Eric Aupperle's Merit History: Disagreements | Network, Not Protocol

On November 12, 2026, Mark Nichols set Eric M. Aupperle's four-part history of Merit Network, Inc., reprinted from Library Hi Tech, Volume 16, Number 1 (1998), against dated documents and found that Aupperle's own history records that until February 1990 "Each non-Member required individual approval of Merit’s Board of Directors," which makes Merit's network an intranet under D2, and that the same history says of Merit's external access of the late 1970s to the mid-1980s, "Recall this predates today’s Internet by two decades!", while it calls Merit one of "the Internet pioneers," credits the ARPANET as "the father of the Internet" and credits the NSFNET project with converting a research Internet into "today’s worldwide commodity Internet phenomenon."

Preamble: I created this page to examine how Eric M. Aupperle, President of Merit Network, Inc., describes the network of Merit, the ARPANET, the NSFNET and the Internet in his four-part history of Merit, which Merit Network, Inc. publishes on its History page under the label "MERIT–WHO, WHAT, & WHY? 1964-1998+" and which was reprinted from Library Hi Tech, Volume 16, Number 1 (1998). The page records what Aupperle's history says about who could join Merit's network and when, and it tests his statements that Merit is "among the Internet pioneers," that "the ARPANET is credited as the father of the Internet," that "TCP/IP is the protocol of today’s Internet," that "Internet networks" were "announced on the backbone" from 1988, and that the NSFNET project was "the dominant factor" in producing "today’s worldwide commodity Internet phenomenon." The page sets Aupperle's history against its own sentences, against the NSFNET Backbone Services Acceptable Use Policy of the National Science Foundation and against the Commercial Internet Exchange agreement announced on March 25, 1991. Each finding on this page cites Aupperle's sentence by its number in Exhibit A in section 8.0 and names the dated document that decides it. Merit Network, Inc., “MERIT–WHO, WHAT, & WHY? 1964-1998+” · NSFNET Acceptable Use Policy: The Rule That Banned eCommerce · Birth of the Internet · The Governing Definitions and Controlling Facts of Telecommunications Internetworking. This page is Disagreement 69 in the standing index of the series, Disagreements of Published Claims | Network, Not Protocol, and a finding on this page is cited by that number followed by the finding's locus, as Disagreement 69, 1.1.

Opinion Rules: You are visiting my record, and I am the subject matter expert on it. If you are a subject matter expert too, I want to hear from you: bring your document and I will answer it on the record. If you are not, you are welcome here to read and to learn. The documented-challenge terms of marknichols.com and the condition on opinion are stated at F40 of The Governing Definitions and Controlling Facts of Telecommunications Internetworking, and they govern this page.

0.0 This section records the document this page examines, the documents this page read, the way the line numbers on this page are read, the definitions and rules the findings apply, the audit of the document as an authority, and the order of the sections that follow.

0.1 This page examines a four-part article by Eric M. Aupperle, President of Merit Network, Inc., as Merit Network, Inc. publishes it at https://www.merit.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/Merit-Network-History.pdf and links it from its History page at https://www.merit.edu/about/history/ under the label "DOWNLOAD “MERIT–WHO, WHAT, & WHY? 1964-1998+”". The file is fourteen pages long, and its document properties record that it was created on September 29, 2003 with Adobe InDesign 2.0.2. The copy that Mark Nichols supplied on November 12, 2026, in a file named "Merit-Network-History.pdf," is byte-identical to the file that Merit Network, Inc. publishes: both files are 672,875 bytes long, and their SHA-256 fingerprints match. The four parts are titled "Part One: The Early Years, 1964-1983," "Part Two: The Middle Years, 1983-1993," "Part Three: Recent Events, 1993-1998" and "Part Four: The Future, 1998 +," and the first page of each part carries the sentence "Reprinted from Library Hi Tech, Vol. 16, No. 1 (1998)." The title of the article, as printed at the head of each part, is reproduced at line 1 of Exhibit A. Merit Network, Inc., “MERIT–WHO, WHAT, & WHY? 1964-1998+”.

