[Air-l] A definition of the internet

[Ren Reynolds]

Just to mess things up at the technical level and to add a little to  
what some others have mentioned, giving such primacy to TCP/IP and  
excluding 'private' networks such as Frame Relay is problematic. At  
the core a lot of this now runs on common fiber and 'the internet' is  
just one of several virtual networks that run over the very same  
fibers, through the routers etc etc, moreover one is getting networks  
layered on or tunneled in other networks (specific protocols are  
using for traffic shaping for example, which is vital to the smooth  
running of, logically, other networks) - thus choosing which layers /  
levels of abstraction etc one is counting in and out of being 'the  
internet' is a matter of valued choices.

One could also put up a good argument for the relative contingency of  
the particularity of the protocols in question, where as the  
governance structure of the internet through the RFC system, ICANN,  
the values behind end-to-end design etc etc seems vital to the way  
that it is constituted. To say nothing with the intersection with  
geographically bound legal systems,,,

ren

On 17 Oct 2006, at 22:50, elw at stderr.org wrote:

>
>
>> I pretty much concur... with the caveat as you mention the slow but
>> supposedly impending move to IP v 6...  and with the idea that the
>> functionality of TCP/IP actually being replaced.... by an  
>> equivalent or
>> better protocol/protocol defining mechanism.
>
>
> I think the first book I saw on IPv6 was circa 1994; even then, it was
> heralded as the "next big thing", soon to be coming to a network  
> very near
> you.
>
> We are, in fact, much closer to IPv6 now than then.  At that point,  
> the
> software on the edges of the network - on the clients, built into the
> daemons running on servers providing service to the edge, built  
> into the
> routers that make the network RUN - just wasn't there.
>
> In a very real sense, the technological underpinnings have taken  
> well over
> a decade to build.  The addressing scheme has been worked out for  
> ages;
> the "experimental" deployment networks for IPv6 have now been shut  
> down.
> People are very successfully using IPv6 in small-scale networks -  
> think
> building-level, just-above-small-business level - where they have a
> relatively strong network staff and good gateways set up between IPv4
> (outside) and IPv6 (inside).
>
> For new corporate deployments, IPv6 is starting to make a whole lot of
> sense.  [In a lot of cases, ipv4->ipv6 gateways happen to also be
> corporate border firewalls or proxies.] For home - not so much, yet.
> Earthlink and others are trying to encourage home users along the path
> with the development of things like their custom firmware for Linksys
> 802.11g access points.  ;)
>
>
>> Another way we risk this shift away from the Internet is in the calls
>> for building more "Intelligence" into the network (sometimes with
>> 'security' being the driving wedge).  Reading David Isenberg's  
>> work on
>> the "Rise of the Stupid Network" we see the virtues of the TCP/IP  
>> based
>> networks as one where the intelligence of the network is by design at
>> the edges.
>
> Most of the very oldest services surviving on the network - as well as
> some of the newer ones that are gaining what will be difficult-to- 
> dislodge
> popularity - take intelligence-at-edge very seriously.
>
> Oldsters:  mail, usenet.  [~35 and ~26 year old services,  
> respectively...]
>  		shell connections.
>
> Middle-aged services:  http [~13 year old - just coming into its teen
> years]
>
> Young services not doing so well:  "walled garden" instant messaging
> programs where a "smart" server is controlled by some corporation.   
> AIM,
> MSN, Yahoo! IM, etc all fall into this camp.
>
> [I would be very, very impressed if any of those three corporations  
> were
> to commit to providing their IM service in perpetuity forever.  I just
> don't see it happening.  Feel free to correct me, vendor  
> representatives
> ;) ]
>
> Young services doing really well:  Bittorrent, Jabber-based  
> federated IM
> [google talk et al..], a few of the other p2p applications.
>
> One of the marks of a relatively successful internet service - I  
> think -
> is that service's resistance to being destroyed or completely  
> disrupted by
> acts of god or acts of congress.
>
> There's not a whole heck of a lot that can be done to disable a  
> service
> whose spread only requires a couple of operators to exchange IP  
> addresses
> in order to federate / communicate with each other's servers.
>
> The whole DNS could implode, and folks would fairly quickly replace  
> it.
> There's just not enough "special magic" for ICANN or any other body to
> completely wreck things.  Maybe disrupt for a while -- c.f. the  
> current
> court battle over spamhaus -- but the replacement engineered would  
> likely
> be much less prone to a repeat of the same attack.
>
> [Hey, even if the central DNS roots went away -- enough of the data is
> cached *all over the place* that things would not immediately go awry.
>
>
>> I'd also point to conceptual work of Garth Graham - taking the TCP/ 
>> IP as
>> a form of social contract... where we are all peers.  Imagine a
>> reconceptualization of politics in such a frame... I know a number  
>> of us
>> are.
>
>
> It used to be that the social contract was that people behave  
> relatively
> sanely in order to get Jon Postel (in his IANA guise) to allocate IP
> addresses for them.  I find that I think those days were superior  
> to the
> current ICANN boondoggles.
>
>
> --elijah
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