From mbaer at cs.tu-berlin.de Thu Apr 2 13:52:02 2009 From: mbaer at cs.tu-berlin.de (=?UTF-8?B?TWF0dGhpYXMgQsOkcndvbGZm?=) Date: Thu, 02 Apr 2009 16:52:02 -0400 Subject: [ih] Step up "What influenced me, and what difference have I thus made to the Internet (or think I did)?" In-Reply-To: <200903201505461.SM00376@[64.226.254.173]> References: <200903201505461.SM00376@[64.226.254.173]> Message-ID: <49D52572.1000300@cs.tu-berlin.de> Thanks everyone for the host of responses. That was an inspiring thread, and helped a lot. May I very briefly repeat two paragraphs from Jack's latest post: > So, although it's difficult to determine what influenced someone's decisions, > it's perhaps more reasonable to ask what influenced your own decisions. It's > not so easy to answer that question, but at least you're asking an "eye > witness". So, since I was involved in various aspects of what many people might > call "The Internet" for much of the late 70s and 80s, I've been asking myself > that question. What influenced me? > > [... copious elaboration ...] > A few years ago, some organization (Smithsonian I believe) ran a project to > capture as much as possible of the experiences of World War II veterans, in > order to document the "inside" of the war experience while the opportunity still > existed. Perhaps, in its role as organizer of the world's information (which > continually amazes me), Google might take on such a project for the > Internet...? Vint, did you make it this far through my rambling......? > It would really be nice to have an archive of such personal views, each on the narrow question Jack has asked himself: "What influenced me, and what difference have I thus made to the Internet (or think I did)?" This would still be subjective, but at the same time apt, for no-one has been owning, directing, or building the internet by themselves. It may be a start if everyone of those who have "been there" just wrote their piece (no more than five pages) and posted it here (or put it up online wherever they please) so that Google can find it under a common header. Matthias Jack Haverty wrote: > ======================================================= > > Greetings everyone. Good to hear voices from the past, and it's a great > discussion -- made me feel guilty enough to sit down and type in my 2 > cents..maybe making amends just a little bit for all those papers that never got > written back in the 70s/80s. If you're not interested, just hit delete now.... > > Matthias' original question concerned whether and to what extent prior academic > work influenced the Internet. That got me thinking about the question more > generally - namely what *did* influence the zillions of decisions made by people > building the Internet. I've always been accused of being a "big picture" kind > of guy... > > I agree wholeheartedly with the previous comments about the difficulty of > determining whether or not someone's work or publication influenced someone > else. Even if you could somehow prove that someone subscribed to a journal, or > actually read a paper, or even understood it, he or she may not have agreed with > it - and simply ignored it as noise. I'm equally suspect of anyone who claims > to have invented any particular mechanism or approach. It's simply too hard, > in my experience at least, to be sure that an idea that pops into your head is > original, and not a product of your subconscious working on something you saw, > or heard, or read, days or months before. > > Still, it's interesting to try to deduce where things have come from, especially > things as pervasive, influential, and surprising as "The Internet". So here goes... > > I think the first issue to nail down is exactly what you mean by "The > Internet". In my experience, it means different things to different people, > depending on facts like how and when you first encountered "it", what you were > doing at the time, and how long it took you to recognize it as something new and > important to you. For some people, the Internet is email. Others equate it > with the Web. To some it began with the Arpanet, which was "Release 1". Or it > may have begin with CSNET and/or NSFNET, which enabled a lot of people to > "connect" for the first time. Did any particular piece of prior work influence > those efforts? I think you'd have to ask the people involved in building them. > > So, although it's difficult to determine what influenced someone's decisions, > it's perhaps more reasonable to ask what influenced your own decisions. It's > not so easy to answer that question, but at least you're asking an "eye > witness". So, since I was involved in various aspects of what many people might > call "The Internet" for much of the late 70s and 80s, I've been asking myself > that question. What influenced me? > > First, the definition, or better put, my own definition -- The Internet. I > think I personally focus on the "Inter" part of "Internet". There have been > many networks over the years. In the 70s/80s, there were a variety of computer > networks. Mujltidrop lines and terminal networks had been around for a while; I > remember using one around the late 60s, which connected MIT to Xerox. IBM had > SNA. ARPA had ARPANet. Other technologies were being created to form networks > of computers, e.g., the "Packet Radio" networks for tactical military use. > Commercial X.25 networks were seeking customers for the telephone companies of > the world. Tymnet, Compuserve, and others were connecting users to applications. > > All of those networks used a variety of technologies, but had some common > characteristics: each was composed of uniform components (no SNA nodes in the > ARPANet, for example); each was owned and operated by a single owner; and except > for very special ad-hoc linkages, each was isolated from the others. > > Where the ARPANet focused on connecting dissimilar computers, my personal > definition of the Internet focuses on "Inter"connection of dissimilar "net"works. > > In particular, ARPA had this problem of building different kinds of networks, > with a need for computers on one network to talk to ones on the other. As far > as I remember, at least in the late 70s (when I first encountered "The > Internet") there wasn't any project specifically to "build the Internet". > Instead, there were a variety of projects to build different kinds of networks, > and applications