From eric.gade at gmail.com Fri Apr 13 14:47:03 2018 From: eric.gade at gmail.com (Eric Gade) Date: Fri, 13 Apr 2018 17:47:03 -0400 Subject: [ih] Yasha Levine's Surveillance Valley: The Secret Military History of the Internet -- Some Questions Message-ID: Hello list members, Please excuse the length of this email. I am in the process of writing a review of Yasha Levine's new history of the Internet, "Surveillance Valley: The Secret Military History of the Internet." His overall thesis is that the development of the Internet has, from the beginning, grown from "counterinsurgency" and surveillance operations, and that these aspects have not been adequately chronicled in other histories. Many of his claims about the early ARPA work I have not encountered before, and I imagine that some would find them provocative. I'm hoping there are members of this list with knowledge about these claims who can help me clarify a few points: 1. Levine asserts that there was some overlap or relationship between William Godel's Project Agile and work conducted by the ARPA Command and Control division under Licklider. He pulls a lot from Sharon Weinberger's recent book ("The Imagineers of War") in discussing both Godel and the potential connection. He writes, "[Licklider's] work at ARPA was part of the military's larger counterinsurgency efforts and directly overlapped with William Godel's Project Agile." (52). In making this statement he actually cites Weinberger's prologue, in which she says "Godel personally signed off on the first computer-networking study, giving it money from his Vietnam budget." It appears Weinberger is herself citing this document: ( https://archivesdeclassification.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/arpa-order-internet.pdf). It is a part of a series that may still be classified (I have the NDC looking into it). My question about this is: was there really any kind of working relationship? What does this transfer of funds represent? And perhaps more broadly: to what extent was ARPA C&C/IPTO involved in counterinsurgency data collection and processing? 2. A large section of the early history in this book deals with the Cambridge Project (aka Project CAM) at MIT and controversy surrounding it at the time. I am awaiting a copy of the original proposal from MIT (it might not come in before deadline; should anyone on this list have a copy I'd really appreciate it). Levine asserts that the project "would directly aid the agency's counterinsurgency mission." He claims that the work of the project "could be accessed from any computer with an ARPANET connection" (68) and that "It was a kind of stripped down 1960s version of Palantir, the powerful data mining, surveillance, and prediction software the military and intelligence planners use today." He goes on: "the project was customized to the military's needs, with particular focus on fighting insurgencies and rolling back communism [...] It was clear that the Cambridge Project wasn't just a tool for research, it was a counterinsurgency technology." (68-69) Is that not an accurate description of the proposal? Were any members on this list involved in this research? If so, are these characterizations accurate to your mind? 3. There is yet another section where Levine finds some reporting from the early 70s, where NBC News' Rowan Ford conducted a 4 month investigation and found evidence that intelligence files about American anti-war protestors and others had been transferred, perhaps stored, and perhaps processed somehow, over the ARPANET and linked host machines. His report was entered into the Congressional Record as a part of Tunney's hearings in 1975: https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015078638619;view=1up;seq=7 The claim is that these files might have been a part of previous CONUS intel that, in 1972, the Army was ordered to delete. One of the claims in the report is that such files were transferred via the ARPANET to MIT for some reason. Ford had 4 sources for this story who had knowledge of the incident; only one, Richard Ferguson (who apparently was fired from MIT for this disclosure), gave information publicly. Does anyone on this list have knowledge of this incident, and/or whether or not the ARPANET/ARPA IPTO was used to move around, eventually store, or otherwise process these kinds of dossiers? These are all the questions I have for now. Thanks for taking the time to read. -- Eric -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnl at iecc.com Fri Apr 13 15:12:58 2018 From: johnl at iecc.com (John Levine) Date: 13 Apr 2018 18:12:58 -0400 Subject: [ih] .UK vs .GB Message-ID: <20180413221258.D240B24AA5BB@ary.qy> In another list someone was wondering why British domain names are mostly in .UK even though the ISO 3166 code has always been .GB. I know this came up before but can't find the discussion. Pointers or rehash welcome. The first mention I can find of .UK is in an example in RFC 821 in 1982, the first statement that ccTLDS would be ISO 3166 codes was in 1984. For that matter, I see that JANET still runs .GB. What still uses it? R's, John From vint at google.com Fri Apr 13 15:48:09 2018 From: vint at google.com (Vint Cerf) Date: Fri, 13 Apr 2018 18:48:09 -0400 Subject: [ih] Yasha Levine's Surveillance Valley: The Secret Military History of the Internet -- Some Questions In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: this looks like conflates of a lot of stuff. The ARPANET was motivated by resource sharing (see Larry Roberts and Barry Wessler paper "On Resource Sharing" https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1477020 Licklider wrote extensively on the use of computers for non-numerical purposes and was a strong supporter of Douglas Engelbart's work on collaborative knowledge sharing. The director of IPTO, Robert Taylor, was involved at one point, I think, in the Vietnamese situation regarding casualty counts. see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Taylor_(computer_scientist) but this had nothing to do with ARPANET as far as I know. I know nothing about the Cambridge Project but ARPANET was available for anyone with permission from DoD to use it so if CAM was a DoD project it might well have been authorized to use the ARPANET but the developers of the ARPANET and its host protocols did not make any reference to a "Cambridge Project" or "CAM" to me during my association with the ARPANET project (1968-1982). ARPANET was a general purpose computer communication network. It is a distortion to conflate this communication system's development with the various projects that made use of its facilities. A secured capability was developed for use on the ARPANET by BBN (the developer of the ARPANET IMPs) and presumably was used to communicate classified information over the network. On Fri, Apr 13, 2018 at 5:47 PM, Eric Gade wrote: > Hello list members, > > Please excuse the length of this email. > > I am in the process of writing a review of Yasha Levine's new history of > the Internet, "Surveillance Valley: The Secret Military History of the > Internet." His overall thesis is that the development of the Internet has, > from the beginning, grown from "counterinsurgency" and surveillance > operations, and that these aspects have not been adequately chronicled in > other histories. Many of his claims about the early ARPA work I have not > encountered before, and I imagine that some would find them provocative. > > I'm hoping there are members of this list with knowledge about these > claims who can help me clarify a few points: > > > 1. Levine asserts that there was some overlap or relationship between > William Godel's Project Agile and work conducted by the ARPA Command and > Control division under Licklider. He pulls a lot from Sharon Weinberger's > recent book ("The Imagineers of War") in discussing both Godel and the > potential connection. He writes, "[Licklider's] work at ARPA was part of > the military's larger counterinsurgency efforts and directly overlapped > with William Godel's Project Agile." (52). In making this statement he > actually cites Weinberger's prologue, in which she says "Godel personally > signed off on the first computer-networking study, giving it money from his > Vietnam budget." It appears Weinberger is herself citing this document: ( > https://archivesdeclassification.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/ > arpa-order-internet.pdf > ). > It is a part of a series that may still be classified (I have the NDC > looking into it). My question about this is: was there really any kind of > working relationship? What does this transfer of funds represent? And > perhaps more broadly: to what extent was ARPA C&C/IPTO involved in > counterinsurgency data collection and processing? > 2. A large section of the early history in this book deals with the > Cambridge Project (aka Project CAM) at MIT and controversy surrounding it > at the time. I am awaiting a copy of the original proposal from MIT (it > might not come in before deadline; should anyone on this list have a copy > I'd really appreciate it). Levine asserts that the project "would directly > aid the agency's counterinsurgency mission." He claims that the work of the > project "could be accessed from any computer with an ARPANET connection" > (68) and that "It was a kind of stripped down 1960s version of Palantir, > the powerful data mining, surveillance, and prediction software the > military and intelligence planners use today." He goes on: "the project was > customized to the military's needs, with particular focus on fighting > insurgencies and rolling back communism [...] It was clear that the > Cambridge Project wasn't just a tool for research, it was a > counterinsurgency technology." (68-69) > > Is that not an accurate description of the proposal? Were any members > on this list involved in this research? If so, are these characterizations > accurate to your mind? > 3. There is yet another section where Levine finds some reporting from > the early 70s, where NBC News' Rowan Ford conducted a 4 month investigation > and found evidence that intelligence files about American anti-war > protestors and others had been transferred, perhaps stored, and perhaps > processed somehow, over the ARPANET and linked host machines. His report > was entered into the Congressional Record as a part of Tunney's hearings in > 1975: > https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015078638619; > view=1up;seq=7 > > The claim is that these files might have been a part of previous CONUS > intel that, in 1972, the Army was ordered to delete. One of the claims in > the report is that such files were transferred via the ARPANET to MIT for > some reason. Ford had 4 sources for this story who had knowledge of the > incident; only one, Richard Ferguson (who apparently was fired from MIT for > this disclosure), gave information publicly. > > Does anyone on this list have knowledge of this incident, and/or > whether or not the ARPANET/ARPA IPTO was used to move around, eventually > store, or otherwise process these kinds of dossiers? > > > These are all the questions I have for now. Thanks for taking the time to > read. > > -- > Eric > > _______ > internet-history mailing list > internet-history at postel.org > http://mailman.postel.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history > Contact list-owner at postel.org for assistance. > > -- New postal address: Google 1875 Explorer Street, 10th Floor Reston, VA 20190 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bill.n1vux at gmail.com Fri Apr 13 17:05:42 2018 From: bill.n1vux at gmail.com (Bill Ricker) Date: Fri, 13 Apr 2018 20:05:42 -0400 Subject: [ih] Yasha Levine's Surveillance Valley: The Secret Military History of the Internet -- Some Questions In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I wasn't there but ... maybe I can connect some dots. This smells like coincidence ... that Licklider's CAM and MAC projects (and many other defense projects) were\ at MIT makes a connection "obvious" even if there wasn't one. A budget-balancing transfer of funds from AGILE to Licklider seems perfectly reasonable from a bureaucratic point of view. It doesn't mean the money was for ARPAnet even though that is the last project that put Licklider over budget; they could be listed together on one memo because they're the two amendments to a previously approved budget. It does means AGILE had uncommitted funds when Lick was overcommitted. The Psych portion of Lick's portfolio was certainly of common interest, but a transfer might have occurred from any undercommitted team, as failure to spend funds may lead to a reduction in budget! I would be very impressed if either of the captains of research expected the ARPAnet to be actually useful to AGILE researchers in the near term. Although the possible benefits of a future MILNET for collaboration between applied social science researchers in in-country anti-insurgency INTEL centers and their peers back home (in academe or CIA HQ) could perhaps be foreseen, the undersea cables and high bandwidth satellites needed to connect a SAIGON operating center to back home were decades in the future. (There was eventually a low bandwidth link to UK and from there to NATO and a treaty verification seismology lab in Scandinavia but even that was far future at the time in question.) Active INTEL databases have been classified since forever. As Vint notes, there was a classified adapter for MILNET nodes of the (d)ARPAnet, for passing data from from one MILNET node to another. That would technically be "over the ARPANET" since until TCP/IP cutover, it was only one network, but with an encrypted tunnel of some sort. I'd be shocked if active INTEL data was sent that way, I doubt the adapters were certified for higher classifications; but ... anything's possible, especially as exceptions. Sending to MIT? That's distinctly odder. I am unaware of the Natick Army Labs being involved in anything like this ... they developed the tropical chocolate bar and new uniforms. Could they have had an AGILE branch? I guess plausible. Might a researcher working with NSA or CIA have collocated with Natick to have secure facilities instead of at Draper, Lincoln Labs, MITRE, BBN, etc, for whatever reason ? IDK, possible, but seems very odd. But if they'd had a compartmentalized sideline, no one would know. That's the beauty of black programs and conspiracy theories, lack of evidence is inconclusive. Were they home to contract managers for some ASA research project with MIT? Perhaps. Before NSA could use its name publicly, they'd have let contracts as ASA (or successor names) and the Navy equivalent. The mystery files at MIT make me think of CCA's Model 204 work for "The Community", which may well be an MIT Intelligence-research spinoff. (While possibly connected to CAM or more likely AGILE, it might have been more applied and directly funded CIA/NSA R&D contract funneled through ASA?) The inventor of Model 204's key internals, Pat O'Neil, was a professor at MIT immediately before CCA, and had been working on the special index structure for nearly a decade. Just guessing but looks like development may have been at MIT as contract research and fielding, support, and future maintenance/support was spun off to CCA, formed conveniently down the block? (For decades Model 204 was the only DBMS capable of big-data and text-retrieval. The opening sequence in "3 Days of the Condor" movie (likely 7 days book too?) showed you an AGILE/CAM type team using CCA software to digitize printed source documents into a document retrieval system ahead of the unclassified state of the art, if I'm connecting the dots right. I worked with tape extracts from a Model 204 Text DBMS in an unclassified setting in the late 1990s -- the National Library of Medicine MEDLINE bibliography&abstract system was then, likely still is, based on Model 204. Lucious metadata, it had ontological search before the phrase was coined. You can access it as PUBMED, thanks to Al Gore -- which undercut our startup's business model, oops. ) The tapes being seen at MIT does not mean they were sent over the ARPAnet. In those days, was it not the case that a courier with several tapes in a locked bag taking the train from DC to Boston had better bandwidth, latency, and error recovery? I was still getting tapes sent from NLM's Model 204 via USPS/UPS in 1990s. (And a weirder EBCDIC variant I've never seen.) I'm guessing the mystery tapes at MIT were test data sent to O'Neil to test his pre-production DBMS ? Back in those dark ages, they might not have thought to make the test data anonymized/mangled. ( People still forget that today in a post HIPAA/PCI world!) Or, realizing that a real intel DB being released to an academic environment would have been a security problem for NSA/CIA, maybe they made a test file with data they swiped from Commerce's Census dept? Just brainstorming here. Pat O'Neil is Professor Emeritus at UMass/Boston, where he co-founded the CS department on his return from industry. [ https://www.cs.umb.edu/~poneil/ ] He might be able to shed light on the NBC reports of MIT having had tapes that belonged at Langley or Ft. Meade, and which of Licklider or AGILE or CIA/NSA/ASA was his original funding source. You could also check with Don E Eastlake iii (on some IETF/W3C groups) on CCA DBMS history. https://www.informit.com/authors/bio/5f1734d3-42df-49f0-b2e2-61007b188cd1 // Bill Ricker // Friend of Padlipsky From nigel at channelisles.net Fri Apr 13 17:07:05 2018 From: nigel at channelisles.net (Nigel Roberts) Date: Sat, 14 Apr 2018 01:07:05 +0100 Subject: [ih] .UK vs .GB In-Reply-To: <20180413221258.D240B24AA5BB@ary.qy> References: <20180413221258.D240B24AA5BB@ary.qy> Message-ID: <5234d7bd-5f8d-cd6f-15cc-798f4d492cc1@channelisles.net> Up to about 8 or 10 years ago there was a website on http://www.dra.hmg.gb But then the agency got split, and mostly privatised. I think that was the last. On 04/13/2018 11:12 PM, John Levine wrote: > In another list someone was wondering why British domain names are > mostly in .UK even though the ISO 3166 code has always been .GB. > > I know this came up before but can't find the discussion. Pointers or > rehash welcome. The first mention I can find of .UK is in an example > in RFC 821 in 1982, the first statement that ccTLDS would be ISO 3166 > codes was in 1984. > > For that matter, I see that JANET still runs .GB. What still uses it? > > R's, > John > _______ > internet-history mailing list > internet-history at postel.org > http://mailman.postel.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history > Contact list-owner at postel.org for assistance. > From nigel at channelisles.net Fri Apr 13 17:08:53 2018 From: nigel at channelisles.net (Nigel Roberts) Date: Sat, 14 Apr 2018 01:08:53 +0100 Subject: [ih] .UK vs .GB In-Reply-To: <5234d7bd-5f8d-cd6f-15cc-798f4d492cc1@channelisles.net> References: <20180413221258.D240B24AA5BB@ary.qy> <5234d7bd-5f8d-cd6f-15cc-798f4d492cc1@channelisles.net> Message-ID: <28099080-1168-ce24-1d19-b97baa9c07a8@channelisles.net> Well SOMETHING's still there nigel at skylark:~$ dig dra.hmg.gb any ; <<>> DiG 9.10.3-P4-Ubuntu <<>> dra.hmg.gb any ;; global options: +cmd ;; Got answer: ;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 24545 ;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 4, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 1 ;; OPT PSEUDOSECTION: ; EDNS: version: 0, flags:; udp: 65494 ;; QUESTION SECTION: ;dra.hmg.gb. IN ANY ;; ANSWER SECTION: dra.hmg.gb. 21599 IN NS ns1.cs.ucl.ac.uk. dra.hmg.gb. 21599 IN NS relay.mod.uk. dra.hmg.gb. 21599 IN NS sun.mhs-relay.ac.uk. dra.hmg.gb. 21599 IN SOA ns1.cs.ucl.ac.uk. hostmaster.cs.ucl.ac.uk. 200709271 14400 1800 3600000 360000 ;; Query time: 101 msec ;; SERVER: 127.0.0.53#53(127.0.0.53) ;; WHEN: Sat Apr 14 01:08:07 BST 2018 ;; MSG SIZE rcvd: 168 On 04/14/2018 01:07 AM, Nigel Roberts wrote: > Up to about 8 or 10 years ago there was a website on > > http://www.dra.hmg.gb > > But then the agency got split, and mostly privatised. > > I think that was the last. > > > > On 04/13/2018 11:12 PM, John Levine wrote: >> In another list someone was wondering why British domain names are >> mostly in .UK even though the ISO 3166 code has always been .GB. >> >> I know this came up before but can't find the discussion.? Pointers or >> rehash welcome.? The first mention I can find of .UK is in an example >> in RFC 821 in 1982, the first statement that ccTLDS would be ISO 3166 >> codes was in 1984. >> >> For that matter, I see that JANET still runs .GB.? What still uses it? >> >> R's, >> John >> _______ >> internet-history mailing list >> internet-history at postel.org >> http://mailman.postel.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history >> Contact list-owner at postel.org for assistance. >> From vint at google.com Fri Apr 13 17:33:41 2018 From: vint at google.com (Vint Cerf) Date: Fri, 13 Apr 2018 20:33:41 -0400 Subject: [ih] Yasha Levine's Surveillance Valley: The Secret Military History of the Internet -- Some Questions In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: a few corrections in CAPS for distinguishability - not shouting. On Fri, Apr 13, 2018 at 8:05 PM, Bill Ricker wrote: > I wasn't there but ... maybe I can connect some dots. > > This smells like coincidence ... that Licklider's CAM and MAC projects > (and many other defense projects) were\ at MIT makes a connection > "obvious" even if there wasn't one. > > A budget-balancing transfer of funds from AGILE to Licklider seems > perfectly reasonable from a bureaucratic point of view. It doesn't > mean the money was for ARPAnet even though that is the last project > that put Licklider over budget; they could be listed together on one > memo because they're the two amendments to a previously approved > budget. It does means AGILE had uncommitted funds when Lick was > overcommitted. The Psych portion of Lick's portfolio was certainly of > common interest, but a transfer might have occurred from any > undercommitted team, as failure to spend funds may lead to a reduction > in budget! > > I would be very impressed if either of the captains of research > expected the ARPAnet to be actually useful to AGILE researchers in the > near term. Although the possible benefits of a future MILNET for > collaboration between applied social science researchers in in-country > anti-insurgency INTEL centers and their peers back home (in academe or > CIA HQ) could perhaps be foreseen, the undersea cables and high > bandwidth satellites needed to connect a SAIGON operating center to > back home were decades in the future. (There was eventually a low > bandwidth link to UK and from there to NATO and a treaty verification > seismology lab in Scandinavia but even that was far future at the time > in question.) THE LOW BANDWIDTH LINK WAS TO THE NORSAR SEISMIC > ARRAY TO DETECT NUCLEAR UNDERGROUND TESTING. IT WAS A SATELLITE LINK AND WAS DOUBLED TO 9600 BPS TO ACCOMMODATE THE ARPANET TIP (TERMINAL IMP) AT NDRE IN ADDITION TO CARRYING DATA FROM NORSAR TO THE US. THAT LINK WENT IN ABOUT 1973 I BELIEVE. > > Active INTEL databases have been classified since forever. As Vint > notes, there was a classified adapter for MILNET nodes of the > (d)ARPAnet, for passing data from from one MILNET node to another. > NO, IT WAS END-TO-END, SO THE MILNET LINKS WERE NOT ENCRYPTED IF MEMORY SERVES. THE HOSTS ON EITHER END OF THE PRIVATE LINE INTERFACE HAD ALL THEIR TRAFFIC ENCRYPTED. OF COURSE IT STAYED ENCRYPTED AS IT TRAVERSED THE INTERVENING IMPS OF THE MILNET AND/OR ARPANET. MILNET DID NOT COME INTO EXISTENCE UNTIL THE TCP/IP FLAG DAY, JANUARY 1983 BY THE WAY. > That would technically be "over the ARPANET" since until TCP/IP > cutover, it was only one network, but with an encrypted tunnel of some > sort. I'd be shocked if active INTEL data was sent that way, I doubt > the adapters were certified for higher classifications; but ... > anything's possible, especially as exceptions. Sending to MIT? That's > distinctly odder. DEPENDING ON THE KEYS USES, THE PLI WAS > ABLE TO CARRY AT LEAST TS AND POSSIBLY SCI. > > I am unaware of the Natick Army Labs being involved in anything like > this ... they developed the tropical chocolate bar and new uniforms. > Could they have had an AGILE branch? I guess plausible. Might a > researcher working with NSA or CIA have collocated with Natick to have > secure facilities instead of at Draper, Lincoln Labs, MITRE, BBN, etc, > for whatever reason ? IDK, possible, but seems very odd. But if they'd > had a compartmentalized sideline, no one would know. That's the beauty > of black programs and conspiracy theories, lack of evidence is > inconclusive. Were they home to contract managers for some ASA > research project with MIT? Perhaps. Before NSA could use its name > publicly, they'd have let contracts as ASA (or successor names) and > the Navy equivalent. > > The mystery files at MIT make me think of CCA's Model 204 work for > "The Community", which may well be an MIT Intelligence-research > spinoff. (While possibly connected to CAM or more likely AGILE, it > might have been more applied and directly funded CIA/NSA R&D contract > funneled through ASA?) The inventor of Model 204's key internals, Pat > O'Neil, was a professor at MIT immediately before CCA, and had been > working on the special index structure for nearly a decade. Just > guessing but looks like development may have been at MIT as contract > research and fielding, support, and future maintenance/support was > spun off to CCA, formed conveniently down the block? > (For decades Model 204 was the only DBMS capable of big-data and > text-retrieval. The opening sequence in "3 Days of the Condor" movie > (likely 7 days book too?) showed you an AGILE/CAM type team using CCA > software to digitize printed source documents into a document > retrieval system ahead of the unclassified state of the art, if I'm > connecting the dots right. I worked with tape extracts from a Model > 204 Text DBMS in an unclassified setting in the late 1990s -- the > National Library of Medicine MEDLINE bibliography&abstract system was > then, likely still is, based on Model 204. Lucious metadata, it had > ontological search before the phrase was coined. You can access it as > PUBMED, thanks to Al Gore -- which undercut our startup's business > model, oops. ) > The tapes being seen at MIT does not mean they were sent over the > ARPAnet. In those days, was it not the case that a courier with > several tapes in a locked bag taking the train from DC to Boston had > better bandwidth, latency, and error recovery? I was still getting > tapes sent from NLM's Model 204 via USPS/UPS in 1990s. (And a weirder > EBCDIC variant I've never seen.) > I'm guessing the mystery tapes at MIT were test data sent to > O'Neil to test his pre-production DBMS ? Back in those dark ages, > they might not have thought to make the test data anonymized/mangled. > ( People still forget that today in a post HIPAA/PCI world!) Or, > realizing that a real intel DB being released to an academic > environment would have been a security problem for NSA/CIA, maybe they > made a test file with data they swiped from Commerce's Census dept? > Just brainstorming here. > Pat O'Neil is Professor Emeritus at UMass/Boston, where he > co-founded the CS department on his return from industry. > [ https://www.cs.umb.edu/~poneil/ ] He might be able to shed light > on the NBC reports of MIT having had tapes that belonged at Langley or > Ft. Meade, and which of Licklider or AGILE or CIA/NSA/ASA was his > original funding source. > > You could also check with Don E Eastlake iii (on some IETF/W3C groups) > on CCA DBMS history. > https://www.informit.com/authors/bio/5f1734d3-42df-49f0-b2e2-61007b188cd1 > > // Bill Ricker > // Friend of Padlipsky > _______ > internet-history mailing list > internet-history at postel.org > http://mailman.postel.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history > Contact list-owner at postel.org for assistance. > -- New postal address: Google 1875 Explorer Street, 10th Floor Reston, VA 20190 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From mfidelman at meetinghouse.net Fri Apr 13 18:00:28 2018 From: mfidelman at meetinghouse.net (Miles Fidelman) Date: Fri, 13 Apr 2018 21:00:28 -0400 Subject: [ih] Yasha Levine's Surveillance Valley: The Secret Military History of the Internet -- Some Questions In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Sounds like bullshit to me. I was at BBN at the time that the Defense Data Network (DDN) was split from the ARPANET (my contribution was the architecture for network management of the DDN).? Let me assure you that the powers that be were largely against using the ARPANET for, you know, military applications. As Vint already pointed out, the ARPANET was built to support resource sharing in the research community (universities & military labs doing ARPA-supported work).? It turns out that various military users (at the military research sites on the ARPANET) kept using ARPANET email because it just worked a lot better than the message-switching C2 networks then in use (notably AUTODIN). A little background & history: - AUTODIN:? Message switching network supporting C2 traffic. (Think Telex.) - ARPANET:? First turned on in late 1969, transitioned from ARPA to DCA (Defense Communications Agency) around 1975, because it was now considered an operational network, not a research project (in a sense, it never was a research project - it was built to support research projects). - Early 1980s, AUTODIN was not doing to well, plans started for AUTODIN II replacement.? Ultimately, the program was cancelled. - Somewhere along the way, the name "Defense Data Network" was coined, and there was a competitive "shootout" between the older AUTODIN technology, and the newer ARPANET technology.? ARPANET won. - The ARPANET was split into two networks - ARPANET (for research) and MILNET for unclassified military use.? Ultimately they were separated into to sets of nodes, connected by routers (then called gateways).? Three more classified networks were built in parallel to MILNET. - A lot of work spun off into tactical packet networks of various sorts. - Meanwhile, the Internet started growing around the ARPANET (campus networks, CSnet, the supercomputer center networks, and then the NSFnet).? Ultimately, the ARPANET backbone was shut down (and nobody noticed, because the packets just kept flowing).? The MILNET remained a while longer, and ultimately was supplanted by a router based backbone. It's been a while - the names and dates are a bit fuzzy (but relatively easy to find with some googling - and a lot of the key players are still around, and on this list). But the basic message is that, other than some early talk about the potential survivability of packet networks, it was all about building infrastructure for research.? This "secret history" stuff is bullshit. Miles Fidelman On 4/13/18 8:05 PM, Bill Ricker wrote: > I wasn't there but ... maybe I can connect some dots. > > This smells like coincidence ... that Licklider's CAM and MAC projects > (and many other defense projects) were\ at MIT makes a connection > "obvious" even if there wasn't one. > > A budget-balancing transfer of funds from AGILE to Licklider seems > perfectly reasonable from a bureaucratic point of view. It doesn't > mean the money was for ARPAnet even though that is the last project > that put Licklider over budget; they could be listed together on one > memo because they're the two amendments to a previously approved > budget. It does means AGILE had uncommitted funds when Lick was > overcommitted. The Psych portion of Lick's portfolio was certainly of > common interest, but a transfer might have occurred from any > undercommitted team, as failure to spend funds may lead to a reduction > in budget! > > I would be very impressed if either of the captains of research > expected the ARPAnet to be actually useful to AGILE researchers in the > near term. Although the possible benefits of a future MILNET for > collaboration between applied social science researchers in in-country > anti-insurgency INTEL centers and their peers back home (in academe or > CIA HQ) could perhaps be foreseen, the undersea cables and high > bandwidth satellites needed to connect a SAIGON operating center to > back home were decades in the future. (There was eventually a low > bandwidth link to UK and from there to NATO and a treaty verification > seismology lab in Scandinavia but even that was far future at the time > in question.) > > Active INTEL databases have been classified since forever. As Vint > notes, there was a classified adapter for MILNET nodes of the > (d)ARPAnet, for passing data from from one MILNET node to another. > That would technically be "over the ARPANET" since until TCP/IP > cutover, it was only one network, but with an encrypted tunnel of some > sort. I'd be shocked if active INTEL data was sent that way, I doubt > the adapters were certified for higher classifications; but ... > anything's possible, especially as exceptions. Sending to MIT? That's > distinctly odder. > > I am unaware of the Natick Army Labs being involved in anything like > this ... they developed the tropical chocolate bar and new uniforms. > Could they have had an AGILE branch? I guess plausible. Might a > researcher working with NSA or CIA have collocated with Natick to have > secure facilities instead of at Draper, Lincoln Labs, MITRE, BBN, etc, > for whatever reason ? IDK, possible, but seems very odd. But if they'd > had a compartmentalized sideline, no one would know. That's the beauty > of black programs and conspiracy theories, lack of evidence is > inconclusive. Were they home to contract managers for some ASA > research project with MIT? Perhaps. Before NSA could use its name > publicly, they'd have let contracts as ASA (or successor names) and > the Navy equivalent. > > The mystery files at MIT make me think of CCA's Model 204 work for > "The Community", which may well be an MIT Intelligence-research > spinoff. (While possibly connected to CAM or more likely AGILE, it > might have been more applied and directly funded CIA/NSA R&D contract > funneled through ASA?) The inventor of Model 204's key internals, Pat > O'Neil, was a professor at MIT immediately before CCA, and had been > working on the special index structure for nearly a decade. Just > guessing but looks like development may have been at MIT as contract > research and fielding, support, and future maintenance/support was > spun off to CCA, formed conveniently down the block? > (For decades Model 204 was the only DBMS capable of big-data and > text-retrieval. The opening sequence in "3 Days of the Condor" movie > (likely 7 days book too?) showed you an AGILE/CAM type team using CCA > software to digitize printed source documents into a document > retrieval system ahead of the unclassified state of the art, if I'm > connecting the dots right. I worked with tape extracts from a Model > 204 Text DBMS in an unclassified setting in the late 1990s -- the > National Library of Medicine MEDLINE bibliography&abstract system was > then, likely still is, based on Model 204. Lucious metadata, it had > ontological search before the phrase was coined. You can access it as > PUBMED, thanks to Al Gore -- which undercut our startup's business > model, oops. ) > The tapes being seen at MIT does not mean they were sent over the > ARPAnet. In those days, was it not the case that a courier with > several tapes in a locked bag taking the train from DC to Boston had > better bandwidth, latency, and error recovery? I was still getting > tapes sent from NLM's Model 204 via USPS/UPS in 1990s. (And a weirder > EBCDIC variant I've never seen.) > I'm guessing the mystery tapes at MIT were test data sent to > O'Neil to test his pre-production DBMS ? Back in those dark ages, > they might not have thought to make the test data anonymized/mangled. > ( People still forget that today in a post HIPAA/PCI world!) Or, > realizing that a real intel DB being released to an academic > environment would have been a security problem for NSA/CIA, maybe they > made a test file with data they swiped from Commerce's Census dept? > Just brainstorming here. > Pat O'Neil is Professor Emeritus at UMass/Boston, where he > co-founded the CS department on his return from industry. > [ https://www.cs.umb.edu/~poneil/ ] He might be able to shed light > on the NBC reports of MIT having had tapes that belonged at Langley or > Ft. Meade, and which of Licklider or AGILE or CIA/NSA/ASA was his > original funding source. > > You could also check with Don E Eastlake iii (on some IETF/W3C groups) > on CCA DBMS history. > https://www.informit.com/authors/bio/5f1734d3-42df-49f0-b2e2-61007b188cd1 > > // Bill Ricker > // Friend of Padlipsky > _______ > internet-history mailing list > internet-history at postel.org > http://mailman.postel.