[bvw]

The device you use to post your attacks is the direct result of governement research spending

Parts are government, parts are volunteer (most of the standards), parts are commercial. It's a mix. Bisync, SDLC, HDLC ... the fore-runners of the low level net protocols were largely wrought by IBM, Honeywell, Burroughs -- for commercial use.

But take your assertion at face for the purpose of discussion -- that the government brought the internet into being. Okay. Then those particular government wise guys and contractors (DARPA, et al) backed off and let everyone else take over. They didn't turn the internet into a Federal Pensionaires Dukedom.

[HamiltonJay]

ACtually I was speaking of the CPU running your box, take a look at Intel's past. And if you use an AMD or knock off, even reverse engineering still owes its creation to the research who created the original concepts... and they were indeed funded by good old Uncle Sam.

As to the commercialization of the Internet, I am not sure where you are trying to go with that one. Fact is, all of the activity we engage in on a daily basis in our lives, that is built on top of that technology would not exist without the underlying technology. You can't escape it, government spending created the foundations of much of the technology we use daily today... that's reality.