<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class="">Presumably paper replaced clay tablets because it was lighter and therefore faster to carry. Among other things.<br class=""><div><br class=""><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div class="">On Jul 6, 2018, at 12:00 PM, Jack Haverty <<a href="mailto:jack@3kitty.org" class="">jack@3kitty.org</a>> wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><div class=""><div class="">While we were debating and evolving TCP2 into TCP4, circa 1979-80 or so,<br class="">I remember thinking about my four years of Latin classes in high school,<br class="">where I coincidentally learned quite a lot of Roman history and what<br class="">life was like in the Roman Empire.<br class=""><br class="">It turned out that the Roman empire had a problem of scale. As it got<br class="">larger, it became increasingly difficult for outlying parts of the<br class="">Empire to reliably and securely communicate with Rome. Caesar wanted<br class="">quick, reliable, and secure communications with his Armies and<br class="">Governors. And he couldn't find a suitable ISP...<br class=""><br class="">The commanders in the field used a variety of techniques to communicate.<br class=""> Messages were written (Packetized?) on some convenient media by<br class="">Scribes. They were handed to Couriers. To improve reliability, several<br class="">Couriers would be sent with the same message, by diverse means and<br class="">routes (one on foot, one on a ship, etc.). Local knowledge (soldier in<br class="">charge of the local garrison) could tell the courier where best to head<br class="">next (Routing), based on current conditions. If no reply was received<br class="">in a reasonable time, more Couriers could be sent. More resources could<br class="">be allocated, i.e., more Couriers and Scribes (Multi-Channel?) for<br class="">really important messages. Slaves were cheaper than T1 circuits. For<br class="">really secret messages, the text could be split apart (fragmented?) and<br class="">pieces put into separate messages, so that the message could be<br class="">understood only when the pieces were re-united (reassembled?) at the<br class="">destination. Caesar had reliable, secure, and state-of-the-art fast<br class="">communications.<br class=""><br class="">Several thousand years later, the Postal System adopted similar<br class="">techniques, adapted to the technology of the day. Circa 1980, so did<br class="">The Internet.<br class=""><br class="">Caesar probably wasn't the first... Maybe the Assyrians?<br class=""><br class="">/Jack<br class=""><br class=""><br class="">On 07/06/2018 09:49 AM, John Levine wrote:<br class=""><blockquote type="cite" class="">In article <<a href="mailto:11fd50bf-d495-c4a5-ce77-06d96d04f14b@meetinghouse.net" class="">11fd50bf-d495-c4a5-ce77-06d96d04f14b@meetinghouse.net</a>>,<br class="">Miles Fidelman <<a href="mailto:mfidelman@meetinghouse.net" class="">mfidelman@meetinghouse.net</a>> wrote:<br class=""><blockquote type="cite" class="">Kind of sounds like the international postal system.� Or shipping <br class="">packages internationally.� <br class=""></blockquote><br class="">About 20 years ago, in Internet for Dummies, I analogized the<br class="">operation of the Internet to paper mail. The pre-TCP protocols were<br class="">sort of like registered mail, where each package has great value* and<br class="">is carefully logged in and out every time it is sorted or transported<br class="">to be sure it doesn't get lost.<br class=""><br class="">TCP is more like certified mail, where the package itself is of no<br class="">value, only its message ("usually a letter from your insurance company<br class="">saying your policy has been cancelled.") Certified mail is only<br class="">logged when mailed and delivered. If it isn't delivered after a<br class="">while, you just send another copy.<br class=""><br class="">I further tortured the analogy by saying you were mailing a copy of<br class="">the ten-pound manuscript of your novel, but the regulations limit each<br class="">package to one pound so you divide it into pieces and mark each one<br class="">PART 1, PART 2, and so forth. The packages arrive in whatever order<br class="">the post office delivers them, and the recipient puts them back in<br class="">order.<br class=""><br class="">R's,<br class="">John<br class=""><br class="">* - in the 1800s the government shipped gold bars by registered mail<br class=""><br class=""><br class=""><br class="">_______<br class="">internet-history mailing list<br class=""><a href="mailto:internet-history@postel.org" class="">internet-history@postel.org</a><br class="">http://mailman.postel.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history<br class="">Contact list-owner@postel.org for assistance.<br class=""><br class=""></blockquote>_______<br class="">internet-history mailing list<br class=""><a href="mailto:internet-history@postel.org" class="">internet-history@postel.org</a><br class="">http://mailman.postel.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history<br class="">Contact list-owner@postel.org for assistance.<br class=""></div></div></blockquote></div><br class=""><div class="">
<div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class="">—<br class=""><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class="">Richard Bennett<br class=""><a href="http://hightechforum.org" class="">High Tech Forum</a> Founder</div><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class="">Ethernet & Wi-Fi standards co-creator</div><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><br class=""></div><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class="">Internet Policy Consultant</div></div></div>
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