@thedarktangent Great images.

That first diagram of centralised / decentralised / distributed networks is straight out of Paul Baran's 1964 work detailing the concept of packet-switched networks. You can get the original publications direct from the RAND Corporation, along with all his RAND works:

https://www.rand.org/about/history/baran.html

Of his other and later works, many concerned issues of privacy, surveillance, and discrimination made possible though computerised systems, showing remarkable prescience:

https://www.rand.org/pubs/authors/b/baran_paul.html

The full set was made publicly available free of charge after an inquiry I'd made a few years ago.

#PaulBaran #RandCorp #PacketSwitchedNetworks #Privacy #Surveillance #Networking

Paul Baran and the Origins of the Internet

A looming concern was that neither the long-distance telephone plant, nor the basic military command and control network would survive a nuclear attack. Although most of the links would be undamaged, the centralized switching facilities would be destroyed by enemy weapons. Consequently, Baran conceived a system that had no centralized switches and could operate even if many of its links and switching nodes had been destroyed.

https://www.rand.org/about/history/baran.html

HN discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25544113

#PaulBaran #RAND #PacketSwitchedNetworks