"First Internet message" and ...

[Noel Chiappa]

Ooops, editing error:

    > Although one could build a system which has aggregatable addresses, used
    > for path selection, but hid them from the hosts, and used an 'invisible'
    > mapping system to translate from them to the aggregatable 'true' addresses.

Should have been "to translate from the 'addresses' used by the hosts to the".


    > the changing nature of 'the Internet', but alas the list archives are
    > broken at the moment, so no URL

Here are Jack's thoughts on how 'the Internet' is no longer a true internet:

  Circa 1984, I remember giving lots of presentations where one theme was
  that we had spent the first 10 years of the Internet (taking the 1974
  TCP paper as the start) making it possible for every computer to talk
  with every other computer.BB  We would spend the next 10 years making it
  not possible to do such things, so that only communications that were
  permitted would be possible.

  Sadly, I'm not sure that ever happened.  The commercial world started
  adopting TCP big time.  The government decided to focus on using COTS -
  Commercial Off-The-Shelf hardware and software.  The Research world
  focused on things like faster and bigger networks.  At BBN, the focus
  shifted to X.25, SNA, and such stuff that promised a big marketplace.
  TCP had gone through 5 releases from TCP2 through TCP4 in just a few
  years, so remaining items on the To-Do list, like address space, were
  expected to be addressed shortly.

  I'm not sure if anyone ever conveyed this architecture to the IETF or
  all the vendors that were popping up with products to build
  Internet(s).  I think changes like NAT came about to solve pragmatic
  problems.  But that of course broke the "end-to-end" architecture, which
  would view NAT actions as those of an intruder or equipment failure.
  So TCP became no longer end-to-end.

  The Internet is typically viewed as a way to interconnect networks.  But
  I think it's evolved operationally to become the way to interconnect
  across administrative boundaries, where Autonomous Systems have become
  associated with different ISPs, other mechanisms are used by vendors to
  create their own walled gardens of services (e.g., "clouds" or
  "messaging"), and NAT is used at the edges to connect to users'
  internets.  The end-to-end nature is gone.

  But that's just based on my observations from the outside.  I don't have
  a clue as to what today's actual Internet Architecture is, other than a
  collection of RFCs and product manuals that may or may not reflect
  reality, or if there is anyone actually able to manage the
  architecture.  From my user's perspective, it's a Wild West out there.....

  And the definition of The Internet is still elusive.  I agree that the
  users' definition is the best working one -- The Internet is the thing
  I'm connected to to do what I do when I get "on the Net."

	Noel