[ih] what is and isn't the web, was Rise and Fall of the Gopher Protocol

[Ofer Inbar]

> > On Aug 21, 2016, at 19:47, Ofer Inbar <cos at aaaaa.org> wrote:
> > 
> > On Sun, Aug 21, 2016 at 01:28:30PM -0400,
> > John Day <jeanjour at comcast.net> wrote:
> >> Depending on how you look at it, neither did the web. Thinking of
> >> the lack of security in http, either assumes the same management or
> >> no management.  If it was expected to work with multiple management
> >> domains one would expect at least authentication and access control.
> > 
> > SMTP and NNTP came with no auth or access control or any sort of
> > security that I recall in the early days, and weren't they both
> > designed consciously and deliberately for a distributed network
> > with independent management of each node?

On Sun, Aug 21, 2016 at 09:27:23PM -0400,
John Day <jeanjour at comcast.net> wrote:
> That was much later. FTP and both RJE protocols required login.
> 
> Back when mail was part of FTP there was a lot of discussion about anonymous login and it’s abuse.  By the time, mail got its own protocol concerns about security had pretty much disappeared.
> 

Sure, but HTTP was much later as well.

Its lack of security features doesn't mean they assumed all servers
would be under common management (or "no management", that seems
ambiguous) any more than SMTP and NNTP and some others assumed that.
Various protocols were designed deliberately for distributed
management, while omitting security features, around that time.
Yes?
  -- Cos