Ronda Hauben on Tue, 11 Jan 2000 18:21:57 +0100 (CET) |
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<nettime> Basic Research and the Internet: Draft paper for comment |
I am working on a new draft paper about the development of the Internet and the basic research that made the Internet possible. Part I is available and I welcome comments on it. Following is an introduction and the URL for the draft follows. Computer Science and the Role of Government in the Development of the Internet: by Ronda Hauben rh120@columbia.edu Part I - Basic Research for the National Defense and the U.S. Department of Defense: A Paradox? "It must be clearly understood that most of this money purchased research of the highest quality. However, not nearly so clear is the rationale that dictated that the Department of Defense whould be the principal sponsoring agency for much of this vital research." "A History of the Information Processing Techniques Office of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency" by Norberg and O'Neill, pg. 339 I-A Successful Basic Research Program is Challenged by the US Congress. The question emerges of why and what would be the effect? In fiscal 1970, the Senate Appropriations Committee raised the question of whether the U.S. Department of Defense was within its mission obligations to be funding the forefronts research and development work that it was supporting. This research included the development of a new scientific field, the field of computer science, and more particularly, the field of computer communications. This question raised by Congress, whatever the cause, had an important effect on the development of this new science and of its progeny which includes the Internet among its spectacular achievements. In this paper I want to explore several questions, the first and perhaps most interesting: Why would the U.S. Department of Defense be the place where this new field of scientific research developed? I also want to look at this field of research, the field of computer communications research and explore how it developed. And perhaps most importantly, I want to look at the effect that the Congressional concern had the research and the researchers. These experiences raise the question why the US government, which has a constitutional obligation to provide for the welfare of its citizens and for the national defense, would act in this way. Are these actions contrary to these obligations? A second significant result of this challenge by Congress would ultimately be that the Information Processing Techniques Office (IPTO) which pioneered basic research in computer science and in the new field of computer communications at ARPA in the DoD would be ended in 1986. With the end of IPTO a significant loss was sustained by people in the US and abroad who have gained much from the work of this office. However, to understand the nature of the problem that led to the end of IPTO in 1986, it is important to look back and try to understand why basic research in science and then in computer science had come to be placed within the U.S. Department of Defense. II. Basic Research and the National Defense What is the nature of basic research and how did support for certain kinds of basic research become a responsibility of the U.S. Department of Defense? To answer this question, it will be helpful to review how it is that civilian conducted basic scientific research that could be considered crucial to the national security or national defense would fall within the responsibility of the U.S. Department of Defense. See the draft paper: URL is http://www.columbia.edu/~rh120/other/basicresearch.txt or write for copy to ronda@panix.com Netizens: On the History and Impact of Usenet and the Internet http://www.columbia.edu/~hauben/netbook also in print edition ISBN 0-8186-7706-6 # distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission # <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: majordomo@bbs.thing.net and "info nettime-l" in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net