0.2 This page read Aupperle's article in full on November 12, 2026, in the copy that Merit Network, Inc. publishes, as 0.1 records, and every quotation of the article on this page was checked against the text of that copy. The original printing in Library Hi Tech was not read, and the report that the article cites as "NSFNET: A Partnership for High-Speed Networking, Final Report 1987-1995" was not read. The NSFNET Backbone Services Acceptable Use Policy is cited in the words that this site's page NSFNET Acceptable Use Policy: The Rule That Banned eCommerce quotes from the June 1992 text preserved by Merit Network at nic.merit.edu.

0.3 Each line number on this page refers to Exhibit A in section 8.0. Aupperle's article is a copyrighted work, so Exhibit A reproduces only the sentences of the article that this page cites, numbered in the order in which the article prints them, each with the part of the article and the page of the fourteen-page copy on which it appears. Each finding also quotes the sentence it answers.

0.4 The capital-I Internet (D1) is the publicly joinable network of networks of the registry lineage, whose addresses and autonomous system numbers were issued by the InterNIC and are maintained today by ARIN. On that network, a person can buy access from competing providers for lawful purposes, and an independent network can obtain addresses and an autonomous system number and interconnect by agreement with a willing network, without the permission of a central owner or the sponsorship of a government. Under D1, the Internet was born in 1991 on the Commercial Internet Exchange agreement announced on March 25, 1991 by General Atomics, Performance Systems International, Inc. and UUNET Technologies, Inc. Under D1.7, the words of lineage, such as father, parent, ancestor, forerunner and precursor, are not used on marknichols.com for the ARPANET. An intranet (D2) is a network, at any scale and under any protocol, whose members join by an owner's permission. Under D6, a protocol design is a specification that hosts and routers implement, and it does not by itself give rise to a network. A lowercase internet (D11) is any interconnection of networks, including gated ones, and the capital I in this site's own prose means the publicly joinable network of the registry lineage born in 1991 and nothing else. Governing Definitions, D1, D1.7, D2, D6, and D11.

0.5 This page answers three kinds of disagreement, and each finding on this page names the kind that applies.

  1. A documentary contradiction occurs when a dated record conflicts with a sentence as written. This page answers it with the dated record and a dated correction.
  2. A scope overstatement occurs when the evidence establishes a narrower event, network, date or function than the sentence claims. This page answers it with the scope the evidence establishes.
  3. A definitional disagreement occurs when the document and this site apply different criteria to the same term. This page answers it by attributing each usage to its source.

0.6 This page applies to Aupperle's article the five checks that Mark Nichols ruled on October 2, 2026, and extended on October 23, 2026, for every authority a page cites or disputes, and the five checks return the following results.

  1. The issuing body is Merit Network, Inc., which Aupperle's article records was established by the officers of Michigan State University, the University of Michigan and Wayne State University as "the Michigan Educational Research Information Triad, Inc. (MERIT) [1] as a non-profit corporation in October 1966," as line 2 quotes.
  2. The author of the article is named: Eric M. Aupperle, whom each part of the article names as "President, Merit Network, Inc."
  3. The instrument is a signed article with a named author and a named place of first publication, Library Hi Tech, Volume 16, Number 1 (1998).
  4. The custodian of the article is Merit Network, Inc., which serves the article at merit.edu from its History page, as 0.1 records.
  5. The overlap between the author and the subject is recorded here as a finding: the article is a history of Merit Network, Inc. written by the president of Merit Network, Inc., and the article reports the work of Merit, of its partners IBM and MCI and of Aupperle himself, whom the article names in the third person as the person appointed Merit's director in 1974 and as the person whose title was changed to president in October 1988. This page makes no finding on why the overlap exists.

Under D12, contemporaneous primary documents control over retrospective accounts. Aupperle's article is a retrospective account written in 1998 by the president of the organization it describes, so no sentence of the article is carried on this page as controlling, and the article's own record of Merit's membership rule is read as Merit's own testimony about Merit. Governing Definitions, D12.

