ARPANET

eZine lover (@eZine)

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Hacking ARPANET

 · 5 years ago

  

                                    ARPANET 
                                    ~~~~~~~ 
     ARPANET. The ARPANET, which is a major component of the NSFnet [National 
Science Foundation Network], began in 1969 as an R&D project managed by DARPA 
[Dept. of Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency]. ARPANET was an experiment 
in resource sharing, and provided survivable (multiply connected), high 
bandwidth (56 Kilobits per second) communications links between major existing 
computational resources and computer users in academic, industrial, and 
government research laboratories.  ARPANET is managed and funded by by the DCA 
[Defense Communications Agency] with user services provided by a network 
information center at SRI International. 
     ARPANET served as a test for the development of advanced network protocols 
including the TCP-IP protocol suite introduced in 1981.  TCP-IP and 
particularly IP, the internet protocol, introduced the idea of inter- 
networking -- allowing networks of different technologies and connection 
protocols to be linked together while providing a unified internetwork 
addressing scheme and a common set of transport of application protocols. This 
development allowed networks of computers and workstations to be connected to 
the ARPANET, rather than just single-host computers.  TCP-IP remain the most 
available and advanced, non-vendor-specific, networking protocols and have 
strongly influenced the current international standards of activity.  TCP-IP 
provide a variety of application services, including remote logon (Telnet), 
file transfer (FTP), and electronic mail (SMTP and RFC822). 
     ARPANET technology was so successful that in 1982, the Dept. of Defense 
(DOD) abandoned their AUTODIN II network project and adopted ARPANET technology 
for the Dept. of Defense Data Network (DDN).  The current MILNET, which was 
split form the original ARPANET in 1983, is the operational, unclassified 
network component of the DDN, while ARPANET remains an advanced network R&D 
tested for DARPA.  In practice, ARPANET has also been an operational network 
supporting DOD, DOE [Dept. of Energy], and some NSF-sponsored computer science 
researchers.  This community has come to depend on the availability of the 
network.  Until the advent of NSFnet, access to ARPANET was restricted to this 
community. 
     As an operational network in the scientific and engineering research 
community, and with the increasing availability of affordable super- 
minicomputers, ARPANET was used less as a tool for sharing remote computational 
resources than it was for sharing information.  The major lesson from the 
ARPANET experience is that information sharing is a key benefit of computer 
networking.  Indeed it may be argued that many major advances in computer 
systems and artificial intelligence are the direct result of the enhanced 
collaboration made possible by ARPANET. 
     However, ARPANET also had the negative effect of creating a have--have not 
situation in experimental computer research.  Scientists and engineers carrying 
out such research at institutions other than the twenty or so ARPANET sites 
were at a clear disadvantage in accessing pertinent technical information and 
in attracting faculty and students. 
     In October 1985, NSF and DARPA, with DOD support, signed a memorandum of 
agreement to expand the ARPANET to allow NSF supercomputer users to use ARPANET 
to access the NSF supercomputer centers and to communicate with each other. 
The immediate effect of this agreement was to allow all NSF supercomputer users 
on campuses with an existing ARPANET connection to use ARPANET.  In addition, 
the NSF supercomputer resource centers at the University of Illinois and 
Cornell University are connected to ARPANET. In general, the existing ARPANET 
connections are in departments of computer science or electrical engineering 
and are not readily accessible by other researchers.  However, DARPA has 
requested that the campus ARPANET coordinators facilitate access by relevant 
NSF researchers. 
     As part of the NSFnet initiative, a number of universities have requested 
connection to ARPANET.  Each of these campuses has undertaken to establish a 
campus network gateway accessible to all due course, be able to use the ARPANET 
to access the NSF supercomputer centers, from within their own local computing 
environment.  Additional requests for connection to the ARPANET are being 
considered by NSF.