Article
ID: CBB161620234

Financial and Administrative Infrastructure for the Early Internet Network Maintenance at the Defense Information Systems Agency (October 2018)

unapi
Maintenance and repair Computer networks Technological innovation Infrastructure ARPANet Internet 20th century United States United States. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) United States. Defense Communications Agency

Popular and scholarly histories of computer networking often focus on technical innovation and the social impact of those innovations. These histories are marked by a contradiction, namely, failing to explain the existence of the infrastructure that they must ultimately use as evidence for the success of innovation, and the conduit of its social impact. The story of the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Agency's (DARPA's) Arpanet, and the role of both in the invention of the modern Internet, is a central archetype of this genre. Taking our lead from recent work in infrastructure and maintenance studies, we propose a methodological and ontological inversion of Internet historiography—centering our explanation around the infrastructure that is assumed but not explained in innovation-centric accounts. We do so by focusing on the U.S. Defense Communications Agency (DCA; now the Defense Information Systems Agency), which is traditionally cast, contra DARPA, as a conservative enemy of innovation. We explore its maintenance of the financial and administrative infrastructure necessary for the Arpanet to function as a contribution to broader histories of network infrastructure.

...More
Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB161620234/

Similar Citations

Article Fidler, Bradley; Currie, Morgan; (2016)
Infrastructure, Representation, and Historiography in BBN's Arpanet Maps (/isis/citation/CBB826738719/)

Article DuPont, Quinn; Fidler, Bradley; (2016)
Edge Cryptography and the Codevelopment of Computer Networks and Cybersecurity (/isis/citation/CBB760734420/)

Article Day, John; (2016)
The Clamor Outside as INWG Debated: Economic War Comes to Networking (/isis/citation/CBB243873737/)

Book Salus, Peter H.; (2008)
The ARPAnet source book: The unpublished foundations of the internet (/isis/citation/CBB001180083/)

Article Brand, Stewart; (2001)
Founding father (/isis/citation/CBB001180052/)

Article Wolpin, Stewart; (Winter 2020)
Elizabeth Feinler, Internet Domains (/isis/citation/CBB974225093/)

Book Christopher Henke; Benjamin Sims; (2020)
Repairing Infrastructures: The maintenance of materiality and power (/isis/citation/CBB686813650/)

Article Lukasik, Stephen J.; (2011)
Why the Arpanet Was Built (/isis/citation/CBB001231710/)

Article Abbate, Janet; (2010)
Privatizing the Internet: Competing Visions and Chaotic Events, 1987--1995 (/isis/citation/CBB001231740/)

Article Scott Knowles; (2016)
Deferred Maintenance: The American Disaster Multiplier (/isis/citation/CBB535175191/)

Book David D. Clark; Sandra Braman; (2018)
Designing an Internet (/isis/citation/CBB601148284/)

Book Johnston, Jessica R.; (2009)
Technological Turf Wars: A Case Study of the Computer Antivirus Industry (/isis/citation/CBB001230682/)

Article Frank Edward; Mikael Hård; (June 2020)
Maintaining the local Empire: The Public Works Department in Dar es Salaam, 1920–60 (/isis/citation/CBB951503443/)

Article Russell, Andrew Lawrence; James L. Pelkey; Loring Robbins; (Spring 2022)
The Business of Internetworking: Standards, Start-Ups, and Network Effects (/isis/citation/CBB136746708/)

Book Benjamin Peters; (2016)
How Not to Network a Nation: The Uneasy History of the Soviet Internet (/isis/citation/CBB113949248/)

Thesis Joy Marie Lisi Rankin; (2015)
Personal Computing Before Personal Computers: The Origins of America's Digital Culture (/isis/citation/CBB900832288/)

Article Walach, Thomas; (2019)
Frühe Netzdemokratie? Möglichkeiten und Grenzen der Nutzer-Partizipation im Arpanet. (Early net democracy? Possibilities and limits of user participation in Arpanet.) (/isis/citation/CBB706027112/)

Chapter Peters, Benjamin; Lubken, Deborah; (2011)
New media in crises: Discursive instability and emergency communication (/isis/citation/CBB001180045/)

Article Michel, Keith; Noble, Peter; (Summer 2008)
Technological Advances in Maritime Transportation (/isis/citation/CBB503280026/)

Article Dennis E. Howe; (1994)
The Maintenance of New Hampshire's First Polyphase Hydroelectric Station (Photo Essay) (/isis/citation/CBB218176472/)

Authors & Contributors
Fidler, Bradley Reuben
Peters, Benjamin
Loring Robbins
Michel, Keith
Currie, Morgan
Joy Marie Lisi Rankin
Journals
IEEE Annals of the History of Computing
The Journal of Transport History
Technology's Stories
The Bridge: Journal of the National Academy of Engineering
American Heritage of Invention and Technology
Publishers
The MIT Press
MIT Press
Concepts
Internet
Computer networks
ARPANet
Infrastructure
Maintenance and repair
Computers and computing
People
Feinler, Elizabeth
Time Periods
20th century
20th century, late
21st century
19th century
Places
United States
New Hampshire (U.S.)
Tanzania (Tanganyika, Zanzibar)
Minnesota (U.S.)
Soviet Union
Institutions
Minnesota Educational Computing Consortium
International Network Working Group
American Telegraphone Company
Dartmouth University
National Science Foundation (U.S.)
Comments

Be the first to comment!

{{ comment.created_by.username }} on {{ comment.created_on | date:'medium' }}

Log in or register to comment

Creative Commons License REST API