[ih] IETF relevance (was Memories of Flag Day?)

Tue Sep 5 09:33:14 PDT 2023

On Mon, Sep 4, 2023 at 5:45 PM Tony Patti via Internet-history <
internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:

> Steve,
>
> The names are listed in the HTML image filenames (if you click)
>
> and via view-source:http://www.wiwiw.org/pioneers/index.html

or just hover over them and your browser will tell you.

>
>
> I rather like this photo: http://www.wiwiw.org/pioneers/steve-crocker.htm
>
> Tony
>
>
>
> From: Steve Crocker <steve at shinkuro.com>
> Sent: Monday, September 4, 2023 5:36 PM
> To: Tony Patti <crypto at glassblower.info>
> Cc: Barbara Denny <b_a_denny at yahoo.com>; internet-history at elists.isoc.org
> Subject: Re: [ih] IETF relevance (was Memories of Flag Day?)
>
>
>
> Pretty nifty set of pictures.  I can name many but not all of them.  Are
> the names listed somewhere?
>
>
>
> Thanks,
>
>
>
> Steve
>
>
>
> On Mon, Sep 4, 2023 at 5:29 PM Tony Patti via Internet-history <
> internet-history at elists.isoc.org <mailto:internet-history at elists.isoc.org>
> > wrote:
>
> Barbara,
> *THIS* red button? (see image in third row)
> http://www.wiwiw.org/pioneers/index.html
> which is shown enlarged at
> http://www.wiwiw.org/pioneers/button-survived-tcp-transition.htm
> Tony
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Internet-history <internet-history-bounces at elists.isoc.org <mailto:
> internet-history-bounces at elists.isoc.org> > On Behalf Of Barbara Denny
> via Internet-history
> Sent: Monday, September 4, 2023 4:38 PM
> To: internet-history at elists.isoc.org <mailto:
> internet-history at elists.isoc.org>
> Subject: Re: [ih] IETF relevance (was Memories of Flag Day?)
>
>  Does anyone have their red button?  I think it said "I survived the tcp
> transition".  Dan Chernikoff, who worked in our group at SRI at the time,
> gave me his before he left SRI.  I remember he said something like you
> deserve it more; even though  I don't  think I had anything to do with the
> cutover. I don't know who made those or gave them out.  Can anyone fill me
> in? I looked for my button several years ago and I couldn't locate it where
> it should have  been. I hope it is somewhere waiting to be unearthed.
> barbara
>     On Monday, September 4, 2023 at 11:10:13 AM PDT, Dan Lynch via
> Internet-history <internet-history at elists.isoc.org <mailto:
> internet-history at elists.isoc.org> > wrote:
>
>  I was at ISI from 80-83 in charge of the (then) huge data center serving
> the researchers at ISI and running the email server for much of the outside
> world. Vint and Bob told me to coordinate all the software that needed to
> be changed and tested for not just at ISI, but all over the Arpanet. I
> guess that the kids ( we were all kids then) just pitched in and got their
> site specific software to run TCP/IP and we had a few internal “flag days “
> of testing in 82. Of course I had Jon Postel just down the hall as my tech
> support!
>
> Fun times…
>
> Dan
>
> Cell 650-776-7313
>
> > On Sep 4, 2023, at 10:23 AM, Jack Haverty via Internet-history <
> internet-history at elists.isoc.org <mailto:internet-history at elists.isoc.org>
> > wrote:
> >
> > Two excellent observations about the early days!  1) Someone was in
> charge and in control.  2) The goal was to make the system work and be
> actually used.
> > D
> > Back in late 1981, you (Vint) asked me to take on the Gateway Project
> > at BBN, explicitly to make the Inoperate as a 24x7 reliable service,
> > following the lead that the Arpanet had developed over more than a
> > decade of operation as an infrastructure.  More about that here for
> > the curious:
> > https://elists.isoc.org/pipermail/internet-history/2019-November/00559
> > 5.html
> >
> > That task could have been a research effort, producing protocols,
> algorithms, and mechanisms documented in RFCs for anyone to use. But there
> wasn't time to wait, so instead we just copied the mechanisms of the
> Arpanet, translating them into the world of TCP/IP.  Much of the Arpanet
> "management" technology wasn't well known or documented, but by locating
> the "Gateway Group" physically near the Arpanet control center (NOC), and
> recruiting some people from that world, it was possible to do "technology
> transfer" (a buzzword at the time).  The Internet acquired "operations"
> tools by plagiarizing what had been working for years in the Arpanet.  That
> was the fastest way to "make it work".