that would run over those networks, and every project had the > requirement to interconnect with the others to make those applications > possible. There were a variety of scenarios that had to work. E.G., someone in > a helicopter, obviously on a radio-based network, interacting with someone on > another continent at headquarters, obviously not on the same radio network. The > aggregate of those projects' teams were the de facto Internet team - which in > fact started as two separate teams: the "TCP" and the "IP" working groups, but > was pretty quickly merged. > > The obvious determinant of "dissimilar" networks was that they used different > technologies. ARPANet, SATNET, PRNet, etc. all had their own unique hardware, > software, algorithms, and architectures. I think at first that's how we > thought of the problem. TCP/IP was the "glue" that allowed communication to be > accomplished through a series of dissimilar steps. > > But there was another, and I believe in retrospect even more important, nature > of being "dissimilar", namely organizational. In the 70s, I think networks were > pretty consistently homogeneously managed. I'm sure someone will correct me if > that's wrong... But as I remember, networks were owned by someone, either a > government agency, or a company, or a utility like a PTT. It was also likely > that all of the components were the same, or at least from the same vendor. > Even the ARPANet, which interconnected dissimilar computers, was built and > operated by one company. Someone was in charge - not zero, not two or more; > some ONE. That was simply the state of the art at the time. > > In retrospect from 2009, the Internet is a bonanza of heterogeneity. No one > owns it, and it's not clear why it works or whose hand is on the wheel. > Virtually anyone can buy some hardware and become an ISP, hooking yet more > things into "The Internet". > > Since that aspect of organizational dissimilarity wasn't prominent in the very > early days of interconnecting ARPANet with PRNet, I started wondering how did we > get from there to here. As was pointed out previously, CSNET and NSFNET > arguably led the way in making the Internet organizationally heterogeneous. But > what made it possible for CSNET and NSFNET to do that...? > > If I remember correctly, at the time the ARPANet had been very successful, and > had become more of an operational communications utility than a research > project. Lots of organizations and universities wanted to connect, but couldn't > because either it was very expensive (IMPs, IMP ports and circuits cost $$s), or > because they weren't ARPA contractors and the ARPANet was restricted to support > ARPA business. There was a pent-up demand to "get on the net". > > Going back to my earlier comment above, I've been thinking about what influenced > me personally at that time in the work I was doing. I was at BBN, managing a > bunch of projects which were arguably part of "the Internet", for DARPA as well > as other government agencies, all involved with either building parts of "the > Internet", or deploying clones of it into other organizations (Yes, there are > "Internets"). One of the DARPA projects was the building and operating of the > "core gateways", which were the ones which interconnected various long-haul > networks among others. So I think it's reasonable to consider whatever was > influencing me in working on those projects was influencing "the Internet" too. > > At the time, there was a lot of pressure to deploy a functional Internet - one > which could support successful demonstrations of the kinds of mostly > government-oriented applications that would cause the "operational" government > gang to keep the research funding going and the funds going to ARPA (and then to > us and others). That focus, coupled with the fact that BBN was not a > university, led to a noticeable bias toward engineering rather than science. > Getting it to work, using proven techniques rather than academic ideas, became > the primary goal. Writing papers, presenting at conferences, trying new > interesting approaches, and other such science-oriented activities got pushed to > the back burner. As I remember also, all through that period most of the > interesting discussion and argument happened on the various mailing lists, or at > the quarterly Internet meetings, rather than in the traditional journals -- at > least from my personal perspective at the time. Sadly, I suspect all of that > has been lost. > > The focus on engineering and using proven techniques to get things to work led > naturally to what I think was the primary influence on the Internet -- the > ARPANet, which was arguably "working" well, and more specifically the *internal* > unpublicized mechanisms of the ARPANet which had evolved over a decade of its > operating experience. Although there was considerable material in publication > about the more mathematical aspects of the ARPANet, especially the routing > algorithms, there was a rich soup of engineering "best practices" embedded in > the IMP code, the NOC tools, policies, and procedures, and the management > approaches. If I remember correctly, there were something like a thousand > separate parameters in the code that could be "tweaked" to deal with different > situations that had come up over time. As far as I know, little if any of this > was ever documented in any detail in any public way. It was pretty boring after > all. Some of it was simply to be experienced - standing as a fly on the wall of > the NOC during some network crisis was very educational. > > The "Internet guys" resided at BBN literally just around the corner from the > "ARPANet group". This was purposeful, and I fought several battles over the > years within the BBN management to keep it that way. As a result, a lot of the > internal decisions associated with the "core gateways" were to steal, adapt, and > integrate ARPANet mechanisms and philosophies into the nascent Internet. This > wasn't really intentional, it just happened because of the proximity - > "technology transfer" at its best. > > That ARPANet influence would naturally have evolved the core gateways and "the > Internet" into a homogeneous network like the ARPANet. All gateways would be > built by BBN, all software running the same release (and obviously the same > algorithms etc.), all operated by the same single centralized