cerf via InternetPolicy <
>>> [e-mail]> wrote:
>>>
>>>> 1. Arpanet was never called "Darpanet"
>>>> 2. I don't think we ever "numbered" users since getting on the Arpanet
>>>> was mostly by having an account on a time-sharing computer at a university
>>>> (or research lab) that had an ARPA contract.
>>>> 3. "bangs" were at email level, not Arpanet (or Internet) level of
>>>> routing. The "bang" email addresses aided routing through application level
>>>> gateways.
>>>> 4. Bob Kahn, Dave Walden, Frank Heart and many others at BBN did the
>>>> Arpanet IMP design. The Arpanet Host-Host NCP effort was led by Steve
>>>> Crocker (Jon Postel and I and others helped) and stabilized enough to
>>>> support email in 1971 and a public demonstration in October 1972. The
>>>> Internet work started the next year in 1973. Since Internet was conceived
>>>> as a network of networks, you needed more than one network to make an
>>>> Internet. There were three to begin with: Arpanet, Packet Radio Net and
>>>> Packet Satellite Net, all funded by ARPA.
>>>>
>>>> On Tue, Mar 15, 2022 at 4:50 AM David Lloyd-Jones via InternetPolicy <
>>>> [e-mail]> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Willi,
>>>>>
>>>>> You have shown us that you are full of good sentiments. Quite a lot of
>>>>> them. Very good ones. I assume that you know something about the start and
>>>>> development of the Internet but no such knowledge has found its way into
>>>>> your long post.
>>>>> .
>>>>> First proposed by Bacon in the fifteenth century or so, the 'Net was a
>>>>> solid policy proposal made by Vannevar Bush in 1945. It was made possible
>>>>> by the invention of packet-switching in the mid-1960 to 70s. Johnny Foster,
>>>>> JFK's science advisor in 1961, was the first person I know of to have done
>>>>> solid financing of the effort.  Bush was working on wide-scale computer
>>>>> networking, along with many other things, when I met him in his
>>>>> utterly false "retirement" in Lexington, Mass. in 1976. This was well
>>>>> before your Reagan Administration.
>>>>>
>>>>> The original present "internet" was ARPAnet  (on which I was user #300
>>>>> in 1971). This was financed before it really existed by ARPA when that
>>>>> "Agency" was more-or-less a slush fund passed around at random in the
>>>>> Pentagon. It continued as DARPAnet after they added that "D," for defence,
>>>>> to pretend compliance with the Mansfield Amendment. I worked on this on
>>>>> Congressional staff in 1969-71 and at MIT in '72. The D was tacked on in
>>>>> December '71 or January '72, I forget, but had been in the works ever since
>>>>> Mansfied, as Senator, had tried to prevent military money from corrupting
>>>>> civilian research. Unfortunately, civilian researchers cried piteously that
>>>>> they wanted to be corrupted. By then, Mansfied was ambassador to Japan....
>>>>>
>>>>> When the scalability of the internetted nets, DARPAnet, began to seem
>>>>> limited, -- all those !!! "bangs," -- its growth was smoothed by the
>>>>> development of the present TCP/IP, credited to Bob Kahn and Vint Cerf. When
>>>>> Cerf later went to work for MCI, a hapless little phone company, their PR
>>>>> department tub-thumped that he was "the" founder of "the" Internet. Many
>>>>> people seem to have believed this inanity. More recently this has been
>>>>> toned down to "a" founder of the Internet. In fact packet-switching, the
>>>>> key invention, was largely the work of Lenny Kleinrock, under whom Cerf
>>>>> studied as a university student. Their much later contribution to TCP/IP
>>>>> has certainly been useful.
>>>>>
>>>>> On Fri, 11 Mar 2022 at 13:07, willi uebelherr via InternetPolicy <
>>>>> [e-mail]> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Why the World Must Resist Calls to Undermine the Internet
>>>>>> Andrew Sullivan, 02.03.2022
>>>>>>
>>>>>> https://www.internetsociety.org/blog/2022/03/why-the-world-must-resist-calls-to-undermine-the-internet/
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Dear friends,
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Andrew Sullivan rightly pointed out in his text that "the Internet is
>>>>>> for everyone". Absolutely right in the idea.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> But the reality is different. The technical players acting today are
>>>>>> not
>>>>>> interested in a free global communication of people, but in a
>>>>>> commercialization and capitalization of their needs for communication.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> This result did not come about by chance, but was already the
>>>>>> essential
>>>>>> guiding principle at the beginning by the government of the USA under
>>>>>> Ronald Reagan. The original concept of "the inter-connection of local
>>>>>> Net-works", which is necessarily based on local networks, became a
>>>>>> privately and state organized system of interconnected star-systems,
>>>>>> "the inter-connection of private Star-Systems".
>>>>>>
>>>>>> This interconnection of star-systems creates the possibility to
>>>>>> organize
>>>>>> access and exclusion according to arbitrary criteria. And we see
>>>>>> today
>>>>>> that the system of a free global communication has turned into a
>>>>>> field
>>>>>> of censorship and private control mania, organized by countries
>>>>>> calling
>>>>>> themselves "the West". Already the naming points to organized
>>>>>> bullshit,
>>>>>> because the planet is a sphere and not a disk and thus any directions
>>>>>> can lead to the same goal.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> The actors of this fragmentation and breaking of a free human
>>>>>> communication "without borders" are those who call themselves
>>>>>> representatives of a "free world", but in fact trample every
>>>>>> diversity
>>>>>> with military boots. Every form of racial mania a'la Cecil Rhodes is
>>>>>> put
>>>>>> back on the table. Lying and hypocrisy is the form of communication
>>>>>> that
>>>>>> is now elevated to the absolute.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> The idea of telecommunication in the form of an Internet that does
>>>>>> not
>>>>>> adhere to private or governmental or geographical boundaries, as we
>>>>>> saw
>>>>>> with Jonathan Postel, was destroyed at the very beginning of the life
>>>>>> of
>>>>>> an Internet. Today we see what a monster of small-minded power
>>>>>> madness
>>>>>> it has developed into, where only private profit interests and state
>>>>>> delusions of control apply.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> The alternative always remains. A telecommunication in the form of an
>>>>>> internet, which rests on local networks and thus enables free access
>>>>>> to
>>>>>> all people of our planet, independent of their social situation and
>>>>>> geographical position.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> That and only that is a "net of nets".