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history > Contact list-owner at postel.org for assistance. -- In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is. .... Yogi Berra From johnl at iecc.com Fri Apr 13 18:11:44 2018 From: johnl at iecc.com (John Levine) Date: 13 Apr 2018 21:11:44 -0400 Subject: [ih] .UK vs .GB In-Reply-To: <28099080-1168-ce24-1d19-b97baa9c07a8@channelisles.net> Message-ID: <20180414011145.86A9824ABF58@ary.qy> In article <28099080-1168-ce24-1d19-b97baa9c07a8 at channelisles.net> you write: >Well SOMETHING's still there > >nigel at skylark:~$ dig dra.hmg.gb any >;; ANSWER SECTION: >dra.hmg.gb. 21599 IN NS ns1.cs.ucl.ac.uk. >dra.hmg.gb. 21599 IN NS relay.mod.uk. >dra.hmg.gb. 21599 IN NS sun.mhs-relay.ac.uk. Hey, how about that: dig @ns1.cs.ucl.ac.uk. dra.hmg.gb axfr ; <<>> DiG 9.8.3-P1 <<>> @ns1.cs.ucl.ac.uk. dra.hmg.gb axfr ; (1 server found) ;; global options: +cmd dra.hmg.gb. 360000 IN SOA ns1.cs.ucl.ac.uk. hostmaster.cs.ucl.ac.uk. 200709271 14400 1800 3600000 360000 dra.hmg.gb. 360000 IN NS ns1.cs.ucl.ac.uk. dra.hmg.gb. 360000 IN NS relay.mod.uk. dra.hmg.gb. 360000 IN NS sun.mhs-relay.ac.uk. hermes-mail.dra.hmg.gb. 360000 IN MX 10 relay.dstl.gov.uk. dfhnet.dra.hmg.gb. 360000 IN MX 10 relay.dstl.gov.uk. dfhnet.dra.hmg.gb. 360000 IN A 146.80.9.10 delos.dra.hmg.gb. 360000 IN A 146.80.9.105 hermes.dra.hmg.gb. 360000 IN MX 10 relay.dstl.gov.uk. hermes.dra.hmg.gb. 360000 IN A 146.80.9.16 dra.hmg.gb. 360000 IN SOA ns1.cs.ucl.ac.uk. hostmaster.cs.ucl.ac.uk. I wonder what else is lurking nearby. R's, John From bill.n1vux at gmail.com Fri Apr 13 18:29:43 2018 From: bill.n1vux at gmail.com (Bill Ricker) Date: Fri, 13 Apr 2018 21:29:43 -0400 Subject: [ih] Yasha Levine's Surveillance Valley: The Secret Military History of the Internet -- Some Questions In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Vint replied (not shouting) -- > NO, IT WAS END-TO-END, SO THE MILNET LINKS WERE NOT > ENCRYPTED IF MEMORY SERVES. THE HOSTS ON EITHER > END OF THE PRIVATE LINE INTERFACE HAD ALL THEIR TRAFFIC > ENCRYPTED. OF COURSE IT STAYED ENCRYPTED AS IT TRAVERSED > THE INTERVENING IMPS OF THE MILNET AND/OR ARPANET. > MILNET DID NOT COME INTO EXISTENCE UNTIL THE TCP/IP > FLAG DAY, JANUARY 1983 BY THE WAY. I stand corrected that i shouldn't have referred to the PLI-eligible Military hosts attached to on NCP (D)ARPAnet as MILNET. :-) Ok, for this thread OP request : Were the PLI in use pre-TCP ? Did the PLI have a bypass or null-key option to allow a host (rebooted to sanitzed state with classified files off-line) to connect to the normal, PLI-less ARPAnet hosts ? (-: We could say the PLI were the original VPN or rather Virtual Sub Nets :-) So sending an INTEL file from a PLI host to an MIT host just wouldn't work, unless the MIT host temporarily was connected via a PLI with matching key, which would involve shenanigans strange even by MIT or Community standards. Maybe NATICK LABS is involved, per article referenced in OP, because file was sent via PLI to them (when did they get a host?) and moved tapes from there to MIT? (As long as the orginating branch had provided waivers it might even have been vaguely legal to read the tape at MIT?) (Courier with 6 tapes in a bag on the night train still better bandwidth?) One could have sent an UNCLASS file to MIT from an UNCLASS host at Ft Meade (mentioned in the article), but file would have to be downgraded from NSA system of origin to //UNCLASS//FOUO// in order to put it onto the rare, air-gapped UNCLASS system that was connected to the net normally (no PLI). Doing that with actual INTEL DB would still be have been wrong, in addition to whether it was (im)properly gathered or not. ( Alas the Ft Meade Unclass system that I remember on the net, DOCKMASTER MULTICS, is documented as being a 1984 install. Also one of the last MULTICs to be turned off, 1998. So it was never on NCP ARPAnet.) What was DOCKMASTER's precursor in the NET-facing role at Ft Meade, and how early? That is relevant to (in)validating the clippings referenced in OP. > DEPENDING ON THE KEYS USES, THE PLI WAS > ABLE TO CARRY AT LEAST TS AND POSSIBLY SCI. Oh, interesting, I'd forgotten that. If there were Spooks doing _remote_ collaboration with social scientists early enough to be relevant to OP query re AGILE+CAM, they'd have to have been PLI customers, except for very general UNCLASS support/research work. (Presumably the several communities still had need for PLI's for their system-high subnet, once the //UNCLASS//FOUO// TCP/IP MILNET was separated from ARPAnet.) //bill From paf at frobbit.se Fri Apr 13 19:01:39 2018 From: paf at frobbit.se (Patrik =?utf-8?b?RsOkbHRzdHLDtm0=?=) Date: Fri, 13 Apr 2018 19:01:39 -0700 Subject: [ih] .UK vs .GB In-Reply-To: <20180413221258.D240B24AA5BB@ary.qy> References: <20180413221258.D240B24AA5BB@ary.qy> Message-ID: On 13 Apr 2018, at 15:12, John Levine wrote: > In another list someone was wondering why British domain names are mostly in .UK even though the ISO 3166 code has always been .GB. > > I know this came up before but can't find the discussion. Pointers or rehash welcome. The first mention I can find of .UK is in an example in RFC 821 in 1982, the first statement that ccTLDS would be ISO 3166 codes was in 1984. The only explanation I got orally was that "GB stands for Great Britain, while UK stands for United Kingdom of Great Britain and the Northern Ireland". That was enough for me. Don't even remember who explained it, but it was around the famous entry of .CS into the root zone that created the "interesting" situation with CS.BERKELEY.EDU (and others) and massive weird extra hacking in sendmail.cf due to the Janet "reverse" order of labels in a domain name. But, I might also have constructed this story in my head... :-) paf -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 256 bytes Desc: OpenPGP digital signature URL: From agoldmanster at gmail.com Fri Apr 13 19:05:36 2018 From: agoldmanster at gmail.com (Alexander Goldman) Date: Fri, 13 Apr 2018 22:05:36 -0400 Subject: [ih] .UK vs .GB In-Reply-To: <20180414011145.86A9824ABF58@ary.qy> References: <28099080-1168-ce24-1d19-b97baa9c07a8@channelisles.net> <20180414011145.86A9824ABF58@ary.qy> Message-ID: The United Kingdom consists of the island of Great Britain + Northern Ireland. Great Britain consists of England, Scotland, and Wales. The Union Jack flag (of the United Kingdom) consists of three crosses: St. George for England, St. Andrew for Scotland, and St. Patrick for Ireland https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_the_United_Kingdom. On Fri, Apr 13, 2018 at 9:11 PM, John Levine wrote: > In article <28099080-1168-ce24-1d19-b97baa9c07a8 at channelisles.net> you > write: > >Well SOMETHING's still there > > > >nigel at skylark:~$ dig dra.hmg.gb any > > >;; ANSWER SECTION: > >dra.hmg.gb. 21599 IN NS ns1.cs.ucl.ac.uk. > >dra.hmg.gb. 21599 IN NS relay.mod.uk. > >dra.hmg.gb. 21599 IN NS sun.mhs-relay.ac.uk. > > Hey, how about that: > > dig @ns1.cs.ucl.ac.uk. dra.hmg.gb axfr > > ; <<>> DiG 9.8.3-P1 <<>> @ns1.cs.ucl.ac.uk. dra.hmg.gb axfr > ; (1 server found) > ;; global options: +cmd > dra.hmg.gb. 360000 IN SOA ns1.cs.ucl.ac.uk. > hostmaster.cs.ucl.ac.uk. 200709271 14400 1800 3600000 360000 > dra.hmg.gb. 360000 IN NS ns1.cs.ucl.ac.uk. > dra.hmg.gb. 360000 IN NS relay.mod.uk. > dra.hmg.gb. 360000 IN NS sun.mhs-relay.ac.uk. > hermes-mail.dra.hmg.gb. 360000 IN MX 10 relay.dstl.gov.uk. > dfhnet.dra.hmg.gb. 360000 IN MX 10 relay.dstl.gov.uk. > dfhnet.dra.hmg.gb. 360000 IN A 146.80.9.10 > delos.dra.hmg.gb. 360000 IN A 146.80.9.105 > hermes.dra.hmg.gb. 360000 IN MX 10 relay.dstl.gov.uk. > hermes.dra.hmg.gb. 360000 IN A 146.80.9.16 > dra.hmg.gb. 360000 IN SOA ns1.cs.ucl.ac.uk. > hostmaster.cs.ucl.ac.uk. > > I wonder what else is lurking nearby. > > R's, > John > _______ > internet-history mailing list > internet-history at postel.org > http://mailman.postel.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history > Contact list-owner at postel.org for assistance. > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From brian.e.carpenter at gmail.com Fri Apr 13 19:09:19 2018 From: brian.e.carpenter at gmail.com (Brian E Carpenter) Date: Sat, 14 Apr 2018 14:09:19 +1200 Subject: [ih] .UK vs .GB In-Reply-To: <20180413221258.D240B24AA5BB@ary.qy> References: <20180413221258.D240B24AA5BB@ary.qy> Message-ID: <0a606be8-9d2f-3000-c233-259370400622@gmail.com> John, On 14/04/2018 10:12, John Levine wrote: > In another list someone was wondering why British domain names are > mostly in .UK even though the ISO 3166 code has always been .GB. There are many versions of the story, I think. What I can say is this, based on hearsay: 1. Please be aware that the nation state of which I was born a citizen is called "The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland" (since 1922). The colloquial way to refer to it is as "the UK". As it happens I was born in the Great Britain part, which consists of 3 countries: England, Wales and Scotland. Northern Ireland is most safely referred to as "Northern Ireland"; referring to it as a "country", a "province", or by the Unionist name of "Ulster", can quickly get you into a vigorous political discussion. 2. Therefore, when SERCnet a.k.a. JANET invented Grey Book email, they chose "UK" as the politically accurate top level domain (as in user at uk.ac.ucl). 3. Therefore, Postel did the right thing as JANET switched over to DNS and SMTP. Rough consensus and running code in action. 4. Unfortunately, at some time the British delegation to ISO 3166 let through GB - politically inaccurate, but in use since 1910 (sic) as the nationality plate on cars from the UK. 5. Therefore, we are where we are, with UK being a reserved code in ISO 3166, .UK being the active domain, and .GB being a dead end. Brian > I know this came up before but can't find the discussion. Pointers or > rehash welcome. The first mention I can find of .UK is in an example > in RFC 821 in 1982, the first statement that ccTLDS would be ISO 3166 > codes was in 1984. > > For that matter, I see that JANET still runs .GB. What still uses it? > > R's, > John > _______ > internet-history mailing list > internet-history at postel.org > http://mailman.postel.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history > Contact list-owner at postel.org for assistance. > From brian.e.carpenter at gmail.com Fri Apr 13 19:20:09 2018 From: brian.e.carpenter at gmail.com (Brian E Carpenter) Date: Sat, 14 Apr 2018 14:20:09 +1200 Subject: [ih] Yasha Levine's Surveillance Valley: The Secret Military History of the Internet -- Some Questions In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 14/04/2018 09:47, Eric Gade wrote: > Hello list members, > > Please excuse the length of this email. > > I am in the process of writing a review of Yasha Levine's new history of > the Internet, "Surveillance Valley: The Secret Military History of the > Internet." His overall thesis is that the development of the Internet has, > from the beginning, grown from "counterinsurgency" and surveillance > operations, and that these aspects have not been adequately chronicled in > other histories. I know nothing of this whatever. However, I do know that the SIGINT community has a history of using data links in support of their work since at least as early as 1944, and certainly since they acquired their first Turing-equivalent computers in the late 1940s. So why they would have wasted their time 20 years later using an insecure researchy network stuffed with inquisitive academics is beyond me. In other words this doesn't pass the laugh test IMNSHO. Brian From eric.gade at gmail.com Fri Apr 13 19:24:03 2018 From: eric.gade at gmail.com (Eric Gade) Date: Sat, 14 Apr 2018 02:24:03 +0000 Subject: [ih] .UK vs .GB In-Reply-To: References: <20180413221258.D240B24AA5BB@ary.qy> Message-ID: The NIC collection at CHM has info about this. The draft RFCs where Postel first proposed TLDs (between Jan and May 85 I believe) all proposed UK as examples. Discussion on the "Namedroppers" list at the time made it pretty clear why: the UCL nodes used the NRS (Name Recocognition Scheme) and already had UK at the top level (though reversed) On Fri, Apr 13, 2018, 22:12 Patrik F?ltstr?m wrote: > On 13 Apr 2018, at 15:12, John Levine wrote: > > > In another list someone was wondering why British domain names are > mostly in .UK even though the ISO 3166 code has always been .GB. > > > > I know this came up before but can't find the discussion. Pointers or > rehash welcome. The first mention I can find of .UK is in an example in > RFC 821 in 1982, the first statement that ccTLDS would be ISO 3166 codes > was in 1984. > > The only explanation I got orally was that "GB stands for Great Britain, > while UK stands for United Kingdom of Great Britain and the Northern > Ireland". > > That was enough for me. Don't even remember who explained it, but it was > around the famous entry of .CS into the root zone that created the > "interesting" situation with CS.BERKELEY.EDU (and others) and massive > weird extra hacking in sendmail.cf due to the Janet "reverse" order of > labels in a domain name. > > But, I might also have constructed this story in my head... :-) > > paf > _______ > internet-history mailing list > internet-history at postel.org > http://mailman.postel.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history > Contact list-owner at postel.org for assistance. > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From eric.gade at gmail.com Fri Apr 13 19:44:13 2018 From: eric.gade at gmail.com (Eric Gade) Date: Fri, 13 Apr 2018 22:44:13 -0400 Subject: [ih] .UK vs .GB In-Reply-To: References: <20180413221258.D240B24AA5BB@ary.qy> Message-ID: Sorry one more message about this, as I've dug up an old copy of my dissertation (which in part addresses this issue). In 1984 when the DNS RFC was being drafted (I was mistaken it was the summer of 1984 not 1985), the proposal to use the ISO-3166 list for ccTLDs came pretty late in the game. There are limited records of discussions about this outside of draft RFCs kept by Feinler and emails that appear on the Namedroppers list. As I said previously, they were already using .UK as their top-level in the NRS hierarchy in the UK. The document record shows that even as the DNS went into use, there was a lot of pressure for the Joint Network Team to revise how they structured their names, not just because of the UK/GB issue, but also because of the reversal of the names (hence the 1990 fiasco of adding Czech). The JNT had very clear reasons for not making the changes: they did not think the DNS would be the world standard, and had invested both time and money in making ISO standards a reality. They did not want to spend the money or time on making such changes to the NRS just for DNS purposes, when they believed a new international standard was inevitable and would require yet more changes. The X.400/X.500 systems were simply going to replace everything anyway, so the wisdom went. On Fri, Apr 13, 2018 at 10:24 PM, Eric Gade wrote: > The NIC collection at CHM has info about this. The draft RFCs where Postel > first proposed TLDs (between Jan and May 85 I believe) all proposed UK as > examples. Discussion on the "Namedroppers" list at the time made it pretty > clear why: the UCL nodes used the NRS (Name Recocognition Scheme) and > already had UK at the top level (though reversed) > > On Fri, Apr 13, 2018, 22:12 Patrik F?ltstr?m wrote: > >> On 13 Apr 2018, at 15:12, John Levine wrote: >> >> > In another list someone was wondering why British domain names are >> mostly in .UK even though the ISO 3166 code has always been .GB. >> > >> > I know this came up before but can't find the discussion. Pointers or >> rehash welcome. The first mention I can find of .UK is in an example in >> RFC 821 in 1982, the first statement that ccTLDS would be ISO 3166 codes >> was in 1984. >> >> The only explanation I got orally was that "GB stands for Great Britain, >> while UK stands for United Kingdom of Great Britain and the Northern >> Ireland". >> >> That was enough for me. Don't even remember who explained it, but it was >> around the famous entry of .CS into the root zone that created the >> "interesting" situation with CS.BERKELEY.EDU (and others) and massive >> weird extra hacking in sendmail.cf due to the Janet "reverse" order of >> labels in a domain name. >> >> But, I might also have constructed this story in my head... :-) >> >> paf >> _______ >> internet-history mailing list >> internet-history at postel.org >> http://mailman.postel.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history >> Contact list-owner at postel.org for assistance. >> > -- Eric -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From vint at google.com Fri Apr 13 19:56:37 2018 From: vint at google.com (Vint Cerf) Date: Fri, 13 Apr 2018 22:56:37 -0400 Subject: [ih] Yasha Levine's Surveillance Valley: The Secret Military History of the Internet -- Some Questions In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I think the PLI supported an interface that made it transparently like the IMP (BBN 1822 interface) so a host would not know it was connected to something other than an IMP but I am not absolutely sure. v On Fri, Apr 13, 2018 at 9:29 PM, Bill Ricker wrote: > Vint replied (not shouting) -- > > > NO, IT WAS END-TO-END, SO THE MILNET LINKS WERE NOT > > ENCRYPTED IF MEMORY SERVES. THE HOSTS ON EITHER > > END OF THE PRIVATE LINE INTERFACE HAD ALL THEIR TRAFFIC > > ENCRYPTED. OF COURSE IT STAYED ENCRYPTED AS IT TRAVERSED > > THE INTERVENING IMPS OF THE MILNET AND/OR ARPANET. > > MILNET DID NOT COME INTO EXISTENCE UNTIL THE TCP/IP > > FLAG DAY, JANUARY 1983 BY THE WAY. > > I stand corrected that i shouldn't have referred to the PLI-eligible > Military hosts attached to on NCP (D)ARPAnet as MILNET. > :-) > > Ok, for this thread OP request : > Were the PLI in use pre-TCP ? > Did the PLI have a bypass or null-key option to allow a host > (rebooted to sanitzed state with classified files off-line) to connect > to the normal, PLI-less ARPAnet hosts ? > > > (-: We could say the PLI were the original VPN or rather Virtual Sub Nets > :-) > > So sending an INTEL file from a PLI host to an MIT host just wouldn't > work, unless the MIT host temporarily was connected via a PLI with > matching key, which would involve shenanigans strange even by MIT or > Community standards. > > Maybe NATICK LABS is involved, per article referenced in OP, because > file was sent via PLI to them (when did they get a host?) and moved > tapes from there to MIT? > (As long as the orginating branch had provided waivers it might even > have been vaguely legal to read the tape at MIT?) > (Courier with 6 tapes in a bag on the night train still better bandwidth?) > > One could have sent an UNCLASS file to MIT from an UNCLASS host at Ft > Meade (mentioned in the article), but file would have to be downgraded > from NSA system of origin to //UNCLASS//FOUO// in order to put it onto > the rare, air-gapped UNCLASS system that was connected to the net > normally (no PLI). > Doing that with actual INTEL DB would still be have been wrong, in > addition to whether it was (im)properly gathered or not. > > ( Alas the Ft Meade Unclass system that I remember on the net, > DOCKMASTER MULTICS, is documented as being a 1984 install. Also one of > the last MULTICs to be turned off, 1998. So it was never on NCP > ARPAnet.) > > What was DOCKMASTER's precursor in the NET-facing role at Ft Meade, > and how early? > That is relevant to (in)validating the clippings referenced in OP. > > > DEPENDING ON THE KEYS USES, THE PLI WAS > > ABLE TO CARRY AT LEAST TS AND POSSIBLY SCI. > > Oh, interesting, I'd forgotten that. > > If there were Spooks doing _remote_ collaboration with social > scientists early enough to be relevant to OP query re AGILE+CAM, > they'd have to have been PLI customers, except for very general > UNCLASS support/research work. > > (Presumably the several communities still had need for PLI's for their > system-high subnet, once the //UNCLASS//FOUO// TCP/IP MILNET was > separated from ARPAnet.) > > //bill > -- New postal address: Google 1875 Explorer Street, 10th Floor Reston, VA 20190 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From paf at frobbit.se Fri Apr 13 21:00:31 2018 From: paf at frobbit.se (=?utf-8?Q?Patrik_F=C3=A4ltstr=C3=B6m?=) Date: Fri, 13 Apr 2018 21:00:31 -0700 Subject: [ih] .UK vs .GB In-Reply-To: References: <20180413221258.D240B24AA5BB@ary.qy> Message-ID: <7BD4DD68-9051-4601-B0BC-393E6162C6B7@frobbit.se> > On 13 Apr 2018, at 19:44, Eric Gade wrote: > > The X.400/X.500 systems were simply going to replace everything anyway, so the wisdom went. ? But of course!! Patrik From brian.e.carpenter at gmail.com Fri Apr 13 21:40:50 2018 From: brian.e.carpenter at gmail.com (Brian E Carpenter) Date: Sat, 14 Apr 2018 16:40:50 +1200 Subject: [ih] .UK vs .GB In-Reply-To: References: <20180413221258.D240B24AA5BB@ary.qy> Message-ID: <1b3ebda9-21b3-0f83-7034-bd599f05fa86@gmail.com> On 14/04/2018 14:44, Eric Gade wrote: > Sorry one more message about this, as I've dug up an old copy of my > dissertation (which in part addresses this issue). In 1984 when the DNS RFC > was being drafted (I was mistaken it was the summer of 1984 not 1985), the > proposal to use the ISO-3166 list for ccTLDs came pretty late in the game. > There are limited records of discussions about this outside of draft RFCs > kept by Feinler and emails that appear on the Namedroppers list. > > As I said previously, they were already using .UK as their top-level in the > NRS hierarchy in the UK. The document record shows that even as the DNS > went into use, there was a lot of pressure for the Joint Network Team to > revise how they structured their names, not just because of the UK/GB > issue, but also because of the reversal of the names (hence the 1990 fiasco > of adding Czech). The JNT had very clear reasons for not making the > changes: they did not think the DNS would be the world standard, and had > invested both time and money in making ISO standards a reality. They did > not want to spend the money or time on making such changes to the NRS just > for DNS purposes, when they believed a new international standard was > inevitable and would require yet more changes. The X.400/X.500 systems were > simply going to replace everything anyway, so the wisdom went. Yes, it is reasonable to argue that .GB was just a small part of the roadkill on the information superhighway, along with the various OSI standards. But in my memory, the fact that there was at that time (and until 1998) ongoing political violence in Northern Ireland meant that the political inaccuracy of using "GB" was considered to be a real and genuine red flag; whether you called the academic community ac.uk or uk.ac was a side issue. JANET's commitment to OSI was a factor, but I don't think it was the main reason for insisting on .UK. To this day, www.qub.ac.gb would I think be problematic, since Belfast is still not in Great Britain. If you can track down Willie Black, maybe he could add some actual facts. Peter Kirstein could probably tell you what went on behind the scenes. I think he's still reachable at P.Kirstein at cs.ucl.ac.uk (or possibly P.Kirstein at uk.ac.ucl.cs ;-). https://wikivividly.com/wiki/.uk#History is of some interest. https://wikivividly.com/wiki/.gb seems to know what it's talking about. On the anecdotal side, not only was cs.ucl.ac.uk problematic; we had the inverse problem at CERN, when supported out of Oracle's UK office, with mail to user at uk.oracle.com bouncing after going through a heuristic in our mail gateway. Somebody had to add a heuristic inside the heuristic. Brian > On Fri, Apr 13, 2018 at 10:24 PM, Eric Gade wrote: > >> The NIC collection at CHM has info about this. The draft RFCs where Postel >> first proposed TLDs (between Jan and May 85 I believe) all proposed UK as >> examples. Discussion on the "Namedroppers" list at the time made it pretty >> clear why: the UCL nodes used the NRS (Name Recocognition Scheme) and >> already had UK at the top level (though reversed) >> >> On Fri, Apr 13, 2018, 22:12 Patrik F?ltstr?m wrote: >> >>> On 13 Apr 2018, at 15:12, John Levine wrote: >>> >>>> In another list someone was wondering why British domain names are >>> mostly in .UK even though the ISO 3166 code has always been .GB. >>>> >>>> I know this came up before but can't find the discussion. Pointers or >>> rehash welcome. The first mention I can find of .UK is in an example in >>> RFC 821 in 1982, the first statement that ccTLDS would be ISO 3166 codes >>> was in 1984. >>> >>> The only explanation I got orally was that "GB stands for Great Britain, >>> while UK stands for United Kingdom of Great Britain and the Northern >>> Ireland". >>> >>> That was enough for me. Don't even remember who explained it, but it was >>> around the famous entry of .CS into the root zone that created the >>> "interesting" situation with CS.BERKELEY.EDU (and others) and massive >>> weird extra hacking in sendmail.cf due to the Janet "reverse" order of >>> labels in a domain name. >>> >>> But, I might also have constructed this story in my head... :-) >>> >>> paf >>> _______ >>> internet-history mailing list >>> internet-history at postel.org >>> http://mailman.postel.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history >>> Contact list-owner at postel.org for assistance. >>> >> > > > > > _______ > internet-history mailing list > internet-history at postel.org > http://mailman.postel.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history > Contact list-owner at postel.org for assistance. > From brian.e.carpenter at gmail.com Fri Apr 13 21:57:34 2018 From: brian.e.carpenter at gmail.com (Brian E Carpenter) Date: Sat, 14 Apr 2018 16:57:34 +1200 Subject: [ih] .UK vs .GB In-Reply-To: <7BD4DD68-9051-4601-B0BC-393E6162C6B7@frobbit.se> References: <20180413221258.D240B24AA5BB@ary.qy> <7BD4DD68-9051-4601-B0BC-393E6162C6B7@frobbit.se> Message-ID: On 14/04/2018 16:00, Patrik F?ltstr?m wrote: > > >> On 13 Apr 2018, at 19:44, Eric Gade wrote: >> >> The X.400/X.500 systems were simply going to replace everything anyway, so the wisdom went. > > ? > > But of course!! Why on earth we didn't all switch to X.400 is hard to imagine. For example, the X.400 human-readable version of a JANET address via a gateway would have been so simple: C = gb; ADMD = gold 400; PRMD = gw; DD.jnt-mail = user(a)domain.subdomains (Quoted from Recommendation for a shorthand X.400 address representation, 1989.) Brian From paf at frobbit.se Fri Apr 13 22:34:29 2018 From: paf at frobbit.se (Patrik =?utf-8?b?RsOkbHRzdHLDtm0=?=) Date: Fri, 13 Apr 2018 22:34:29 -0700 Subject: [ih] .UK vs .GB In-Reply-To: References: <28099080-1168-ce24-1d19-b97baa9c07a8@channelisles.net> <20180414011145.86A9824ABF58@ary.qy> Message-ID: <120ADA1B-630E-4D86-8C64-071891A6E52F@frobbit.se> Although I think there are some questions there, like if Wales is a separate "country" like Scotland. I thought Wales and England was sort of one entity. paf On 13 Apr 2018, at 19:05, Alexander Goldman wrote: > The United Kingdom consists of the island of Great Britain + Northern Ireland. Great Britain consists of England, Scotland, and Wales. The Union Jack flag (of the United Kingdom) consists of three crosses: St. George for England, St. Andrew for Scotland, and St. Patrick for Ireland https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_the_United_Kingdom. > > On Fri, Apr 13, 2018 at 9:11 PM, John Levine wrote: > >> In article <28099080-1168-ce24-1d19-b97baa9c07a8 at channelisles.net> you >> write: >>> Well SOMETHING's still there >>> >>> nigel at skylark:~$ dig dra.hmg.gb any >> >>> ;; ANSWER SECTION: >>> dra.hmg.gb. 21599 IN NS ns1.cs.ucl.ac.uk. >>> dra.hmg.gb. 21599 IN NS relay.mod.uk. >>> dra.hmg.gb. 21599 IN NS sun.mhs-relay.ac.uk. >> >> Hey, how about that: >> >> dig @ns1.cs.ucl.ac.uk. dra.hmg.gb axfr >> >> ; <<>> DiG 9.8.3-P1 <<>> @ns1.cs.ucl.ac.uk. dra.hmg.gb axfr >> ; (1 server found) >> ;; global options: +cmd >> dra.hmg.gb. 360000 IN SOA ns1.cs.ucl.ac.uk. >> hostmaster.cs.ucl.ac.uk. 200709271 14400 1800 3600000 360000 >> dra.hmg.gb. 360000 IN NS ns1.cs.ucl.ac.uk. >> dra.hmg.gb. 360000 IN NS relay.mod.uk. >> dra.hmg.gb. 360000 IN NS sun.mhs-relay.ac.uk. >> hermes-mail.dra.hmg.gb. 360000 IN MX 10 relay.dstl.gov.uk. >> dfhnet.dra.hmg.gb. 360000 IN MX 10 relay.dstl.gov.uk. >> dfhnet.dra.hmg.gb. 360000 IN A 146.80.9.10 >> delos.dra.hmg.gb. 360000 IN A 146.80.9.105 >> hermes.dra.hmg.gb. 360000 IN MX 10 relay.dstl.gov.uk. >> hermes.dra.hmg.gb. 360000 IN A 146.80.9.16 >> dra.hmg.gb. 360000 IN SOA ns1.cs.ucl.ac.uk. >> hostmaster.cs.ucl.ac.uk. >> >> I wonder what else is lurking nearby. >> >> R's, >> John >> _______ >> internet-history mailing list >> internet-history at postel.org >> http://mailman.postel.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history >> Contact list-owner at postel.org for assistance. >> > > _______ > internet-history mailing list > internet-history at postel.org > http://mailman.postel.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history > Contact list-owner at postel.org for assistance. -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 256 bytes Desc: OpenPGP digital signature URL: From brian.e.carpenter at gmail.com Sat Apr 14 00:13:17 2018 From: brian.e.carpenter at gmail.com (Brian E Carpenter) Date: Sat, 14 Apr 2018 19:13:17 +1200 Subject: [ih] .UK vs .GB In-Reply-To: <120ADA1B-630E-4D86-8C64-071891A6E52F@frobbit.se> References: <28099080-1168-ce24-1d19-b97baa9c07a8@channelisles.net> <20180414011145.86A9824ABF58@ary.qy> <120ADA1B-630E-4D86-8C64-071891A6E52F@frobbit.se> Message-ID: <9be4c48c-b15f-973e-634e-e2732b6f95ce@gmail.com> On 14/04/2018 17:34, Patrik F?ltstr?m wrote: > Although I think there are some questions there, like if Wales is a separate "country" like Scotland. I thought Wales and England was sort of one entity. Try saying that in a pub in Wales and see what happens to you :-). Wales, like Scotland, has its own Parliament, although the Scottish Parliament has more powers. Mostly, English law applies in Wales, but the Scottish legal system is different. However, some Welsh people still resent the events of 1282-1301 when the English king imposed his rule on Wales, only 700 years ago. In the Commonwealth Games (taking place now in Australia), England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Island compete as separate countries: visit https://thecgf.com/countries to see the flags. In the Olympic games, the UK competes as one country (coded GBR). The Northern Irish border (between .uk and .ie) is the biggest unsolved issue in Brexit. Another reason why .uk vs .gb is a political question even today. Postel was a wise man. If he'd insisted on .gb, I think there would have been serious trouble at some point. Brian > > > paf > > On 13 Apr 2018, at 19:05, Alexander Goldman wrote: > >> The United Kingdom consists of the island of Great Britain + Northern Ireland. Great Britain consists of England, Scotland, and Wales. The Union Jack flag (of the United Kingdom) consists of three crosses: St. George for England, St. Andrew for Scotland, and St. Patrick for Ireland https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_the_United_Kingdom. >> >> On Fri, Apr 13, 2018 at 9:11 PM, John Levine wrote: >> >>> In article <28099080-1168-ce24-1d19-b97baa9c07a8 at channelisles.net> you >>> write: >>>> Well SOMETHING's still there >>>> >>>> nigel at skylark:~$ dig dra.hmg.gb any >>> >>>> ;; ANSWER SECTION: >>>> dra.hmg.gb. 21599 IN NS ns1.cs.ucl.ac.uk. >>>> dra.hmg.gb. 21599 IN NS relay.mod.uk. >>>> dra.hmg.gb. 21599 IN NS sun.mhs-relay.ac.uk. >>> >>> Hey, how about that: >>> >>> dig @ns1.cs.ucl.ac.uk. dra.hmg.gb axfr >>> >>> ; <<>> DiG 9.8.3-P1 <<>> @ns1.cs.ucl.ac.uk. dra.hmg.gb axfr >>> ; (1 server found) >>> ;; global options: +cmd >>> dra.hmg.gb. 360000 IN SOA ns1.cs.ucl.ac.uk. >>> hostmaster.cs.ucl.ac.uk. 200709271 14400 1800 3600000 360000 >>> dra.hmg.gb. 360000 IN NS ns1.cs.ucl.ac.uk. >>> dra.hmg.gb. 360000 IN NS relay.mod.uk. >>> dra.hmg.gb. 360000 IN NS sun.mhs-relay.ac.uk. >>> hermes-mail.dra.hmg.gb. 360000 IN MX 10 relay.dstl.gov.uk. >>> dfhnet.dra.hmg.gb. 360000 IN MX 10 relay.dstl.gov.uk. >>> dfhnet.dra.hmg.gb. 360000 IN A 146.80.9.10 >>> delos.dra.hmg.gb. 360000 IN A 146.80.9.105 >>> hermes.dra.hmg.gb. 360000 IN MX 10 relay.dstl.gov.uk. >>> hermes.dra.hmg.gb. 360000 IN A 146.80.9.16 >>> dra.hmg.gb. 360000 IN SOA ns1.cs.ucl.ac.uk. >>> hostmaster.cs.ucl.ac.uk. >>> >>> I wonder what else is lurking nearby. >>> >>> R's, >>> John >>> _______ >>> internet-history mailing list >>> internet-history at postel.org >>> http://mailman.postel.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history >>> Contact list-owner at postel.org for assistance. >>> >> >> _______ >> internet-history mailing list >> internet-history at postel.org >> http://mailman.postel.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history >> Contact list-owner at postel.org for assistance. >> >> >> _______ >> internet-history mailing list >> internet-history at postel.org >> http://mailman.postel.