entity. > > Speaking of "inventing" things, I might feel inclined to claim responsibility, > or blame, for causing a mutation of the Internet. Originally, the idea was that > the Internet interconnected networks, and the boxes that accomplished that were > called "gateways". I pushed the notion that a wire, i.e., a leased line or > virtual circuit, was simply a very degenerate type of network, which could > connect to only two "hosts" -- "this end" and "that end". So, if you put a > wire from a port on one gateway to a port on another, and treated it as just a > very simple "network", the overall Internet would still work just fine. I must > have given the slideshow presentation about this concept at least a hundred > times. Of course it meant that you would no longer need those ARPANet IMPs to > plug your gateway into. You could just unplug the long-haul leased line from > the IMP port, plug it into the gateway port instead, and the Internet would > simply take over the task of routing traffic across that line. We actually did > exactly that, to make sure it worked. At that point the boxes we called > "gateways" became "routers" and took on the role of switching. I don't think > the BBN management ever understood the implications of that concept on future > sales of packet switches, despite my slideshow efforts. Of course, at the time, > the "conventional wisdom" was that the Internet was just a research project, and > the "real" system was going to come from the PTTs, CCITT, ISO, and other > professionals, with X.25 and X.75 playing the lead role to upstage TCP and IP. > > Anyway, that environment would have led to an Internet that looked a lot like > the ARPANet, probably ending up as a homogeneous network of routers > interconnecting mostly Ethernets, thanks to Bob Metcalfe. There was a lot of > momentum along that trajectory. But Bob Kahn stepped in the way.... > > This is one case where I remember quite clearly how the Internet was > "influenced" to change directions radically. Again, all of this is from my > personal perspective, with my personal definition of "the Internet". Others > undoubtedly had different experiences. > > I was at one of innumerable meetings. Sorry, I can't remember where or when. > It was probably in DC, where I spent a lot of time, but my gut feeling tells me > it was the European Internet meeting, maybe in Munich. Anyway,... Bob and I > were hanging on the same subway strap, with the usual group of a dozen or two > people heading out to find dinner. Bob wanted to talk about the Internet > architecture, and in particular the core gateways. He managed over the > squealing of the car's wheels to overcome my skepticism and make it clear that > it would be a good idea to figure out how to make it possible for gateways not > built by BBN to be full participants in the system of gateways. I don't know > whether this was motivated by political pressures to enable CSNET/NSFNET, or > some technical considerations, or by the ARPA charter to focus on new technology > and new ideas, rather than replicating the old ones. But he convinced me, and I > went away with a new direction, and a harder task to make something work using > an unproven approach. > > Back at BBN, the challenge was not only to figure out how to make a stable > heterogeneous Internet, but also how to convince the people on the project that > it was a good idea to let other people build gateways and hook them up to "our" > system. Fortunately the meetings of the TCP and IP working groups were great > training for this kind of work. I recruited one of the best thinkers from the > ARPANet crowd - Dr. Eric Rosen. He and I sat down for several multi-hour > brainstorming sessions, and came up with the notion of "autonomous systems", > which were sets of routers owned/managed by a single organization, and > interconnected with other such systems to form the overall Internet. EGP (which > I think evolved into BGP) and the concept of IGP (which basically means whatever > mechanisms are used among the routers inside their own closed system) made it > possible to use different approaches within different ASes. This led to RFC > 827 and a bunch of others in the early 80s. > > To me, this is what diverted the Internet from homogeneous to heterogeneous in > nature and enable the "Inter"connection of different organizations -- even if > they used the same network products, they retained control over their own > assets. In retrospect, given the experiences I later had in various commercial > "user" situations, this characteristic was crucial to making the Internet > reliable and successful. > > Of course, this wasn't a new idea. Mainframes and timesharing were succumbing > to the onslaught of PCs - which allowed you to own and control your own > computing resources, rather than being at the mercy of the clowns in the "Data > Center". People like to control what's important to them. > > Bob Kahn had it just right. Maybe that subway strap should be bronzed and put > in the Smithsonian. Of course, adding in all of Vint's "subway straps" would > require another wing. > > These have been just a few examples, of the influences I felt while doing what I > was doing to help build what I think of as the Internet. Whew, that should be > enough caveats. > > Getting back to Matthias' original question... I'd have to say that Pouzin's or > Baran's ideas and papers, or anyone else's papers for that matter, didn't have > much direct influence on the Internet mechanisms that I was associated with. > The culture wasn't very scientific/academic oriented; magazines like Data > Communications were popular, and maybe some IEEE journals, but they were > peripheral. The science didn't apply very readily to the Internet environment > where nice well-understood, easily modelled wires were replaced by a gaggle of > networks with unknown, unpredictable, and variable behavior. So, the design > and implementation decisions were made by the practical needs of trying to make > something that worked, even if we couldn't explain why. It was very much an > experimental, engineering kind of world - watch what's happening, try something > that seems likely to help, repeat until done; this was largely what had been > going on in the ARPANet for a while at that point to refine the basic mechanisms > of packet switching. The ARPANet was probably the biggest influence on the > Internet at that