[ih] Fwd: History of "accounts"

[Miles Fidelman]

Jack Haverty wrote:
>
> There was an interesting algorithm we put in the US-side VAN gateway 
> which wasn't discussed much and might have therefore escaped being 
> captured by History.   Until now.  Here it is, for posterity:
>
> "When a packet arrives to be sent to the X.25 network, if the X.25 
> connection is open, queue the packet for sending. If the X.25 
> connection is *not* open, open the connection, send that single 
> packet, and immediately close the connection."
>
> So, the SYN packet of a TCP connection heading to EU from a US 
> computer would get sent and the US would pay for a short, one-packet, 
> X.25 session.  The ACK returning from the EU computer would then open 
> a connection from the EU side, and, lacking a similar algorithm, 
> subsequent packets for that TCP session, and any others that might 
> subsequently occur (FTP transfers for example) would get billed to the UK.
>
> So, most usage of that X.25 path got billed to the UK sponsors.  I 
> don't know if the UK ever noticed that this was happening.   Peter 
> Kirstein might remember.   For the curious, the history of the VAN 
> gateway is discussed in a series of BBN Quarterly Technical Reports of 
> that era, many of which are available online.
>
> Someone told me once - "Management is the art of putting your expenses 
> into someone else's budget".... which we did, as part of our role in 
> managing the "core gateways".

Better watch out Jack - someone might come after you for back charges.

Cheers,

Miles

-- 
In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice.
In practice, there is.   .... Yogi Berra