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history >> Contact list-owner at postel.org for assistance. From jack at 3kitty.org Sat Apr 14 00:36:09 2018 From: jack at 3kitty.org (Jack Haverty) Date: Sat, 14 Apr 2018 00:36:09 -0700 Subject: [ih] Yasha Levine's Surveillance Valley: The Secret Military History of the Internet -- Some Questions In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5ff3eac8-7479-7859-23c4-6a1cd04d5b68@3kitty.org> Hello Eric, First, let me thank you for pointing us to the "Dream Machine" book. I tend to ignore "history of the network" books, since I've found that they tend to describe a history sometimes quite different from what I remember as one of the people who was actually there. "Dream Machine" is an exception. Lick was my thesis adviser, and subsequently my boss when I was a member of the MIT research staff in his group. So there is a lot of overlap between my personal experiences in 1969-1977 at MIT and the events and interactions chronicled in "Dream Machine". My reaction to Dream Machine was that it was right on target, consistent with everything I remember (except maybe a few minor details). I also learned a lot, with the "back story" of the political history now explaining some of the things that happened in those days at MIT. Of course, I haven't read "Surveillance Valley", but I can offer some insights into how it was back then, to maybe help you decide whether SV is fantasy or reality. First, I think it's important to understand that "MIT" was not a monolith. It had many pieces, and, like most institutions, they were sometimes cooperative, usually competitive, and often unaware of what the other pieces were doing. That's especially true if you think of "MIT" as not only the school per se, but also related pieces - Lincoln Labs and Draper Labs being two major ones. Lick's group was part of Project MAC, aka LCS (Laboratory for Computer Science), It occupied part of 545 Technology Square, along with the MIT AI Lab. LCS had many subgroups. In addition, the building complex housed an IBM research group (that did the DataComputer, which was attached to the ARPANET), and even a stealth office of the CIA (really - but that's another story), which I accidentally "outed" one day while trying to run computer cables up to the roof through the elevator shaft. Oops. Second, the ARPANET was not the first, or only, way to communicate between computers at different organizations. As an undergrad in 1968, I had a part time job which involved running an APL facility for use in some course (Metallurgy IIRC). That was accessed by a dial-up line from one of our computers to one at the IBM research center in upstate New York. Lots of that kind of informal ad-hoc "networking" was common. IIRC, the machines "on the ARPANET" at MIT in the early years included Multics, Dynamic Modelling (Lick's group where I hung out), AI, and ML (MathLab). Those all supported multiple projects (who could use the ARPANET, with ARPA permission of course). Those projects could have been anywhere in MIT (or even elsewhere over dialups), using one of the ARPANET-attached machines to do --- well, whatever they were doing. I doubt anyone knows, or knew, what all of those pieces were and what exactly they were doing back in the 60s/70s, who they were working for (being funded by), or what kind of data they moved around. LCS itself, AFAIK, did not do any classified work. Draper Labs did (I had a parttime job there for a year or so, programming a PDP-8). Probably Lincoln too but I never worked there. Also remember that this was the time of protests in the streets. It wasn't politically correct (or even safe) to be doing certain kinds of work. So anybody doing such stuff kept it quiet. So, it's certainly possible that something interesting and controversial got "transferred to MIT", but that's too vague a claim. Without details, it's too hard to tell if it might have happened. I do remember, at the ICCC '72 debut of the ARPANET in DC, that one of the most popular datasets being transferred around and sent to the printer in the exhibit hall was ... a file containing a collection of bawdy limericks. Possibly the debut of "Internet Porn"? I still have a yellowed listing as a souvenir. So, the lesson is that nobody could really tell what was going across the ARPANET..... Third, there was a behavioral pattern which I'll call "Elephant Syndrome" -- after that old story about a group of blind people describing an elephant based on which piece of the elephant's anatomy each of them can touch. Here's an example of Elephant Syndrome (ES) from Lick's group. At one point in the mid-70s Lick reluctantly disappeared for a while to go back to ARPA for a year. This is described in "Dream Machine" - and after reading that I now know what was really going on! Subsequently, we worker bees were cajoled into being excited about a new project - how to get our poor overworked PDP-10 to not only decode, but to understand hand sent Morse code, and even hopefully be able to participate in conversations with other human-manned stations. Today, we would call this an "expert system", but I don't think that term had been invented yet. I was a ham operator in high school, and got pretty good with Morse. So I was "the expert", and our group tried to make the computer do things the way I did them as a Morse operator. I would explain how I did things as a Morse operator, and then we'd figure out a way to get the computer to do the same. Having now read "Dream Machine", I realize that this was driven by Heilmeyer's (and no doubt others) desire to make the funded research more immediately relevant to military needs. Foreign forces were still communicating using hand-sent Morse. Inquiring minds wanted to know what they were talking about. Soon. I remember one day when "the government" came to visit. Half-a-dozen men in dark suits, very serious. I never knew who they were. We showed them what the system we had built could do and they seemed very impressed. We also advised them that we couldn't quite get "realtime" understanding of hand-sent Morse. The PDP-10 (IIRC - 512MB of memory, .001 GHz CPU)! simply didn't have the horsepower. So having the computer interact with a live human in a Morse conversation was not possible with our equipment. They didn't seem concerned about that. I think we missed an opportunity then - to ask for a few more PDP-10 systems (only a few million each..) to continue the work. I bet we would have gotten them with no fuss at all. Where to put them though -- that would have been a real problem. That was of course the "military/surveillance" view of the Elephant and why it was being built. >From the MIT researchers' perspective, the Morse project was interesting because Morse is a very very simple language. There are only two syllables - "dot" and "dash". Much simpler than spoken English or any other voiced language, but still rich in details to be handled - dialects, accents, noisy and "cocktail-party" environments, etc. But building a system which could truly understand that simple spoken language seemed like a good first step in research toward eventually getting a computer to understand spoken conversational human voice - something which seems now pretty close to solved, 43 years later. Maybe. So the "research/academia" view of that Elephant was quite different from the military. Same Elephant, two ideas of what it was all about. I never saw whatever was the written proposal from MIT to somewhere in the government to start that More "Natural Language Research/Morse Surveillance" project. It would be interesting to see what perspective of that Elephant was portrayed in the proposal. The Morse system could certainly have been accessed over the ARPANET although I don't recall anyone ever actually doing that. One could certainly have promoted the project as "aiding the surveillance mission". Another project at MIT in Lick's group in the 70s focused on "Electronic Messaging", which fit right in with Lick's "Dream" and we built a system that mimicked a typical office environment. Then we adapted the system as part of the "Military Messaging Experiment", which was a testbed deployed (at CINCPAC IIRC), to show how Electronic Messaging could be used to improve the machinery of military communications - everything from logistics to command and control in a multi-level secure environment. Again, an Elephant which looks quite different to different audiences. Throughout those years at MIT, I never heard of "The Cambridge Project" or "Project CAM". But perhaps I was looking at a different part of the Elephant. Is it possible that the "Cambridge Project" was something involving the DataComputer? It was across the hall from Lick's world at MIT, and was on the ARPANET in the early/mid 70s. I did several projects trying to use the DataComputer, e.g., as an archival trusted repository for important email (a sort of escrow agent). I imagine there may have been some kind of joint project between IBM and some part of MIT to use the DataComputer in some way. After all, IBM probably put it in a building on the MIT Campus for some reason.... In 1977, I left MIT and joined BBN in the same group that built and was running the ARPANET. My first assignment was to implement TCP for Unix. For the next 13 years, with titles ranging from Computer Scientist to Chief Network Architect, most of the work I did at BBN involved the Internet in one way or another. If you've read the "Dream Machine", you'll understand the synergy between Lick's MIT activity, BBN, and ARPA. The same culture and behavior could be found in all. In particular, we got pretty good at creating Elephants. One example I can remember clearly. The Internet was getting a bit unwieldy, and the basic technology really didn't have any mechanisms for management - things like fault detection, isolation, configuration control, and the like. So, a project was put together, drawing funding from several very different sources. To ARPA, we were working on forward-thinking ideas for "Automated Network Management", which fit in with their mission of advanced, risky research. To DCA, we were working on new operations tools and procedures which were critical to getting the users onto the DDN, and making the Internet reliable in military environments. We even had funding from some of the "user" communities, who had begun building their own private clones of "The Internet" and were frantically searching for the management tools. Each of those groups had a different perspective on the Elephant they were funding. Same Elephant. Those "user communities" even extended into the non-government arena. By the late 80s, corporations with an early-adopter gene had gotten tired of waiting for the PTTs and Big Iron vendors to deliver on their promises, and were tentatively pushing forward with the TCP route, simply by building their own personal private corporate Internet. I consulted for one firm - a major Wall Street investment house - with a private Internet (IIRC we called them Intranets then), with multiple T-1 lines interconnecting New York, London, and Tokyo as their own neonatal private Internet. They were so serious about reliability and zero-downtime that they even had two massive datacenters, fully redundant and linked so that one could take over if the other failed. When I asked what situation they were worried about, the CIO pointed out that one datacenter was on the flight path for Newark airport. The risk of an unfortunate encounter with an airliner was just too high. Each minute of downtime meant millions of dollars lost. A clone datacenter was cheap insurance. When you think about it, the government and especially military focus on C3I - Communications, Command, Control, and Intelligence. Looking at corporations like that Wall Street world, they do exactly the same things - gather data, turn it into information, get it to decision makers, and issue commands, and control their agents activities around the world. When the military C3I system fails, people can die. When the corporate system fails, billions can be lost. The Internet is an Elephant that serves all those needs. What it is depends on your perspective.... So, was the Internet "from the beginning, grown from "counterinsurgency" and surveillance operations"? Probably there are people who think so. They may be right. You decide... I think we were building The Ultimate Elephant. It is what it looks like ... to you. /Jack Haverty On 04/13/2018 02:47 PM, Eric Gade wrote: > Hello list members, > > Please excuse the length of this email. > > I am in the process of writing a review of Yasha Levine's new history of > the Internet, "Surveillance Valley: The Secret Military History of the > Internet." His overall thesis is that the development of the Internet > has, from the beginning, grown from "counterinsurgency" and surveillance > operations, and that these aspects have not been adequately chronicled > in other histories. Many of his claims about the early ARPA work I have > not encountered before, and I imagine that some would find them provocative. > > I'm hoping there are members of this list with knowledge about these > claims who can help me clarify a few points: > > 1. Levine asserts that there was some overlap or relationship between > William Godel's Project Agile and work conducted by the ARPA Command > and Control division under Licklider. He pulls a lot from Sharon > Weinberger's recent book ("The Imagineers of War") in discussing > both Godel and the potential connection. He writes, "[Licklider's] > work at ARPA was part of the military's larger counterinsurgency > efforts and directly overlapped with William Godel's Project Agile." > (52). In making this statement he actually cites Weinberger's > prologue, in which she says "Godel personally signed off on the > first computer-networking study, giving it money from his Vietnam > budget." It appears Weinberger is herself citing this document: > (https://archivesdeclassification.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/arpa-order-internet.pdf). > It is a part of a series that may still be classified (I have the > NDC looking into it). My question about this is: was there really > any kind of working relationship? What does this transfer of funds > represent? And perhaps more broadly: to what extent was ARPA > C&C/IPTO involved in counterinsurgency data collection and processing? > 2. A large section of the early history in this book deals with the > Cambridge Project (aka Project CAM) at MIT and controversy > surrounding it at the time. I am awaiting a copy of the original > proposal from MIT (it might not come in before deadline; should > anyone on this list have a copy I'd really appreciate it). Levine > asserts that the project "would directly aid the agency's > counterinsurgency mission." He claims that the work of the project > "could be accessed from any computer with an ARPANET connection" > (68) and that "It was a kind of stripped down 1960s version of > Palantir, the powerful data mining, surveillance, and prediction > software the military and intelligence planners use today." He goes > on: "the project was customized to the military's needs, with > particular focus on fighting insurgencies and rolling back communism > [...] It was clear that the Cambridge Project wasn't just a tool for > research, it was a counterinsurgency technology." (68-69) > > Is that not an accurate description of the proposal? Were any > members on this list involved in this research? If so, are these > characterizations accurate to your mind? > 3. There is yet another section where Levine finds some reporting from > the early 70s, where NBC News' Rowan Ford conducted a 4 month > investigation and found evidence that intelligence files about > American anti-war protestors and others had been transferred, > perhaps stored, and perhaps processed somehow, over the ARPANET and > linked host machines. His report was entered into the Congressional > Record as a part of Tunney's hearings in 1975: > https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015078638619;view=1up;seq=7 > > The claim is that these files might have been a part of previous > CONUS intel that, in 1972, the Army was ordered to delete. One of > the claims in the report is that such files were transferred via the > ARPANET to MIT for some reason. Ford had 4 sources for this story > who had knowledge of the incident; only one, Richard Ferguson (who > apparently was fired from MIT for this disclosure), gave information > publicly. > > Does anyone on this list have knowledge of this incident, and/or > whether or not the ARPANET/ARPA IPTO was used to move around, > eventually store, or otherwise process these kinds of dossiers? > > > These are all the questions I have for now. Thanks for taking the time > to read. > > > -- > Eric > > > _______ > internet-history mailing list > internet-history at postel.org > http://mailman.postel.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history > Contact list-owner at postel.org for assistance. > From nigel at channelisles.net Sat Apr 14 01:42:54 2018 From: nigel at channelisles.net (Nigel Roberts) Date: Sat, 14 Apr 2018 09:42:54 +0100 Subject: [ih] .UK vs .GB In-Reply-To: <9be4c48c-b15f-973e-634e-e2732b6f95ce@gmail.com> References: <28099080-1168-ce24-1d19-b97baa9c07a8@channelisles.net> <20180414011145.86A9824ABF58@ary.qy> <120ADA1B-630E-4D86-8C64-071891A6E52F@frobbit.se> <9be4c48c-b15f-973e-634e-e2732b6f95ce@gmail.com> Message-ID: <723216a5-9b7a-35ca-c1f8-2362746002af@channelisles.net> > The choice of GB in the ISO code was, almost certainly, for this reason. There would have been much more potential for trouble if the ISO code had been UK. More to follow . . . > Postel was a wise man. If he'd insisted on .gb, I think there would have > been serious trouble at some point. > > Brian > >> >> >> paf >> >> On 13 Apr 2018, at 19:05, Alexander Goldman wrote: >> >>> The United Kingdom consists of the island of Great Britain + Northern Ireland. Great Britain consists of England, Scotland, and Wales. The Union Jack flag (of the United Kingdom) consists of three crosses: St. George for England, St. Andrew for Scotland, and St. Patrick for Ireland https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_the_United_Kingdom. >>> >>> On Fri, Apr 13, 2018 at 9:11 PM, John Levine wrote: >>> >>>> In article <28099080-1168-ce24-1d19-b97baa9c07a8 at channelisles.net> you >>>> write: >>>>> Well SOMETHING's still there >>>>> >>>>> nigel at skylark:~$ dig dra.hmg.gb any >>>> >>>>> ;; ANSWER SECTION: >>>>> dra.hmg.gb. 21599 IN NS ns1.cs.ucl.ac.uk. >>>>> dra.hmg.gb. 21599 IN NS relay.mod.uk. >>>>> dra.hmg.gb. 21599 IN NS sun.mhs-relay.ac.uk. >>>> >>>> Hey, how about that: >>>> >>>> dig @ns1.cs.ucl.ac.uk. dra.hmg.gb axfr >>>> >>>> ; <<>> DiG 9.8.3-P1 <<>> @ns1.cs.ucl.ac.uk. dra.hmg.gb axfr >>>> ; (1 server found) >>>> ;; global options: +cmd >>>> dra.hmg.gb. 360000 IN SOA ns1.cs.ucl.ac.uk. >>>> hostmaster.cs.ucl.ac.uk. 200709271 14400 1800 3600000 360000 >>>> dra.hmg.gb. 360000 IN NS ns1.cs.ucl.ac.uk. >>>> dra.hmg.gb. 360000 IN NS relay.mod.uk. >>>> dra.hmg.gb. 360000 IN NS sun.mhs-relay.ac.uk. >>>> hermes-mail.dra.hmg.gb. 360000 IN MX 10 relay.dstl.gov.uk. >>>> dfhnet.dra.hmg.gb. 360000 IN MX 10 relay.dstl.gov.uk. >>>> dfhnet.dra.hmg.gb. 360000 IN A 146.80.9.10 >>>> delos.dra.hmg.gb. 360000 IN A 146.80.9.105 >>>> hermes.dra.hmg.gb. 360000 IN MX 10 relay.dstl.gov.uk. >>>> hermes.dra.hmg.gb. 360000 IN A 146.80.9.16 >>>> dra.hmg.gb. 360000 IN SOA ns1.cs.ucl.ac.uk. >>>> hostmaster.cs.ucl.ac.uk. >>>> >>>> I wonder what else is lurking nearby. >>>> >>>> R's, >>>> John >>>> _______ >>>> internet-history mailing list >>>> internet-history at postel.org >>>> http://mailman.postel.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history >>>> Contact list-owner at postel.org for assistance. >>>> >>> >>> _______ >>> internet-history mailing list >>> internet-history at postel.org >>> http://mailman.postel.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history >>> Contact list-owner at postel.org for assistance. >>> >>> >>> _______ >>> internet-history mailing list >>> internet-history at postel.org >>> http://mailman.postel.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history >>> Contact list-owner at postel.org for assistance. > > > _______ > internet-history mailing list > internet-history at postel.org > http://mailman.postel.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history > Contact list-owner at postel.org for assistance. > From nigel at channelisles.net Sat Apr 14 02:08:11 2018 From: nigel at channelisles.net (Nigel Roberts) Date: Sat, 14 Apr 2018 10:08:11 +0100 Subject: [ih] .UK vs .GB In-Reply-To: <120ADA1B-630E-4D86-8C64-071891A6E52F@frobbit.se> References: <28099080-1168-ce24-1d19-b97baa9c07a8@channelisles.net> <20180414011145.86A9824ABF58@ary.qy> <120ADA1B-630E-4D86-8C64-071891A6E52F@frobbit.se> Message-ID: This topic can disappear in a rathole of enormous proportions quite quickly, but since as it refers directly to [ {GB|UK}, GG, JE, IM ] structure of the DNS, you may enjoy some background, which given my own direct role in this over the last 22 years, I have a fairly wide overview of. At the outset, to understand how we got to today's DNS structure in the British Islands, one needs to be able to clearly identify and distinguish between geo-political (Westfalian) terms such as USA, (Dominion of) Canada, &c ) from geographical one (e.g "America", "North America", etc). It's also important to understand our shared history, and the history of those terms. ("Those who cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it - Santanya".) There are Venn diagrams posted on regularly Quora which purport clarify this. Unfortunately, only some of them accurately represent the situation and nearly all add to the confusion and "fun". That being said, here are some useful definitions: If the following reams of fine defintions are too long for you, just skip ahead to number 6 - "The GB ISO Code". 1. GREAT BRITAIN ================ (a) "Great Britain" was the name of a country that no longer exists. "The Kingdom of Great Britain" consisted of all the land which later became incorporated into the United Kingdom, but did not include ANY PART of the Island of Ireland. It existed only between 1707 - 1801. Self-evidently, that is the country, from which the original 13 colonies won independence in 1776. (This is probably why American news media, to this very day, continue to use the archaic name (as the subsequent constitutional cataclysms back in London have gone unnoticed). (b) In addition, "Great Britain" was, and remains, a geographic terml it simply refers to the largest of the Islands in the British Isles, and is co-terminous with {England+Wales+Scotland}. 2. UNITED KINGDOM (v1) ====================== The first country by the name "UK" (for short) came into existence in 1801. It lasted until 1922. So today's UK (which is the legal successor-state in international law), is less than 100 years old, and was only confirmed on its current borders in 1948-49. The full formal legal title of that former country was "United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland". In 1920, Ireland was, for a very short time, administratively divided into "Northern Ireland" and "Southern Ireland", both of which remained integral parts of the UK but this did not last. The whole of Ireland was then excised from the UK in 1921, forming a new Dominion under the British Crown which was called Saorst?t ?ireann (the Irish Free State). As a Dominion, the Free State was in the same status as Canada and Australia were at the time, the King remaining as Head of State). 3. UNITED KINGDOM (v2) ====================== Within a month after the separation of Ireland from the UK, six Irish counties seceded from the Free State and rejoined the UK (7th December 1921) by an address to the King. This let to the formation of today's nation-state, the full formal legal title of which country is "United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland" 4. BRITISH ISLES ================ This is in informal, purely geographic term, which includes England, Wales, Scotland, and (all of) Ireland as well as Alderney, Guernsey, Jersey, Sark and the Isle of Man. (It's not often used in Ireland where the term "these Islands" replaces it.) 5. GUERNSEY, ETC ================ There are five smaller, independent, self-governing jurisdictions in the British Isles that are not part of either the United Kingdom or the Republic of Ireland: Alderney, Guernsey, Jersey, Sark and the Isle of Man. Their legal and constitutional independence predates the existence of the UK or GB by many centuries (since 1204 in the case of the four Channel Islands, 1392 for the Isle of Man). 6. ISO code GB: 1970s-2006 ============================= WHen the ISO-3166-1 standard came into being in the 1970s, the UK was engaged in the early stages of a violent civil conflict in Ireland which was to last 30 ears and claim nearly 4000 lives, and which, at times extended to not only Northern Ireland and the Republic, but also parts of mainland Great Britain, Gibraltar and even to Germany and the Netherlands. Also in this time frame, The Constitution of the Republic of Ireland at this time maintained an irredentist claim to Northern Ireland. Consequently, matters of nomenclature were extremely sensitive. There may still be members of the ISO Committee who can provide first-hand information, and there may be internal British Government papers that can be disclosed under the 30 year rule, but it's not hard to see that the adoption of the arguably more accurate "UK" in the ISO standard would not have gone down too well with those parts of the community in Northern Ireland who identify as Irish-only. The two-letter code 'GB' was chosen instead. This must have seemed sensible, since GB, as has been noted, has been the international road traffic oval for the UK forever). And, unlike places like Alderney (GBA), Guernsey (GBG), Isle of Man (GBM) and Gibraltar (GBZ), the main GB oval had been used in Northern Ireland from the time when all of Ireland used (GB). So the name was a better choice by ISO. But the definition adopted by the Committee of the two letter code "GB" in the ISO standard was somewhat strange: It was {the United Kingdom* + the Channel Islands + Isle of Man}. (United Kingdom = Great Britain and N. Ireland) Now, this was not a collection that often needed to be seen together as a single entity (arguably eight, post-Welsh devolution) different legal systems in that list, for a start). For the purposes of legislation and statutory construction, however, the British Government had previously created (in the Interpretation Act 1948), a a not-well-known legal term-of-art for this exact set of jurisdictions: "the British Islands" (and which should not be confused with the purely geographic term "British Isles" - see (4), above.) Unfortunately, in attempting to avoid problems in Ireland, this definition was later to produce unexpected consequences elsewhere, in the Internet and e-commerce. 7. The view from the smaller islands. The choice of the two letter code "GB" in itself is relatively uncontroversial from the perspective of the Islands, Becuase of the geographic closeness to the UK, the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man have always been treated differently to the UK's other possessions, and almost treated as part of the UK. This has been, to Islander, both convenient and irritating, probably in equal measure. The Islands do not have their own international representation and, like the Free State, and Canada in the 1930s, are represented by the UK in matters for foreign affairs and defence. But the Islands are NOT part of the UK and never have been. So since the term GB it does not appear to import a gepolitical meanng (as UK does), it does not, in itself, appear to cause a problem. But it was later to cause a serious problem, with the advent of e-commerce, and the use of drop-down country lists on web pages, causing 20% VAT to be levied on most e-commerce purchases. 8. 1996 In the Summer of 1996 I engaged in correspondence with Jon Postel regarding the possibility TLDs for the Islands, having been referred to by what we would now call the ccTLD manager for .GB. (.GB was still connected to UCL/JANET, whilst .UK was being managed by a loosely defined set of ISPs and Academics called 'The Naming Committee' -- this almost immediately before Nominet UK was founded). I still have the emails. The reason for wanting TLDs was simple. The Islands are not part of the UK, so .UK was not eally appropriate (though some people did, and a few still do) use it, though oddly, I'd not started out by asking for TLDs, but had tried to see if we could have a sub-domain registry (remember when that seemed a thing?) such as .CI.GB. IANA/Postel's view was he was tied by the ISO list, but accepted the argument that the Islands qualified in every other way (the CIA World Factbook was a key persuader here). He was under a lot of pressure then from folks wanting all sorts of new TLDs, and did not want to open the floodgates. He said something like "I need a rule". To cut a very long story short, he agreed to adopt the ISO list as used by the UPU, which since the Islands had their own international postal systems had requested ISO to reserve an additional four codes to define postal administrations. Hence, GG, JE, IM and AC were added to the root at the end of August 1996. 9. ISO CODE "GB": 2006 Because, in particular, of the taxation problem, and problems of universal acceptance, GG, JE and IM were retrospectively added to the ISO standard in 2006. And at the same time the old definition of GB was retired. So ISO code GB means "the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland". But only since 2006. On 04/14/2018 06:34 AM, Patrik F?ltstr?m wrote: > Although I think there are some questions there, like if Wales is a separate "country" like Scotland. I thought Wales and England was sort of one entity. > From nigel at channelisles.net Sat Apr 14 02:14:07 2018 From: nigel at channelisles.net (Nigel Roberts) Date: Sat, 14 Apr 2018 10:14:07 +0100 Subject: [ih] .UK vs .GB In-Reply-To: References: <28099080-1168-ce24-1d19-b97baa9c07a8@channelisles.net> <20180414011145.86A9824ABF58@ary.qy> <120ADA1B-630E-4D86-8C64-071891A6E52F@frobbit.se> Message-ID: <42341e40-a8b9-4c09-d860-fc7de406e83b@channelisles.net> Actually, on re-reading this sentence and recalling the news last week, I appear to have unintentionally taken an overly Anglocentric view of this bit. This should read "was only confirmed on its current borders in 1998". > 1801. It lasted until 1922. So today's UK (which is the legal > successor-state in international law), is less than 100 years old, and > was only confirmed on its current borders in 1948-49. > From dave.walden.family at gmail.com Sat Apr 14 04:15:18 2018 From: dave.walden.family at gmail.com (Dave Walden) Date: Sat, 14 Apr 2018 07:15:18 -0400 Subject: [ih] Yasha Levine's Surveillance Valley: The Secret Military History of the Internet -- Some Questions In-Reply-To: <5ff3eac8-7479-7859-23c4-6a1cd04d5b68@3kitty.org> References: <5ff3eac8-7479-7859-23c4-6a1cd04d5b68@3kitty.org> Message-ID: Jack, My memory is that CCA (Computer Corporation of America -- Tom Merrill's company) did the DataComputer.? They might also have been at 545 Tech Square at the time but I am unsure of that.? IBM (the "Cambridge Scientific" lab?) was also there (as you note) and did other important things (my memory is vague, so I am uncertain of the following things ... the beginning of CP/CMS operating system, Script text processing system, creation of GML, I think they may also have had the other CTSS system, etc.) but I don't remember this group being connected to the ARPANET (IBM was pushing SNA -- proprietary networking). Dave On 4/14/2018 3:36 AM, Jack Haverty wrote: > Lick's group was part of Project MAC, aka LCS (Laboratory for Computer > Science), It occupied part of 545 Technology Square, along with the MIT > AI Lab. LCS had many subgroups. In addition, the building complex > housed an IBM research group (that did the DataComputer, which was > attached to the ARPANET), and even a stealth office of the CIA (really - > but that's another story), which I accidentally "outed" one day while > trying to run computer cables up to the roof through the elevator shaft. > Oops. > From jeanjour at comcast.net Sat Apr 14 06:24:38 2018 From: jeanjour at comcast.net (John Day) Date: Sat, 14 Apr 2018 09:24:38 -0400 Subject: [ih] .UK vs .GB In-Reply-To: References: <28099080-1168-ce24-1d19-b97baa9c07a8@channelisles.net> <20180414011145.86A9824ABF58@ary.qy> Message-ID: Don?t forget the Baliwicks of Guernsey and Jersey. ;-) Who are quite proud of the fact that have been part of Britain, longer than England has. ;-) > On Apr 13, 2018, at 22:05, Alexander Goldman wrote: > > The United Kingdom consists of the island of Great Britain + Northern Ireland. Great Britain consists of England, Scotland, and Wales. The Union Jack flag (of the United Kingdom) consists of three crosses: St. George for England, St. Andrew for Scotland, and St. Patrick for Ireland https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_the_United_Kingdom . > > On Fri, Apr 13, 2018 at 9:11 PM, John Levine > wrote: > In article <28099080-1168-ce24-1d19-b97baa9c07a8 at channelisles.net > you write: > >Well SOMETHING's still there > > > >nigel at skylark:~$ dig dra.hmg.gb any > > >;; ANSWER SECTION: > >dra.hmg.gb . 21599 IN NS ns1.cs.ucl.ac.uk . > >dra.hmg.gb . 21599 IN NS relay.mod.uk . > >dra.hmg.gb . 21599 IN NS sun.mhs-relay.ac.uk . > > Hey, how about that: > > dig @ns1.cs.ucl.ac.uk . dra.hmg.gb axfr > > ; <<>> DiG 9.8.3-P1 <<>> @ns1.cs.ucl.ac.uk . dra.hmg.gb axfr > ; (1 server found) > ;; global options: +cmd > dra.hmg.gb . 360000 IN SOA ns1.cs.ucl.ac.uk . hostmaster.cs.ucl.ac.uk . 200709271 14400 1800 3600000 360000 > dra.hmg.gb . 360000 IN NS ns1.cs.ucl.ac.uk . > dra.hmg.gb . 360000 IN NS relay.mod.uk . > dra.hmg.gb . 360000 IN NS sun.mhs-relay.ac.uk . > hermes-mail.dra.hmg.gb . 360000 IN MX 10 relay.dstl.gov.uk . > dfhnet.dra.hmg.gb . 360000 IN MX 10 relay.dstl.gov.uk . > dfhnet.dra.hmg.gb . 360000 IN A 146.80.9.10 > delos.dra.hmg.gb . 360000 IN A 146.80.9.105 > hermes.dra.hmg.gb . 360000 IN MX 10 relay.dstl.gov.uk . > hermes.dra.hmg.gb . 360000 IN A 146.80.9.16 > dra.hmg.gb . 360000 IN SOA ns1.cs.ucl.ac.uk . hostmaster.cs.ucl.ac.uk . > > I wonder what else is lurking nearby. > > R's, > John > _______ > internet-history mailing list > internet-history at postel.org > http://mailman.postel.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history > Contact list-owner at postel.org for assistance. > > _______ > internet-history mailing list > internet-history at postel.org > http://mailman.postel.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history > Contact list-owner at postel.org for assistance. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From el at lisse.NA Sat Apr 14 08:03:32 2018 From: el at lisse.NA (Dr Eberhard W Lisse) Date: Sat, 14 Apr 2018 17:03:32 +0200 Subject: [ih] .UK vs .GB In-Reply-To: References: <28099080-1168-ce24-1d19-b97baa9c07a8@channelisles.net> <20180414011145.86A9824ABF58@ary.qy> Message-ID: I am quite sure, Nigel will not :-)-O el On 2018-04-14 15:24 , John Day wrote: > Don?t forget the Baliwicks of Guernsey and Jersey. ;-) > > Who are quite proud of the fact that have been part of Britain, longer > than England has. ;-) [...] From eric.gade at gmail.com Sat Apr 14 08:26:25 2018 From: eric.gade at gmail.com (Eric Gade) Date: Sat, 14 Apr 2018 11:26:25 -0400 Subject: [ih] Yasha Levine's Surveillance Valley: The Secret Military History of the Internet -- Some Questions In-Reply-To: References: <5ff3eac8-7479-7859-23c4-6a1cd04d5b68@3kitty.org> Message-ID: > > Lick was my thesis adviser, and > subsequently my boss when I was a member of the MIT research staff in > his group. So there is a lot of overlap between my personal experiences > in 1969-1977 at MIT and the events and interactions chronicled in "Dream > Machine". > Hi Jack, thanks for writing back. It's great to have a person who worked with Licklider be a part of this email record. Also thank you to all the others for responding. I want to clarify a couple of things, mostly because I don't want to be unfair to the book's author despite my evaluation of his research. Levine seems to suggest that there is some connection between counterinsurgency psychological/sociological research in Vietnam and the origins of Licklider's research group(s) and work in building the ARPA C&C/IPTO community. That is to say, he believes there are common intellectual origins if not necessarily applications. What has been covered by Waldrop and others -- and what is even apparent in the oral histories recorded by Licklider and others -- is that to the extent this is true, there was apprehension on the part of the interactive computing researchers. Either way, this is a bold claim and my own feeling is that it requires much more evidence to support it. The NBC reporting is -- to his telling -- evidence of similar tactics being used on the ARPANET, although the Congressional Record testimony seems pretty clear that the report confused a bunch of things. Again, it doesn't seem to me that enough convincing evidence is presented, but these reports are interesting nonetheless and I'd never heard of them before in my own research. One final note about the Cambridge Project. Waldrop also discusses the Cambridge Project in "Dream Machine" -- he even recounts a story where Licklider, surrounded by protestors who were attempting to burn copies of his proposal, showed the youngsters that they needed to fan out the pages if they wanted to get it to burn properly (and even lit his own report on fire). At the time, this was a known project. The Harvard Crimson even reported on it: http://www.thecrimson.com/article/1969/9/26/brass-tacks- the-cambridge-project-pi/ As I mentioned, I have not been able to get a copy of this proposal. The MIT archives will almost certainly take their time getting back to me. The citation Levine uses for the report is: J.C.R. Licklider, "Establishment and Operation of a Program in Computer Analysis and Modeling in the Behavioral Sciences" December 5, 1968. MIT Institute Archives and Special Collections, MIT Cambridge Project records. Levine does not seem to quote from this proposal and only cites it once when he lists the "data banks" that the Cambridge Project would create (and "make available through ARPANET"): - Public opinion polls from all countries - Cultural patterns of all the tribes and peoples of the world - Archives on comparative communism [...] files on the contemporary world communist movements - Political participation of various countries [...] This includes such variables as voting, membership in associations, activity of political parties, etc. - Youth movements - Mass unrest and political movements under conditions of rapid social change - Data on national integration, particularly in "plural" societies; the integration of ethnic, racial and religious minorities; the merging or splitting of present political units - International propaganda output - Peasant attitudes and behavior - International armament expenditures and trends (It is unclear is Levine is listing these himself or quoting from the proposal; without seeing a copy we cannot verify) My understanding is that the project ran for ~5 years. The only documentary evidence for it that I've been able to find online is the following report, presumably written near the end of the project: http://www.dtic.mil/get-tr-doc/pdf?AD=AD0783626 Without some revelation from people on this list, I don't see enough evidence to overturn the narrative clearly expounded by Waldrop, Weinberger, and others that the ARPA computing community as established by Licklider was a kind of lucky moment where lots of funds could be spent on risky/open projects and that most of the rest of ARPA had little idea what these guys were even doing, let alone others within the Pentagon. On Sat, Apr 14, 2018 at 7:15 AM, Dave Walden wrote: > Jack, > > My memory is that CCA (Computer Corporation of America -- Tom Merrill's > company) did the DataComputer. They might also have been at 545 Tech > Square at the time but I am unsure of that. IBM (the "Cambridge > Scientific" lab?) was also there (as you note) and did other important > things (my memory is vague, so I am uncertain of the following things > ... the beginning of CP/CMS operating system, Script text processing > system, creation of GML, I think they may also have had the other CTSS > system, etc.) but I don't remember this group being connected to the > ARPANET (IBM was pushing SNA -- proprietary networking). > > Dave > > On 4/14/2018 3:36 AM, Jack Haverty wrote: > > Lick's group was part of Project MAC, aka LCS (Laboratory for Computer > > Science), It occupied part of 545 Technology Square, along with the MIT > > AI Lab. LCS had many subgroups. In addition, the building complex > > housed an IBM research group (that did the DataComputer, which was > > attached to the ARPANET), and even a stealth office of the CIA (really - > > but that's another story), which I accidentally "outed" one day while > > trying to run computer cables up to the roof through the elevator shaft. > > Oops. > > > > _______ > internet-history mailing list > internet-history at postel.org > http://mailman.postel.