0.7 Under F56, Mark Nichols ruled on October 23, 2026 that a sentence of history or of definition is true or false as written. This page reads every sentence of the article as written by the person who wrote it. A sentence whose predicate is false as written is false, whether the falsity arose from compression, from shorthand or from intent. Each corrected statement on this page supplies the network, the document, the date or the event that the sentence left out. Governing Definitions, F56.

0.8 Sections 1.0 through 6.0 each record one finding, in the order of the article's own sentences.

  1. Section 1.0 answers line 4, which calls Merit one of "the Internet pioneers," and sets it against line 5, which says that Merit's external access "predates today’s Internet by two decades!"
  2. Section 2.0 answers line 6, "Today the ARPANET is credited as the father of the Internet."
  3. Section 3.0 answers lines 7, 8 and 13, which define networking standards as protocols and call TCP/IP "the protocol of today’s Internet" and "today’s Internet standard."
  4. Section 4.0 records lines 9 to 11 and 17 to 18, in which Aupperle's article records that Merit's Board of Directors approved each non-Member individually until February 1990.
  5. Section 5.0 answers lines 14 and 15, which count "Internet networks" and "countries comprising the Internet" from 1988.
  6. Section 6.0 answers line 16, which credits the NSFNET project with converting a research Internet into "today’s worldwide commodity Internet phenomenon."

Section 7.0 states the findings of this page and their consequences for the article as an authority. Section 8.0 holds Exhibit A, the numbered sentences of the article that this page cites.

1.0 Line 4 says that "Merit is among the Internet pioneers," which is a definitional disagreement under D1, because the network that Aupperle's article describes in 1971 connected the mainframe computers of Merit's member universities, and Aupperle's own article, at line 5, says that Merit's external access of the late 1970s to the mid-1980s "predates today’s Internet by two decades!"

1.1 Line 4 of Aupperle's article says: "Consequently Merit is among the Internet pioneers and the oldest organization continuously providing data networking services." Line 3 says: "On December 14, 1971 at 12:20 a.m., the first experimental connection occurred over Merit’s network between the IBM mainframe computers at U-M and WSU." Line 5, which closes Aupperle's account of Merit's external access through Telenet "through the latter 1970’s to the mid-1980’s," says: "Recall this predates today’s Internet by two decades!"

1.2 Mark Nichols disputes the words "Internet pioneers." The network that line 3 describes connected the mainframe computers of Merit's member universities, and the article itself places "today’s Internet" two decades after Merit's external access of the late 1970s to the mid-1980s. This is a definitional disagreement under D1.

1.3 Under D1, the Internet, with a capital I, was born in 1991 on the Commercial Internet Exchange agreement announced on March 25, 1991, and a network built in 1971 to join the computing centers of Merit's member universities is an intranet under D2, as section 4.0 records from Aupperle's own account of Merit's membership rule. Line 5 of Aupperle's article agrees with D1 on the date: two decades after the late 1970s to the mid-1980s falls in the late 1990s to the mid-2000s, and the article does not place "today’s Internet" in 1971. Line 4's second claim, that Merit is "the oldest organization continuously providing data networking services," was not checked against a document, and this page makes no finding on it. Governing Definitions, D1 and D2.

1.4 This section records a definitional disagreement under D1 and does not count line 4 among the false-as-written verdicts.

1.5 Corrected statement: Merit Network, Inc. made the first experimental connection over its network between the IBM mainframe computers of the University of Michigan and Wayne State University on December 14, 1971, and Merit's network joined the computing centers of its member universities as an intranet, which Aupperle's own article places two decades before "today’s Internet."

2.0 Line 6 says that "Today the ARPANET is credited as the father of the Internet," which is a definitional disagreement under D1.7, because the sentence reports a credit of lineage without naming who gives it, and under D1.7 the words of lineage are not used for the ARPANET on marknichols.com.

2.1 Line 6, footnote 2 of Part One of Aupperle's article, says: "[2] Today the ARPANET is credited as the father of the Internet."

2.2 Mark Nichols disputes the word "father." The sentence credits a parentage to the ARPANET in the passive voice, and it names no person, body or document that gives the credit. This is a definitional disagreement under D1.7.