> >
> > Separately, there were efforts, initiated by someone, to orchestrate the
> "Flag Day" on the Arpanet, to declare TCP/IP a DoD Standard, to define and
> implement a formal certification program for new TCP implementations, and
> probably other efforts I never knew about.
> >
> > Someone was in charge, and someone was doing lots of things to "make it
> work".
> >
> > It wasn't perfect.  Actually it was a bit chaotic IIRC.
> >
> > For example... Jon Postel took on the task of documenting TCP/IPV4 so it
> could be referenced as a Standard.  RFCs were released.  DoD declared them
> mandatory for all military systems that involved communicating computers.
> >
> > A bit later, at BBN we were assisting various pieces of the government
> in getting their computer systems up and running with their vendor's
> brand-new, certified, standard TCPIPV4s.  It was a big surprise to discover
> that, although TCP/IP was there, none of the other "tools" we had been
> using for years had been implemented on those machines.
> >
> > Much of that missing functionality was called "ICMP", well documented in
> RFC 792.  But only TCP/IP had been declared a DoD Standard.  Government
> contractors, who had not been involved in the research community, had to
> implement the Standard.  But the Standard didn't include ICMP.  So they
> didn't implement it.
> >
> > That made it much more difficult to "make it work".  For example,
> without ICMP as the Internet's Swiss Army Knife, you couldn't even "ping" a
> DoD Standard computer.  I remember we raised quite a fuss about that, and
> implementations started to appear.  I'm not sure if the Standard was ever
> modified to require ICMP.
> >
> > Other things, like SNMP, were useful but also missing.  Many people
> apparently didn't consider ICMP and its cohorts to be part of TCP/IP.  We
> considered such technology essential to be able to "make it work".
> >
> > -----
> >
> > Looking back from 2023...
> >
> > IMHO, one of the inflection points occurred when the culture shifted
> from "make it work" to "make money from the Internet". Interoperability
> (everyone can interact with everyone else) is part of "make it work", and
> conformance to Metcalfe's Law (google it...).  Silos (everyone can
> interact, as long as you stay in *our* silo) are (thought to be) preferable
> for "make money".
> >
> > I wasn't very involved in the Internet growth as NSF joined and later as
> the first ISPs spun off to become commercial services. Perhaps someone
> remembers if they had any kind of "standards" or "certification" involved
> as the culture shifted.  E.g., was there a "FRICC Standard" for computers
> joining their 'nets?  I recall there were AUPs (Acceptable Use Policies),
> at least at first.  Did these "fade away" and turn into "pay us to get on
> the Internet and you can do whatever you want"?
> >
> > It's still puzzling (to me) that the Internet has become a global
> infrastructure, and hasn't been surrounded by the web of regulations, laws,
> codes, agencies, treaties, and such non-technical mechanisms that have
> developed around other infrastructures.  Roads and vehicles, electric
> power, marine activities, air transport, railroads, finance, water, and
> even the air we breathe all have such mechanisms.
> >
> > Is the Internet different?  Or just still too young to have accreted
> such "management" mechanisms?
> >
> > Jack Haverty
> >
> >> On 9/2/23 02:19, vinton cerf via Internet-history wrote:
> >> I have only a brief moment to respond. The Arpanet, PRNET, SATNET,
> >> Internet sequence gets its primary stability from the sole source
> >> funding of ARPA, initially, and the pooling of resources from other
> >> DoD components using Arpanet. Arpanet was managed by BBN initially
> >> (later under contract to DCA vs ARPA). It really helped that the
> >> Internet development funding came from a single source. Decision
> >> making was largely in the hands of the ARPA program managers,
> >> well-informed by the people doing the work. In the mid-1980s, ARPA,
> >> NSF, DOE and NASA collaborated through the Federal Research Internet
> >> Coordinating Committee (FRICC) made up of program managers from each
> >> agency. ESNET, NSINET and NSFNET joined Arpanet as backbones of the
> >> Internet. Again, common purpose welded the effort into a coherent
> >> whole. MERIT played a major role in the NSFNET development which
> >> really elaborated on the multi-network aspect of Internet. MERIT had
> >> to deal with scaling of the Internet to a dozen or more intermediate
> >> level networks linked together through the NSFNET backbone. BGP came
> out of that work and has scaled well - now needing more security from
> abuse/mistakes.