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history > Contact list-owner at postel.org for assistance. > -- Eric -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnl at iecc.com Sat Apr 14 09:32:46 2018 From: johnl at iecc.com (John R. Levine) Date: 14 Apr 2018 12:32:46 -0400 Subject: [ih] .UK vs .GB In-Reply-To: References: <28099080-1168-ce24-1d19-b97baa9c07a8@channelisles.net> <20180414011145.86A9824ABF58@ary.qy> Message-ID: > Don?t forget the Baliwicks of Guernsey and Jersey. ;-) > > Who are quite proud of the fact that have been part of Britain, longer than England has. ;-) Yes, and you get to sell overpriced .JE and .GG domain names, too. I've been meaning to go to Jersey and visit my money (not very much) but haven't had a chance yet. Regards, John Levine, johnl at iecc.com, Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for Dummies", Please consider the environment before reading this e-mail. https://jl.ly From mfidelman at meetinghouse.net Sat Apr 14 09:58:50 2018 From: mfidelman at meetinghouse.net (Miles Fidelman) Date: Sat, 14 Apr 2018 12:58:50 -0400 Subject: [ih] Datacomputer [an aside, was: Yasha Levine's Surveillance Valley: The Secret Military History of the Internet -- Some Questions] In-Reply-To: <5ff3eac8-7479-7859-23c4-6a1cd04d5b68@3kitty.org> References: <5ff3eac8-7479-7859-23c4-6a1cd04d5b68@3kitty.org> Message-ID: <0749a814-fe1c-617f-da17-a426b4552f59@meetinghouse.net> Hi Jack, On 4/14/18 3:36 AM, Jack Haverty wrote: > Lick's group was part of Project MAC, aka LCS (Laboratory for Computer > Science), It occupied part of 545 Technology Square, along with the MIT > AI Lab. LCS had many subgroups. In addition, the building complex > housed an IBM research group (that did the DataComputer, which was > attached to the ARPANET), and even a stealth office of the CIA (really - > but that's another story), which I accidentally "outed" one day while > trying to run computer cables up to the roof through the elevator shaft. > Oops. > I could have sworn that the DataComputer was CCA.? (Whatever happened to CCA, anyway?) Miles -- In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is. .... Yogi Berra From dave.walden.family at gmail.com Sat Apr 14 10:31:25 2018 From: dave.walden.family at gmail.com (David Walden) Date: Sat, 14 Apr 2018 13:31:25 -0400 Subject: [ih] Datacomputer [an aside, was: Yasha Levine's Surveillance Valley: The Secret Military History of the Internet -- Some Questions] Message-ID: Yes, the DataComputer was from CCA. There is a paper on the net by Tom Marill and a coauthor about the DataComputer. My memory is that CCA was sold to a Canadian company and the CCA founders cashed out. On April 14, 2018, at 1:17 PM, Miles Fidelman wrote: Hi Jack, On 4/14/18 3:36 AM, Jack Haverty wrote: > Lick's group was part of Project MAC, aka LCS (Laboratory for Computer > Science), It occupied part of 545 Technology Square, along with the MIT > AI Lab. LCS had many subgroups. In addition, the building complex > housed an IBM research group (that did the DataComputer, which was > attached to the ARPANET), and even a stealth office of the CIA (really - > but that's another story), which I accidentally "outed" one day while > trying to run computer cables up to the roof through the elevator shaft. > Oops. > I could have sworn that the DataComputer was CCA.? (Whatever happened to CCA, anyway?) Miles -- In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is. .... Yogi Berra _______ internet-history mailing list internet-history at postel.org http://mailman.postel.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history Contact list-owner at postel.org for assistance. From bill.n1vux at gmail.com Sat Apr 14 11:18:55 2018 From: bill.n1vux at gmail.com (Bill Ricker) Date: Sat, 14 Apr 2018 14:18:55 -0400 Subject: [ih] Yasha Levine's Surveillance Valley: The Secret Military History of the Internet -- Some Questions In-Reply-To: References: <5ff3eac8-7479-7859-23c4-6a1cd04d5b68@3kitty.org> Message-ID: On Sat, Apr 14, 2018 at 7:15 AM, Dave Walden wrote: > Jack, > > My memory is that CCA (Computer Corporation of America -- Tom Merrill's > company) did the DataComputer. Data Computer is a CCA trade name at least much later, so Jack's suggestion of Data Computer and my thought of Prof O'Neil's work on CCA Model 204 DB which was known to be used by the spooks are heading in the same direction. > They mighxt also have been at 545 Tech > Square at the time but I am unsure of that. IBM (the "Cambridge > Scientific" lab?) was also there (as you note) and did other important > things (my memory is vague, so I am uncertain of the following things > ... the beginning of CP/CMS operating system, Script text processing > system, creation of GML, All true ... I spent a very happy supper at IBM Cambridge Science Center in '79. > I think they may also have had the other CTSS > system, etc.) but I don't remember this group being connected to the > ARPANET (IBM was pushing SNA -- proprietary networking). AFAIK, yes, they had their own SNA backbone. I don't recall hearing of BITNET there. Jack - Very interesting about the Morse Code program. An aside: Dad graduated from Morse Code Intercept School at Ft Devens during the Korean excitement -- it beat going to Infantry school and then Korea, he figured, even if he wound up in Incirlik. He had to recycle the class, so wound up at Vint Hill Farm Station near Manassas VA, much better. His diploma was unclassified, send to Mom, but his 05H MOS of Morse Intercept Operator was classified. Colonel giving diplomas couldn't explain how that made sense. Given how poor morale was -- they recruited honors graduates to do this rote work transcribing quintuples of nonsense, a living modem between headphones and a typewriter -- apparently because of their aptitude test confounding pattern-matching and raw intelligence -- replacing Morse Intercept operators with a computer would have been merciful. They had guys on Morse Intercept who should have been assigned to the Cryptanalytic team or Traffic Analysis/Correlation, memorialized as "Army's biggest waste of brain power" in an expose white-paper. Dad wasn't cleared to know that his Vint Hill unit of ASA had already been reorganized into a new Joint entity called NSA. (NSA was Joint before Joint was cool.) To this day Dad hates Morse Code and has no interest in ASA veterans being eligible for the Retired Spooks society. But his "weekends" researching in the Library of Congress (possibly the first public Air Conditioned building in Virginia/DC) cemented long-distance courtship with my Mom, so he has that one positive memory from his Army days. 73 DE N1VUX >> attached to the ARPANET), and even a stealth office of the CIA (really - >> but that's another story), which I accidentally "outed" one day while >> trying to run computer cables up to the roof through the elevator shaft. >> Oops. Interesting. That might be connected to the CAM/AGILE, or project officers for the database, or something else entirely, maybe monitoring Soviets or domestic threats in Peoples Republic of Cambridge :-). >> Again, an Elephant which looks quite different to different audiences. Quite so. >> LCS itself, >> AFAIK, did not do any classified work. Draper Labs did ... Probably >> Lincoln too but I never worked there. Lincoln Labs and their spin-off MITRE* most certainly had classified work. In the 1980s, the MITRE department Mike Padlipsky (ex of MIT Project MAC, e.g. MULTICS ARPAnet implementation) and I were in was working with "The Community". I wasn't cleared to know what some of the others were doing. * (MITRE officially does NOT stand for MIT Radar Engineering, it is officially NOT an Acronym. Because trademarks. MITRE was originally spun-off from Lincoln to take the MIT-LL design for SAGE to RFP and fielding, as contracted contract management, which MIT felt was outside MIT-LL's remit and mission. I knew people who were called to a LL conference room one day in 1958 and told they were now MITRE employees, please pick up your new badge at security.) Land-lord to the stealth CIA office would be one. :-) If Prof O'Neil was involved with CIA/NSA and DataComputer / Model 204 work in LCS prior to the CCA spinoff/spinup, that would likely have been at least mildly classified as to who / why. (Live data would have been highly classified.) Unclear if National Library of Medicine usage of Model 204 was an intentional dual-use* cover-story or just "hey if you're funding that, can we use it too?"; I'm unsure if/how-long they managed to keep CCA's CIA/NSA sponsorship secret. * (The Community had used venture capital to create dual-use cover elsewhere: ITEK Photo typesetting was intentionally set up as a dual-use cover for ITEK manufacturing lenses for CORONA satellites. The super sharp super high power high-tech lenses needed to record land 100 miles below onto film crisply were exactly what would make phototypesetting from a collection of photo-negative masters work. Once CORONA was officially declassified, The Museum of Printing's master calligrapher boardmember (RIP, Louis), who had been a font designer at ITEK, gave the annual lecture on CORONA's relevance to typographic progress. ) -- Bill Ricker bill.n1vux at gmail.com https://www.linkedin.com/in/n1vux From bill.n1vux at gmail.com Sat Apr 14 11:26:37 2018 From: bill.n1vux at gmail.com (Bill Ricker) Date: Sat, 14 Apr 2018 14:26:37 -0400 Subject: [ih] Datacomputer [an aside, was: Yasha Levine's Surveillance Valley: The Secret Military History of the Internet -- Some Questions] In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sat, Apr 14, 2018 at 1:31 PM, David Walden wrote: > Yes, the DataComputer was from CCA. There is a paper on the net by Tom Marill and a coauthor about the DataComputer. My memory is that CCA was sold to a Canadian company and the CCA founders cashed out. Yes, Data Computer and Model 204 are both CCA. The buyers are "Rocket Software" . AFAIK not Canadian. At least one of the founders of CCA, Pat O'Neil, was at MIT immediately before, in the timeframe in question. -- Bill Ricker bill.n1vux at gmail.com https://www.linkedin.com/in/n1vux From jack at 3kitty.org Sat Apr 14 11:40:27 2018 From: jack at 3kitty.org (Jack Haverty) Date: Sat, 14 Apr 2018 11:40:27 -0700 Subject: [ih] Yasha Levine's Surveillance Valley: The Secret Military History of the Internet -- Some Questions In-Reply-To: References: <5ff3eac8-7479-7859-23c4-6a1cd04d5b68@3kitty.org> Message-ID: Dave - you're right. The DataComputer was at CCA, not IBM. We did have some interaction with IBM, IIRC as part of Lick's focus on Office Automation. No software, since PDP-10s and IBM had radically different technical views of the world, but documents and reports were easier to share. Lick knew everybody. I don't recall any specific events, but it wouldn't surprise me if there was some terminal over at some IBM site which had access to the ARPANET somehow, or if IBM people came by some MIT lab to visit and 'kick the tires'. Especially around the ICCC '72 exhibition, there was a lot of interest in promoting the ARPANET by demonstrating what you could do with it. MACSYMA was especially popular when it got online (MACSYMA was a symbolic manipulation "desk calculator" which could be used to solve algebraic equations). Being "connected to the ARPANET" didn't necessarily mean having a machine which was wired to an IMP port. It sometimes just meant that you had some means of accessing (or making available) interesting stuff by somehow using the ARPANET. Another of Lick's projects that I did was to create a server on the ARPANET on our PDP-10 which enabled a user to submit "card decks" and receive "printouts" from an IBM 360. We never would have come up with such an idea on our own, but it was important to Lick so I got volunteered to do it. I had used the 360s with punch cards at the MIT Data Center and Draper Labs so I sort of knew what to do. Tedious and painful to get there but it worked. The idea was that you could submit a card deck by emailing it to my server. The server would submit ithe card deck as a "job" to the 360 at UCLA by the RJE (Remote Job Entry) facility via the ARPANET, and then poll the RJE machine to eventually retrieve the printout that resulted from the job run for emailing back to whoever submitted the card deck. Presumably that card deck could have somehow invoked IBM networking to access remote datasets or services in the IBM world as it ran on the 360. Imagine a gateway handling punched card images instead of packets! I built the RJE server but I don't know if anybody ever used it afterwards or took the software away to run somewhere else. I had had enough experience with card decks by then so I never felt the desire to play around in the bowels of the IBM world. It sure would have been handy to have a few years earlier when I was working at Draper and occasionally had to carry decks of cards and listings across the MIT Campus. By using that RJE interface, one might make any "interesting dataset" on some IBM machine, not wired to an IMP, "accessible from the ARPANET". I can imagine my "RJE server" being promoted as a solution to that problem. That email system was the same one I built that also interfaced with the DataComputer at CCA. So card decks and printouts might have been stored in the DataComputer as part of Lick's larger vision of shared networked resources cooperating in an Office Automation (or C3I?) context. Might explain why I associated IBM with the DataComputer - all just details of the "Military Industrial Complex" in the 60s/70s which we student-types had strong feelings about. An interesting dataset might be processed by submitting a card deck of Fortran, with the resulting printout placed in the DataComputer for archival and access by interested parties via the ARPANET. One could easily view this as a part of some "surveillance" facility. Did it happen? Don't know. Did people think that was what the ARPANET was all about? Maybe some did... The Elephant looks different depending on your perspective. /Jack On 04/14/2018 04:15 AM, Dave Walden wrote: > Jack, > > My memory is that CCA (Computer Corporation of America -- Tom Merrill's > company) did the DataComputer.? They might also have been at 545 Tech > Square at the time but I am unsure of that.? IBM (the "Cambridge > Scientific" lab?) was also there (as you note) and did other important > things (my memory is vague, so I am uncertain of the following things > ... the beginning of CP/CMS operating system, Script text processing > system, creation of GML, I think they may also have had the other CTSS > system, etc.) but I don't remember this group being connected to the > ARPANET (IBM was pushing SNA -- proprietary networking). > > Dave > > On 4/14/2018 3:36 AM, Jack Haverty wrote: >> Lick's group was part of Project MAC, aka LCS (Laboratory for Computer >> Science), It occupied part of 545 Technology Square, along with the MIT >> AI Lab. LCS had many subgroups. In addition, the building complex >> housed an IBM research group (that did the DataComputer, which was >> attached to the ARPANET), and even a stealth office of the CIA (really - >> but that's another story), which I accidentally "outed" one day while >> trying to run computer cables up to the roof through the elevator shaft. >> Oops. >> > > _______ > internet-history mailing list > internet-history at postel.org > http://mailman.postel.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history > Contact list-owner at postel.org for assistance. > From reed at reedmedia.net Sat Apr 14 12:02:06 2018 From: reed at reedmedia.net (Jeremy C. Reed) Date: Sat, 14 Apr 2018 14:02:06 -0500 (CDT) Subject: [ih] .UK vs .GB In-Reply-To: <20180414011145.86A9824ABF58@ary.qy> References: <20180414011145.86A9824ABF58@ary.qy> Message-ID: On Fri, 13 Apr 2018, John Levine wrote: > I wonder what else is lurking nearby. I didn't find anything in FSI's historical dnsdb for owner (left-hand-side) beyond those few. Plus I saw this TXT record which has been there for at least 7 years: gb. TXT "Domain names for United Kingdom go under .uk" gb. TXT "For details see the web page on: www.nic.uk" gb. TXT "This domain is frozen and will be phased out" I did see over 1500 uses of gb in rdata for PTR, NS, MX, etc. (but only 17 for last month). I guess they are just unmaintained PTR records, temporary abuse (like non-GB labels with maybe some messages encoded in the label and also in the rdata that is in GB, or mistakes. I don't see any recent valid use. 105 CNAME 10 DNAME 1380 MX 16 NS 77 PTR 2 SOA From nigel at channelisles.net Sat Apr 14 12:04:13 2018 From: nigel at channelisles.net (Nigel Roberts) Date: Sat, 14 Apr 2018 20:04:13 +0100 Subject: [ih] .UK vs .GB In-Reply-To: References: <28099080-1168-ce24-1d19-b97baa9c07a8@channelisles.net> <20180414011145.86A9824ABF58@ary.qy> Message-ID: <66d15d61-0d5e-4128-5ce9-e3f8648bb29f@channelisles.net> That was John Day who wrote that, not me. Nigel (PS: Our wholesale prices are reasonably comparable with other small registries and positively tiny compared to some new gTLDs, but that's not exactly history-related) On 04/14/2018 05:32 PM, John R. Levine wrote: >> Don?t forget the Baliwicks of Guernsey and Jersey.? ;-) >> >> Who are quite proud of the fact that have been part of Britain, longer >> than England has. ;-) > > Yes, and you get to sell overpriced .JE and .GG domain names, too. > > I've been meaning to go to Jersey and visit my money (not very much) but > haven't had a chance yet. > > Regards, > John Levine, johnl at iecc.com, Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for > Dummies", > Please consider the environment before reading this e-mail. https://jl.ly > > > _______ > internet-history mailing list > internet-history at postel.org > http://mailman.postel.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history > Contact list-owner at postel.org for assistance. > From jack at 3kitty.org Sat Apr 14 12:07:09 2018 From: jack at 3kitty.org (Jack Haverty) Date: Sat, 14 Apr 2018 12:07:09 -0700 Subject: [ih] Yasha Levine's Surveillance Valley: The Secret Military History of the Internet -- Some Questions In-Reply-To: References: <5ff3eac8-7479-7859-23c4-6a1cd04d5b68@3kitty.org> Message-ID: <3d198195-117a-eeb5-7fb3-feeb674b9f9b@3kitty.org> In Lick's group, publication was never a priority; writing code and building systems was the focus. Maybe that was to avoid issues if different audiences discovered the others' view of the "Elephant".... So there aren't many historical papers about the work done there. It's unfortunate because there was a lot of interesting stuff going on, especially with 4 decades of hindsight. There was one paper about the Morse project published rather obscurely in a conference proceedings. A poor but mostly legible copy survives in DTIC. The paper about the Morse Project starts on page 128: http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a143691.pdf AFAIK, nothing we did in Lick's group was classified - at least not from our perspective. Some of you might find that paper interesting or at least nostalgic. /Jack On 04/14/2018 11:18 AM, Bill Ricker wrote: > On Sat, Apr 14, 2018 at 7:15 AM, Dave Walden > wrote: >> Jack, >> >> My memory is that CCA (Computer Corporation of America -- Tom Merrill's >> company) did the DataComputer. > > Data Computer is a CCA trade name at least much later, so Jack's > suggestion of Data Computer and my thought of Prof O'Neil's work on > CCA Model 204 DB which was known to be used by the spooks are heading > in the same direction. > > >> They mighxt also have been at 545 Tech >> Square at the time but I am unsure of that. IBM (the "Cambridge >> Scientific" lab?) was also there (as you note) and did other important >> things (my memory is vague, so I am uncertain of the following things >> ... the beginning of CP/CMS operating system, Script text processing >> system, creation of GML, > > All true ... I spent a very happy supper at IBM Cambridge Science Center in '79. > >> I think they may also have had the other CTSS >> system, etc.) but I don't remember this group being connected to the >> ARPANET (IBM was pushing SNA -- proprietary networking). > > AFAIK, yes, they had their own SNA backbone. I don't recall hearing of > BITNET there. > > Jack - > > Very interesting about the Morse Code program. > An aside: Dad graduated from Morse Code Intercept School at Ft > Devens during the Korean excitement -- it beat going to Infantry > school and then Korea, he figured, even if he wound up in Incirlik. He > had to recycle the class, so wound up at Vint Hill Farm Station near > Manassas VA, much better. His diploma was unclassified, send to Mom, > but his 05H MOS of Morse Intercept Operator was classified. Colonel > giving diplomas couldn't explain how that made sense. Given how poor > morale was -- they recruited honors graduates to do this rote work > transcribing quintuples of nonsense, a living modem between headphones > and a typewriter -- apparently because of their aptitude test > confounding pattern-matching and raw intelligence -- replacing Morse > Intercept operators with a computer would have been merciful. They had > guys on Morse Intercept who should have been assigned to the > Cryptanalytic team or Traffic Analysis/Correlation, memorialized as > "Army's biggest waste of brain power" in an expose white-paper. Dad > wasn't cleared to know that his Vint Hill unit of ASA had already been > reorganized into a new Joint entity called NSA. (NSA was Joint before > Joint was cool.) To this day Dad hates Morse Code and has no interest > in ASA veterans being eligible for the Retired Spooks society. But his > "weekends" researching in the Library of Congress (possibly the first > public Air Conditioned building in Virginia/DC) cemented long-distance > courtship with my Mom, so he has that one positive memory from his > Army days. 73 DE N1VUX > >>> attached to the ARPANET), and even a stealth office of the CIA (really - >>> but that's another story), which I accidentally "outed" one day while >>> trying to run computer cables up to the roof through the elevator shaft. >>> Oops. > > Interesting. > That might be connected to the CAM/AGILE, or project officers for the > database, or something else entirely, maybe monitoring Soviets or > domestic threats in Peoples Republic of Cambridge :-). > >>> Again, an Elephant which looks quite different to different audiences. > > Quite so. > >>> LCS itself, >>> AFAIK, did not do any classified work. Draper Labs did ... Probably >>> Lincoln too but I never worked there. > > > Lincoln Labs and their spin-off MITRE* most certainly had classified > work. In the 1980s, the MITRE department Mike Padlipsky (ex of MIT > Project MAC, e.g. MULTICS ARPAnet implementation) and I were in was > working with "The Community". I wasn't cleared to know what some of > the others were doing. > > * (MITRE officially does NOT stand for MIT Radar Engineering, it is > officially NOT an Acronym. Because trademarks. MITRE was originally > spun-off from Lincoln to take the MIT-LL design for SAGE to RFP and > fielding, as contracted contract management, which MIT felt was > outside MIT-LL's remit and mission. I knew people who were called to a > LL conference room one day in 1958 and told they were now MITRE > employees, please pick up your new badge at security.) > > Land-lord to the stealth CIA office would be one. :-) > If Prof O'Neil was involved with CIA/NSA and DataComputer / Model > 204 work in LCS prior to the CCA spinoff/spinup, that would likely > have been at least mildly classified as to who / why. (Live data would > have been highly classified.) Unclear if National Library of Medicine > usage of Model 204 was an intentional dual-use* cover-story or just > "hey if you're funding that, can we use it too?"; I'm unsure > if/how-long they managed to keep CCA's CIA/NSA sponsorship secret. > > * (The Community had used venture capital to create dual-use cover > elsewhere: ITEK Photo typesetting was intentionally set up as a > dual-use cover for ITEK manufacturing lenses for CORONA satellites. > The super sharp super high power high-tech lenses needed to record > land 100 miles below onto film crisply were exactly what would make > phototypesetting from a collection of photo-negative masters work. > Once CORONA was officially declassified, The Museum of Printing's > master calligrapher boardmember (RIP, Louis), who had been a font > designer at ITEK, gave the annual lecture on CORONA's relevance to > typographic progress. ) > > From dave.walden.family at gmail.com Sat Apr 14 12:53:59 2018 From: dave.walden.family at gmail.com (David Walden) Date: Sat, 14 Apr 2018 15:53:59 -0400 Subject: [ih] Yasha Levine's Surveillance Valley: The Secret Military History of the Internet -- Some Questions Message-ID: The sale of CCA that I am remembering was *much* earlier than when the wikipedia says Rocket bought CCA. I remember a founding CCA employee getting money when the company was sold. CCA could have been acquired and then acquired again; maybe a Canadian parent company sold it to Rocket. On April 14, 2018, at 2:19 PM, Bill Ricker wrote: On Sat, Apr 14, 2018 at 7:15 AM, Dave Walden wrote: > Jack, > > My memory is that CCA (Computer Corporation of America -- Tom Merrill's > company) did the DataComputer. Data Computer is a CCA trade name at least much later, so Jack's suggestion of Data Computer and my thought of Prof O'Neil's work on CCA Model 204 DB which was known to be used by the spooks are heading in the same direction. > They mighxt also have been at 545 Tech > Square at the time but I am unsure of that. IBM (the "Cambridge > Scientific" lab?) was also there (as you note) and did other important > things (my memory is vague, so I am uncertain of the following things > ... the beginning of CP/CMS operating system, Script text processing > system, creation of GML, All true ... I spent a very happy supper at IBM Cambridge Science Center in '79. > I think they may also have had the other CTSS > system, etc.) but I don't remember this group being connected to the > ARPANET (IBM was pushing SNA -- proprietary networking). AFAIK, yes, they had their own SNA backbone. I don't recall hearing of BITNET there. Jack - Very interesting about the Morse Code program. An aside: Dad graduated from Morse Code Intercept School at Ft Devens during the Korean excitement -- it beat going to Infantry school and then Korea, he figured, even if he wound up in Incirlik. He had to recycle the class, so wound up at Vint Hill Farm Station near Manassas VA, much better. His diploma was unclassified, send to Mom, but his 05H MOS of Morse Intercept Operator was classified. Colonel giving diplomas couldn't explain how that made sense. Given how poor morale was -- they recruited honors graduates to do this rote work transcribing quintuples of nonsense, a living modem between headphones and a typewriter -- apparently because of their aptitude test confounding pattern-matching and raw intelligence -- replacing Morse Intercept operators with a computer would have been merciful. They had guys on Morse Intercept who should have been assigned to the Cryptanalytic team or Traffic Analysis/Correlation, memorialized as "Army's biggest waste of brain power" in an expose white-paper. Dad wasn't cleared to know that his Vint Hill unit of ASA had already been reorganized into a new Joint entity called NSA. (NSA was Joint before Joint was cool.) To this day Dad hates Morse Code and has no interest in ASA veterans being eligible for the Retired Spooks society. But his "weekends" researching in the Library of Congress (possibly the first public Air Conditioned building in Virginia/DC) cemented long-distance courtship with my Mom, so he has that one positive memory from his Army days. 73 DE N1VUX >> attached to the ARPANET), and even a stealth office of the CIA (really - >> but that's another story), which I accidentally "outed" one day while >> trying to run computer cables up to the roof through the elevator shaft. >> Oops. Interesting. That might be connected to the CAM/AGILE, or project officers for the database, or something else entirely, maybe monitoring Soviets or domestic threats in Peoples Republic of Cambridge :-). >> Again, an Elephant which looks quite different to different audiences. Quite so. >> LCS itself, >> AFAIK, did not do any classified work. Draper Labs did ... Probably >> Lincoln too but I never worked there. Lincoln Labs and their spin-off MITRE* most certainly had classified work. In the 1980s, the MITRE department Mike Padlipsky (ex of MIT Project MAC, e.g. MULTICS ARPAnet implementation) and I were in was working with "The Community". I wasn't cleared to know what some of the others were doing. * (MITRE officially does NOT stand for MIT Radar Engineering, it is officially NOT an Acronym. Because trademarks. MITRE was originally spun-off from Lincoln to take the MIT-LL design for SAGE to RFP and fielding, as contracted contract management, which MIT felt was outside MIT-LL's remit and mission. I knew people who were called to a LL conference room one day in 1958 and told they were now MITRE employees, please pick up your new badge at security.) Land-lord to the stealth CIA office would be one. :-) If Prof O'Neil was involved with CIA/NSA and DataComputer / Model 204 work in LCS prior to the CCA spinoff/spinup, that would likely have been at least mildly classified as to who / why. (Live data would have been highly classified.) Unclear if National Library of Medicine usage of Model 204 was an intentional dual-use* cover-story or just "hey if you're funding that, can we use it too?"; I'm unsure if/how-long they managed to keep CCA's CIA/NSA sponsorship secret. * (The Community had used venture capital to create dual-use cover elsewhere: ITEK Photo typesetting was intentionally set up as a dual-use cover for ITEK manufacturing lenses for CORONA satellites. The super sharp super high power high-tech lenses needed to record land 100 miles below onto film crisply were exactly what would make phototypesetting from a collection of photo-negative masters work. Once CORONA was officially declassified, The Museum of Printing's master calligrapher boardmember (RIP, Louis), who had been a font designer at ITEK, gave the annual lecture on CORONA's relevance to typographic progress. ) -- Bill Ricker bill.n1vux at gmail.com https://www.linkedin.com/in/n1vux From brian.e.carpenter at gmail.com Sat Apr 14 13:07:56 2018 From: brian.e.carpenter at gmail.com (Brian E Carpenter) Date: Sun, 15 Apr 2018 08:07:56 +1200 Subject: [ih] .UK vs .GB In-Reply-To: <723216a5-9b7a-35ca-c1f8-2362746002af@channelisles.net> References: <28099080-1168-ce24-1d19-b97baa9c07a8@channelisles.net> <20180414011145.86A9824ABF58@ary.qy> <120ADA1B-630E-4D86-8C64-071891A6E52F@frobbit.se> <9be4c48c-b15f-973e-634e-e2732b6f95ce@gmail.com> <723216a5-9b7a-35ca-c1f8-2362746002af@channelisles.net> Message-ID: <1a78486d-71e8-60ef-0577-51562b433c32@gmail.com> On 14/04/2018 20:42, Nigel Roberts wrote: >> The choice of GB in the ISO code was, almost certainly, for this reason. Not sure who you were quoting there, but it wasn't me. > There would have been much more potential for trouble if the ISO code > had been UK. It's possible, but I doubt if anyone really cared in the 1970s. The world didn't really notice these codes at all until they started showing up in email addresses and URLs. And the strength of feeling was on both sides in Northern Ireland, so either choice was wrong. > More to follow . . . Yes, and thanks for all those details. Brian >> Postel was a wise man. If he'd insisted on .gb, I think there would have >> been serious trouble at some point. >> >> Brian >> >>> >>> >>> paf >>> >>> On 13 Apr 2018, at 19:05, Alexander Goldman wrote: >>> >>>> The United Kingdom consists of the island of Great Britain + Northern Ireland. Great Britain consists of England, Scotland, and Wales. The Union Jack flag (of the United Kingdom) consists of three crosses: St. George for England, St. Andrew for Scotland, and St. Patrick for Ireland https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_the_United_Kingdom. >>>> >>>> On Fri, Apr 13, 2018 at 9:11 PM, John Levine wrote: >>>> >>>>> In article <28099080-1168-ce24-1d19-b97baa9c07a8 at channelisles.net> you >>>>> write: >>>>>> Well SOMETHING's still there >>>>>> >>>>>> nigel at skylark:~$ dig dra.hmg.gb any >>>>> >>>>>> ;; ANSWER SECTION: >>>>>> dra.hmg.gb. 21599 IN NS ns1.cs.ucl.ac.uk. >>>>>> dra.hmg.gb. 21599 IN NS relay.mod.uk. >>>>>> dra.hmg.gb. 21599 IN NS sun.mhs-relay.ac.uk. >>>>> >>>>> Hey, how about that: >>>>> >>>>> dig @ns1.cs.ucl.ac.uk. dra.hmg.gb axfr >>>>> >>>>> ; <<>> DiG 9.8.3-P1 <<>> @ns1.cs.ucl.ac.uk. dra.hmg.gb axfr >>>>> ; (1 server found) >>>>> ;; global options: +cmd >>>>> dra.hmg.gb. 360000 IN SOA ns1.cs.ucl.ac.uk. >>>>> hostmaster.cs.ucl.ac.uk. 200709271 14400 1800 3600000 360000 >>>>> dra.hmg.gb. 360000 IN NS ns1.cs.ucl.ac.uk. >>>>> dra.hmg.gb. 360000 IN NS relay.mod.uk. >>>>> dra.hmg.gb. 360000 IN NS sun.mhs-relay.ac.uk. >>>>> hermes-mail.dra.hmg.gb. 360000 IN MX 10 relay.dstl.gov.uk. >>>>> dfhnet.dra.hmg.gb. 360000 IN MX 10 relay.dstl.gov.uk. >>>>> dfhnet.dra.hmg.gb. 360000 IN A 146.80.9.10 >>>>> delos.dra.hmg.gb. 360000 IN A 146.80.9.105 >>>>> hermes.dra.hmg.gb. 360000 IN MX 10 relay.dstl.gov.uk. >>>>> hermes.dra.hmg.gb. 360000 IN A 146.80.9.16 >>>>> dra.hmg.gb. 360000 IN SOA ns1.cs.ucl.ac.uk. >>>>> hostmaster.cs.ucl.ac.uk. >>>>> >>>>> I wonder what else is lurking nearby. >>>>> >>>>> R's, >>>>> John >>>>> _______ >>>>> internet-history mailing list >>>>> internet-history at postel.org >>>>> http://mailman.postel.