2.3 Under D1.7, the words of lineage, such as father, parent, ancestor, forerunner and precursor, are not used on marknichols.com for the ARPANET, and under D1 the Internet was born in 1991 on the Commercial Internet Exchange agreement announced on March 25, 1991. The sentence in line 6 attributes the credit to no named source, so the person, body or document that gives the credit is unknown on this record. Governing Definitions, D1 and D1.7.

2.4 This section records a definitional disagreement under D1.7 and does not count line 6 among the false-as-written verdicts, because line 6 reports a credit rather than asserting a parentage in Aupperle's own voice.

2.5 Corrected statement: The ARPANET, a network of the Advanced Research Projects Agency of the United States Department of Defense, is credited by sources that Aupperle's footnote does not name with a parentage of the Internet, and marknichols.com does not use the words of lineage for the ARPANET, because the Internet was born in 1991 on the Commercial Internet Exchange agreement announced on March 25, 1991.

3.0 Lines 7, 8 and 13 say that "Networking standards are defined as protocols," that "TCP/IP is the protocol of today’s Internet" and that the NSFNET solicitation was "a defining moment in ensuring the use of this protocol as today’s Internet standard," which is a definitional disagreement under D6, because a protocol is a specification that hosts and routers implement and does not by itself give rise to a network.

3.1 Line 7 of Aupperle's article says: "Networking standards are defined as protocols." Line 8 says: "For reasons described later, TCP/IP is the protocol of today’s Internet." Line 13 says: "This solicitation specified that the NSFNET would exclusively use the TCP/IP protocol, a defining moment in ensuring the use of this protocol as today’s Internet standard."

3.2 Mark Nichols records the three sentences as a definitional disagreement. The sentences tie the Internet to one protocol suite, while Aupperle's own article records in line 12 that Merit's network carried "both a connection-based protocol suite, e.g., X.25, and the connectionless TCP/IP suite." This is a definitional disagreement under D6.

3.3 Under D6, a protocol design is a specification that hosts and routers implement, and it does not by itself give rise to a network, so the Internet is the network of networks of the registry lineage and not a protocol, and TCP and IP are protocols that its hosts and routers may run. Line 13 records a requirement of the National Science Foundation's solicitation of June 1987 for the NSFNET backbone, which is a fact about one network's rules, and the solicitation itself was not read, as 0.2 records. Governing Definitions, D6.

3.4 This section records a definitional disagreement under D6 and does not count lines 7, 8 and 13 among the false-as-written verdicts.

3.5 Corrected statement: The National Science Foundation's solicitation of June 1987 for the NSFNET backbone required, in Aupperle's account, that the NSFNET use the TCP/IP protocol exclusively, and TCP and IP are protocols that the hosts and routers of the Internet may run, while the Internet itself is the network of networks of the registry lineage born in 1991.

4.0 Lines 9 to 11 and 17 to 18 record that Merit's network served Members and that "Each non-Member required individual approval of Merit’s Board of Directors" until a retreat of the Board in February 1990, which agrees with D2, because a network whose members join by an owner's permission is an intranet.

4.1 Line 9 of Aupperle's article says: "Merit’s network also began to serve selected non-Member organizations." Line 10 says: "These included hospitals and automotive companies with research links to Merit’s Members." Line 11 says: "Each non-Member required individual approval of Merit’s Board of Directors during this period."

4.2 Line 17 says: "During a Merit Board of Directors retreat in February of 1990, the Board reaffirmed its desire to maintain Merit’s organizational structure as it had been in service to the Member universities." Line 18 says: "Further and very significantly, they approved a staff proposal to allow organizations other than publicly supported universities to be served by Merit’s network without individual Board approval."

4.3 Mark Nichols records lines 9 to 11 and 17 to 18 as agreeing with D2. Aupperle's article records, in Merit's own words, that Merit's network served its Member universities and admitted each non-Member only by the individual approval of Merit's Board of Directors until February 1990. This is a documentary finding that supports D2.