time (again, from my personal perspective). To the extent > that the ARPANet mechanisms were influenced by earlier academic work, that > influence may have flowed forward to the Internet. You'd have to ask the > ARPANet guys. > > I think it's also true that a big influence on decisions is simply the personal > experience of the people involved. In my youth I had a model train set, and > learned something about how railroads worked. If you think of the movement of a > commodity like coal, or wheat, or logs, there's lots of analogies to "packet > switching". Logs or lumps of coal are like bits, cars ("wagons" in Europe) are > like packets, freight yards are like routers. In the late nineteenth and early > twentieth centuries, railroads built by different companies used different sizes > of track, so that cargo had to be moved from one car to another at their > junctions - not unlike what a "gateway" had to do? Railroads encountered all > sorts of problems, many with blatant relationships to our Internet world > (congestion control comes to mind), and they developed elaborate technologies to > deal with it, such as a series of signalling systems and "routing protocols" - > all well before Eniac (or pick your favorite "first computer"). > > With personal experiences like that, what you know from those "technology > architectures" can easily influence decisions made in a new situation. In the > Internet meetings in the early 80s, concepts like "expressway routing" were > discussed at length, and people pretty much knew the issues from their human > experiences with the highway systems. Their experiences must have influenced > their Internet work too, probably more than just adopting highway terminology. > > So, if the notion of "packet switching" has a long history, how do you tell > whether you're influenced by a recent example, or one from centuries ago. Roman > generals used to dispatch several runners with copies of a message to assure > that their reports got back to Rome. They used to split messages up and send > pieces by different messengers, over different routes, to avoid interception by > the enemy. I don't think they called it "fragmentation and reassembly" but > it's the same idea. I knew this history from high school -- did it influence me > in my later work on the Internet? Did it influence Pouzin and others? > > Enough philosophy, and enough words. If you've gotten this far, thanks for > listening, and I hope I've helped answer the original question at least a little > bit. > > To me, the history of the Internet is the aggregate of all of these kinds of > anecdotes by all the people involved in whatever they individually think of as > "the Internet". Unlike other huge projects, like putting a man on the moon, > there was no "Internet project", and no crisp milestones -- like when it > started, or when it was completed. Are we done yet? There weren't a whole crew > of journalists documenting it along the way, since it was supposed to be > ephemeral and wasn't considered important enough to warrant the attention. But > it's a fascinating story. > > Just for completeness, my personal view of the Internet was driven by my > involvement, so here's a brief summary for the record. In the mid 70s, I was a > user of the ARPANet, building various applications that ran over the net - in > particular email. From 1978 through to 1990 I was at BBN, doing a variety of > things over time, almost all somehow associated with the Internet. I started by > building TCP for Unix, ended up managing a gaggle of research projects, and > later created a "system engineering" organization to help real users (government > and early commercial adopters) deploy and use their own Internets. In 1990 I > went west to Oracle as "Internet Architect", which among other things involved > getting the corporate internet up and running, getting products to be > Internet-capable, and helping Oracle's customers (which is just about everybody) > understand the new-fangled Internet stuff and get it to work, since none of the > Internet industry's products seemed to come with a "How to Run and Manage an > Internet" or a "How to Use Your New Internet for Fun and Especially Profit" > pamphlet. So, my personal perspective on "the Internet" is an amalgam of all > those situations. > > The Internet is like the elephant in those proverbial stories about the elephant > and the blind man. What you think it is depends on your perspective as you > encounter it. > > A few years ago, some organization (Smithsonian I believe) ran a project to > capture as much as possible of the experiences of World War II veterans, in > order to document the "inside" of the war experience while the opportunity still > existed. Perhaps, in its role as organizer of the world's information (which > continually amazes me), Google might take on such a project for the > Internet...? Vint, did you make it this far through my rambling......? > > /Jack Haverty > Point Arena, CA > - where we still don't have cell service, and the phones only do 24kb/sec, but > fortunately there are satellites.....and I'm not on the hot seat at the > operations center! > > > > > > > -- Matthias B?rwolff mbaer at csail.mit.edu From jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu Mon Apr 6 11:26:04 2009 From: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa) Date: Mon, 6 Apr 2009 14:26:04 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [ih] Origin of the term 'locator' Message-ID: <20090406182604.3BCBD6BE570@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> As a result of recent discussion on another mailing list, I went looking for the origin of the term 'locator', which was invented by the Nimrod group (Frank Kastenholz in particular), and used to denote an 'address' which wasn't carried in packets (since people seemed to have their heads cemented around the concept that 'addresses' had to be in packets). I _thought_ it had been created on a public email list (perhaps the Nimrod WG mailing list), but it turns out to have been in private email, a fork from a thread on the Big-Internet mailing list (started by me at Mon, 16 Aug 93 23:09:05 -0400, Subject: Terminology problems). So, for the future historians, I'm posting (with Frank's permission) that private email exchange to the list, so it's here in the historical record. Noel -------------- Date: Tue, 17 Aug 93 09:00:06 -0400 Message-Id: <9308171300.AA04707 at ftp.com> To: jnc at ginger.lcs.mit.edu Subject: Re: Terminology problems From: kasten at ftp.com (Frank Kastenholz) Pretty much works for me... I'd probably use the term "network address" rather than "address" -- just to keep it clear that we are talking about them. The term "address" by itself is used so often that it I fear it will always lead to confusion. By having the qualifier "network" (or "topological") it will be a little clearer. > "interface name", "i-name" - Alternative name for the above, if we don't agree > to call it an "address". No. "Name" does not have the implication of the structure that you desire. To me, "interface name" would be synonymous with "interface identifier" (ala endpoint identifier). Also, using two names for the same thing will lead to confusion. ... ------- Date: Tue, 17 Aug 93 12:45:33 -0400 From: jnc at ginger.