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history >>>>> Contact list-owner at postel.org for assistance. >>>>> >>>> >>>> _______ >>>> internet-history mailing list >>>> internet-history at postel.org >>>> http://mailman.postel.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history >>>> Contact list-owner at postel.org for assistance. >>>> >>>> >>>> _______ >>>> internet-history mailing list >>>> internet-history at postel.org >>>> http://mailman.postel.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history >>>> Contact list-owner at postel.org for assistance. >> >> >> _______ >> internet-history mailing list >> internet-history at postel.org >> http://mailman.postel.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history >> Contact list-owner at postel.org for assistance. >> > _______ > internet-history mailing list > internet-history at postel.org > http://mailman.postel.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history > Contact list-owner at postel.org for assistance. > From nigel at channelisles.net Sat Apr 14 13:27:06 2018 From: nigel at channelisles.net (Nigel Roberts) Date: Sat, 14 Apr 2018 21:27:06 +0100 Subject: [ih] .UK vs .GB In-Reply-To: <1a78486d-71e8-60ef-0577-51562b433c32@gmail.com> References: <28099080-1168-ce24-1d19-b97baa9c07a8@channelisles.net> <20180414011145.86A9824ABF58@ary.qy> <120ADA1B-630E-4D86-8C64-071891A6E52F@frobbit.se> <9be4c48c-b15f-973e-634e-e2732b6f95ce@gmail.com> <723216a5-9b7a-35ca-c1f8-2362746002af@channelisles.net> <1a78486d-71e8-60ef-0577-51562b433c32@gmail.com> Message-ID: <6b2479b0-3d69-d673-7717-24db7e711d9a@channelisles.net> On 04/14/2018 09:07 PM, Brian E Carpenter wrote: > On 14/04/2018 20:42, Nigel Roberts wrote: >>> The choice of GB in the ISO code was, almost certainly, for this reason. > > Not sure who you were quoting there, but it wasn't me. > No, it wasn't. Those are my words. Not sure how they end up appearing to be quoted. From ocl at gih.com Sat Apr 14 16:56:28 2018 From: ocl at gih.com (=?UTF-8?Q?Olivier_MJ_Cr=c3=a9pin-Leblond?=) Date: Sun, 15 Apr 2018 00:56:28 +0100 Subject: [ih] .UK vs .GB In-Reply-To: References: <20180413221258.D240B24AA5BB@ary.qy> Message-ID: On 14/04/2018 03:01, Patrik F?ltstr?m wrote: > That was enough for me. Don't even remember who explained it, but it was around the famous entry of .CS into the root zone that created the "interesting" situation with CS.BERKELEY.EDU (and others) and massive weird extra hacking in sendmail.cf due to the Janet "reverse" order of labels in a domain name. It is indeed funny. There were several routes out of the UK that one needed to route specifically. UCL's NSS gateway (UK.AC.UCL.CS.NSS then UK.AC.NSFNET-RELAY or Rutherford Appleton Labs BITNET gateway UK.AC.RL.IB then UK.AC.EARN-RELAY and these needed to swap the address over. The relays got confused, as they would sometimes swap the DNS addresses over and sometimes not. Of particular interest was cs.net. -- Olivier MJ Cr?pin-Leblond, PhD http://www.gih.com/ocl.html -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 819 bytes Desc: OpenPGP digital signature URL: From ocl at gih.com Sat Apr 14 16:56:53 2018 From: ocl at gih.com (=?UTF-8?Q?Olivier_MJ_Cr=c3=a9pin-Leblond?=) Date: Sun, 15 Apr 2018 00:56:53 +0100 Subject: [ih] .UK vs .GB In-Reply-To: <0a606be8-9d2f-3000-c233-259370400622@gmail.com> References: <20180413221258.D240B24AA5BB@ary.qy> <0a606be8-9d2f-3000-c233-259370400622@gmail.com> Message-ID: <74f2c48a-0823-718b-9c1d-cd72737e3cb2@gih.com> Agreeing to all of the other important points that were made. On 14/04/2018 03:09, Brian E Carpenter wrote: > 2. Therefore, when SERCnet a.k.a. JANET invented Grey Book email, they > chose "UK" as the politically accurate top level domain (as in user at uk.ac.ucl). Actually, to differentiate between NRS & DNS notation, we used to use uppercase letters for NRS, thus user at UK.AC.UCL.CS.NSS <--- as NRS was no DNS, thus the complete computer's name usually needed to be provided. -- Olivier MJ Cr?pin-Leblond, PhD http://www.gih.com/ocl.html -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From ocl at gih.com Sat Apr 14 17:18:17 2018 From: ocl at gih.com (=?UTF-8?Q?Olivier_MJ_Cr=c3=a9pin-Leblond?=) Date: Sun, 15 Apr 2018 01:18:17 +0100 Subject: [ih] .UK vs .GB In-Reply-To: References: <20180413221258.D240B24AA5BB@ary.qy> <7BD4DD68-9051-4601-B0BC-393E6162C6B7@frobbit.se> Message-ID: <7c21e4d8-7d7d-2821-643e-b57d52001e8f@gih.com> On 14/04/2018 05:57, Brian E Carpenter wrote: > On 14/04/2018 16:00, Patrik F?ltstr?m wrote: >> >>> On 13 Apr 2018, at 19:44, Eric Gade wrote: >>> >>> The X.400/X.500 systems were simply going to replace everything anyway, so the wisdom went. >> ? >> >> But of course!! > Why on earth we didn't all switch to X.400 is hard to imagine. For example, > the X.400 human-readable version of a JANET address via a gateway would have > been so simple: > C = gb; ADMD = gold 400; PRMD = gw; DD.jnt-mail = user(a)domain.subdomains > > (Quoted from Recommendation for a shorthand X.400 address representation, 1989.) > I know we're all laughing about this now, but back then it was no laughing matter. JANET was running no CCITT W series recommendations and the policy Europe-wide was to promote X.25 and of course move to X.400 So all the way until the early nineties (1992?) we were told that the way forward was to get our house systems in order to send/receive X.400 emails. And it was clear that the number of hoops to jump through to get that darn X.400 working was beyond human. When sending through gateways, one had to add/delete further complicated fields like O and OU, as well as I & S or G, but most importantly, replace the ; with / and on systems which did not accept /, use \/ or perhaps encapsulate on " " or \" or \// especially if where were spaces or, God forbit, that might have been added to the system because the email address wrapped around the screen. One error and your email would bounce with something as helpful as two words: "Unrecognized ORname", because for many gateways it appeared to be the default error. I remember signing a petition that ultimately went to JNT, asking to keep NRS (if we were to stick to X.25), migrate to DNS (migration to TCP-IP), but to avoid X.400 at all costs. To this day, I still cannot believe some people were serious when they proposed the X.400 addressing scheme... and that some people took the format seriously. Kindest regards, Olivier -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bill.n1vux at gmail.com Sat Apr 14 19:01:04 2018 From: bill.n1vux at gmail.com (Bill Ricker) Date: Sat, 14 Apr 2018 22:01:04 -0400 Subject: [ih] CCA Yasha Levine's Surveillance Valley: The Secret Military History of the Internet -- Some Questions Message-ID: On Sat, Apr 14, 2018 at 3:53 PM, David Walden wrote: > The sale of CCA that I am remembering was *much* earlier than > when the wikipedia says Rocket bought CCA. I remember a founding > CCA employee getting money when the company was sold. > CCA could have been acquired and then acquired again; > maybe a Canadian parent company sold it to Rocket. That would make sense. Would your memory of first-sale possibly be around 1988, when O'Neil was successfully recruited to found UMB's CS Dept ?) -- Bill Ricker bill.n1vux at gmail.com https://www.linkedin.com/in/n1vux From casner at acm.org Sat Apr 14 19:21:30 2018 From: casner at acm.org (Stephen Casner) Date: Sat, 14 Apr 2018 19:21:30 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ih] Datacomputer [an aside, was: Yasha Levine's Surveillance Valley: The Secret Military History of the Internet -- Some Questions] In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: If you'll allow a continuation of this digression, I'll mention that we in the packet voice project at ISI (titled Network Secure Communication) worked with CCA in 1977 and 1978 on the Packet Speech Measurement Facility that used the DataComputer for voice file storage. (Back then, voice files were considered large, so the large capacity of the DataComputer was relevant.) Voice connections could be streamed to or from the voice files on the DataComputer to implement a "voice message" or "voice mail" system where a text email would include the access information for an associated voice message. Not exactly a hyperlink, but conceptually similar. As its name implies, the PSMF could also perform measurements on the voice files, such as analyzing packet arrival time patterns. -- Steve On Sat, 14 Apr 2018, David Walden wrote: > Yes, the DataComputer was from CCA. There is a paper on the net by Tom Marill and a coauthor about the DataComputer. My memory is that CCA was sold to a Canadian company and the CCA founders cashed out. > > On April 14, 2018, at 1:17 PM, Miles Fidelman wrote: > > Hi Jack, > > > On 4/14/18 3:36 AM, Jack Haverty wrote: > > Lick's group was part of Project MAC, aka LCS (Laboratory for Computer > > Science), It occupied part of 545 Technology Square, along with the MIT > > AI Lab. LCS had many subgroups. In addition, the building complex > > housed an IBM research group (that did the DataComputer, which was > > attached to the ARPANET), and even a stealth office of the CIA (really - > > but that's another story), which I accidentally "outed" one day while > > trying to run computer cables up to the roof through the elevator shaft. > > Oops. > > > I could have sworn that the DataComputer was CCA. (Whatever happened to > CCA, anyway?) > > Miles > > -- > In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. > In practice, there is. .... Yogi Berra From brian.e.carpenter at gmail.com Sat Apr 14 21:36:43 2018 From: brian.e.carpenter at gmail.com (Brian E Carpenter) Date: Sun, 15 Apr 2018 16:36:43 +1200 Subject: [ih] .UK vs .GB In-Reply-To: <7c21e4d8-7d7d-2821-643e-b57d52001e8f@gih.com> References: <20180413221258.D240B24AA5BB@ary.qy> <7BD4DD68-9051-4601-B0BC-393E6162C6B7@frobbit.se> <7c21e4d8-7d7d-2821-643e-b57d52001e8f@gih.com> Message-ID: <08b58b42-d9e2-8214-d0fa-b0d540853efa@gmail.com> below... On 15/04/2018 12:18, Olivier MJ Cr?pin-Leblond wrote: > > > On 14/04/2018 05:57, Brian E Carpenter wrote: >> On 14/04/2018 16:00, Patrik F?ltstr?m wrote: >>> >>>> On 13 Apr 2018, at 19:44, Eric Gade wrote: >>>> >>>> The X.400/X.500 systems were simply going to replace everything anyway, so the wisdom went. >>> ? >>> >>> But of course!! >> Why on earth we didn't all switch to X.400 is hard to imagine. For example, >> the X.400 human-readable version of a JANET address via a gateway would have >> been so simple: >> C = gb; ADMD = gold 400; PRMD = gw; DD.jnt-mail = user(a)domain.subdomains >> >> (Quoted from Recommendation for a shorthand X.400 address representation, 1989.) >> > > I know we're all laughing about this now, but back then it was no > laughing matter. JANET was running no CCITT W series recommendations and > the policy Europe-wide was to promote X.25 and of course move to X.400 > So all the way until the early nineties (1992?) we were told that the > way forward was to get our house systems in order to send/receive X.400 > emails. And it was clear that the number of hoops to jump through to get > that darn X.400 working was beyond human. When sending through gateways, > one had to add/delete further complicated fields like O and OU, as well > as I & S or G, but most importantly, replace the ; with / and on systems > which did not accept /, use \/ or perhaps encapsulate on " " or \" or > \// especially if where were spaces or, God forbit, that might have > been added to the system because the email address wrapped around the > screen. One error and your email would bounce with something as helpful > as two words: "Unrecognized ORname", because for many gateways it > appeared to be the default error. > I remember signing a petition that ultimately went to JNT, asking to > keep NRS (if we were to stick to X.25), migrate to DNS (migration to > TCP-IP), but to avoid X.400 at all costs. To this day, I still cannot > believe some people were serious when they proposed the X.400 addressing > scheme... and that some people took the format seriously. The document I quoted was written in all seriousness, because although the assumption was that the UI would normally hide all details of X.400 addresses, there was a question on everybody's tongue: "What should I put on my business card?" And indeed it was submitted as ISO/IEC JTC1/SC18/WG4/N102 (by Denise Heagerty at CERN and Ruediger Grimm at GMD Darmstadt). I think I did once see a business card with an X.400 address (but certainly not from Denise or Ruediger, who had more sense.) X.400 addressing is a great example of design by committee, in which consensus was reached by including everything suggested by anybody. There were apparently 14 different keywords. Bian From paf at frobbit.se Sun Apr 15 02:48:26 2018 From: paf at frobbit.se (=?utf-8?Q?Patrik_F=C3=A4ltstr=C3=B6m?=) Date: Sun, 15 Apr 2018 02:48:26 -0700 Subject: [ih] .UK vs .GB In-Reply-To: <08b58b42-d9e2-8214-d0fa-b0d540853efa@gmail.com> References: <20180413221258.D240B24AA5BB@ary.qy> <7BD4DD68-9051-4601-B0BC-393E6162C6B7@frobbit.se> <7c21e4d8-7d7d-2821-643e-b57d52001e8f@gih.com> <08b58b42-d9e2-8214-d0fa-b0d540853efa@gmail.com> Message-ID: <087FB0B1-7304-415E-8D4A-FB9B497D4AD0@frobbit.se> > On 14 Apr 2018, at 21:36, Brian E Carpenter wrote: > > I think I did once see a business card with an X.400 address (but > certainly not from Denise or Ruediger, who had more sense.) In Sweden X.400 was used by a few hardcore institutions. It required Y2K problems to have Tele2/Swipnet turn off their admd and gateway to/from smtp. Patrik From jklensin at gmail.com Sun Apr 15 03:06:47 2018 From: jklensin at gmail.com (John Klensin) Date: Sun, 15 Apr 2018 06:06:47 -0400 Subject: [ih] Yasha Levine's Surveillance Valley: The Secret Military History of the Internet -- Some Questions In-Reply-To: References: <5ff3eac8-7479-7859-23c4-6a1cd04d5b68@3kitty.org> Message-ID: Hi, while I'm on this list, I don't routinely follow it, so it took a while for me to be pointed to this thread and longer to find the energy to respond. For context, I was involved with the Cambridge Project from the time an early draft of the proposal started to be circulated to relevant researchers within MIT, through the summer study, and then ended up with lead responsibility for among other things, the software that was intended to hold everything together, was a member of the small steering committee (I don't remember what it was called, but that wasn't it) that had practical oversight of the Project. I worked closely with Lick and more closely with those who were running the project on a day-to-day basis. Lick was actively involved (more than I think Waldrop realized) but was leading the Dynamic Modeling work at the same time and almost certainly more involved there on a daily basis. When I decided to do work leading to a Ph.D a few years after the Cambridge Project wound down, Lick ended up on my somewhat-strange committee. If I recall, he was one of those who helped convince me I should do the degree. I'm happy to answer specific questions to the extent that I have time and remember --the Project did zero classified research-- but it has been a long time and MIT has, at least IMO, a bad institutional memory problem for activities that are not linked to active departments and/or sources of funds.. I have no idea whether the original idea for what became the Cambridge Project originated with Lick or de Sola Pool -- I worked closely with both, the latter even earlier than I first met Lick, but, by the time I heard about the idea, it was described very much in "joint effort" terms. I also knew (and know) enough about the interests of each to guess where some ideas came from but find it difficult or impossible to try to attribute most of the ideas to either independently. I'll try to describe what it was all about, but it is probably important that those trying to understand the effort (and almost anything else related at MIT or Harvard at the time, especially if there was DoD money involved, was that the late 1960s and first half of the 1970s were times of great tumult in the academic and research communities, with large differences in style among institutions about how those things played out. I don't believe we had anyone killed in Cambridge, but there were a lot of loud demonstrations, marches, etc., There were some unpleasant confrontations between demonstrators and the Cambridge Police and I can remember the smell of tear gas Because it involved social and behavioral science research and researchers, including some whom some of the most active of the antiwar community were suspicious of for other reasons and because it involved DoD (whether specifically ARPA or not, and it was ARPA) funding) which meant to them that something nefarious was going on, Some of those stories were on a par with some things we hear today about the "real" reason the ARPANET work was funded; some were, at least in my opinion, far worse. The times were troubled enough that I had some people who were working for me by day (because they were comfortable with what they were doing and what they could see) and picketing us by night (some because of the principle of DoD funding and others because of what "must" be going on elsewhere in teh project although they could never find any sign of it). The noise was loud enough that, if one looks through contemporary articles, one can probably find a lot of things that were the result of those kinds of thinking (i.e., without strong connections to reality) and find then with great ease. We are a lot more interested in getting work done than in trying to hold debates with those who were not willing to listen and who, in many case, felt that anyone who disagreed with them, their positions, or their truth should not be allowed to speak at all. Organizationally, the project was originally intended to be a joint MIT-Harvard effort. It was also intended, from the beginning, to be organized the way Project MAC was originally organized (in retrospect, probably unsurprising given Lick's involvement in shaping both), i.e., some centrally-funded and managed core activities, support from the Project for complementary activities of various faculty and departments, and some more independent activities with their own independent (e.g., non-DoD) support that were nonetheless collaborating (the latter group of activities was important with Project MAC but was never significant with the Cambridge Project and, as far as I can remember, never came together), There were many protests and some debate about that at Harvard. The _Crimson_ article cited was part of that fabric; perhaps something about its balance and dedication to reasoned debate can be inferred from such balanced and objective comments as " M.I.T. is the Defense Department's house whore,...". Others may remember actual details of the Harvard discussions better than I do, but Harvard eventually decided that there would be no formal Harvard-as-University participation, but that interested departments and researchers at Harvard were free to participate and accept funding. Many did -- there were at least three Harvard senior faculty, from at least Schools on the internal advisory committee and far more on a large faculty (and probably some students -- don't remember offhand) advisory group. So, we ended up with a central staff at MIT with work focusing on a general architecture and software substrate for a wide range of applications, integration of a variety of tools, data representation issues, design and construction of a researcher-friendly and statistically-oriented database management system, and a good deal of work what was necessary to apply different kinds of tools and models to the same underlying data. Wrt the latter, a common attitude, and arguably the state of the art, at the time was that people would build highly integrated "statistical packages" with a particular view of data and that researchers should design their work and hypotheses around what could be done with one of those packages. One of the key ideas behind the Cambridge Project was that it was important to have an environment in which data, models, and hypotheses should drive analysis not the available tools (not at all z new idea, but one that was hard to realize at the time).[1].[2] It may also be relevant that the Cambridge Project was funded out of ARPA Behavioral Sciences (sometimes Human Resources, IIR), not IPTO. There were certainly some conversations at/with RADC about command, control, and intelligence functions but they were more about the applicability of our work to those functions than any focus of the work on those topics. Mostly or entirely after the Cambridge Project as such ended, a company that was more or less spun off from MIT provided support for the systems that the Cambridge Project was developed to several universities and commercial enterprises in the US and Europe (and maybe elsewhere, but I don't remember) and to parts of DoD, notably what was then OSD Program Analysis and Evaluation (main application there was the DoD budget, not, e.g., warfare).. As with many other things funded by ARPA, there was far more effort to explain possible specific military applicability of the research work rather than its justification as research after the Mansfield Amendment (and the transition to "DARPA") than earlier. Like many other ARPA activities at the time, the explanations changed more than the actual work, It occurs to me that some of those explanations might be the foundation for the NBC reporting referred to below. A few other things to add a bit of data and help parse facts from misunderstanding or fantasy (I'm running out of energy and this note is already too long or there would be a much longer list): (1) I have no idea where Levine got his list of "data banks" that the Project was going to acquire, maintain, and distribute. I don't remember such a list from any of the early proposal drafts, nor do I remember any discussion of them during the summer study. In any event, while individual researchers almost certainly had their own data of interest and saw some of the work of the Project as providing better tools for analysis and modeling of them, there was never any central archive or effort to build one -- I'm quite confident about that because it almost certainly would have been in my area of responsibility. (2) The document at http://www.dtic.mil/get-tr-doc/pdf?AD=AD0783626 was one of a collection of annual and them semi-annual reports. They are all public; they were all available through NTIS and probably still are, although some of the scans were, IIR, even worse than this particular one. In any event, I have the MIT-produced paper versions of all of them. If the NTIS copies are no longer avaialble and someone has appropriate scanning resources, I'd be happy to make them available. (3) There was never any "Project CAM" or something referred to that way, at least in conjunction with the Cambridge Project. The only times I remember hearing that term during the Cambridge Project's existence were in conjunction with a conspiracy theory (whose details I don;t remember) involving "MAC" spelled backwards. (4) During most of its existence, the Cambridge Project was on the 5th floor or what was then 575 Technology Square, across the plaze from 545 (before that space came together, there was a group in MIT Building 26 near the original MIT computer center facility, I continued to sit in 545 Tech Square, etc. That is relevant to the Datacomputer discussion because we had the south side of that floor and they had the north side. But, if I remember (and my memory is very vague about this), while Tom Merrill was PI on that project, I think CCA continued to do business out of their other offices (up near Fresh Pond and a few blocks from BBN). Could easily be wrong about that, but IBM never had anything to do with the Datacompiuter -- it ran on PDP-10s, Ampex videotape drives, and some specialized hardware. What I do know is that, while the people involved knew each other (common elevator lobby and shared history among the more senior folks), no data ever moved between the two projects although Lick and others had a lot of fantasies about that if and when the Datacomputer work ever reached useful production status. Also, IBM's Cambridge Scientific Lab was definitely in 545. The only two CTSS systems I was ever aware of belonged to Project MAC and the MIT Computation Center. They were networked via the high-bandwidth method of people carrying magnetic tapes a block of two :-( I don't think IBM every actually owned one, although I might not have known. CP/CMS didn't speak SNA. It did acquire RSCS although I don't remember whether before or after the transition to the VM/CMS product. RSCS of course became the primary transport protocol for BITNET. Almost certainly no ARPANET connections to the Cambridge Scientific Center, at least early on -- the Host-IMP protocols didn't exist for the machine and there weren't any spare ports on the obvious IMPs. And the CIA office in 545 was a fairly open secret if it was a secret at all, at least by the time I had an office there around 1965-1966. john [1[ Klensin, John C., J. Markowitz, D. B. Yntema, and R. A. Wiesen, ?The Approach to Compatibility of the Cambridge Project Consistent System?, ACM SIGSOC Bulletin, Fall 1973. [2} Klensin, John C. and Douwe B. Yntema, ?Beyond the Package: A new approach to social science computing?, Social Science Information, 20, 4/5, (1981), pp. 787-815. On Sat, Apr 14, 2018 at 11:26 AM, Eric Gade wrote: >> Lick was my thesis adviser, and >> subsequently my boss when I was a member of the MIT research staff in >> his group. So there is a lot of overlap between my personal experiences >> in 1969-1977 at MIT and the events and interactions chronicled in "Dream >> Machine". > > > Hi Jack, thanks for writing back. It's great to have a person who worked > with Licklider be a part of this email record. > > Also thank you to all the others for responding. I want to clarify a couple > of things, mostly because I don't want to be unfair to the book's author > despite my evaluation of his research. Levine seems to suggest that there is > some connection between counterinsurgency psychological/sociological > research in Vietnam and the origins of Licklider's research group(s) and > work in building the ARPA C&C/IPTO community. That is to say, he believes > there are common intellectual origins if not necessarily applications. What > has been covered by Waldrop and others -- and what is even apparent in the > oral histories recorded by Licklider and others -- is that to the extent > this is true, there was apprehension on the part of the interactive > computing researchers. Either way, this is a bold claim and my own feeling > is that it requires much more evidence to support it. > > The NBC reporting is -- to his telling -- evidence of similar tactics being > used on the ARPANET, although the Congressional Record testimony seems > pretty clear that the report confused a bunch of things. Again, it doesn't > seem to me that enough convincing evidence is presented, but these reports > are interesting nonetheless and I'd never heard of them before in my own > research. > > One final note about the Cambridge Project. Waldrop also discusses the > Cambridge Project in "Dream Machine" -- he even recounts a story where > Licklider, surrounded by protestors who were attempting to burn copies of > his proposal, showed the youngsters that they needed to fan out the pages if > they wanted to get it to burn properly (and even lit his own report on > fire). At the time, this was a known project. The Harvard Crimson even > reported on it: > http://www.thecrimson.com/article/1969/9/26/brass-tacks-the-cambridge-project-pi/ > > As I mentioned, I have not been able to get a copy of this proposal. The MIT > archives will almost certainly take their time getting back to me. The > citation Levine uses for the report is: > J.C.R. Licklider, "Establishment and Operation of a Program in Computer > Analysis and Modeling in the Behavioral Sciences" December 5, 1968. MIT > Institute Archives and Special Collections, MIT Cambridge Project records. > > Levine does not seem to quote from this proposal and only cites it once when > he lists the "data banks" that the Cambridge Project would create (and "make > available through ARPANET"): > > Public opinion polls from all countries > Cultural patterns of all the tribes and peoples of the world > Archives on comparative communism [...] files on the contemporary world > communist movements > Political participation of various countries [...] This includes such > variables as voting, membership in associations, activity of political > parties, etc. > Youth movements > Mass unrest and political movements under conditions of rapid social change > Data on national integration, particularly in "plural" societies; the > integration of ethnic, racial and religious minorities; the merging or > splitting of present political units > International propaganda output > Peasant attitudes and behavior > International armament expenditures and trends > > (It is unclear is Levine is listing these himself or quoting from the > proposal; without seeing a copy we cannot verify) > > My understanding is that the project ran for ~5 years. The only documentary > evidence for it that I've been able to find online is the following report, > presumably written near the end of the project: > > http://www.dtic.mil/get-tr-doc/pdf?AD=AD0783626 > > > Without some revelation from people on this list, I don't see enough > evidence to overturn the narrative clearly expounded by Waldrop, Weinberger, > and others that the ARPA computing community as established by Licklider was > a kind of lucky moment where lots of funds could be spent on risky/open > projects and that most of the rest of ARPA had little idea what these guys > were even doing, let alone others within the Pentagon. > > On Sat, Apr 14, 2018 at 7:15 AM, Dave Walden > wrote: >> >> Jack, >> >> My memory is that CCA (Computer Corporation of America -- Tom Merrill's >> company) did the DataComputer. They might also have been at 545 Tech >> Square at the time but I am unsure of that. IBM (the "Cambridge >> Scientific" lab?) was also there (as you note) and did other important >> things (my memory is vague, so I am uncertain of the following things >> ... the beginning of CP/CMS operating system, Script text processing >> system, creation of GML, I think they may also have had the other CTSS >> system, etc.) but I don't remember this group being connected to the >> ARPANET (IBM was pushing SNA -- proprietary networking). >> >> Dave >> >> On 4/14/2018 3:36 AM, Jack Haverty wrote: >> > Lick's group was part of Project MAC, aka LCS (Laboratory for Computer >> > Science), It occupied part of 545 Technology Square, along with the MIT >> > AI Lab. LCS had many subgroups. In addition, the building complex >> > housed an IBM research group (that did the DataComputer, which was >> > attached to the ARPANET), and even a stealth office of the CIA (really - >> > but that's another story), which I accidentally "outed" one day while >> > trying to run computer cables up to the roof through the elevator shaft. >> > Oops. >> > >> >> _______ >> internet-history mailing list >> internet-history at postel.org >> http://mailman.postel.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history >> Contact list-owner at postel.org for assistance. > > > > > -- > Eric > > _______ > internet-history mailing list > internet-history at postel.org > http://mailman.postel.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history > Contact list-owner at postel.org for assistance. > From nigel at channelisles.net Sun Apr 15 04:44:51 2018 From: nigel at channelisles.net (Nigel Roberts) Date: Sun, 15 Apr 2018 12:44:51 +0100 Subject: [ih] .UK vs .GB In-Reply-To: <087FB0B1-7304-415E-8D4A-FB9B497D4AD0@frobbit.se> References: <20180413221258.D240B24AA5BB@ary.qy> <7BD4DD68-9051-4601-B0BC-393E6162C6B7@frobbit.se> <7c21e4d8-7d7d-2821-643e-b57d52001e8f@gih.com> <08b58b42-d9e2-8214-d0fa-b0d540853efa@gmail.com> <087FB0B1-7304-415E-8D4A-FB9B497D4AD0@frobbit.se> Message-ID: <6fb7bd02-c3be-a3b6-ede2-a148fcee85e3@channelisles.net> Not long after Laurie Brown and I set up GG we were 'invited' to a meeting in St Peter Port to talk with the IT folks from the Guernsey and Jersey Governments, which I went to. I remember that Peter Harris' (who later became the Island's Data Protection Commissioner) business card had an X.400 address on it quite prominently. I'd previously worked at DEC for the Office Systems people (IOSG) who were responsible for ALL-IN-1 and Message Router-X.400 Gateway (MRX) so I knew about X.400 mail. Even so, I *never* understood how anyone could possible want to use X.400 email -- I'd been emailing with people on the Internet using simple VAXmail almost since forever, using the form DECWRL::"user at domain.tld" See RISKS-DIGEST, SF-LOVERS, etc, _passim_. (https://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/7/93#subj6 for example). As I remember things, Peter also haa a "normal looking" email address @guernsey.gov.uk in addition to the 'official' X.400 address, which, IIRC, he happily explained was connected to the upstream through some dialup system (this was mid-1996), possbly Not long after they decided to adopt gov.gg in parallel, and that evenutally became the 'brand'. (I don't even think guernsey.gov.uk is delegated any more). N. On 04/15/2018 10:48 AM, Patrik F?ltstr?m wrote: > > >> On 14 Apr 2018, at 21:36, Brian E Carpenter wrote: >> >> I think I did once see a business card with an X.400 address (but >> certainly not from Denise or Ruediger, who had more sense.) > > In Sweden X.400 was used by a few hardcore institutions. It required Y2K problems to have Tele2/Swipnet turn off their admd and gateway to/from smtp. > > Patrik > > > > _______ > internet-history mailing list > internet-history at postel.org > http://mailman.postel.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history > Contact list-owner at postel.org for assistance. > From jeanjour at comcast.net Sun Apr 15 06:01:36 2018 From: jeanjour at comcast.net (John Day) Date: Sun, 15 Apr 2018 09:01:36 -0400 Subject: [ih] .UK vs .GB In-Reply-To: <08b58b42-d9e2-8214-d0fa-b0d540853efa@gmail.com> References: <20180413221258.D240B24AA5BB@ary.qy> <7BD4DD68-9051-4601-B0BC-393E6162C6B7@frobbit.se> <7c21e4d8-7d7d-2821-643e-b57d52001e8f@gih.com> <08b58b42-d9e2-8214-d0fa-b0d540853efa@gmail.com> Message-ID: <9D412A83-ACD0-4A3F-990C-75F6D8BDAB1B@comcast.net> Yes, it was a committee as was SMTP. But before you get to self-satisfied with how smart we all were and they weren?t. It should be pointed out that much of the design of both X.400 and X.500 was driven by the former DARPA participants in the National Software Works project from SRI. I had many an argument with them over various aspects of it. The idea of knowing what type the components of an identifier are is not inherently a bad idea. It certainly gives you more information for the database design that goes with it. John > > X.400 addressing is a great example of design by committee, in which > consensus was reached by including everything suggested by anybody. > There were apparently 14 different keywords. > > Bian > > > _______ > internet-history mailing list > internet-history at postel.org > http://mailman.postel.