4.4 Under D2, an intranet is a network, at any scale and under any protocol, whose members join by an owner's permission. By Aupperle's account, Merit's network from 1971 to February 1990 admitted its Member universities by membership in Merit Network, Inc. and admitted each non-Member by the individual approval of Merit's Board of Directors, so Merit's network was an intranet under D2 for that period. After February 1990, by line 18, organizations other than publicly supported universities could be served "without individual Board approval," and Aupperle's article records that such organizations "were subsequently referred to as Affiliates to differentiate them from our Members." Governing Definitions, D2.

4.5 This section records lines 9 to 11 and 17 to 18 as a documentary finding that supports D2 and counts no sentence of the article as false.

4.6 Corrected statement: From 1971 to February 1990, Merit's network served the Member universities of Merit Network, Inc. and admitted each non-Member organization only by the individual approval of Merit's Board of Directors, which made Merit's network an intranet under D2, and in February 1990 Merit's Board approved serving organizations other than publicly supported universities without individual Board approval, as Affiliates.

5.0 Lines 14 and 15 count "Internet networks announced on the backbone" and "countries comprising the Internet" from 1988, which is a definitional disagreement under D1, because the NSFNET backbone of 1988 was a research backbone bound by an acceptable use policy and the Internet, with a capital I, was born in 1991.

5.1 Line 14 of Aupperle's article says: "The number of Internet networks announced on the backbone grew from a handful in 1988 to 50,766 in April 1995, of which 22,296 were non-U.S. networks." Line 15 says: "The number of countries comprising the Internet grew from 3 to 93."

5.2 Mark Nichols disputes the capital-I Internet for 1988. The networks announced on the NSFNET backbone in 1988 joined a research backbone of the National Science Foundation, which was an internet in lowercase under D11. This is a definitional disagreement under D1.

5.3 Under D1, the Internet, with a capital I, was born in 1991 on the Commercial Internet Exchange agreement announced on March 25, 1991 by General Atomics, Performance Systems International, Inc. and UUNET Technologies, Inc. The NSFNET Backbone Services Acceptable Use Policy listed "Use for for-profit activities" and "Extensive use for private or personal business" among its Unacceptable Uses, as this site's page NSFNET Acceptable Use Policy: The Rule That Banned eCommerce quotes it. The counts of 50,766 networks and 93 countries in April 1995 were not checked against Merit's final report of the NSFNET project, which was not read, as 0.2 records. Governing Definitions, D1 and D11.

5.4 This section records a definitional disagreement under D1 and D11 and does not count lines 14 and 15 among the false-as-written verdicts.

5.5 Corrected statement: The number of networks announced on the NSFNET backbone grew from a handful in 1988, when the backbone served an internet in lowercase of research and education networks under an acceptable use policy, to 50,766 in April 1995, in Aupperle's count, and the Internet, with a capital I, had been born in 1991 on the Commercial Internet Exchange agreement announced on March 25, 1991.

6.0 Line 16 credits "The extraordinary success of the NSFNET project" as "the dominant factor in converting the ARPANET and early NSFNET research and academically focused Internet into today’s worldwide commodity Internet phenomenon," which is a scope overstatement, because the NSFNET backbone barred "Use for for-profit activities," the commercial Internet was born in 1991 on an agreement among commercial networks, and Aupperle's own article records that commercial backbones replaced the NSFNET backbone service, which ended on 30 April 1995.

6.1 Line 16 of Aupperle's article says: "The extraordinary success of the NSFNET project was the dominant factor in converting the ARPANET and early NSFNET research and academically focused Internet into today’s worldwide commodity Internet phenomenon."

6.2 Mark Nichols disputes the credit of "the dominant factor." The NSFNET backbone was a research backbone whose rules barred commerce, and the commodity Internet grew on the networks of commercial providers that interconnected outside those rules. This is a scope overstatement.

6.3 The documents record the following.

  1. The NSFNET Backbone Services Acceptable Use Policy listed "Use for for-profit activities" among its Unacceptable Uses, as this site's page NSFNET Acceptable Use Policy: The Rule That Banned eCommerce quotes it.
  2. The Commercial Internet Exchange agreement was announced on March 25, 1991 by General Atomics, Performance Systems International, Inc. and UUNET Technologies, Inc., as Birth of the Internet records.
  3. Aupperle's article, at line 20, says of the solicitation of 1993 of the National Science Foundation: "Multiple backbones provisioned by commercial Network Service Providers (NSPs) would replace the NSFNET backbone service."
  4. Aupperle's article, at line 21, says: "An extraordinarily smooth, uneventful transition occurred when the NSFNET backbone service finally ended on 30 April 1995."
  5. Aupperle's article, at line 19, says that Merit itself turned to a commercial manufacturer for its network: "Merit chose to use products from Cisco first to augment and ultimately replace its PCP/SCP infrastructure."

