DARPA

DARPA stands for Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. It is an agency of United States Department of Defense, which is responsible for production of new technologies for the use of the U.S defense forces. Its main objective is to develop and fund the development of advanced technologies used for military purposes and thus maintain the technological superiority of the country.

The formative years 1958-1975

DARPA was formed as a response to the Soviet Union’s launch of Space satellite, the Sputnik on October 4th 1957. The launch of Soviet’s space satellite came as a massive setback to the country’s space program, so it was decided by Dwight D. Eisenhower the President of U.S.A to start an Organization which should co-ordinate all the developments in the military technological sector and report directly to the Secretary of Defense. So, DARPA earlier only known as ARPA, was established in February, 1958 as a special agency in Pentagon reporting directly to the Secretary of Defense. DARPA thus began its successful functioning and in the period of just over ten years developed various space programs, a reliable nuclear explosion detection system for both the Space and Earth. It invented ARPA-NET which has formed the basis of present day internet and also assisted the US military with the field technology during the Vietnam War.

The Cold WAR: 1976-1989

With the arms race against the Soviet Union, and looming threat of nuclear war fare, DARPA undertook various tactical projects which focused primarily to build advanced weapon systems which can create a threat to the Soviet Union. DARPA developed the innovative technology of stealth aircrafts. These aircrafts were invisible to radar and were the most technologically advanced aircrafts. The Unmanned Aircraft Vehicle (UAV), capable of flying for a week at 75,000 feet, was also developed during this period. In 1976 the first wireless transmission around the world was made using ARPANET, this event marked the onset of mobile technology. With the U.S. technology growing powerful and the Russian military finding it difficult to keep up with the competition due to their financial lapse, Russia finally withdrew from the race. The threat of war surrendered due to DARPA’s initiatives and technological development.

Post Cold war: 1989 – present

After the cold war was resolved, the fall of Soviet Communism unleashed a new security threat. The chemical warfare, biological warfare, threat from EMP’s, Radiological attacks and other enumerable threats, that may have affected the security of U.S. and its citizens, were prevalent. With the view of avoiding these threats, DARPA formed an organization which would look after such threats and started creating technology which will quash any such kind of threat. In the mean time the success of operation Desert Storm in the year 1990 was greatly due to the DARPA’s technological advancement in various tactical fields such as stealth crafts and Laser guided missiles which hit the target with pin point accuracy. This Agency has timelessly served the nation by developing the most amazing and outstanding technology which is beyond imagination of a common person. DARPA continues to produce many more technological surprises and technological advancements both for military as well as the commercial usage.

DARPA and ICANN

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has taken over the functions of the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA), which was originally established by DARPA. The IANA was then a research project of the Information Sciences Institute (“ISI”) of USC’s School of Engineering under a contract of the DARPA. It was set up basically to establish, implement and look after the assignment policy and IP-allocation and to carry out similar functions for DNS, that is, assign technical parameter numbers and managing their assigned values, look after the DNS root server system.