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history > Contact list-owner at postel.org for assistance. From jklensin at gmail.com Sun Apr 15 06:13:42 2018 From: jklensin at gmail.com (John Klensin) Date: Sun, 15 Apr 2018 09:13:42 -0400 Subject: [ih] .UK vs .GB In-Reply-To: References: <20180413221258.D240B24AA5BB@ary.qy> Message-ID: > The only explanation I got orally was that "GB stands for Great Britain, while UK stands for United Kingdom of Great Britain and the Northern Ireland". > > That was enough for me. Don't even remember who explained it, but it was around the famous entry of .CS into the root zone that created the "interesting" situation with CS.BERKELEY.EDU (and others) and massive weird extra hacking in sendmail.cf due to the Janet "reverse" order of labels in a domain name. Let me try an even less complicated one, based on what I was told when we were evaluating what became the decision to use ISO 3166 alpha-2 codes: The country code system started because of a request from the UK to be able to manage their own DNS hierarchy rather than depending on a US-based organization to manage the TLD. The ccTLDs are US and UK were decided upon (and possibly delegated) before other administrative decisions about ccTLDs were made and "UK" was what they asked for. FWIW: (1) While RFC 1591 was not published until 1994, it, for the most part, described thinking and procedures that had had been in place for years rather than anything of significant that was novel. (2) YJ Park, whom some of you may know, tried to sort though all of these issues and history while working on her dissertation. The search for answers to questions of this type might reasonably start with her and that dissertation. That should lead to some context and references even where she does not have exact answers. john From el at lisse.NA Sun Apr 15 06:43:55 2018 From: el at lisse.NA (Dr Eberhard W Lisse) Date: Sun, 15 Apr 2018 15:43:55 +0200 Subject: [ih] .UK vs .GB In-Reply-To: <9D412A83-ACD0-4A3F-990C-75F6D8BDAB1B@comcast.net> References: <20180413221258.D240B24AA5BB@ary.qy> <7BD4DD68-9051-4601-B0BC-393E6162C6B7@frobbit.se> <7c21e4d8-7d7d-2821-643e-b57d52001e8f@gih.com> <08b58b42-d9e2-8214-d0fa-b0d540853efa@gmail.com> <9D412A83-ACD0-4A3F-990C-75F6D8BDAB1B@comcast.net> Message-ID: I personally found that X.400 addressing was better than a UUCP bang path, but of course in the words of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X.400 "As with most ISO standards dealing with application-level networking, X.400 failed to compete successfully with SMTP, the Internet-based equivalent in North America." Remember, until the early 90's even German Universities were not connected to the ARPANET. At the Technical University in Aachen we used BITNET/EARN (on VAXen and CDCs, at the nearby Nuclear Research Facility in J?lich the used IBMs, in Dortmund on BSD). CSNET was used a little in Southwest Germany. Intercommunication was reliable, but difficult. So something needed to be done. I recall the the guys from the Computer Center telling me before I graduated from Medical School in 1987 that X.400 and OSI would be all the rage, Real Soon Now, and when I saw them again on leave from Namibia in 1992 (where we had been using UUCP/uuPC for a year or two) they were deeply engaged with TCP/IP. greetings, el On 2018-04-15 15:01 , John Day wrote: > Yes, it was a committee as was SMTP. But before you get to > self-satisfied with how smart we all were and they weren?t. It should > be pointed out that much of the design of both X.400 and X.500 was > driven by the former DARPA participants in the National Software Works > project from SRI. I had many an argument with them over various > aspects of it. > > The idea of knowing what type the components of an identifier are is > not inherently a bad idea. It certainly gives you more information for > the database design that goes with it. > > John [...] -- Dr. Eberhard W. Lisse / Obstetrician & Gynaecologist (Saar) el at lisse.NA / * | Telephone: +264 81 124 6733 (cell) PO Box 8421 / Bachbrecht, Namibia ;____/ From paf at frobbit.se Sun Apr 15 07:10:23 2018 From: paf at frobbit.se (=?utf-8?Q?Patrik_F=C3=A4ltstr=C3=B6m?=) Date: Sun, 15 Apr 2018 16:10:23 +0200 Subject: [ih] .UK vs .GB In-Reply-To: <9D412A83-ACD0-4A3F-990C-75F6D8BDAB1B@comcast.net> References: <20180413221258.D240B24AA5BB@ary.qy> <7BD4DD68-9051-4601-B0BC-393E6162C6B7@frobbit.se> <7c21e4d8-7d7d-2821-643e-b57d52001e8f@gih.com> <08b58b42-d9e2-8214-d0fa-b0d540853efa@gmail.com> <9D412A83-ACD0-4A3F-990C-75F6D8BDAB1B@comcast.net> Message-ID: <6695102D-75A5-4C6C-B5CF-9E704F95991B@frobbit.se> > On 15 Apr 2018, at 15:01, John Day wrote: > > The idea of knowing what type the components of an identifier are is not inherently a bad idea. It certainly gives you more information for the database design that goes with it. Agree, but in the case of X.400 and X.500 there was from my perspective a layer violation where there was not a distinction between the email address and the name. Although the same mistake is often implemented as a convention in smtp as well when people have first.last at domain construction in their email address. :-( Patrik From nigel at channelisles.net Sun Apr 15 07:20:49 2018 From: nigel at channelisles.net (Nigel Roberts) Date: Sun, 15 Apr 2018 15:20:49 +0100 Subject: [ih] .UK vs .GB In-Reply-To: References: <20180413221258.D240B24AA5BB@ary.qy> Message-ID: Far be it from me to be seen to clarify John's first hand knowledge of RFC 1591, but it's worth pointing out that the decision to use ISO-3166-1 was not first documented in RFC 1591, but already in RFC 920 (October 1984) as follows > Countries > > The English two letter code (alpha-2) identifying a country according the the ISO Standard for "Codes for the Representation of Names of Countries" [5]. > > As yet no country domains have been established. As they are established information about the administrators and agents will be made public, and will be listed in subsequent editions of this memo." > Stephen Deerhake and I put together an (as yet unfinished) hyperlinked timeline of the DNS quite recently. Even though there are some places where the editing is still a little rough, I think there is some useful stuff which is not easily accessible otherwise. You can find it at http://timeline.as It does need a little work, and we need to move it from using TikiWiki (which seemed like a good idea at the time) to something faster, but there are some interesting things there... On 04/15/2018 02:13 PM, John Klensin wrote: >> The only explanation I got orally was that "GB stands for Great Britain, while UK stands for United Kingdom of Great Britain and the Northern Ireland". >> >> That was enough for me. Don't even remember who explained it, but it was around the famous entry of .CS into the root zone that created the "interesting" situation with CS.BERKELEY.EDU (and others) and massive weird extra hacking in sendmail.cf due to the Janet "reverse" order of labels in a domain name. > > Let me try an even less complicated one, based on what I was told when > we were evaluating what became the decision to use ISO 3166 alpha-2 > codes: The country code system started because of a request from the > UK to be able to manage their own DNS hierarchy rather than depending > on a US-based organization to manage the TLD. The ccTLDs are US and > UK were decided upon (and possibly delegated) before other > administrative decisions about ccTLDs were made and "UK" was what they > asked for. > > FWIW: (1) While RFC 1591 was not published until 1994, it, for the > most part, described thinking and procedures that had had been in > place for years rather than anything of significant that was novel. > (2) YJ Park, whom some of you may know, tried to sort though all of > these issues and history while working on her dissertation. The > search for answers to questions of this type might reasonably start > with her and that dissertation. That should lead to some context and > references even where she does not have exact answers. > > john > > _______ > internet-history mailing list > internet-history at postel.org > http://mailman.postel.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history > Contact list-owner at postel.org for assistance. > From jeanjour at comcast.net Sun Apr 15 07:43:11 2018 From: jeanjour at comcast.net (John Day) Date: Sun, 15 Apr 2018 10:43:11 -0400 Subject: [ih] .UK vs .GB In-Reply-To: <6695102D-75A5-4C6C-B5CF-9E704F95991B@frobbit.se> References: <20180413221258.D240B24AA5BB@ary.qy> <7BD4DD68-9051-4601-B0BC-393E6162C6B7@frobbit.se> <7c21e4d8-7d7d-2821-643e-b57d52001e8f@gih.com> <08b58b42-d9e2-8214-d0fa-b0d540853efa@gmail.com> <9D412A83-ACD0-4A3F-990C-75F6D8BDAB1B@comcast.net> <6695102D-75A5-4C6C-B5CF-9E704F95991B@frobbit.se> Message-ID: <36B79E5D-F805-476E-ADA7-531F59F1929F@comcast.net> Actually, the layer violation in X.500 was that it tried to be DNS and Google. We knew this at the time, but between the X.500 faction that had delusions of grandeur and the PTT faction who saw it as both White Pages and Yellow Pages (and a major source of revenue), there was little chance for injecting sanity into the process. At least we were able to get them to drop descriptive names in favor of distinguished names and we sent one person who knew something to try to help them. Of course, the Internet screwed up DNS by making it a macro-resolver for IP addresses rather than a directory and making it something the application had to deal with. When actually it is part of the Transport Layer. It is the Transport Layer?s job to map application names to network addresses. Whether or not you want applications to be able to see addresses may be open for discussion, but they shouldn?t *have* to see them. This is something the first Unix system on the Net (1975) got right. They hacked file_io and extended the file system, so that the syntax was ? = open(/)? That would have been a much better direction for the future than sockets. Also, both X.400 and X.500 groups were none too bright. They thought that defining the syntax of a protocol was a formal description of the protocol. (!) There was no need to define the action to be taken, it was obvious from the syntax. I remember a meeting in the burbs of Virginia where we took them to task over this. Jim White (of SRI and the ARPANET) kept insisting that the semantics of the attributes were well-defined by the names of the attributes until we pointed out 4 or 5 different interpretations for most of the names. I finally pointed out that according to their spec, I could put the value ?Z? in every attribute and it would be perfectly fine. No, OSI didn?t have a corner on being dense. It had its share, but so did everyone else. They had to put up with the Brits! ;-) Take care, John > On Apr 15, 2018, at 10:10, Patrik F?ltstr?m wrote: > > > >> On 15 Apr 2018, at 15:01, John Day wrote: >> >> The idea of knowing what type the components of an identifier are is not inherently a bad idea. It certainly gives you more information for the database design that goes with it. > > Agree, but in the case of X.400 and X.500 there was from my perspective a layer violation where there was not a distinction between the email address and the name. Although the same mistake is often implemented as a convention in smtp as well when people have first.last at domain construction in their email address. :-( > > Patrik > > From dave.walden.family at gmail.com Sun Apr 15 04:04:29 2018 From: dave.walden.family at gmail.com (David Walden) Date: Sun, 15 Apr 2018 07:04:29 -0400 Subject: [ih] Yasha Levine's Surveillance Valley: The Secret Military History of the Internet -- Some Questions Message-ID: Yes, my memory as I wrote an earlier message was wrong. The second CTSS system was at Project MAC, not IBM Cambridge Scientific. (Regarding reference 1 below, Joe Markowitz was at BBN in 1968 while the proposal to do the IMP development was being written; he was an active reviewer of what was being written.) On April 15, 2018, at 6:06 AM, John Klensin wrote: Hi, while I'm on this list, I don't routinely follow it, so it took a while for me to be pointed to this thread and longer to find the energy to respond. For context, I was involved with the Cambridge Project from the time an early draft of the proposal started to be circulated to relevant researchers within MIT, through the summer study, and then ended up with lead responsibility for among other things, the software that was intended to hold everything together, was a member of the small steering committee (I don't remember what it was called, but that wasn't it) that had practical oversight of the Project. I worked closely with Lick and more closely with those who were running the project on a day-to-day basis. Lick was actively involved (more than I think Waldrop realized) but was leading the Dynamic Modeling work at the same time and almost certainly more involved there on a daily basis. When I decided to do work leading to a Ph.D a few years after the Cambridge Project wound down, Lick ended up on my somewhat-strange committee. If I recall, he was one of those who helped convince me I should do the degree. I'm happy to answer specific questions to the extent that I have time and remember --the Project did zero classified research-- but it has been a long time and MIT has, at least IMO, a bad institutional memory problem for activities that are not linked to active departments and/or sources of funds.. I have no idea whether the original idea for what became the Cambridge Project originated with Lick or de Sola Pool -- I worked closely with both, the latter even earlier than I first met Lick, but, by the time I heard about the idea, it was described very much in "joint effort" terms. I also knew (and know) enough about the interests of each to guess where some ideas came from but find it difficult or impossible to try to attribute most of the ideas to either independently. I'll try to describe what it was all about, but it is probably important that those trying to understand the effort (and almost anything else related at MIT or Harvard at the time, especially if there was DoD money involved, was that the late 1960s and first half of the 1970s were times of great tumult in the academic and research communities, with large differences in style among institutions about how those things played out. I don't believe we had anyone killed in Cambridge, but there were a lot of loud demonstrations, marches, etc., There were some unpleasant confrontations between demonstrators and the Cambridge Police and I can remember the smell of tear gas Because it involved social and behavioral science research and researchers, including some whom some of the most active of the antiwar community were suspicious of for other reasons and because it involved DoD (whether specifically ARPA or not, and it was ARPA) funding) which meant to them that something nefarious was going on, Some of those stories were on a par with some things we hear today about the "real" reason the ARPANET work was funded; some were, at least in my opinion, far worse. The times were troubled enough that I had some people who were working for me by day (because they were comfortable with what they were doing and what they could see) and picketing us by night (some because of the principle of DoD funding and others because of what "must" be going on elsewhere in teh project although they could never find any sign of it). The noise was loud enough that, if one looks through contemporary articles, one can probably find a lot of things that were the result of those kinds of thinking (i.e., without strong connections to reality) and find then with great ease. We are a lot more interested in getting work done than in trying to hold debates with those who were not willing to listen and who, in many case, felt that anyone who disagreed with them, their positions, or their truth should not be allowed to speak at all. Organizationally, the project was originally intended to be a joint MIT-Harvard effort. It was also intended, from the beginning, to be organized the way Project MAC was originally organized (in retrospect, probably unsurprising given Lick's involvement in shaping both), i.e., some centrally-funded and managed core activities, support from the Project for complementary activities of various faculty and departments, and some more independent activities with their own independent (e.g., non-DoD) support that were nonetheless collaborating (the latter group of activities was important with Project MAC but was never significant with the Cambridge Project and, as far as I can remember, never came together), There were many protests and some debate about that at Harvard. The _Crimson_ article cited was part of that fabric; perhaps something about its balance and dedication to reasoned debate can be inferred from such balanced and objective comments as " M.I.T. is the Defense Department's house whore,...". Others may remember actual details of the Harvard discussions better than I do, but Harvard eventually decided that there would be no formal Harvard-as-University participation, but that interested departments and researchers at Harvard were free to participate and accept funding. Many did -- there were at least three Harvard senior faculty, from at least Schools on the internal advisory committee and far more on a large faculty (and probably some students -- don't remember offhand) advisory group. So, we ended up with a central staff at MIT with work focusing on a general architecture and software substrate for a wide range of applications, integration of a variety of tools, data representation issues, design and construction of a researcher-friendly and statistically-oriented database management system, and a good deal of work what was necessary to apply different kinds of tools and models to the same underlying data. Wrt the latter, a common attitude, and arguably the state of the art, at the time was that people would build highly integrated "statistical packages" with a particular view of data and that researchers should design their work and hypotheses around what could be done with one of those packages. One of the key ideas behind the Cambridge Project was that it was important to have an environment in which data, models, and hypotheses should drive analysis not the available tools (not at all z new idea, but one that was hard to realize at the time).[1].[2] It may also be relevant that the Cambridge Project was funded out of ARPA Behavioral Sciences (sometimes Human Resources, IIR), not IPTO. There were certainly some conversations at/with RADC about command, control, and intelligence functions but they were more about the applicability of our work to those functions than any focus of the work on those topics. Mostly or entirely after the Cambridge Project as such ended, a company that was more or less spun off from MIT provided support for the systems that the Cambridge Project was developed to several universities and commercial enterprises in the US and Europe (and maybe elsewhere, but I don't remember) and to parts of DoD, notably what was then OSD Program Analysis and Evaluation (main application there was the DoD budget, not, e.g., warfare).. As with many other things funded by ARPA, there was far more effort to explain possible specific military applicability of the research work rather than its justification as research after the Mansfield Amendment (and the transition to "DARPA") than earlier. Like many other ARPA activities at the time, the explanations changed more than the actual work, It occurs to me that some of those explanations might be the foundation for the NBC reporting referred to below. A few other things to add a bit of data and help parse facts from misunderstanding or fantasy (I'm running out of energy and this note is already too long or there would be a much longer list): (1) I have no idea where Levine got his list of "data banks" that the Project was going to acquire, maintain, and distribute. I don't remember such a list from any of the early proposal drafts, nor do I remember any discussion of them during the summer study. In any event, while individual researchers almost certainly had their own data of interest and saw some of the work of the Project as providing better tools for analysis and modeling of them, there was never any central archive or effort to build one -- I'm quite confident about that because it almost certainly would have been in my area of responsibility. (2) The document at http://www.dtic.mil/get-tr-doc/pdf?AD=AD0783626 was one of a collection of annual and them semi-annual reports. They are all public; they were all available through NTIS and probably still are, although some of the scans were, IIR, even worse than this particular one. In any event, I have the MIT-produced paper versions of all of them. If the NTIS copies are no longer avaialble and someone has appropriate scanning resources, I'd be happy to make them available. (3) There was never any "Project CAM" or something referred to that way, at least in conjunction with the Cambridge Project. The only times I remember hearing that term during the Cambridge Project's existence were in conjunction with a conspiracy theory (whose details I don;t remember) involving "MAC" spelled backwards. (4) During most of its existence, the Cambridge Project was on the 5th floor or what was then 575 Technology Square, across the plaze from 545 (before that space came together, there was a group in MIT Building 26 near the original MIT computer center facility, I continued to sit in 545 Tech Square, etc. That is relevant to the Datacomputer discussion because we had the south side of that floor and they had the north side. But, if I remember (and my memory is very vague about this), while Tom Merrill was PI on that project, I think CCA continued to do business out of their other offices (up near Fresh Pond and a few blocks from BBN). Could easily be wrong about that, but IBM never had anything to do with the Datacompiuter -- it ran on PDP-10s, Ampex videotape drives, and some specialized hardware. What I do know is that, while the people involved knew each other (common elevator lobby and shared history among the more senior folks), no data ever moved between the two projects although Lick and others had a lot of fantasies about that if and when the Datacomputer work ever reached useful production status. Also, IBM's Cambridge Scientific Lab was definitely in 545. The only two CTSS systems I was ever aware of belonged to Project MAC and the MIT Computation Center. They were networked via the high-bandwidth method of people carrying magnetic tapes a block of two :-( I don't think IBM every actually owned one, although I might not have known. CP/CMS didn't speak SNA. It did acquire RSCS although I don't remember whether before or after the transition to the VM/CMS product. RSCS of course became the primary transport protocol for BITNET. Almost certainly no ARPANET connections to the Cambridge Scientific Center, at least early on -- the Host-IMP protocols didn't exist for the machine and there weren't any spare ports on the obvious IMPs. And the CIA office in 545 was a fairly open secret if it was a secret at all, at least by the time I had an office there around 1965-1966. john [1[ Klensin, John C., J. Markowitz, D. B. Yntema, and R. A. Wiesen, ?The Approach to Compatibility of the Cambridge Project Consistent System?, ACM SIGSOC Bulletin, Fall 1973. [2} Klensin, John C. and Douwe B. Yntema, ?Beyond the Package: A new approach to social science computing?, Social Science Information, 20, 4/5, (1981), pp. 787-815. On Sat, Apr 14, 2018 at 11:26 AM, Eric Gade wrote: >> Lick was my thesis adviser, and >> subsequently my boss when I was a member of the MIT research staff in >> his group. So there is a lot of overlap between my personal experiences >> in 1969-1977 at MIT and the events and interactions chronicled in "Dream >> Machine". > > > Hi Jack, thanks for writing back. It's great to have a person who worked > with Licklider be a part of this email record. > > Also thank you to all the others for responding. I want to clarify a couple > of things, mostly because I don't want to be unfair to the book's author > despite my evaluation of his research. Levine seems to suggest that there is > some connection between counterinsurgency psychological/sociological > research in Vietnam and the origins of Licklider's research group(s) and > work in building the ARPA C&C/IPTO community. That is to say, he believes > there are common intellectual origins if not necessarily applications. What > has been covered by Waldrop and others -- and what is even apparent in the > oral histories recorded by Licklider and others -- is that to the extent > this is true, there was apprehension on the part of the interactive > computing researchers. Either way, this is a bold claim and my own feeling > is that it requires much more evidence to support it. > > The NBC reporting is -- to his telling -- evidence of similar tactics being > used on the ARPANET, although the Congressional Record testimony seems > pretty clear that the report confused a bunch of things. Again, it doesn't > seem to me that enough convincing evidence is presented, but these reports > are interesting nonetheless and I'd never heard of them before in my own > research. > > One final note about the Cambridge Project. Waldrop also discusses the > Cambridge Project in "Dream Machine" -- he even recounts a story where > Licklider, surrounded by protestors who were attempting to burn copies of > his proposal, showed the youngsters that they needed to fan out the pages if > they wanted to get it to burn properly (and even lit his own report on > fire). At the time, this was a known project. The Harvard Crimson even > reported on it: > http://www.thecrimson.com/article/1969/9/26/brass-tacks-the-cambridge-project-pi/ > > As I mentioned, I have not been able to get a copy of this proposal. The MIT > archives will almost certainly take their time getting back to me. The > citation Levine uses for the report is: > J.C.R. Licklider, "Establishment and Operation of a Program in Computer > Analysis and Modeling in the Behavioral Sciences" December 5, 1968. MIT > Institute Archives and Special Collections, MIT Cambridge Project records. > > Levine does not seem to quote from this proposal and only cites it once when > he lists the "data banks" that the Cambridge Project would create (and "make > available through ARPANET"): > > Public opinion polls from all countries > Cultural patterns of all the tribes and peoples of the world > Archives on comparative communism [...] files on the contemporary world > communist movements > Political participation of various countries [...] This includes such > variables as voting, membership in associations, activity of political > parties, etc. > Youth movements > Mass unrest and political movements under conditions of rapid social change > Data on national integration, particularly in "plural" societies; the > integration of ethnic, racial and religious minorities; the merging or > splitting of present political units > International propaganda output > Peasant attitudes and behavior > International armament expenditures and trends > > (It is unclear is Levine is listing these himself or quoting from the > proposal; without seeing a copy we cannot verify) > > My understanding is that the project ran for ~5 years. The only documentary > evidence for it that I've been able to find online is the following report, > presumably written near the end of the project: > > http://www.dtic.mil/get-tr-doc/pdf?AD=AD0783626 > > > Without some revelation from people on this list, I don't see enough > evidence to overturn the narrative clearly expounded by Waldrop, Weinberger, > and others that the ARPA computing community as established by Licklider was > a kind of lucky moment where lots of funds could be spent on risky/open > projects and that most of the rest of ARPA had little idea what these guys > were even doing, let alone others within the Pentagon. > > On Sat, Apr 14, 2018 at 7:15 AM, Dave Walden > wrote: >> >> Jack, >> >> My memory is that CCA (Computer Corporation of America -- Tom Merrill's >> company) did the DataComputer. They might also have been at 545 Tech >> Square at the time but I am unsure of that. IBM (the "Cambridge >> Scientific" lab?) was also there (as you note) and did other important >> things (my memory is vague, so I am uncertain of the following things >> ... the beginning of CP/CMS operating system, Script text processing >> system, creation of GML, I think they may also have had the other CTSS >> system, etc.) but I don't remember this group being connected to the >> ARPANET (IBM was pushing SNA -- proprietary networking). >> >> Dave >> >> On 4/14/2018 3:36 AM, Jack Haverty wrote: >> > Lick's group was part of Project MAC, aka LCS (Laboratory for Computer >> > Science), It occupied part of 545 Technology Square, along with the MIT >> > AI Lab. LCS had many subgroups. In addition, the building complex >> > housed an IBM research group (that did the DataComputer, which was >> > attached to the ARPANET), and even a stealth office of the CIA (really - >> > but that's another story), which I accidentally "outed" one day while >> > trying to run computer cables up to the roof through the elevator shaft. >> > Oops. >> > >> >> _______ >> internet-history mailing list >> internet-history at postel.org >> http://mailman.postel.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history >> Contact list-owner at postel.org for assistance. > > > > > -- > Eric > > _______ > internet-history mailing list > internet-history at postel.org > http://mailman.postel.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history > Contact list-owner at postel.org for assistance. > From craig at tereschau.net Sun Apr 15 07:58:22 2018 From: craig at tereschau.net (Craig Partridge) Date: Sun, 15 Apr 2018 10:58:22 -0400 Subject: [ih] .UK vs .GB In-Reply-To: <9D412A83-ACD0-4A3F-990C-75F6D8BDAB1B@comcast.net> References: <20180413221258.D240B24AA5BB@ary.qy> <7BD4DD68-9051-4601-B0BC-393E6162C6B7@frobbit.se> <7c21e4d8-7d7d-2821-643e-b57d52001e8f@gih.com> <08b58b42-d9e2-8214-d0fa-b0d540853efa@gmail.com> <9D412A83-ACD0-4A3F-990C-75F6D8BDAB1B@comcast.net> Message-ID: On Sun, Apr 15, 2018 at 9:01 AM, John Day wrote: > Yes, it was a committee as was SMTP. But before you get to self-satisfied > with how smart we all were and they weren?t. It should be pointed out that > much of the design of both X.400 and X.500 was driven by the former DARPA > participants in the National Software Works project from SRI. I had many an > argument with them over various aspects of it. > > A historical nit (but isn't that what this list is about? :-)). SMTP, as best I could determine when I did research on the history of email was *not* a committee product but rather something Jon Postel wrote in response to criticism (as best I could determine, from Peter Kirstein) of MTP. Whereas RFC 733/822 message and address formats were committee products (and given we were discussion addresses, seems to better fit John's comment). Craig -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jklensin at gmail.com Sun Apr 15 08:02:56 2018 From: jklensin at gmail.com (John Klensin) Date: Sun, 15 Apr 2018 11:02:56 -0400 Subject: [ih] .UK vs .GB In-Reply-To: References: <20180413221258.D240B24AA5BB@ary.qy> Message-ID: Yes, Nigel, I should (for several reasons) have remembered that comment in RFC 920, but my recollection is still consistent with that document and your list. That timeline list is, IMO, extremely useful and far more accessible (and, IIR, comprehensive) that the Park dissertation. john On Sun, Apr 15, 2018 at 10:20 AM, Nigel Roberts wrote: > Far be it from me to be seen to clarify John's first hand knowledge of > RFC 1591, but it's worth pointing out that the decision to use > ISO-3166-1 was not first documented in RFC 1591, but already in RFC 920 > (October 1984) as follows > >> Countries >> >> The English two letter code (alpha-2) identifying a country according the the ISO Standard for "Codes for the Representation of Names of Countries" [5]. >> >> As yet no country domains have been established. As they are established information about the administrators and agents will be made public, and will be listed in subsequent editions of this memo." >> > > Stephen Deerhake and I put together an (as yet unfinished) hyperlinked > timeline of the DNS quite recently. Even though there are some places > where the editing is still a little rough, I think there is some useful > stuff which is not easily accessible otherwise. > > You can find it at http://timeline.as > > It does need a little work, and we need to move it from using TikiWiki > (which seemed like a good idea at the time) to something faster, but > there are some interesting things there... > > > > > On 04/15/2018 02:13 PM, John Klensin wrote: >>> The only explanation I got orally was that "GB stands for Great Britain, while UK stands for United Kingdom of Great Britain and the Northern Ireland". >>> >>> That was enough for me. Don't even remember who explained it, but it was around the famous entry of .CS into the root zone that created the "interesting" situation with CS.BERKELEY.EDU (and others) and massive weird extra hacking in sendmail.cf due to the Janet "reverse" order of labels in a domain name. >> >> Let me try an even less complicated one, based on what I was told when >> we were evaluating what became the decision to use ISO 3166 alpha-2 >> codes: The country code system started because of a request from the >> UK to be able to manage their own DNS hierarchy rather than depending >> on a US-based organization to manage the TLD. The ccTLDs are US and >> UK were decided upon (and possibly delegated) before other >> administrative decisions about ccTLDs were made and "UK" was what they >> asked for. >> >> FWIW: (1) While RFC 1591 was not published until 1994, it, for the >> most part, described thinking and procedures that had had been in >> place for years rather than anything of significant that was novel. >> (2) YJ Park, whom some of you may know, tried to sort though all of >> these issues and history while working on her dissertation. The >> search for answers to questions of this type might reasonably start >> with her and that dissertation. That should lead to some context and >> references even where she does not have exact answers. >> >> john >> >> _______ >> internet-history mailing list >> internet-history at postel.org >> http://mailman.postel.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history >> Contact list-owner at postel.org for assistance. >> > _______ > internet-history mailing list > internet-history at postel.org > http://mailman.postel.