> >>
> >> I think there was a common thread in all of this work: people who
> >> were working on different aspects of the Internet and its constituent
> >> networks really wanted this system to work. The goal was
> >> interoperability linking so many different packet switched networks
> >> together. Even the Xerox PARC team, whose work on PUP and later XNS
> >> was proprietary, did their best to give hints to the Stanford
> >> development team (mostly me and my graduate students during the 1974
> campaign to specify TCP).
> >>
> >> It also helped that commonality and interoperability were key
> >> desirable properties of the Internet system. These were the metrics
> >> by which success was measured.
> >>
> >> That's all I have time for now - not sure this addresses your
> >> questions squarely.
> >>
> >> v
> >>
> >>
> >> On Fri, Sep 1, 2023 at 2:14 PM Miles Fidelman
> >> <mfidelman at meetinghouse.net <mailto:mfidelman at meetinghouse.net> >
> >> wrote:
> >>
> >>> Thanks Vint!
> >>>
> >>> To follow up, if I might - since you were there from the beginning
> >>> (I landed at MIT in 1971, just before Ray's first email, and saw how
> >>> MIT adopted ARPANET technology, then got to BBN in 1985, just in
> >>> time to help split off the DDN - the period leading up to the Flag
> >>> Day is mostly anecdotal history for me)...
> >>>
> >>> I've long used the Internet as a model for how communities can
> >>> approach infrastructure master planning - serving as the basis for
> >>> our work at the Center for Civic Networking, running a growth
> >>> planning exercise for Cambridge, and later, in our work with
> >>> communities around municipal broadband.
> >>>
> >>> Now, I'm gearing up a new effort, focused on community-level
> >>> crowdsourcing for major infrastructure overhaul (as is started to be
> >>> mandated by electrification ordinances).  The simple notion being
> >>> that of forming local working groups, to run grand-challenge like
> >>> exercises, design charettes, crowd funding for projects like a
> >>> complete infrastructure rebuild for a condo complex (like the one I'm
> living in, and serving on the board of).
> >>> How to pull such groups together remains a black art - and insights
> >>> from the original model are always helpful.
> >>>
> >>> In that context, might you share some pithy observations of
> >>> significant events in the early life of the ARPANET & Internet - how
> >>> various working groups came together in the days following Lick's
> >>> initial posting to ARPA/IPTO.  Who did what, to whom, leading to a
> >>> bunch of folks coming together into ad hoc & ongoing working groups
> >>> of various sorts?  And, in particular, what conditions/events
> >>> provided impetus, urgency, and built momentum?
> >>>
> >>> Thanks Very Much,
> >>>
> >>> Miles
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> vinton cerf wrote:
> >>>
> >>> TCP/IP came out of work that Bob Kahn and I did along with my
> >>> graduate students at Stanford. But the INWG (slightly more formal
> >>> extension of NWG when it became IFIP WG 6.1) contributed in a highly
> collaborative fashion.
> >>> So did UCL and BBN in early implementation phases of TCP and TCP/IP.
> >>>
> >>> I tend to associate NWG with Arpanet Host-Host Protocols (and
> >>> application
> >>> protocols)
> >>> and IAB (later IETF) with TCP/IP and associated applications
> >>>
> >>> v
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> On Wed, Aug 30, 2023 at 10:29 AM Miles Fidelman <
> >>> mfidelman at meetinghouse.net <mailto:mfidelman at meetinghouse.net> >
> wrote:
> >>>
> >>>> Well Vint might have a definitive voice on this.
> >>>>
> >>>> So... Vint,
> >>>>
> >>>> Would you consider TCP/IP to have been initiated by the NWG?
> >>>>
> >>>> What about SMTP - which originated as a late-night hack (that
> >>>> eventually became SMTP)?  As I recall, that was initially announced
> >>>> via a postal mail packet.
> >>>>
> >>>> Cheers,
> >>>>
> >>>> Miles
> >>>>
> >>>> vinton cerf wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>> +1
> >>>> v
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> On Wed, Aug 30, 2023 at 9:57 AM Steve Crocker via Internet-history
> >>>> < internet-history at elists.isoc.org <mailto:
> internet-history at elists.isoc.org> > wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>>> Well...
> >>>>>
> >>>>> The original suite of protocols for the Arpanet -- NCP, Telnet,
> >>>>> FTP, et al
> >>>>> -- were developed by the Network Working Group (NWG).  The NWG
> >>>>> evolved over the years into the IETF.  The formal creation of the
> >>>>> IETF was roughly mid-1980s.  The process of formally declaring a
> >>>>> protocol a
> >>>>> proposed/draft/(full) standard evolved over the years.  Depending
> >>>>> on how precise you want to be about the existence of the IETF and
> >>>>> the formalization of protocols, I think you can make the case either
> way.
