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Re: Declaration of Indigenous Peoples on Genome Project
Peter D. Junger (junger@PDJ2-RA.F-REMOTE.CWRU.EDU)
Tue, 7 Mar 1995 07:59:11 +0000
On Mon, 6 Mar 1995, Todd N Nims wrote:
> If the US hadnt had the insatiable desire
> to get one over on the Soviets (and also have the ability to destroy
> them) neither you nor I would be using a computer today or surfing the net.
Leaving aside the fact that all contrafactuals are logically true, this
statement seems very dubious. The computer that I use is a direct
descendent of the old NorthStar Horizon, wooden cased, Z80, 56k CP/M box
that was my first computer (which was put together as piece-work in
somebody's garage) and which in turn descended from the Altair hobby
machine.
My initial net-surfing was on Bitnet and occasionally on DECnet, neither
of which was particularly influenced by or a product of the military, and
though the Internet Protocol was first developed by academics funded by
DARPA, the military applications were, as far as I know, purely defensive,
since they were designed to allow communications channels to survive an
attack (or an earthquake or a hurricane). And it seems likely that the
IP protocol and something like the current Internet would have been
developed without DARPA funding, although perhaps the net would not have
caught on quite so extensively without the boost that that funding gave.
--
Peter D. Junger--Case Western Reserve University Law School--Cleveland, OH
Internet: junger@pdj2-ra.f-remote.cwru.edu junger@samsara.law.cwru.edu
Bitnet: junger@cwru
NOTE: junger@pdj2-slip.dialin.cwru.edu NO LONGER EXISTS
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