[asterisk-biz] ANI

[Trixter aka Bret McDanel]

On Thu, 2008-05-15 at 00:15 -0400, Steve Totaro wrote:
> Originally it was a few trusted nodes and the only real security was
> physical, meaning access to a terminal.  ARPA/DARPAnet security guards
> certainly would not let just anyone access a terminal.

I do not think that there were DARPA guards at the universities that
designed and built the first parts of the internet.  Remember DARPA
funded it but didnt create it, that was by other university folk.  In
addition DARPA stopped any oversight in 1975 (a year after the term
"internet" was first notably seen) becuase their job was not to manage
or maintain things such as this network, but it was to fund research and
development.  As such, the policy of posting guards when they
acknowledged it wasnt their job to manage or maintain the network seems
questionable.

The initial funding meant that it was non-commercial in nature, this
meant that universities, researchers, and some military was there, but
remember milnet didnt join until 1980, and split it off in 1983
(maintaining gateways but not trafficing over the same links)

Many of the initial users were scientists, librarians, computer experts
and such.  Yeah, there was a movement in the 60s in Ohio to computerize
book catalogs that by the 70s was an international effort.  This did
eventually join the internet as there was in the US a multi-state effort
to not only have these catalogs but share them.

Spam had its 30th birthday just the other day (email from DEC on May 3
1978), where were the guards?  What about for the few hundred that
received the original email and complained their systems costing often
hundreds of thousands of dollars was being used for marketing.  

Ok, they gave up oversight in 1975, so that means from 1962 (when DARPA
got a guy from MIT who earlier that year was the first to publicly
propose a global network of computers) to 1975 the guards would have had
to been there at least in some fashion, but there wasnt milnet (joined
in 1980) or really anything classified on the network during those
years, and TCP didnt exist until 1973 (NCP did exist prior though).  Why
the first attempt to connect on Oct 29, 1969 crashed at the 3rd
character (G in LOGIN).  

So now we have the years 1969-1975 for DARPA to still be in control and
a network actually working.  You cant guard someone logging in from a
terminal when the network itself crashes, so its unlikely they were
guarding the terminals prior to the network actually running.  But still
during this period nothing classified is trafficing over the network.
It was also envisioned in 1962 by someone to be a global network of
computers all over everywhere.  That guy was specifically snatched up by
DARPA to further develop the network concept.  

Its seeming less likely, especially since just a few years after that
companies like DEC were there complete with sales people having access
to it (it was a sales guy that sent the original spam message).
Wikipedia states that it wasnt until the 80s that DEC joined, but the
sales guy who sent the first spam was prior to this so wikipedia is
wrong (yet again).


Basically I dont have proof there were no guards (its almost impossible
to prove a negative) but it doesnt look like its that probable given
what was on the network and its state through most of the early years of
it.  If you have some reference that states there was DARPA guards that
restricted access to the network I would like to hear about it.  I know
by 1979 that wasnt the case, as that was the first year I started using
world wide networks and there were zero guards at any of the many
terminals that I had access to.

-- 
Trixter http://www.0xdecafbad.com     Bret McDanel
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