> >>>>> From
> >>>>> my perspective, I would say the original suite of protocols did
> >>>>> indeed originate in the (predecessor of) the IETF.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Steve
> >>>>>
> >>>>> On Wed, Aug 30, 2023 at 12:48 PM Miles Fidelman via
> >>>>> Internet-history < internet-history at elists.isoc.org <mailto:
> internet-history at elists.isoc.org> > wrote:
> >>>>>
> >>>>>> Traditionally, protocols have never "originated" with the IETF -
> >>>>>> they become standardized, and maybe standards through the RFC
> >>>>>> process, under the IETF aegis.  Right back to the original DoD
> >>>>>> Protocol Suite (did the IETF even exist when the DDN Protocol
> Handbook was first printed?).
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> Miles
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> Brian E Carpenter via Internet-history wrote:
> >>>>>>> On 29-Aug-23 05:52, Miles Fidelman via Internet-history wrote:
> >>>>>>>> Dave Crocker via Internet-history wrote:
> >>>>>>>>> On 8/24/2023 4:07 PM, John Klensin via Internet-history wrote:
> >>>>>>>>>> Probably a larger fraction of applications work has come to
> >>>>>>>>>> the IETF already half-developed and in search of refinement
> >>>>>>>>>> and validation by the community
> >>>>>>>>> I'm sure there are examples, but I can't think of an
> >>>>>>>>> application protocol that was originated in the IETF over,
> >>>>>>>>> say, the last 25
> >>>>> years,
> >>>>>>>>> that has seen widespread success.
> >>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>>> d/
> >>>>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>> Seems to me that HTTP remains under the IETF umbrella.
> >>>>>>> But it did *not* originate in the IETF. It actually originated
> >>>>>>> about
> >>>>>>> 20 metres horizontally and 3 metres vertically from my office at
> >>>>> CERN,
> >>>>>>> more than a year before TimBL presented it at IETF 23 (I was
> >>>>>>> wrong a
> >>>>> few
> >>>>>>> days ago to assert that IETF 26 was Tim's first attendance). The
> >>>>>>> WWW
> >>>>> BOF
> >>>>>>> at IETF 26 was more than 2 years after HTTP was first deployed,
> >>>>>>> to my personal knowledge.
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>> Is it not the
> >>>>>>>> RFC process, and IANA, that actually matter, in the scheme of
> >>>>> things?
> >>>>>>> In the case of HTTP, it was running code that long preceded both
> >>>>> rough
> >>>>>>> consensus and an RFC. I think this is completely normal and
> >>>>>>> still the best method. Second best is code developed in parallel
> with the spec.
> >>>>>>> Third best is OSI.
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>    Brian
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> --
> >>>>>> In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice.
> >>>>>> In practice, there is.  .... Yogi Berra
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> Theory is when you know everything but nothing works.
> >>>>>> Practice is when everything works but no one knows why.
> >>>>>> In our lab, theory and practice are combined:
> >>>>>> nothing works and no one knows why.  ... unknown
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> --
> >>>>>> Internet-history mailing list
> >>>>>> Internet-history at elists.isoc.org <mailto:
> Internet-history at elists.isoc.org>
> >>>>>> https://elists.isoc.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history
> >>>>>>
> >>>>> --
> >>>>> Internet-history mailing list
> >>>>> Internet-history at elists.isoc.org <mailto:
> Internet-history at elists.isoc.org>
> >>>>> https://elists.isoc.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history
> >>>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> --
> >>>> In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice.
> >>>> In practice, there is.  .... Yogi Berra
> >>>>
> >>>> Theory is when you know everything but nothing works.
> >>>> Practice is when everything works but no one knows why.
> >>>> In our lab, theory and practice are combined:
> >>>> nothing works and no one knows why.  ... unknown
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>> --
> >>> In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice.
> >>> In practice, there is.  .... Yogi Berra
> >>>
> >>> Theory is when you know everything but nothing works.
> >>> Practice is when everything works but no one knows why.
> >>> In our lab, theory and practice are combined:
> >>> nothing works and no one knows why.  ... unknown
> >>>
> >>>
> >
> > --
> > Internet-history mailing list
> > Internet-history at elists.isoc.org <mailto:
> Internet-history at elists.isoc.org>
> > https://elists.isoc.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history
>
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