>>>>>>
>>>>>> with kind regards, willi
>>>>>> Asuncion, Paraguay
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> in german -----------------------------------------------------------
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Liebe freunde,
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Andrew Sullivan hat zu Recht in seinem Text darauf hingewiesen, "the
>>>>>> Internet is for everyone". Absolut richtig in der Idee.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Aber die Wirklichkeit sieht anders aus. Die heute agierenden
>>>>>> technischen
>>>>>> Akteure sind nicht an einer freien globalen Kommunikation der
>>>>>> Menschen
>>>>>> interessiert, sondern an einer Kommerzialisierung und Kapitalisierung
>>>>>> ihrer Beduerfnisse nach Kommunikation.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Dieses Resultat ist nicht zufaellig entstanden, sondern war bereits
>>>>>> zu
>>>>>> Anfang das wesentliche Leitmotiv durch die Regierung der USA unter
>>>>>> Ronald Reagan. Das urspruengliche Konzept "the Inter-connection of
>>>>>> local
>>>>>> Net-works", das ja notwendig auf lokalen Netzwerken ruht, wurde zu
>>>>>> einem
>>>>>> privat und staatlich organisierten System von verbundenen
>>>>>> Sternsystemen,
>>>>>> "the inter-connection of private Star-Systems".
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Diese Verbindung von Stern-Systemen schafft die Moeglichkeit, nach
>>>>>> beliebigsten Kriterien den Zugang und Ausschluss zu organisieren. Und
>>>>>> wir sehen heute, dass sich das System einer freien globalen
>>>>>> Kommunikation zu einem Feld der Zensur und privatem Kontrollwahn
>>>>>> entwickelt hat, das von Laendern organisiert wird, die sich "der
>>>>>> Westen"
>>>>>> nennen. Schon die Namensgebung deutet auf organisierten Schwachsinn,
>>>>>> weil der Planet eine Kugel und keine Scheibe ist und damit beliebige
>>>>>> Richtungen zum gleichen Ziel fuehren koennen.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Die Akteure dieser Zersplitterung und Zerbrechung einer freien
>>>>>> menschlichen Kommunikation "ohne Grenzen" sind jene, die sich als
>>>>>> Vertreter einer "freien Welt" bezeichnen, tatsaechlich aber jede
>>>>>> Diversitaet mit militaerischen Stiefeln zertrampeln. Jede Form des
>>>>>> Rassenwahns a'la Cecil Rhodes wird wieder auf den Tisch gestellt. Die
>>>>>> Luege und Heuchelei ist diejenige Form der Kommunikation, die nun zum
>>>>>> absoluten Mass erhoben wird.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Die Idee einer Telekommunikation in Form eines Internet, das sich
>>>>>> nicht
>>>>>> an private oder staatliche oder geografische Grenzen haelt, wie wir
>>>>>> es
>>>>>> bei Jonathan Postel sahen, wurde schon zu Beginn der Lebensphase
>>>>>> eines
>>>>>> Internet zerstoert. Heute sehen wir, zu welchem Monster
>>>>>> kleingeistigem
>>>>>> Machtwahns es sich entwickelt hat, wo nur noch private
>>>>>> Profitinteressen
>>>>>> und staatlicher Kontrollwahn gelten.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Die Alternative bleibt immer existent. Eine Telekommunikation in Form
>>>>>> eines internet, das auf lokalen Netzwerken ruht und so allen Menschen
>>>>>> unseres Planeten den freien Zugang ermoeglicht, unabhaengig von ihrer
>>>>>> sozialen Lage und geografischen Position.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Das und nur das ist ein "Netz der Netze".
>>>>>>
>>>>>> mit lieben gruessen, willi
>>>>>> Asuncion, Paraguay
>>>>>>
>>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>>> To manage your Internet Society subscriptions
>>>>>> or unsubscribe, log into the Member Portal at
>>>>>> https://admin.internetsociety.org/622619/User/Login
>>>>>> and go to the Preferences tab within your profile.
>>>>>> -
>>>>>> View the Internet Society Code of Conduct:
>>>>>> https://www.internetsociety.org/become-a-member/code-of-conduct/
>>>>>>
>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>> To manage your Internet Society subscriptions
>>>>> or unsubscribe, log into the Member Portal at
>>>>> https://admin.internetsociety.org/622619/User/Login
>>>>> and go to the Preferences tab within your profile.
>>>>> -
>>>>> View the Internet Society Code of Conduct:
>>>>> https://www.internetsociety.org/become-a-member/code-of-conduct/
>>>>>
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> To manage your Internet Society subscriptions
>>>> or unsubscribe, log into the Member Portal at
>>>> https://admin.internetsociety.org/622619/User/Login
>>>> and go to the Preferences tab within your profile.
>>>> -
>>>> View the Internet Society Code of Conduct:
>>>> https://www.internetsociety.org/become-a-member/code-of-conduct/
>>>>
>>>