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history > Contact list-owner at postel.org for assistance. From jeanjour at comcast.net Sun Apr 15 08:06:15 2018 From: jeanjour at comcast.net (John Day) Date: Sun, 15 Apr 2018 11:06:15 -0400 Subject: [ih] .UK vs .GB In-Reply-To: References: <20180413221258.D240B24AA5BB@ary.qy> <7BD4DD68-9051-4601-B0BC-393E6162C6B7@frobbit.se> <7c21e4d8-7d7d-2821-643e-b57d52001e8f@gih.com> <08b58b42-d9e2-8214-d0fa-b0d540853efa@gmail.com> <9D412A83-ACD0-4A3F-990C-75F6D8BDAB1B@comcast.net> Message-ID: I guess that is right. I stand corrected. No one else has had any input into SMTP since 822. Oops. > On Apr 15, 2018, at 10:58, Craig Partridge wrote: > > > > On Sun, Apr 15, 2018 at 9:01 AM, John Day > wrote: > Yes, it was a committee as was SMTP. But before you get to self-satisfied with how smart we all were and they weren?t. It should be pointed out that much of the design of both X.400 and X.500 was driven by the former DARPA participants in the National Software Works project from SRI. I had many an argument with them over various aspects of it. > > > A historical nit (but isn't that what this list is about? :-)). SMTP, as best I could determine when I did research on the history of email was *not* a committee product but rather something Jon Postel wrote in response to criticism (as best I could determine, from Peter Kirstein) of MTP. > > Whereas RFC 733/822 message and address formats were committee products (and given we were discussion addresses, seems to better fit John's comment). > > Craig -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From eric.gade at gmail.com Sun Apr 15 08:47:37 2018 From: eric.gade at gmail.com (Eric Gade) Date: Sun, 15 Apr 2018 11:47:37 -0400 Subject: [ih] .UK vs .GB In-Reply-To: References: <20180413221258.D240B24AA5BB@ary.qy> Message-ID: Also worth noting that in a May 1984 draft of RFC 920 (and a few drafts prior to this going back to April), ISO-3166 was *not* specified as a set for potential TLDs, but .UK *was* given as an example. In fact, the inclusion of UK was used by many participants discussing the draft to argue in favor of both a country-based set of TLDs and a more generic set (note that these early drafts used .PUB and .COR instead of .COM and .ORG). It was sometime between May and July that the ISO list was proposed as the ccTLD set. On Sun, Apr 15, 2018 at 11:02 AM, John Klensin wrote: > Yes, Nigel, I should (for several reasons) have remembered that > comment in RFC 920, but my recollection is still consistent with that > document and your list. That timeline list is, IMO, extremely useful > and far more accessible (and, IIR, comprehensive) that the Park > dissertation. > > john > > > On Sun, Apr 15, 2018 at 10:20 AM, Nigel Roberts > wrote: > > Far be it from me to be seen to clarify John's first hand knowledge of > > RFC 1591, but it's worth pointing out that the decision to use > > ISO-3166-1 was not first documented in RFC 1591, but already in RFC 920 > > (October 1984) as follows > > > >> Countries > >> > >> The English two letter code (alpha-2) identifying a country according > the the ISO Standard for "Codes for the Representation of Names of > Countries" [5]. > >> > >> As yet no country domains have been established. As they are > established information about the administrators and agents will be made > public, and will be listed in subsequent editions of this memo." > >> > > > > Stephen Deerhake and I put together an (as yet unfinished) hyperlinked > > timeline of the DNS quite recently. Even though there are some places > > where the editing is still a little rough, I think there is some useful > > stuff which is not easily accessible otherwise. > > > > You can find it at http://timeline.as > > > > It does need a little work, and we need to move it from using TikiWiki > > (which seemed like a good idea at the time) to something faster, but > > there are some interesting things there... > > > > > > > > > > On 04/15/2018 02:13 PM, John Klensin wrote: > >>> The only explanation I got orally was that "GB stands for Great > Britain, while UK stands for United Kingdom of Great Britain and the > Northern Ireland". > >>> > >>> That was enough for me. Don't even remember who explained it, but it > was around the famous entry of .CS into the root zone that created the > "interesting" situation with CS.BERKELEY.EDU (and others) and massive > weird extra hacking in sendmail.cf due to the Janet "reverse" order of > labels in a domain name. > >> > >> Let me try an even less complicated one, based on what I was told when > >> we were evaluating what became the decision to use ISO 3166 alpha-2 > >> codes: The country code system started because of a request from the > >> UK to be able to manage their own DNS hierarchy rather than depending > >> on a US-based organization to manage the TLD. The ccTLDs are US and > >> UK were decided upon (and possibly delegated) before other > >> administrative decisions about ccTLDs were made and "UK" was what they > >> asked for. > >> > >> FWIW: (1) While RFC 1591 was not published until 1994, it, for the > >> most part, described thinking and procedures that had had been in > >> place for years rather than anything of significant that was novel. > >> (2) YJ Park, whom some of you may know, tried to sort though all of > >> these issues and history while working on her dissertation. The > >> search for answers to questions of this type might reasonably start > >> with her and that dissertation. That should lead to some context and > >> references even where she does not have exact answers. > >> > >> john > >> > >> _______ > >> internet-history mailing list > >> internet-history at postel.org > >> http://mailman.postel.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history > >> Contact list-owner at postel.org for assistance. > >> > > _______ > > internet-history mailing list > > internet-history at postel.org > > http://mailman.postel.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history > > Contact list-owner at postel.org for assistance. > > _______ > internet-history mailing list > internet-history at postel.org > http://mailman.postel.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history > Contact list-owner at postel.org for assistance. > -- Eric -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jklensin at gmail.com Sun Apr 15 09:20:20 2018 From: jklensin at gmail.com (John Klensin) Date: Sun, 15 Apr 2018 12:20:20 -0400 Subject: [ih] .UK vs .GB In-Reply-To: <087FB0B1-7304-415E-8D4A-FB9B497D4AD0@frobbit.se> References: <20180413221258.D240B24AA5BB@ary.qy> <7BD4DD68-9051-4601-B0BC-393E6162C6B7@frobbit.se> <7c21e4d8-7d7d-2821-643e-b57d52001e8f@gih.com> <08b58b42-d9e2-8214-d0fa-b0d540853efa@gmail.com> <087FB0B1-7304-415E-8D4A-FB9B497D4AD0@frobbit.se> Message-ID: I certainly didn't mean to claim that X.500 would have been a good substitute for the DNS. Independent of its considerable range of technical and design issues, in the early 1980s it had already entered the "ready a couple of years from now" state that continued for more than a decade so it was really not a plausible option. However, those considerations did not prevent its being recommended (and even aggressively pushed) in various quarters. john On Sun, Apr 15, 2018 at 5:48 AM, Patrik F?ltstr?m wrote: > > >> On 14 Apr 2018, at 21:36, Brian E Carpenter wrote: >> >> I think I did once see a business card with an X.400 address (but >> certainly not from Denise or Ruediger, who had more sense.) > > In Sweden X.400 was used by a few hardcore institutions. It required Y2K problems to have Tele2/Swipnet turn off their admd and gateway to/from smtp. > > Patrik > > > > _______ > internet-history mailing list > internet-history at postel.org > http://mailman.postel.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history > Contact list-owner at postel.org for assistance. From jklensin at gmail.com Sun Apr 15 09:25:33 2018 From: jklensin at gmail.com (John Klensin) Date: Sun, 15 Apr 2018 12:25:33 -0400 Subject: [ih] .UK vs .GB In-Reply-To: References: <20180413221258.D240B24AA5BB@ary.qy> <7BD4DD68-9051-4601-B0BC-393E6162C6B7@frobbit.se> <7c21e4d8-7d7d-2821-643e-b57d52001e8f@gih.com> <08b58b42-d9e2-8214-d0fa-b0d540853efa@gmail.com> <9D412A83-ACD0-4A3F-990C-75F6D8BDAB1B@comcast.net> Message-ID: On Sun, Apr 15, 2018 at 11:06 AM, John Day wrote: > I guess that is right. I stand corrected. No one else has had any input into > SMTP since 822. Oops. Huh? Is that really what you meant? If so, neither I nor the millions of people, including all of those on this list, who are using the WG-developed SMTP extension model, etc., have any idea what you are talking about. john From paul at redbarn.org Sun Apr 15 09:36:19 2018 From: paul at redbarn.org (Paul Vixie) Date: Sun, 15 Apr 2018 09:36:19 -0700 Subject: [ih] .UK vs .GB In-Reply-To: <36B79E5D-F805-476E-ADA7-531F59F1929F@comcast.net> References: <20180413221258.D240B24AA5BB@ary.qy> <7BD4DD68-9051-4601-B0BC-393E6162C6B7@frobbit.se> <7c21e4d8-7d7d-2821-643e-b57d52001e8f@gih.com> <08b58b42-d9e2-8214-d0fa-b0d540853efa@gmail.com> <9D412A83-ACD0-4A3F-990C-75F6D8BDAB1B@comcast.net> <6695102D-75A5-4C6C-B5CF-9E704F95991B@frobbit.se> <36B79E5D-F805-476E-ADA7-531F59F1929F@comcast.net> Message-ID: <5AD37F83.8040502@redbarn.org> John Day wrote: > ... > > Of course, the Internet screwed up DNS by making it a macro-resolver > for IP addresses rather than a directory and making it something the > application had to deal with. ... the design had many flaws, but remains the best example of "the art of the possible" i have seen in my short lifetime. it was good enough, and that's why it beat out every alternative which might have been the best. > This is something the first Unix system on the Net (1975) got right. > They hacked file_io and extended the file system, so that the syntax > was ? = open(/)? That would > have been a much better direction for the future than sockets. maybe. that approach later came to pass in linux, in devfs. i am not sure i would have wanted to try for it in a 16-bit address space though. -- P Vixie From jeanjour at comcast.net Sun Apr 15 10:56:32 2018 From: jeanjour at comcast.net (John Day) Date: Sun, 15 Apr 2018 13:56:32 -0400 Subject: [ih] .UK vs .GB In-Reply-To: <5AD37F83.8040502@redbarn.org> References: <20180413221258.D240B24AA5BB@ary.qy> <7BD4DD68-9051-4601-B0BC-393E6162C6B7@frobbit.se> <7c21e4d8-7d7d-2821-643e-b57d52001e8f@gih.com> <08b58b42-d9e2-8214-d0fa-b0d540853efa@gmail.com> <9D412A83-ACD0-4A3F-990C-75F6D8BDAB1B@comcast.net> <6695102D-75A5-4C6C-B5CF-9E704F95991B@frobbit.se> <36B79E5D-F805-476E-ADA7-531F59F1929F@comcast.net> <5AD37F83.8040502@redbarn.org> Message-ID: <998E468B-032F-4799-BA49-346C27CE79C1@comcast.net> Worked fine at the time. And was independent of whether one did DNS or some sort of directory. > On Apr 15, 2018, at 12:36, Paul Vixie wrote: > > > > John Day wrote: >> ... >> >> Of course, the Internet screwed up DNS by making it a macro-resolver >> for IP addresses rather than a directory and making it something the >> application had to deal with. ... > > the design had many flaws, but remains the best example of "the art of the possible" i have seen in my short lifetime. it was good enough, and that's why it beat out every alternative which might have been the best. > >> This is something the first Unix system on the Net (1975) got right. >> They hacked file_io and extended the file system, so that the syntax >> was ? = open(/)? That would >> have been a much better direction for the future than sockets. > > maybe. that approach later came to pass in linux, in devfs. i am not sure i would have wanted to try for it in a 16-bit address space though. > > -- > P Vixie > From jeanjour at comcast.net Sun Apr 15 10:59:43 2018 From: jeanjour at comcast.net (John Day) Date: Sun, 15 Apr 2018 13:59:43 -0400 Subject: [ih] .UK vs .GB In-Reply-To: References: <20180413221258.D240B24AA5BB@ary.qy> <7BD4DD68-9051-4601-B0BC-393E6162C6B7@frobbit.se> <7c21e4d8-7d7d-2821-643e-b57d52001e8f@gih.com> <08b58b42-d9e2-8214-d0fa-b0d540853efa@gmail.com> <087FB0B1-7304-415E-8D4A-FB9B497D4AD0@frobbit.se> Message-ID: <0A318E35-DF9D-44E1-A703-9935D51D80E5@comcast.net> O, I would definitely agree. As I said, X.500 bit off quite a bit more than they should have or what was needed, but DNS bit off too little and just automated the host file. > On Apr 15, 2018, at 12:20, John Klensin wrote: > > I certainly didn't mean to claim that X.500 would have been a good > substitute for the DNS. Independent of its considerable range of > technical and design issues, in the early 1980s it had already entered > the "ready a couple of years from now" state that continued for more > than a decade so it was really not a plausible option. However, those > considerations did not prevent its being recommended (and even > aggressively pushed) in various quarters. > > john > > > On Sun, Apr 15, 2018 at 5:48 AM, Patrik F?ltstr?m wrote: >> >> >>> On 14 Apr 2018, at 21:36, Brian E Carpenter wrote: >>> >>> I think I did once see a business card with an X.400 address (but >>> certainly not from Denise or Ruediger, who had more sense.) >> >> In Sweden X.400 was used by a few hardcore institutions. It required Y2K problems to have Tele2/Swipnet turn off their admd and gateway to/from smtp. >> >> Patrik >> >> >> >> _______ >> internet-history mailing list >> internet-history at postel.org >> http://mailman.postel.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history >> Contact list-owner at postel.org for assistance. > > _______ > internet-history mailing list > internet-history at postel.org > http://mailman.postel.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history > Contact list-owner at postel.org for assistance. From vint at google.com Sun Apr 15 13:03:50 2018 From: vint at google.com (Vint Cerf) Date: Sun, 15 Apr 2018 16:03:50 -0400 Subject: [ih] .UK vs .GB In-Reply-To: References: <20180413221258.D240B24AA5BB@ary.qy> Message-ID: does anyone on the list recall the rough dates for the "Colored Book Protocol" ? Seems possible that these were at least contemporary with DNS and UCL was confronted with the need to translate between those and the ARPANET and/or Internet protocols of the time. v On Sun, Apr 15, 2018 at 11:47 AM, Eric Gade wrote: > Also worth noting that in a May 1984 draft of RFC 920 (and a few drafts > prior to this going back to April), ISO-3166 was *not* specified as a set > for potential TLDs, but .UK *was* given as an example. In fact, the > inclusion of UK was used by many participants discussing the draft to argue > in favor of both a country-based set of TLDs and a more generic set (note > that these early drafts used .PUB and .COR instead of .COM and .ORG). It > was sometime between May and July that the ISO list was proposed as the > ccTLD set. > > On Sun, Apr 15, 2018 at 11:02 AM, John Klensin wrote: > >> Yes, Nigel, I should (for several reasons) have remembered that >> comment in RFC 920, but my recollection is still consistent with that >> document and your list. That timeline list is, IMO, extremely useful >> and far more accessible (and, IIR, comprehensive) that the Park >> dissertation. >> >> john >> >> >> On Sun, Apr 15, 2018 at 10:20 AM, Nigel Roberts >> wrote: >> > Far be it from me to be seen to clarify John's first hand knowledge of >> > RFC 1591, but it's worth pointing out that the decision to use >> > ISO-3166-1 was not first documented in RFC 1591, but already in RFC 920 >> > (October 1984) as follows >> > >> >> Countries >> >> >> >> The English two letter code (alpha-2) identifying a country according >> the the ISO Standard for "Codes for the Representation of Names of >> Countries" [5]. >> >> >> >> As yet no country domains have been established. As they are >> established information about the administrators and agents will be made >> public, and will be listed in subsequent editions of this memo." >> >> >> > >> > Stephen Deerhake and I put together an (as yet unfinished) hyperlinked >> > timeline of the DNS quite recently. Even though there are some places >> > where the editing is still a little rough, I think there is some useful >> > stuff which is not easily accessible otherwise. >> > >> > You can find it at http://timeline.as >> > >> > It does need a little work, and we need to move it from using TikiWiki >> > (which seemed like a good idea at the time) to something faster, but >> > there are some interesting things there... >> > >> > >> > >> > >> > On 04/15/2018 02:13 PM, John Klensin wrote: >> >>> The only explanation I got orally was that "GB stands for Great >> Britain, while UK stands for United Kingdom of Great Britain and the >> Northern Ireland". >> >>> >> >>> That was enough for me. Don't even remember who explained it, but it >> was around the famous entry of .CS into the root zone that created the >> "interesting" situation with CS.BERKELEY.EDU (and others) and massive >> weird extra hacking in sendmail.cf due to the Janet "reverse" order of >> labels in a domain name. >> >> >> >> Let me try an even less complicated one, based on what I was told when >> >> we were evaluating what became the decision to use ISO 3166 alpha-2 >> >> codes: The country code system started because of a request from the >> >> UK to be able to manage their own DNS hierarchy rather than depending >> >> on a US-based organization to manage the TLD. The ccTLDs are US and >> >> UK were decided upon (and possibly delegated) before other >> >> administrative decisions about ccTLDs were made and "UK" was what they >> >> asked for. >> >> >> >> FWIW: (1) While RFC 1591 was not published until 1994, it, for the >> >> most part, described thinking and procedures that had had been in >> >> place for years rather than anything of significant that was novel. >> >> (2) YJ Park, whom some of you may know, tried to sort though all of >> >> these issues and history while working on her dissertation. The >> >> search for answers to questions of this type might reasonably start >> >> with her and that dissertation. That should lead to some context and >> >> references even where she does not have exact answers. >> >> >> >> john >> >> >> >> _______ >> >> internet-history mailing list >> >> internet-history at postel.org >> >> http://mailman.postel.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history >> >> Contact list-owner at postel.org for assistance. >> >> >> > _______ >> > internet-history mailing list >> > internet-history at postel.org >> > http://mailman.postel.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history >> > Contact list-owner at postel.org for assistance. >> >> _______ >> internet-history mailing list >> internet-history at postel.org >> http://mailman.postel.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history >> Contact list-owner at postel.org for assistance. >> > > > > -- > Eric > > _______ > internet-history mailing list > internet-history at postel.org > http://mailman.postel.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history > Contact list-owner at postel.org for assistance. > > -- New postal address: Google 1875 Explorer Street, 10th Floor Reston, VA 20190 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From vint at google.com Sun Apr 15 13:14:25 2018 From: vint at google.com (Vint Cerf) Date: Sun, 15 Apr 2018 16:14:25 -0400 Subject: [ih] Yasha Levine's Surveillance Valley: The Secret Military History of the Internet -- Some Questions In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: joe did end up at CIA in the office of Research for some time as I recall. v On Sun, Apr 15, 2018 at 7:04 AM, David Walden wrote: > Yes, my memory as I wrote an earlier message was wrong. The second CTSS > system was at Project MAC, not IBM Cambridge Scientific. > > (Regarding reference 1 below, Joe Markowitz was at BBN in 1968 while the > proposal to do the IMP development was being written; he was an active > reviewer of what was being written.) > > On April 15, 2018, at 6:06 AM, John Klensin wrote: > > Hi, while I'm on this list, I don't routinely follow it, so it took a > while for me to be pointed to this thread and longer to find the > energy to respond. > > For context, I was involved with the Cambridge Project from the time > an early draft of the proposal started to be circulated to relevant > researchers within MIT, through the summer study, and then ended up > with lead responsibility for among other things, the software that was > intended to hold everything together, was a member of the small > steering committee (I don't remember what it was called, but that > wasn't it) that had practical oversight of the Project. I worked > closely with Lick and more closely with those who were running the > project on a day-to-day basis. Lick was actively involved (more than > I think Waldrop realized) but was leading the Dynamic Modeling work at > the same time and almost certainly more involved there on a daily > basis. When I decided to do work leading to a Ph.D a few years after > the Cambridge Project wound down, Lick ended up on my somewhat-strange > committee. If I recall, he was one of those who helped convince me I > should do the degree. I'm happy to answer specific questions to the > extent that I have time and remember --the Project did zero classified > research-- but it has been a long time and MIT has, at least IMO, a > bad institutional memory problem for activities that are not linked to > active departments and/or sources of funds.. I have no idea whether > the original idea for what became the Cambridge Project originated > with Lick or de Sola Pool -- I worked closely with both, the latter > even earlier than I first met Lick, but, by the time I heard about the > idea, it was described very much in "joint effort" terms. I also knew > (and know) enough about the interests of each to guess where some > ideas came from but find it difficult or impossible to try to > attribute most of the ideas to either independently. > > I'll try to describe what it was all about, but it is probably > important that those trying to understand the effort (and almost > anything else related at MIT or Harvard at the time, especially if > there was DoD money involved, was that the late 1960s and first half > of the 1970s were times of great tumult in the academic and research > communities, with large differences in style among institutions about > how those things played out. I don't believe we had anyone killed in > Cambridge, but there were a lot of loud demonstrations, marches, etc., > There were some unpleasant confrontations between demonstrators and > the Cambridge Police and I can remember the smell of tear gas > Because it involved social and behavioral science research and > researchers, including some whom some of the most active of the > antiwar community were suspicious of for other reasons and because it > involved DoD (whether specifically ARPA or not, and it was ARPA) > funding) which meant to them that something nefarious was going on, > Some of those stories were on a par with some things we hear today > about the "real" reason the ARPANET work was funded; some were, at > least in my opinion, far worse. The times were troubled enough that I > had some people who were working for me by day (because they were > comfortable with what they were doing and what they could see) and > picketing us by night (some because of the principle of DoD funding > and others because of what "must" be going on elsewhere in teh project > although they could never find any sign of it). The noise was loud > enough that, if one looks through contemporary articles, one can > probably find a lot of things that were the result of those kinds of > thinking (i.e., without strong connections to reality) and find then > with great ease. We are a lot more interested in getting work done > than in trying to hold debates with those who were not willing to > listen and who, in many case, felt that anyone who disagreed with > them, their positions, or their truth should not be allowed to speak > at all. > > Organizationally, the project was originally intended to be a joint > MIT-Harvard effort. It was also intended, from the beginning, to be > organized the way Project MAC was originally organized (in retrospect, > probably unsurprising given Lick's involvement in shaping both), i.e., > some centrally-funded and managed core activities, support from the > Project for complementary activities of various faculty and > departments, and some more independent activities with their own > independent (e.g., non-DoD) support that were nonetheless > collaborating (the latter group of activities was important with > Project MAC but was never significant with the Cambridge Project and, > as far as I can remember, never came together), There were many > protests and some debate about that at Harvard. The _Crimson_ article > cited was part of that fabric; perhaps something about its balance and > dedication to reasoned debate can be inferred from such balanced and > objective comments as " M.I.T. is the Defense Department's house > whore,...". Others may remember actual details of the Harvard > discussions better than I do, but Harvard eventually decided that > there would be no formal Harvard-as-University participation, but that > interested departments and researchers at Harvard were free to > participate and accept funding. Many did -- there were at least > three Harvard senior faculty, from at least Schools on the internal > advisory committee and far more on a large faculty (and probably some > students -- don't remember offhand) advisory group. So, we ended up > with a central staff at MIT with work focusing on a general > architecture and software substrate for a wide range of applications, > integration of a variety of tools, data representation issues, design > and construction of a researcher-friendly and statistically-oriented > database management system, and a good deal of work what was necessary > to apply different kinds of tools and models to the same underlying > data. Wrt the latter, a common attitude, and arguably the state of > the art, at the time was that people would build highly integrated > "statistical packages" with a particular view of data and that > researchers should design their work and hypotheses around what could > be done with one of those packages. One of the key ideas behind the > Cambridge Project was that it was important to have an environment in > which data, models, and hypotheses should drive analysis not the > available tools (not at all z new idea, but one that was hard to > realize at the time).[1].[2] > > It may also be relevant that the Cambridge Project was funded out of > ARPA Behavioral Sciences (sometimes Human Resources, IIR), not IPTO. > There were certainly some conversations at/with RADC about command, > control, and intelligence functions but they were more about the > applicability of our work to those functions than any focus of the > work on those topics. Mostly or entirely after the Cambridge Project > as such ended, a company that was more or less spun off from MIT > provided support for the systems that the Cambridge Project was > developed to several universities and commercial enterprises in the US > and Europe (and maybe elsewhere, but I don't remember) and to parts of > DoD, notably what was then OSD Program Analysis and Evaluation (main > application there was the DoD budget, not, e.g., warfare).. As with > many other things funded by ARPA, there was far more effort to explain > possible specific military applicability of the research work rather > than its justification as research after the Mansfield Amendment (and > the transition to "DARPA") than earlier. Like many other ARPA > activities at the time, the explanations changed more than the actual > work, It occurs to me that some of those explanations might be the > foundation for the NBC reporting referred to below. > > A few other things to add a bit of data and help parse facts from > misunderstanding or fantasy (I'm running out of energy and this note > is already too long or there would be a much longer list): > > (1) I have no idea where Levine got his list of "data banks" that the > Project was going to acquire, maintain, and distribute. I don't > remember such a list from any of the early proposal drafts, nor do I > remember any discussion of them during the summer study. In any > event, while individual researchers almost certainly had their own > data of interest and saw some of the work of the Project as providing > better tools for analysis and modeling of them, there was never any > central archive or effort to build one -- I'm quite confident about > that because it almost certainly would have been in my area of > responsibility. > > (2) The document at http://www.dtic.mil/get-tr-doc/pdf?AD=AD0783626 > was one of a collection of annual and them semi-annual reports. They > are all public; they were all available through NTIS and probably > still are, although some of the scans were, IIR, even worse than this > particular one. In any event, I have the MIT-produced paper versions > of all of them. If the NTIS copies are no longer avaialble and > someone has appropriate scanning resources, I'd be happy to make them > available. > > (3) There was never any "Project CAM" or something referred to that > way, at least in conjunction with the Cambridge Project. The only > times I remember hearing that term during the Cambridge Project's > existence were in conjunction with a conspiracy theory (whose details > I don;t remember) involving "MAC" spelled backwards. > > (4) During most of its existence, the Cambridge Project was on the 5th > floor or what was then 575 Technology Square, across the plaze from > 545 (before that space came together, there was a group in MIT > Building 26 near the original MIT computer center facility, I > continued to sit in 545 Tech Square, etc. That is relevant to the > Datacomputer discussion because we had the south side of that floor > and they had the north side. But, if I remember (and my memory is > very vague about this), while Tom Merrill was PI on that project, I > think CCA continued to do business out of their other offices (up near > Fresh Pond and a few blocks from BBN). Could easily be wrong about > that, but IBM never had anything to do with the Datacompiuter -- it > ran on PDP-10s, Ampex videotape drives, and some specialized hardware. > What I do know is that, while the people involved knew each other > (common elevator lobby and shared history among the more senior > folks), no data ever moved between the two projects although Lick and > others had a lot of fantasies about that if and when the Datacomputer > work ever reached useful production status. Also, IBM's Cambridge > Scientific Lab was definitely in 545. The only two CTSS systems I > was ever aware of belonged to Project MAC and the MIT Computation > Center. They were networked via the high-bandwidth method of people > carrying magnetic tapes a block of two :-( I don't think IBM every > actually owned one, although I might not have known. CP/CMS didn't > speak SNA. It did acquire RSCS although I don't remember whether > before or after the transition to the VM/CMS product. RSCS of course > became the primary transport protocol for BITNET. Almost certainly no > ARPANET connections to the Cambridge Scientific Center, at least early > on -- the Host-IMP protocols didn't exist for the machine and there > weren't any spare ports on the obvious IMPs. And the CIA office in > 545 was a fairly open secret if it was a secret at all, at least by > the time I had an office there around 1965-1966. > > john > > > [1[ Klensin, John C., J. Markowitz, D. B. Yntema, and R. A. Wiesen, > ?The Approach to Compatibility of the Cambridge Project Consistent > System?, ACM SIGSOC Bulletin, Fall 1973. > [2} Klensin, John C. and Douwe B. Yntema, ?Beyond the Package: A new > approach to social science computing?, Social Science Information, 20, > 4/5, (1981), pp. 787-815. > > > > On Sat, Apr 14, 2018 at 11:26 AM, Eric Gade wrote: > >> Lick was my thesis adviser, and > >> subsequently my boss when I was a member of the MIT research staff in > >> his group. So there is a lot of overlap between my personal experiences > >> in 1969-1977 at MIT and the events and interactions chronicled in "Dream > >> Machine". > > > > > > Hi Jack, thanks for writing back. It's great to have a person who worked > > with Licklider be a part of this email record. > > > > Also thank you to all the others for responding. I want to clarify a > couple > > of things, mostly because I don't want to be unfair to the book's author > > despite my evaluation of his research. Levine seems to suggest that > there is > > some connection between counterinsurgency psychological/sociological > > research in Vietnam and the origins of Licklider's research group(s) and > > work in building the ARPA C&C/IPTO community. That is to say, he believes > > there are common intellectual origins if not necessarily applications. > What > > has been covered by Waldrop and others -- and what is even apparent in > the > > oral histories recorded by Licklider and others -- is that to the extent > > this is true, there was apprehension on the part of the interactive > > computing researchers. Either way, this is a bold claim and my own > feeling > > is that it requires much more evidence to support it. > > > > The NBC reporting is -- to his telling -- evidence of similar tactics > being > > used on the ARPANET, although the Congressional Record testimony seems > > pretty clear that the report confused a bunch of things. Again, it > doesn't > > seem to me that enough convincing evidence is presented, but these > reports > > are interesting nonetheless and I'd never heard of them before in my own > > research. > > > > One final note about the Cambridge Project. Waldrop also discusses the > > Cambridge Project in "Dream Machine" -- he even recounts a story where > > Licklider, surrounded by protestors who were attempting to burn copies of > > his proposal, showed the youngsters that they needed to fan out the > pages if > > they wanted to get it to burn properly (and even lit his own report on > > fire). At the time, this was a known project. The Harvard Crimson even > > reported on it: > > http://www.thecrimson.com/article/1969/9/26/brass-tacks- > the-cambridge-project-pi/ > > > > As I mentioned, I have not been able to get a copy of this proposal. The > MIT > > archives will almost certainly take their time getting back to me. The > > citation Levine uses for the report is: > > J.C.R. Licklider, "Establishment and Operation of a Program in Computer > > Analysis and Modeling in the Behavioral Sciences" December 5, 1968. MIT > > Institute Archives and Special Collections, MIT Cambridge Project > records. > > > > Levine does not seem to quote from this proposal and only cites it once > when > > he lists the "data banks" that the Cambridge Project would create (and > "make > > available through ARPANET"): > > > > Public opinion polls from all countries > > Cultural patterns of all the tribes and peoples of the world > > Archives on comparative communism [...] files on the contemporary world > > communist movements > > Political participation of various countries [...] This includes such > > variables as voting, membership in associations, activity of political > > parties, etc. > > Youth movements > > Mass unrest and political movements under conditions of rapid social > change > > Data on national integration, particularly in "plural" societies; the > > integration of ethnic, racial and religious minorities; the merging or > > splitting of present political units > > International propaganda output > > Peasant attitudes and behavior > > International armament expenditures and trends > > > > (It is unclear is Levine is listing these himself or quoting from the > > proposal; without seeing a copy we cannot verify) > > > > My understanding is that the project ran for ~5 years. The only > documentary > > evidence for it that I've been able to find online is the following > report, > > presumably written near the end of the project: > > > > http://www.dtic.mil/get-tr-doc/pdf?AD=AD0783626 > > > > > > Without some revelation from people on this list, I don't see enough > > evidence to overturn the narrative clearly expounded by Waldrop, > Weinberger, > > and others that the ARPA computing community as established by Licklider > was > > a kind of lucky moment where lots of funds could be spent on risky/open > > projects and that most of the rest of ARPA had little idea what these > guys > > were even doing, let alone others within the Pentagon. > > > > On Sat, Apr 14, 2018 at 7:15 AM, Dave Walden < > dave.walden.family at gmail.com> > > wrote: > >> > >> Jack, > >> > >> My memory is that CCA (Computer Corporation of America -- Tom Merrill's > >> company) did the DataComputer. They might also have been at 545 Tech > >> Square at the time but I am unsure of that. IBM (the "Cambridge > >> Scientific" lab?) was also there (as you note) and did other important > >> things (my memory is vague, so I am uncertain of the following things > >> ... the beginning of CP/CMS operating system, Script text processing > >> system, creation of GML, I think they may also have had the other CTSS > >> system, etc.) but I don't remember this group being connected to the > >> ARPANET (IBM was pushing SNA -- proprietary networking). > >> > >> Dave > >> > >> On 4/14/2018 3:36 AM, Jack Haverty wrote: > >> > Lick's group was part of Project MAC, aka LCS (Laboratory for Computer > >> > Science), It occupied part of 545 Technology Square, along with the > MIT > >> > AI Lab. LCS had many subgroups. In addition, the building complex > >> > housed an IBM research group (that did the DataComputer, which was > >> > attached to the ARPANET), and even a stealth office of the CIA > (really - > >> > but that's another story), which I accidentally "outed" one day while > >> > trying to run computer cables up to the roof through the elevator > shaft. > >> > Oops. > >> > > >> > >> _______ > >> internet-history mailing list > >> internet-history at postel.org > >> http://mailman.postel.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history > >> Contact list-owner at postel.org for assistance. > > > > > > > > > > -- > > Eric > > > > _______ > > internet-history mailing list > > internet-history at postel.org > > http://mailman.postel.