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa) Message-Id: <9308171645.AA15614 at ginger.lcs.mit.edu> To: kasten at ftp.com Subject: Re: Terminology problems > I'd probably use the term "network address" rather than "address" -- > just to keep it clear that we are talking about them. The term "address" > by itself is used so often that it I fear it will always lead to > confusion. By having the qualifier "network" (or "topological") it > will be a little clearer. Yessss, but... It's more of a mouthful, more characters to type, etc, though. I mean, every message here is about networking, so we only need to qualify street addresses very occasionally, yes? I use the term "internetwork address" to differentiate from the physical subnetwork address... > No. "Name" does not have the implication of the structure that you > desire. To me, "interface name" would be synonymous with "interface > identifier" (ala endpoint identifier). Yes, I just couldn't think of a crisp term (other than "toplogically structured interface name") to use if Deering won't let us get away with snarfing "address"! Any suggestions for an alternative? > Also, using two names for the same thing will lead to confusion. I was proposing a term in case we can't use address; if we get it, this will go away. ... ------- Date: Tue, 17 Aug 93 13:15:39 -0400 Message-Id: <9308171715.AA15387 at ftp.com> To: jnc at ginger.lcs.mit.edu Subject: Re: Terminology problems From: kasten at ftp.com (Frank Kastenholz) > Yessss, but... It's more of a mouthful, more characters to type, etc, though. > I mean, every message here is about networking, so we only need to qualify > street addresses very occasionally, yes? I use the term "internetwork address" > to differentiate from the physical subnetwork address... I meant "Network" as in "Network Layer" and as opposed to "MAC/Physical". I know that the 48-bit number that is called an 802 Address is not an address in the sense that we mean -- but by explicitly prefixing something to "address" it would be clearer (and would reinforce the difference to those just learning the terms). Actually, the ideal term would be "IP Address" but that would probably lead to a bit of confusion :-) > No. "Name" does not have the implication of the structure that you > desire. To me, "interface name" would be synonymous with "interface > identifier" (ala endpoint identifier). > > Yes, I just couldn't think of a crisp term (other than "toplogically > structured interface name") to use if Deering won't let us get away with > snarfing "address"! Any suggestions for an alternative? To try to indicate that we are talking about a different set of concepts than are commonly associated with "address", it might be good to _never_ use the term address, regardless of any qualifiers. If we never use the term address, then we will not run the risk of "which address" confusion. How about locater or location? ------- Date: Tue, 17 Aug 93 14:14:50 -0400 From: jnc at ginger.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa) Message-Id: <9308171814.AA16361 at ginger.lcs.mit.edu> To: kasten at ftp.com Subject: Re: Terminology problems To try to indicate that we are talking about a different set of concepts than are commonly associated with "address", it might be good to _never_ use the term address, regardless of any qualifiers. If we never use the term address, then we will not run the risk of "which address" confusion. As the original message indicated, I'm almost to the point of doing this. It seems a shame to throw away such a good word, though! How about locater or location? Hmm, pretty good. "Interface locator", maybe? ------- Date: Tue, 17 Aug 93 14:47:55 -0400 Message-Id: <9308171847.AA20886 at ftp.com> To: jnc at ginger.lcs.mit.edu Subject: Re: Terminology problems From: kasten at ftp.com (Frank Kastenholz) > As the original message indicated, I'm almost to the point of doing this. It > seems a shame to throw away such a good word, though! It must be a good idea -- it was independently arrived at by >1 person :-) > How about locater or location? > > Hmm, pretty good. "Interface locator", maybe? Sure Maybe I should copyright it and demand royalties :-) From mbaer at cs.tu-berlin.de Fri Apr 24 18:45:09 2009 From: mbaer at cs.tu-berlin.de (=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Matthias_B=E4rwolff?=) Date: Fri, 24 Apr 2009 21:45:09 -0400 Subject: [ih] INWG Notes - Where to find them? Message-ID: <49F26B25.5000907@cs.tu-berlin.de> Dear all, I was wondering if there is any place other than the Charles Babbage Institute where any set of INWG notes can be obtained, preferably in electronic form. Specifically, I am interested in D. Belsnes, "Flow control in packet switching networks" INWG Note #63, October 1974. Thanks, Matthias -- Matthias B?rwolff mbaer at csail.mit.edu From chris at cs.utexas.edu Sat Apr 25 06:59:35 2009 From: chris at cs.utexas.edu (Chris Edmondson-Yurkanan) Date: Sat, 25 Apr 2009 08:59:35 -0500 Subject: [ih] INWG Notes - Where to find them? In-Reply-To: <49F26B25.5000907@cs.tu-berlin.de> References: <49F26B25.5000907@cs.tu-berlin.de> Message-ID: <7AF928A1-9925-4EDD-961D-6899405DE54E@cs.utexas.edu> Matthias, I visited the INWGs at CBI in 2001, and copied a few of them completely, and copied the first page of most INWGs. There are no INWGs online as of yet, unless they were also published. INWG 63 was also a Stanford tech report working with Vint Cerf. I visited the Stanford tech reports in 2004. Stanford has not put up those tech reports. The easiest way for you to get the report is to pay CBI a small fee for a copy of INWG 63. enjoy, Chris On Apr 24, 2009, at 8:45 PM, Matthias B?rwolff wrote: > Dear all, > > I was wondering if there is any place other than the Charles Babbage > Institute where any set of INWG notes can be obtained, preferably in > electronic form. Specifically, I am interested in D. Belsnes, "Flow > control in packet switching networks" INWG Note #63, October 1974. > > Thanks, > Matthias > > -- > Matthias B?rwolff > mbaer at csail.mit.edu Chris Edmondson-Yurkanan (chris at cs.utexas.edu) Contact info: www.cs.utexas.edu/~chris/ From mbaer at cs.tu-berlin.de Mon Apr 27 09:50:48 2009 From: mbaer at cs.tu-berlin.de (=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Matthias_B=E4rwolff?