6.4 This section records a scope overstatement and does not count line 16 among the false-as-written verdicts. Line 16 credits a research backbone that barred for-profit use with converting research networking into "today’s worldwide commodity Internet phenomenon," while the documents record that commerce was barred from the NSFNET backbone, that the commercial Internet was born in 1991 on an agreement among commercial networks, and that commercial backbones replaced the NSFNET backbone service in 1995. Governing Definitions, D1.

6.5 Corrected statement: From 1 July 1988 to 30 April 1995, the NSFNET backbone that Merit Network, Inc. built with IBM and MCI, and whose operation Advanced Network & Services assumed after its founding in September 1990 by Aupperle's account, served the research and education networks of the United States under an acceptable use policy that barred "Use for for-profit activities," while the Internet, with a capital I, was born in 1991 on the Commercial Internet Exchange agreement announced on March 25, 1991 by General Atomics, Performance Systems International, Inc. and UUNET Technologies, Inc., and commercial backbones replaced the NSFNET backbone service when it ended on 30 April 1995.

7.0 No sentence of Eric M. Aupperle's history of Merit is false as written on the documents this page read, six findings record one documentary finding that supports D2, four definitional disagreements and one scope overstatement, and the article is carried on marknichols.com as Merit's own testimony about Merit's membership rule and not as an authority on the birth of the Internet.

7.1 No sentence of the article is false as written under F56 on the documents this page read.

7.2 Six findings record the following.

  1. Line 4 calls Merit one of "the Internet pioneers," while line 5 says that Merit's external access "predates today’s Internet by two decades!", which is a definitional disagreement under D1, as section 1.0 records.
  2. Line 6 reports that "the ARPANET is credited as the father of the Internet" and names no source for the credit, which is a definitional disagreement under D1.7, as section 2.0 records.
  3. Lines 7, 8 and 13 tie the Internet to the TCP/IP protocol suite, which is a definitional disagreement under D6, as section 3.0 records.
  4. Lines 9 to 11 and 17 to 18 record that each non-Member required the individual approval of Merit's Board of Directors until February 1990, which is a documentary finding that supports D2, as section 4.0 records.
  5. Lines 14 and 15 count "Internet networks" and "countries comprising the Internet" from 1988, which is a definitional disagreement under D1, as section 5.0 records.
  6. Line 16 credits the NSFNET project as "the dominant factor" in producing "today’s worldwide commodity Internet phenomenon," which is a scope overstatement, as section 6.0 records.

7.3 Under D12, contemporaneous primary documents control over retrospective accounts, and this page has decided each finding by the following documents.

  1. The NSFNET Backbone Services Acceptable Use Policy, in its June 1992 text preserved by Merit Network, listed "Use for for-profit activities" among its Unacceptable Uses.
  2. The Commercial Internet Exchange agreement was announced on March 25, 1991 by General Atomics, Performance Systems International, Inc. and UUNET Technologies, Inc.
  3. Aupperle's own article of 1998 records Merit's membership rule, the end of individual Board approval in February 1990, the replacement of the NSFNET backbone by commercial backbones and the end of the NSFNET backbone service on 30 April 1995.

Eric M. Aupperle's article is a history of Merit Network, Inc. written in 1998 by the president of Merit Network, Inc. The article's record of Merit's own membership rule is carried on marknichols.com as Merit's own testimony that Merit's network was a members' network admitted by Merit's Board of Directors until February 1990, and the article's statements about the Internet are not carried on marknichols.com as controlling. Governing Definitions, D12.

