Summary: ACM SIGCOMM -1- Computer Communication Review
The Design Philosophy of the DARPA Internet Protocols
David D. Clark*
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Laboratory for Computer Science
Cambridge, MA. 02139
(Originally published in Proc. SIGCOMM `88, Computer Communication Review Vol. 18, No. 4,
August 1988, pp. 106­114)
*This work was supported in part by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) under Contract No. N00014-83-K-0125
Abstract
The Internet protocol suite, TCP/IP, was first proposed
fifteen years ago. It was developed by the Defense
Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), and
has been used widely in military and commercial
systems. While there have been papers and
specifications that describe how the protocols work, it is
sometimes difficult to deduce from these why the
protocol is as it is. For example, the Internet protocol is
based on a connectionless or datagram mode of service.
The motivation for this has been greatly misunderstood.

Source: Akella, Aditya - Department of Computer Sciences, University of Wisconsin at Madison

Collections: Computer Technologies and Information Sciences