=) Date: Mon, 27 Apr 2009 12:50:48 -0400 Subject: [ih] NCP to TCP/IP Transition Message-ID: <49F5E268.90806@cs.tu-berlin.de> Hi, is my understanding correct in that it actually took more than a year to do the transition from NCP to TCP/IP, starting roughly in early 1982 and being done with by mid-1983? This is what RFC 801 (the plan), and rfc842 through rfc848 plus rfc876 (the progress reports) seem to indicate. I am asking because the transition is nowadays always being referred to as a flag day transition (which in may understanding is defined as the very absence of any transition period, e.g. something like changing from driving on the left to driving on the right side of the road), but apparently this was neither the case, nor was it intended to be. There was simply a deadline, which, of course, was not met. Also, I am wondering, have the application layer gateways (relays) that RFC 801 refers to been deployed, and if yes, to which extend, and how successful? And a final question, while I'm at it: How decisive was the pressure from DCA in this? My impression has been that without the top-down pressure the whole thing may well never have happened, despite all the money being poured into TCP/IP implementations. Pointers to relevant literature sources are appreciated, too. Thanks again for your help. Matthias -- Matthias B?rwolff mbaer at csail.mit.edu From craig at aland.bbn.com Mon Apr 27 10:31:31 2009 From: craig at aland.bbn.com (Craig Partridge) Date: Mon, 27 Apr 2009 13:31:31 -0400 Subject: [ih] NCP to TCP/IP Transition Message-ID: <20090427173131.3F19A28E137@aland.bbn.com> I showed up just afterwards but people already referred to a flag day. If I remember right, the flag day was the day that NCP was turned off and people discovered exactly how well their TCP was working (not well). Interestingly, some of the issues I heard about were applications. E.g. a number of sites discovered they were having trouble getting mail working right and found it convenient to send all their mail to a site that seemed to have its act together, and have that site forward. CSNET remembered the huge mail burden its servers suffered for some years (I wouldn't be surprised if SRI-NIC had a similar experience). But others on this list actually lived it -- this note is simply to tickle their memories. Thanks! Craig > Hi, > > is my understanding correct in that it actually took more than a year to > do the transition from NCP to TCP/IP, starting roughly in early 1982 and > being done with by mid-1983? This is what RFC 801 (the plan), and rfc842 > through rfc848 plus rfc876 (the progress reports) seem to indicate. > > I am asking because the transition is nowadays always being referred to > as a flag day transition (which in may understanding is defined as the > very absence of any transition period, e.g. something like changing from > driving on the left to driving on the right side of the road), but > apparently this was neither the case, nor was it intended to be. There > was simply a deadline, which, of course, was not met. > > Also, I am wondering, have the application layer gateways (relays) that > RFC 801 refers to been deployed, and if yes, to which extend, and how > successful? > > And a final question, while I'm at it: How decisive was the pressure > from DCA in this? My impression has been that without the top-down > pressure the whole thing may well never have happened, despite all the > money being poured into TCP/IP implementations. > > Pointers to relevant literature sources are appreciated, too. Thanks > again for your help. > > Matthias > > -- > Matthias B?rwolff > mbaer at csail.mit.edu ******************** Craig Partridge Chief Scientist, BBN Technologies E-mail: craig at aland.bbn.com or craig at bbn.com Phone: +1 517 324 3425 From vint at google.com Mon Apr 27 10:49:12 2009 From: vint at google.com (Vint Cerf) Date: Mon, 27 Apr 2009 13:49:12 -0400 Subject: [ih] NCP to TCP/IP Transition In-Reply-To: <49F5E268.90806@cs.tu-berlin.de> References: <49F5E268.90806@cs.tu-berlin.de> Message-ID: <7A204F26-71C0-4AB2-8156-FFFE73F29636@google.com> The date of transition was 1 jan 83 but for almost 5 years before that I was pushing implementations of TCP/IP in as many operating systems as possible. It was only after all these implementations were done (and many tested for interoperability) that I began pushing in late 1981 or early 1982 for a planned (mandated) transition to TCP/IP. Mainly this meant all ARPANET hosts had to change or drop off the net. We had the ability to kill NCP at the network level and did so twice during 1982 to show we could do it. vint On Apr 27, 2009, at 12:50 PM, Matthias B?rwolff wrote: > Hi, > > is my understanding correct in that it actually took more than a > year to > do the transition from NCP to TCP/IP, starting roughly in early 1982 > and > being done with by mid-1983? This is what RFC 801 (the plan), and > rfc842 > through rfc848 plus rfc876 (the progress reports) seem to indicate. > > I am asking because the transition is nowadays always being referred > to > as a flag day transition (which in may understanding is defined as the > very absence of any transition period, e.g. something like changing > from > driving on the left to driving on the right side of the road), but > apparently this was neither the case, nor was it intended to be. There > was simply a deadline, which, of course, was not met. > > Also, I am wondering, have the application layer gateways (relays) > that > RFC 801 refers to been deployed, and if yes, to which extend, and how > successful? > > And a final question, while I'm at it: How decisive was the