7.4 The findings on this page are open to challenge on the terms stated at F40 of The Governing Definitions and Controlling Facts of Telecommunications Internetworking. A challenger who holds that a finding on this page is wrong states the competing claim in one sentence, names the document that carries it and the document's date, and submits both as F40 directs. A challenge submitted with its document is answered on this page, and a challenge submitted without a document is an opinion and is heard as one.

8.0 This section holds Exhibit A, the numbered sentences of Eric M. Aupperle's history of Merit Network, Inc. that this page cites.

8.1 Exhibit A reproduces the title of Aupperle's article and the sentences of the article that this page cites, numbered in the order in which the article prints them, each with the part of the article and the page of the fourteen-page copy described in 0.1.

  1. The exhibit reproduces each sentence as the article prints it, with the article's typographic apostrophes and with the article's footnote marks.
  2. The exhibit does not reproduce the rest of the article, which is a copyrighted work, and a reader who wants the whole article can read it as Merit Network, Inc. publishes it at Merit Network, Inc., “MERIT–WHO, WHAT, & WHY? 1964-1998+”, or in Library Hi Tech, Volume 16, Number 1 (1998).
  3. The exhibit prints the title of the article as the article prints it, including the dash in the title, which is Aupperle's own.

Exhibit A: The sentences of Eric M. Aupperle's history of Merit Network, Inc. that this page cites, as Merit Network, Inc. publishes it

1. (Part One, page 1) Merit — Who, What, and Why

2. (Part One, page 1) At MICIS’ recommendation, the officers of these three universities with approval from their respective governing boards established the Michigan Educational Research Information Triad, Inc. (MERIT) [1] as a non-profit corporation in October 1966.

3. (Part One, page 3) On December 14, 1971 at 12:20 a.m., the first experimental connection occurred over Merit’s network between the IBM mainframe computers at U-M and WSU.

4. (Part One, page 3) Consequently Merit is among the Internet pioneers and the oldest organization continuously providing data networking services.

5. (Part One, page 3) Recall this predates today’s Internet by two decades!

6. (Part One, page 4) [2] Today the ARPANET is credited as the father of the Internet.

7. (Part One, page 4) Networking standards are defined as protocols.

8. (Part One, page 4) For reasons described later, TCP/IP is the protocol of today’s Internet.

9. (Part Two, page 5) Merit’s network also began to serve selected non-Member organizations.

10. (Part Two, page 5) These included hospitals and automotive companies with research links to Merit’s Members.

11. (Part Two, page 5) Each non-Member required individual approval of Merit’s Board of Directors during this period.

12. (Part Two, page 5) Once this project was completed and the TCP/IP software successfully installed in the PCP/SCP’s, Merit’s network had the distinction of being the first network to concurrently support both a connection-based protocol suite, e.g., X.25, and the connectionless TCP/IP suite.

13. (Part Two, page 6) This solicitation specified that the NSFNET would exclusively use the TCP/IP protocol, a defining moment in ensuring the use of this protocol as today’s Internet standard.

14. (Part Two, page 8) The number of Internet networks announced on the backbone grew from a handful in 1988 to 50,766 in April 1995, of which 22,296 were non-U.S. networks.

15. (Part Two, page 8) The number of countries comprising the Internet grew from 3 to 93.

16. (Part Two, page 8) The extraordinary success of the NSFNET project was the dominant factor in converting the ARPANET and early NSFNET research and academically focused Internet into today’s worldwide commodity Internet phenomenon.

17. (Part Two, page 8) During a Merit Board of Directors retreat in February of 1990, the Board reaffirmed its desire to maintain Merit’s organizational structure as it had been in service to the Member universities.

18. (Part Two, page 8) Further and very significantly, they approved a staff proposal to allow organizations other than publicly supported universities to be served by Merit’s network without individual Board approval.

19. (Part Two, page 8) Merit chose to use products from Cisco first to augment and ultimately replace its PCP/SCP infrastructure.

20. (Part Three, page 9) Multiple backbones provisioned by commercial Network Service Providers (NSPs) would replace the NSFNET backbone service.

21. (Part Three, page 9) An extraordinarily smooth, uneventful transition occurred when the NSFNET backbone service finally ended on 30 April 1995.