pressure > from DCA in this? My impression has been that without the top-down > pressure the whole thing may well never have happened, despite all the > money being poured into TCP/IP implementations. > > Pointers to relevant literature sources are appreciated, too. Thanks > again for your help. > > Matthias > > -- > Matthias B?rwolff > mbaer at csail.mit.edu > From arussell at jhu.edu Mon Apr 27 14:35:33 2009 From: arussell at jhu.edu (Andrew Russell) Date: Mon, 27 Apr 2009 17:35:33 -0400 Subject: [ih] NCP to TCP/IP Transition In-Reply-To: <7A204F26-71C0-4AB2-8156-FFFE73F29636@google.com> References: <49F5E268.90806@cs.tu-berlin.de> <7A204F26-71C0-4AB2-8156-FFFE73F29636@google.com> Message-ID: <0195352E-8768-48EE-A7E3-83169A89EBA2@jhu.edu> You may also want to consult the historical account of this 'transition' that appears in Amy Slaton and Janet Abbate, ?The Hidden Lives of Standards: Technical Prescriptions and the Transformation of Work in America,? in Michael Thad Allen and Gabrielle Hecht, eds., Technologies of Power: Essays in Honor of Thomas Parke Hughes and Agatha Chipley Hughes (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2001). Cheers, Andy Russell On Apr 27, 2009, at 1:49 PM, Vint Cerf wrote: > The date of transition was 1 jan 83 but for almost 5 years before > that I was pushing implementations of TCP/IP in as many operating > systems as possible. It was only after all these implementations > were done (and many tested for interoperability) that I began > pushing in late 1981 or early 1982 for a planned (mandated) > transition to TCP/IP. Mainly this meant all ARPANET hosts had to > change or drop off the net. We had the ability to kill NCP at the > network level and did so twice during 1982 to show we could do it. > > vint > > On Apr 27, 2009, at 12:50 PM, Matthias B?rwolff wrote: > >> Hi, >> >> is my understanding correct in that it actually took more than a >> year to >> do the transition from NCP to TCP/IP, starting roughly in early >> 1982 and >> being done with by mid-1983? This is what RFC 801 (the plan), and >> rfc842 >> through rfc848 plus rfc876 (the progress reports) seem to indicate. >> >> I am asking because the transition is nowadays always being >> referred to >> as a flag day transition (which in may understanding is defined as >> the >> very absence of any transition period, e.g. something like >> changing from >> driving on the left to driving on the right side of the road), but >> apparently this was neither the case, nor was it intended to be. >> There >> was simply a deadline, which, of course, was not met. >> >> Also, I am wondering, have the application layer gateways (relays) >> that >> RFC 801 refers to been deployed, and if yes, to which extend, and how >> successful? >> >> And a final question, while I'm at it: How decisive was the pressure >> from DCA in this? My impression has been that without the top-down >> pressure the whole thing may well never have happened, despite all >> the >> money being poured into TCP/IP implementations. >> >> Pointers to relevant literature sources are appreciated, too. Thanks >> again for your help. >> >> Matthias >> >> -- >> Matthias B?rwolff >> mbaer at csail.mit.edu >> > > ----------------------------------------------------------- Andrew L. Russell, Ph.D Assistant Professor, Program in History College of Arts & Letters Morton Building, Room 328 Stevens Institute of Technology Castle Point on Hudson Hoboken, NJ 07030 Phone: 201-216-5400 Fax: 201-216-8245 arussell at stevens.edu http://www.arussell.org From ronda.netizen at gmail.com Mon Apr 27 15:22:27 2009 From: ronda.netizen at gmail.com (Ronda Hauben) Date: Mon, 27 Apr 2009 18:22:27 -0400 Subject: [ih] NCP to TCP/IP Transition In-Reply-To: <49F5E268.90806@cs.tu-berlin.de> References: <49F5E268.90806@cs.tu-berlin.de> Message-ID: Hi Matthias The url for a paper I did on the transition is: http://www.columbia.edu/~rh120/other/tcpdigest_paper.txt best wishes Ronde co-author "Netizens: On the History and Impact of Usenet and the Internet" published by IEEE Computer Society, 1997 On Mon, Apr 27, 2009 at 12:50 PM, Matthias B?rwolff wrote: > Hi, > > is my understanding correct in that it actually took more than a year to > do the transition from NCP to TCP/IP, starting roughly in early 1982 and > being done with by mid-1983? This is what RFC 801 (the plan), and rfc842 > through rfc848 plus rfc876 (the progress reports) seem to indicate. > > I am asking because the transition is nowadays always being referred to > as a flag day transition (which in may understanding is defined as the > very absence of any transition period, e.g. something like changing from > driving on the left to driving on the right side of the road), but > apparently this was neither the case, nor was it intended to be. There > was simply a deadline, which, of course, was not met. > > Also, I am wondering, have the application layer gateways (relays) that > RFC 801 refers to been deployed, and if yes, to which extend, and how > successful? > > And a final question, while I'm at it: How decisive was the pressure > from DCA in this? My impression has been that without the top-down > pressure the whole thing may well never have happened, despite all the > money being poured into TCP/IP implementations. > > Pointers to relevant literature sources are appreciated, too. Thanks > again for your help. > > Matthias > > -- > Matthias B?rwolff > mbaer at csail.mit.edu > > -- Netizens: On the History and Impact of Usenet and the Internet http://www.columbia.edu/~hauben/netbook From jack at 3kitty.org Mon Apr 27 23:08:32 2009 From: jack at 3kitty.org (Jack Haverty) Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2009 06:08:32 +0000 Subject: [ih] NCP to TCP/IP Transition In-Reply-To: <49F5E268.90806@cs.tu-berlin.de> References: <49F5E268.90806@cs.tu-berlin.de> Message-ID: <1240898912.22497.68.camel@localhost> Matthias, I still somewhere have the button which says "I survived the TCP transition"! In order to understand the transition, I think you might want to look into the context, especially other concurrent activities. In particular, the US Defense Data Network (DDN) was coming into being at the same time. The Arpanet mission was research, but over the years a number of hosts had come onto the Arpanet from the operational community. In fact, DCA had by then taken over the role of operating the Arpanet, reflecting the fact that it had evolved to be more operational in nature instead of a research tool. In the original long-term plan, a network called Autodin-II was supposed to provide the future operational communications needs. Autodin-II would have been built by the traditional contractors, using approaches more associated with PTTs and "phone companies" than with the new technologies of the Arpanet and TCP. However, the government did a study, and decided to cancel the Autodin-II efforts and replace them with new programs using the Arpanet technology. I was working at BBN during those years, and I remember we were all stunned to learn that we had actually won the competition to provide the new network(s) using the proven Arpanet technology. Vint's efforts for several years before the 1983 date undoubtedly helped prove that the Arpa technology was ready to deploy. I remember that we (in the research community) were protesting that the TCP technology wasn't done yet. At every meeting, there were always many items on the "things to be figured out" list. But of course a researcher is never done - there's always another aspect to investigate, or refinement to make. Don't take my toys away! I googled quickly and found a short summary of some of those events: http://www.chips.navy.mil/archives/87_Jan/FILE22.HTM There are no doubt many other such discussions. Since by then it was also clear that local networks of various technologies had to be supported, TCP was required. NCP was not designed to interconnect networks. Among other things, this also meant that the relevant protocols (TCP, IP, etc.) had to become "official", so there was considerable work done to establish them as official "DoD Standards". Unlike the research environment, the operational world demanded more structure, more control, more paperwork, and more procedures. With TCP/IP as official DoD Standards, they could then be used in procurements for operational programs - things like Army payroll systems, etc. that had nothing to do with research. The Arpanet NCP/TCP transition was one piece of this overall migration of the Arpa technology research product into the operational government "customer" world. As I remember, DCA pushed very strongly on this transition. After all, the Arpanet was in effect the beta test site for the subsequent introduction of TCP to the operational community which DCA served. It was important to make sure everything worked in the Arpanet to avoid problems in the operational world which is much less tolerant than a research community. Imagine trying to tell your Army that they didn't get paid this week because of a TCP problem. I believe that the DCA pressure came from the adoption of TCP as the future (then) technology for the entire operational community. If that decision to switch from Autodin II to DDN hadn't happened, there wouldn't have been any pressure, and the transition to TCP probably wouldn't have happened. The money that was "poured into TCP implementations" was insignificant compared to the money to be poured into various applications that were required to change to use TCP (since it was DoD Standard). That's where the pressure came from. Although there was a particular date/time when the "transition" occurred, I think it's misleading to think of this as a "flag day". After all, the Arpanet was always able to carry NCP and TCP simultaneously. Hosts had a long time to prepare, and could even choose to operate both NCP and TCP at the same time, and the "application level gateways" made it possible for the separate NCP and TCP worlds to continue to communicate as each pursued the transition at their own pace, as long as they completed it by 1/1/1983. The email interconnection was by far the most important and as I remember it worked fine. January 1, 1983 was simply the date on which NCP would no longer work. It was a simple patch to the IMP code to make NCP fail, and it was easily reversible (but that was of course not advertised). So that date put pressure on all the hosts to do what they had to do in order to continue to function after the switch to TCP. I wish I could remember more about the cutover. For example, how much NCP traffic was still running immediately before NCP was disabled? As I remember, the transition was pretty much a non-event. No disasters, no frenzy to fix problems. One way to think about all the events around that time is that it was all part of a massive multi-year "technology transfer" of ARPA-developed research technology into the "real world" of the government operations. Through the late 80s, a similar technology transfer started, introducing TCP into the commercial world, with early adopter corporate internets being deployed using TCP. This was the death knell for competitors - DECNET, XNS, SNA, X.25, etc. Then I would argue that there was another later "technology transfer" of the TCP technology into what people now call "The Internet", when the Web came into being and exploded and made the contemporary "public networks" (AOL, Compuserve, etc) wither. Hope this perspective helps, /Jack Haverty Point Arena, CA, US On Mon, 2009-04-27 at 12:50 -0400, Matthias B?rwolff wrote: > Hi, > > is my understanding correct in that it actually took more than a year to > do the transition from NCP to TCP/IP, starting roughly in early 1982 and > being done with by mid-1983? This is what RFC 801 (the plan), and rfc842 > through rfc848 plus rfc876 (the progress reports) seem to indicate. > > I am asking because the transition is nowadays always being referred to > as a flag day transition (which in may understanding is defined as the > very absence of any transition period, e.g. something like changing from > driving on the left to driving on the right side of the road), but > apparently this was neither the case, nor was it intended to be. There > was simply a deadline, which, of course, was not met. > > Also, I am wondering, have the application layer gateways (relays) that > RFC 801 refers to been deployed, and if yes, to which extend, and how > successful? > > And a final question, while I'm at it: How decisive was the pressure > from DCA in this? My impression has been that without the top-down > pressure the whole thing may well never have happened, despite all the > money being poured into TCP/IP implementations. > > Pointers to relevant literature sources are appreciated, too. Thanks > again for your help. > > Matthias >