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history > > Contact list-owner at postel.org for assistance. > > > > _______ > internet-history mailing list > internet-history at postel.org > http://mailman.postel.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history > Contact list-owner at postel.org for assistance. > -- New postal address: Google 1875 Explorer Street, 10th Floor Reston, VA 20190 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From ocl at gih.com Sun Apr 15 13:44:46 2018 From: ocl at gih.com (=?UTF-8?Q?Olivier_MJ_Cr=c3=a9pin-Leblond?=) Date: Sun, 15 Apr 2018 21:44:46 +0100 Subject: [ih] .UK vs .GB In-Reply-To: References: <20180413221258.D240B24AA5BB@ary.qy> Message-ID: <2d8e4a92-200a-d0fc-b9a9-12d5d2fa9500@gih.com> Dear Vint, the dates are indeed similar. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coloured_Book_protocols They were indeed contemporary. And when I used them on DEC VAX, the address was something of the like: CBS%UK.AC.KCL.CC.ELM::ZDEE699? -- which would be ZDEE699 at UK.AC.KCL.CC.ELM (my then email address :-) ) To send to an Internet address: (you for example) CBS%UK.AC.NSFNET-RELAY::us.va.reston.cnri::vcerf Sending to an X.400, one had to start with: CBS%UK.AC.MHS-RELAY:: with the rest in quotes. Often the parser in the return made an absolute mess with X.400 sourced emails. Also, note that CBS also accepted bang! paths, but the difference between the % and @ delimiters in specifically routed emails for example, vcerf%cnri.reston.va.us at nsfnet-relay.ac.uk didn't exist, thus it was :: all the way. Kindest regards, Olivier ps. the "transition" came when one ran TCP-IP over X.25. On 15/04/2018 21:03, Vint Cerf wrote: > does anyone on the list recall the rough dates for the "Colored Book > Protocol" ? Seems possible that these were at least contemporary with > DNS and UCL was confronted with the need to translate between those > and the ARPANET and/or Internet protocols of the time. > > v > > > On Sun, Apr 15, 2018 at 11:47 AM, Eric Gade > wrote: > > Also worth noting that in a May 1984 draft of RFC 920 (and a few > drafts prior to this going back to April), ISO-3166 was *not* > specified as a set for potential TLDs, but .UK *was* given as an > example. In fact, the inclusion of UK was used by many > participants discussing the draft to argue in favor of both a > country-based set of TLDs and a more generic set (note that these > early drafts used .PUB and .COR instead of .COM and .ORG). It was > sometime between May and July that the ISO list was proposed as > the ccTLD set. > > On Sun, Apr 15, 2018 at 11:02 AM, John Klensin > wrote: > > Yes, Nigel, I should (for several reasons) have remembered that > comment in RFC 920, but my recollection is still consistent > with that > document and your list.? That timeline list is, IMO, extremely > useful > and far more accessible (and, IIR, comprehensive) that the Park > dissertation. > > ? ?john > > > On Sun, Apr 15, 2018 at 10:20 AM, Nigel Roberts > > wrote: > > Far be it from me to be seen to clarify John's first hand > knowledge of > > RFC 1591, but it's worth pointing out that the decision to use > > ISO-3166-1 was not first documented in RFC 1591, but already > in RFC 920 > > (October 1984) as follows > > > >> Countries > >> > >> The English two letter code (alpha-2) identifying a country > according the the ISO Standard for "Codes for the > Representation of Names of Countries" [5]. > >> > >> As yet no country domains have been established.? As they > are established information about the administrators and > agents will be made public, and will be listed in subsequent > editions of this memo." > >> > > > > Stephen Deerhake and I put together an (as yet unfinished) > hyperlinked > > timeline of the DNS quite recently. Even though there are > some places > > where the editing is still a little rough, I think there is > some useful > > stuff which is not easily accessible otherwise. > > > > You can find it at http://timeline.as > > > > It does need a little work, and we need to move it from > using TikiWiki > > (which seemed like a good idea at the time) to something > faster, but > > there are some interesting things there... > > > > > > > > > > On 04/15/2018 02:13 PM, John Klensin wrote: > >>> The only explanation I got orally was that "GB stands for > Great Britain, while UK stands for United Kingdom of Great > Britain and the Northern Ireland". > >>> > >>> That was enough for me. Don't even remember who explained > it, but it was around the famous entry of .CS into the root > zone that created the "interesting" situation with > CS.BERKELEY.EDU (and others) and > massive weird extra hacking in sendmail.cf > due to the Janet "reverse" order of > labels in a domain name. > >> > >> Let me try an even less complicated one, based on what I > was told when > >> we were evaluating what became the decision to use ISO 3166 > alpha-2 > >> codes:? ?The country code system started because of a > request from the > >> UK to be able to manage their own DNS hierarchy rather than > depending > >> on a US-based organization to manage the TLD.? The ccTLDs > are US and > >> UK were decided upon (and possibly delegated) before other > >> administrative decisions about ccTLDs were made and "UK" > was what they > >> asked for. > >> > >> FWIW: (1) While RFC 1591 was not published until 1994, it, > for the > >> most part, described thinking and procedures that had had > been in > >> place for years rather than anything of significant that > was novel. > >> (2) YJ Park, whom some of you may know, tried to sort > though all of > >> these issues and history while working on her > dissertation.? The > >> search for answers to questions of this type might > reasonably start > >> with her and that dissertation.? That should lead to some > context and > >> references even where she does not have exact answers. > >> > >>? ? ? john > >> > >> _______ > >> internet-history mailing list > >> internet-history at postel.org > > >> http://mailman.postel.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history > > >> Contact list-owner at postel.org > for assistance. > >> > > _______ > > internet-history mailing list > > internet-history at postel.org > > http://mailman.postel.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history > > > Contact list-owner at postel.org > for assistance. > > _______ > internet-history mailing list > internet-history at postel.org > http://mailman.postel.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history > > Contact list-owner at postel.org > for assistance. > > > > > -- > Eric > > _______ > internet-history mailing list > internet-history at postel.org > http://mailman.postel.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history > > Contact list-owner at postel.org for > assistance. > > > > > -- > New postal address: > Google > 1875 Explorer Street, 10th Floor > Reston, VA 20190 > > > _______ > internet-history mailing list > internet-history at postel.org > http://mailman.postel.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history > Contact list-owner at postel.org for assistance. -- Olivier MJ Cr?pin-Leblond, PhD http://www.gih.com/ocl.html -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jbdigriz at dragonsweb.org Sun Apr 15 13:47:23 2018 From: jbdigriz at dragonsweb.org (James B DiGriz) Date: Sun, 15 Apr 2018 16:47:23 -0400 Subject: [ih] Yasha Levine's Surveillance Valley: The Secret Military History of the Internet -- Some Questions In-Reply-To: <3d198195-117a-eeb5-7fb3-feeb674b9f9b@3kitty.org> References: <5ff3eac8-7479-7859-23c4-6a1cd04d5b68@3kitty.org> <3d198195-117a-eeb5-7fb3-feeb674b9f9b@3kitty.org> Message-ID: <20180415164723.1abf3daf@crucible> On Sat, 14 Apr 2018 12:07:09 -0700 Jack Haverty wrote: > > There was one paper about the Morse project published rather obscurely > in a conference proceedings. A poor but mostly legible copy survives > in DTIC. The paper about the Morse Project starts on page 128: > > http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a143691.pdf > > AFAIK, nothing we did in Lick's group was classified - at least not > from our perspective. > > Some of you might find that paper interesting or at least nostalgic. > > /Jack > I'm pretty sure I would be interested, but unfortunately DTIC access requires you to be a Federal employee, contractor, sponsored foreign person, etc., as I found out after wading through the registration process as a mere taxpayer ;-). Any chance that paper's available anywhere else? Thanks, jbdigriz From mfidelman at meetinghouse.net Sun Apr 15 14:09:21 2018 From: mfidelman at meetinghouse.net (Miles Fidelman) Date: Sun, 15 Apr 2018 17:09:21 -0400 Subject: [ih] Yasha Levine's Surveillance Valley: The Secret Military History of the Internet -- Some Questions In-Reply-To: <20180415164723.1abf3daf@crucible> References: <5ff3eac8-7479-7859-23c4-6a1cd04d5b68@3kitty.org> <3d198195-117a-eeb5-7fb3-feeb674b9f9b@3kitty.org> <20180415164723.1abf3daf@crucible> Message-ID: <5a2c6611-a19a-3e52-7580-03567564221c@meetinghouse.net> On 4/15/18 4:47 PM, James B DiGriz wrote: > On Sat, 14 Apr 2018 12:07:09 -0700 > Jack Haverty wrote: > > > >> There was one paper about the Morse project published rather obscurely >> in a conference proceedings. A poor but mostly legible copy survives >> in DTIC. The paper about the Morse Project starts on page 128: >> >> http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a143691.pdf >> >> AFAIK, nothing we did in Lick's group was classified - at least not >> from our perspective. >> >> Some of you might find that paper interesting or at least nostalgic. >> >> /Jack >> > I'm pretty sure I would be interested, but unfortunately DTIC > access requires you to be a Federal employee, contractor, sponsored > foreign person, etc., as I found out after wading through the > registration process as a mere taxpayer ;-). Any chance that paper's > available anywhere else? > > An awful lot of the documents on DTIC are available, to the public, without logging in.? INCLUDING the link listed above (I just checked).? Did you try clicking on it? :-) Miles Fidelman -- In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is. .... Yogi Berra From jeanjour at comcast.net Sun Apr 15 14:28:31 2018 From: jeanjour at comcast.net (John Day) Date: Sun, 15 Apr 2018 17:28:31 -0400 Subject: [ih] Yasha Levine's Surveillance Valley: The Secret Military History of the Internet -- Some Questions In-Reply-To: References: <5ff3eac8-7479-7859-23c4-6a1cd04d5b68@3kitty.org> Message-ID: <5A28466B-8752-41A9-933D-E19BE89CC0E1@comcast.net> Just for the record, we (Illinois) were heavy users of CCN RJE. It was at least the physics guys but I don?t remember who all else there was, possibly the economists. > On Apr 14, 2018, at 14:40, Jack Haverty wrote: > > Dave - you're right. The DataComputer was at CCA, not IBM. We did have > some interaction with IBM, IIRC as part of Lick's focus on Office > Automation. No software, since PDP-10s and IBM had radically different > technical views of the world, but documents and reports were easier to > share. Lick knew everybody. > > I don't recall any specific events, but it wouldn't surprise me if there > was some terminal over at some IBM site which had access to the ARPANET > somehow, or if IBM people came by some MIT lab to visit and 'kick the > tires'. Especially around the ICCC '72 exhibition, there was a lot of > interest in promoting the ARPANET by demonstrating what you could do > with it. MACSYMA was especially popular when it got online (MACSYMA was > a symbolic manipulation "desk calculator" which could be used to solve > algebraic equations). > > Being "connected to the ARPANET" didn't necessarily mean having a > machine which was wired to an IMP port. It sometimes just meant that > you had some means of accessing (or making available) interesting stuff > by somehow using the ARPANET. > > Another of Lick's projects that I did was to create a server on the > ARPANET on our PDP-10 which enabled a user to submit "card decks" and > receive "printouts" from an IBM 360. We never would have come up with > such an idea on our own, but it was important to Lick so I got > volunteered to do it. I had used the 360s with punch cards at the MIT > Data Center and Draper Labs so I sort of knew what to do. Tedious and > painful to get there but it worked. > > The idea was that you could submit a card deck by emailing it to my > server. The server would submit ithe card deck as a "job" to the 360 at > UCLA by the RJE (Remote Job Entry) facility via the ARPANET, and then > poll the RJE machine to eventually retrieve the printout that resulted > from the job run for emailing back to whoever submitted the card deck. > Presumably that card deck could have somehow invoked IBM networking to > access remote datasets or services in the IBM world as it ran on the > 360. Imagine a gateway handling punched card images instead of packets! > > I built the RJE server but I don't know if anybody ever used it > afterwards or took the software away to run somewhere else. I had had > enough experience with card decks by then so I never felt the desire to > play around in the bowels of the IBM world. It sure would have been > handy to have a few years earlier when I was working at Draper and > occasionally had to carry decks of cards and listings across the MIT Campus. > > By using that RJE interface, one might make any "interesting dataset" on > some IBM machine, not wired to an IMP, "accessible from the ARPANET". I > can imagine my "RJE server" being promoted as a solution to that problem. > > That email system was the same one I built that also interfaced with the > DataComputer at CCA. So card decks and printouts might have been stored > in the DataComputer as part of Lick's larger vision of shared networked > resources cooperating in an Office Automation (or C3I?) context. Might > explain why I associated IBM with the DataComputer - all just details of > the "Military Industrial Complex" in the 60s/70s which we student-types > had strong feelings about. > > An interesting dataset might be processed by submitting a card deck of > Fortran, with the resulting printout placed in the DataComputer for > archival and access by interested parties via the ARPANET. One could > easily view this as a part of some "surveillance" facility. Did it > happen? Don't know. Did people think that was what the ARPANET was > all about? Maybe some did... > > The Elephant looks different depending on your perspective. > > /Jack > > > On 04/14/2018 04:15 AM, Dave Walden wrote: >> Jack, >> >> My memory is that CCA (Computer Corporation of America -- Tom Merrill's >> company) did the DataComputer. They might also have been at 545 Tech >> Square at the time but I am unsure of that. IBM (the "Cambridge >> Scientific" lab?) was also there (as you note) and did other important >> things (my memory is vague, so I am uncertain of the following things >> ... the beginning of CP/CMS operating system, Script text processing >> system, creation of GML, I think they may also have had the other CTSS >> system, etc.) but I don't remember this group being connected to the >> ARPANET (IBM was pushing SNA -- proprietary networking). >> >> Dave >> >> On 4/14/2018 3:36 AM, Jack Haverty wrote: >>> Lick's group was part of Project MAC, aka LCS (Laboratory for Computer >>> Science), It occupied part of 545 Technology Square, along with the MIT >>> AI Lab. LCS had many subgroups. In addition, the building complex >>> housed an IBM research group (that did the DataComputer, which was >>> attached to the ARPANET), and even a stealth office of the CIA (really - >>> but that's another story), which I accidentally "outed" one day while >>> trying to run computer cables up to the roof through the elevator shaft. >>> Oops. >>> >> >> _______ >> internet-history mailing list >> internet-history at postel.org >> http://mailman.postel.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history >> Contact list-owner at postel.org for assistance. >> > _______ > internet-history mailing list > internet-history at postel.org > http://mailman.postel.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history > Contact list-owner at postel.org for assistance. From jbdigriz at dragonsweb.org Sun Apr 15 16:19:39 2018 From: jbdigriz at dragonsweb.org (James B DiGriz) Date: Sun, 15 Apr 2018 19:19:39 -0400 Subject: [ih] Yasha Levine's Surveillance Valley: The Secret Military History of the Internet -- Some Questions In-Reply-To: <5a2c6611-a19a-3e52-7580-03567564221c@meetinghouse.net> References: <5ff3eac8-7479-7859-23c4-6a1cd04d5b68@3kitty.org> <3d198195-117a-eeb5-7fb3-feeb674b9f9b@3kitty.org> <20180415164723.1abf3daf@crucible> <5a2c6611-a19a-3e52-7580-03567564221c@meetinghouse.net> Message-ID: <20180415191939.38a79ff8@crucible> On Sun, 15 Apr 2018 17:09:21 -0400 Miles Fidelman wrote: > On 4/15/18 4:47 PM, James B DiGriz wrote: > > > On Sat, 14 Apr 2018 12:07:09 -0700 > > Jack Haverty wrote: > > > > > > > >> There was one paper about the Morse project published rather > >> obscurely in a conference proceedings. A poor but mostly legible > >> copy survives in DTIC. The paper about the Morse Project starts > >> on page 128: > >> > >> http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a143691.pdf > >> > >> AFAIK, nothing we did in Lick's group was classified - at least not > >> from our perspective. > >> > >> Some of you might find that paper interesting or at least > >> nostalgic. > >> > >> /Jack > >> > > I'm pretty sure I would be interested, but unfortunately DTIC > > access requires you to be a Federal employee, contractor, sponsored > > foreign person, etc., as I found out after wading through the > > registration process as a mere taxpayer ;-). Any chance that paper's > > available anywhere else? > > > > > An awful lot of the documents on DTIC are available, to the public, > without logging in.? INCLUDING the link listed above (I just > checked). Did you try clicking on it? :-) > > Miles Fidelman > Tried with my phone and it finally downloaded. Firefox on this machine kept firing up PDF.js no matter what, and the connection reset every time. FWIW I got to the main login and registration stuff earlier by trying an https link to the same file. Thanks, though, and thanks to Jack for the link, jbdigriz From jack at 3kitty.org Sun Apr 15 16:43:39 2018 From: jack at 3kitty.org (Jack Haverty) Date: Sun, 15 Apr 2018 16:43:39 -0700 Subject: [ih] Yasha Levine's Surveillance Valley: The Secret Military History of the Internet -- Some Questions In-Reply-To: References: <5ff3eac8-7479-7859-23c4-6a1cd04d5b68@3kitty.org> Message-ID: Thanks for the story of the Cambridge Project. It's fascinating to know now that Lick was PI on another big project at the same time he was running our Dynamic Modeling group in 545 Tech Square. I don't recall ever hearing anything about it at all. There was a project within Dynamic Modeling in the same timeframe which Lick called "Calico" (which must have expanded to something but I can't remember). Calico sounded a lot like the "Consistent System" of Project Cambridge. Lick had the notion that many programs could be constructed by somehow plugging together a bunch of individual modules, which consisted of selections from maybe a few thousand "nouns" (data types and structures) and "verbs" (subroutines). Calico explored that notion, and we created a few thousand nouns/verbs (I did Strings and their actions). All in PDP-10 assembler, which was all our poor machine could really support at the time. I guess Lick carried his ideas wherever he went. I can confirm that the late 60s/70s were pretty interesting years. Lots of protests. Less so at MIT than other schools, but I do remember not being able to go work on the PDP-8 at Draper because of the picketing outside. Students as well as professors often had a reluctance to work on anything associated with the Military Industrial Complex. That's of course where all the funding was. Lick was a master at reconciling those 2 world-views (e.g., the presentation of the Morse "surveillance" project as a stepping-stone toward AI and understanding spoken human language.0 Getting back to "surveillance", I can also confirm that surveillance was in people's thoughts too. One concrete example is in that paper I referenced about the Morse project. In the paper, there's a short comment that we had intended to incorporate real-world atmospheric effects into the radio environment, but it was prevented for unspecified "contractual reasons". I remember when this all happened quite well. The "contractual reasons" were actually related to surveillance. In our testbed, we created an in-house radio environment, with a dozen or so transmitters and receivers all attached to a coaxial cable strung between offices in 545 Tech Square. With that in-house radio net, a bunch of the project workers had learned Morse, and we performed live "message passing networks", recording the whole thing on audio tape. We could play back that tape repeatedly to recreate the same event, which made it possible to try different techniques and algorithms to get the software developed by successive experiments. The coax network was of course not quite real-world. So the next phase was to attach the system to an outside antenna, where atmospheric noise, auroras, and other such phenomena would be present. So, we arranged for permission to put an antenna on the roof, and after much hassle and a bit of frightening high-altitude work, we had a top-of-the-line beam antenna, on top of of 30-foot tower, on top of a ten-story building. All paid for by the project. Since the ultimate goal of COMDEC (Computer Morse DECoder) was to be able to actually participate in on-air networks, we of course had to also get a high-end ham transmitter as well, attached to that antenna. As a ham operator, it doesn't get any better than this.... Not long after getting this all set up, Al Vezza (Lick's "chief of staff") told us that we couldn't hook up the antenna to COMDEC after all. When the client learned what we were doing, they forbade any such connection. They didn't want the project to even appear to be capable of doing surveillance. So as it turned out, there was a lot of concern about government surveillance. But in this case, the government didn't want us to do anything that might be misinterpreted as government surveillance. Having an antenna capable of vacuuming god-knows-what out of the airwaves was simply too risky. In retrospect, I think there was an inordinate amount of "visionware" in those days. Depending on your expectations, you could look at a lot of boxes that "could" be hooked together in some way for nefarious purposes, and conclude that they "were" being used that way. Everyone's vision of what was *really going on* could be quite different. Whether it's databases traversing the ARPANET, or government projects sucking private information out of the air, if you could imagine a way to possibly hook things together so something "could" happen, there were probably people convinced it that it had been done and did happen. /Jack Haverty On 04/15/2018 03:06 AM, John Klensin wrote: > Hi, while I'm on this list, I don't routinely follow it, so it took a > while for me to be pointed to this thread and longer to find the > energy to respond. > > For context, I was involved with the Cambridge Project from the time > an early draft of the proposal started to be circulated to relevant > researchers within MIT, through the summer study, and then ended up > with lead responsibility for among other things, the software that was > intended to hold everything together, was a member of the small > steering committee (I don't remember what it was called, but that > wasn't it) that had practical oversight of the Project. I worked > closely with Lick and more closely with those who were running the > project on a day-to-day basis. Lick was actively involved (more than > I think Waldrop realized) but was leading the Dynamic Modeling work at > the same time and almost certainly more involved there on a daily > basis. When I decided to do work leading to a Ph.D a few years after > the Cambridge Project wound down, Lick ended up on my somewhat-strange > committee. If I recall, he was one of those who helped convince me I > should do the degree. I'm happy to answer specific questions to the > extent that I have time and remember --the Project did zero classified > research-- but it has been a long time and MIT has, at least IMO, a > bad institutional memory problem for activities that are not linked to > active departments and/or sources of funds.. I have no idea whether > the original idea for what became the Cambridge Project originated > with Lick or de Sola Pool -- I worked closely with both, the latter > even earlier than I first met Lick, but, by the time I heard about the > idea, it was described very much in "joint effort" terms. I also knew > (and know) enough about the interests of each to guess where some > ideas came from but find it difficult or impossible to try to > attribute most of the ideas to either independently. > > I'll try to describe what it was all about, but it is probably > important that those trying to understand the effort (and almost > anything else related at MIT or Harvard at the time, especially if > there was DoD money involved, was that the late 1960s and first half > of the 1970s were times of great tumult in the academic and research > communities, with large differences in style among institutions about > how those things played out. I don't believe we had anyone killed in > Cambridge, but there were a lot of loud demonstrations, marches, etc., > There were some unpleasant confrontations between demonstrators and > the Cambridge Police and I can remember the smell of tear gas > Because it involved social and behavioral science research and > researchers, including some whom some of the most active of the > antiwar community were suspicious of for other reasons and because it > involved DoD (whether specifically ARPA or not, and it was ARPA) > funding) which meant to them that something nefarious was going on, > Some of those stories were on a par with some things we hear today > about the "real" reason the ARPANET work was funded; some were, at > least in my opinion, far worse. The times were troubled enough that I > had some people who were working for me by day (because they were > comfortable with what they were doing and what they could see) and > picketing us by night (some because of the principle of DoD funding > and others because of what "must" be going on elsewhere in teh project > although they could never find any sign of it). The noise was loud > enough that, if one looks through contemporary articles, one can > probably find a lot of things that were the result of those kinds of > thinking (i.e., without strong connections to reality) and find then > with great ease. We are a lot more interested in getting work done > than in trying to hold debates with those who were not willing to > listen and who, in many case, felt that anyone who disagreed with > them, their positions, or their truth should not be allowed to speak > at all. > > Organizationally, the project was originally intended to be a joint > MIT-Harvard effort. It was also intended, from the beginning, to be > organized the way Project MAC was originally organized (in retrospect, > probably unsurprising given Lick's involvement in shaping both), i.e., > some centrally-funded and managed core activities, support from the > Project for complementary activities of various faculty and > departments, and some more independent activities with their own > independent (e.g., non-DoD) support that were nonetheless > collaborating (the latter group of activities was important with > Project MAC but was never significant with the Cambridge Project and, > as far as I can remember, never came together), There were many > protests and some debate about that at Harvard. The _Crimson_ article > cited was part of that fabric; perhaps something about its balance and > dedication to reasoned debate can be inferred from such balanced and > objective comments as " M.I.T. is the Defense Department's house > whore,...". Others may remember actual details of the Harvard > discussions better than I do, but Harvard eventually decided that > there would be no formal Harvard-as-University participation, but that > interested departments and researchers at Harvard were free to > participate and accept funding. Many did -- there were at least > three Harvard senior faculty, from at least Schools on the internal > advisory committee and far more on a large faculty (and probably some > students -- don't remember offhand) advisory group. So, we ended up > with a central staff at MIT with work focusing on a general > architecture and software substrate for a wide range of applications, > integration of a variety of tools, data representation issues, design > and construction of a researcher-friendly and statistically-oriented > database management system, and a good deal of work what was necessary > to apply different kinds of tools and models to the same underlying > data. Wrt the latter, a common attitude, and arguably the state of > the art, at the time was that people would build highly integrated > "statistical packages" with a particular view of data and that > researchers should design their work and hypotheses around what could > be done with one of those packages. One of the key ideas behind the > Cambridge Project was that it was important to have an environment in > which data, models, and hypotheses should drive analysis not the > available tools (not at all z new idea, but one that was hard to > realize at the time).[1].[2] > > It may also be relevant that the Cambridge Project was funded out of > ARPA Behavioral Sciences (sometimes Human Resources, IIR), not IPTO. > There were certainly some conversations at/with RADC about command, > control, and intelligence functions but they were more about the > applicability of our work to those functions than any focus of the > work on those topics. Mostly or entirely after the Cambridge Project > as such ended, a company that was more or less spun off from MIT > provided support for the systems that the Cambridge Project was > developed to several universities and commercial enterprises in the US > and Europe (and maybe elsewhere, but I don't remember) and to parts of > DoD, notably what was then OSD Program Analysis and Evaluation (main > application there was the DoD budget, not, e.g., warfare).. As with > many other things funded by ARPA, there was far more effort to explain > possible specific military applicability of the research work rather > than its justification as research after the Mansfield Amendment (and > the transition to "DARPA") than earlier. Like many other ARPA > activities at the time, the explanations changed more than the actual > work, It occurs to me that some of those explanations might be the > foundation for the NBC reporting referred to below. > > A few other things to add a bit of data and help parse facts from > misunderstanding or fantasy (I'm running out of energy and this note > is already too long or there would be a much longer list): > > (1) I have no idea where Levine got his list of "data banks" that the > Project was going to acquire, maintain, and distribute. I don't > remember such a list from any of the early proposal drafts, nor do I > remember any discussion of them during the summer study. In any > event, while individual researchers almost certainly had their own > data of interest and saw some of the work of the Project as providing > better tools for analysis and modeling of them, there was never any > central archive or effort to build one -- I'm quite confident about > that because it almost certainly would have been in my area of > responsibility. > > (2) The document at http://www.dtic.mil/get-tr-doc/pdf?AD=AD0783626 > was one of a collection of annual and them semi-annual reports. They > are all public; they were all available through NTIS and probably > still are, although some of the scans were, IIR, even worse than this > particular one. In any event, I have the MIT-produced paper versions > of all of them. If the NTIS copies are no longer avaialble and > someone has appropriate scanning resources, I'd be happy to make them > available. > > (3) There was never any "Project CAM" or something referred to that > way, at least in conjunction with the Cambridge Project. The only > times I remember hearing that term during the Cambridge Project's > existence were in conjunction with a conspiracy theory (whose details > I don;t remember) involving "MAC" spelled backwards. > > (4) During most of its existence, the Cambridge Project was on the 5th > floor or what was then 575 Technology Square, across the plaze from > 545 (before that space came together, there was a group in MIT > Building 26 near the original MIT computer center facility, I > continued to sit in 545 Tech Square, etc. That is relevant to the > Datacomputer discussion because we had the south side of that floor > and they had the north side. But, if I remember (and my memory is > very vague about this), while Tom Merrill was PI on that project, I > think CCA continued to do business out of their other offices (up near > Fresh Pond and a few blocks from BBN). Could easily be wrong about > that, but IBM never had anything to do with the Datacompiuter -- it > ran on PDP-10s, Ampex videotape drives, and some specialized hardware. > What I do know is that, while the people involved knew each other > (common elevator lobby and shared history among the more senior > folks), no data ever moved between the two projects although Lick and > others had a lot of fantasies about that if and when the Datacomputer > work ever reached useful production status. Also, IBM's Cambridge > Scientific Lab was definitely in 545. The only two CTSS systems I > was ever aware of belonged to Project MAC and the MIT Computation > Center. They were networked via the high-bandwidth method of people > carrying magnetic tapes a block of two :-( I don't think IBM every > actually owned one, although I might not have known. CP/CMS didn't > speak SNA. It did acquire RSCS although I don't remember whether > before or after the transition to the VM/CMS product. RSCS of course > became the primary transport protocol for BITNET. Almost certainly no > ARPANET connections to the Cambridge Scientific Center, at least early > on -- the Host-IMP protocols didn't exist for the machine and there > weren't any spare ports on the obvious IMPs. And the CIA office in > 545 was a fairly open secret if it was a secret at all, at least by > the time I had an office there around 1965-1966. > > john > > > [1[ Klensin, John C., J. Markowitz, D. B. Yntema, and R. A. Wiesen, > ?The Approach to Compatibility of the Cambridge Project Consistent > System?, ACM SIGSOC Bulletin, Fall 1973. > [2} Klensin, John C. and Douwe B. Yntema, ?Beyond the Package: A new > approach to social science computing?, Social Science Information, 20, > 4/5, (1981), pp. 787-815. > > > > On Sat, Apr 14, 2018 at 11:26 AM, Eric Gade wrote: >>> Lick was my thesis adviser, and >>> subsequently my boss when I was a member of the MIT research staff in >>> his group. So there is a lot of overlap between my personal experiences >>> in 1969-1977 at MIT and the events and interactions chronicled in "Dream >>> Machine". >> >> >> Hi Jack, thanks for writing back. It's great to have a person who worked >> with Licklider be a part of this email record. >> >> Also thank you to all the others for responding. I want to clarify a couple >> of things, mostly because I don't want to be unfair to the book's author >> despite my evaluation of his research. Levine seems to suggest that there is >> some connection between counterinsurgency psychological/sociological >> research in Vietnam and the origins of Licklider's research group(s) and >> work in building the ARPA C&C/IPTO community. That is to say, he believes >> there are common intellectual origins if not necessarily applications. What >> has been covered by Waldrop and others -- and what is even apparent in the >> oral histories recorded by Licklider and others -- is that to the extent >> this is true, there was apprehension on the part of the interactive >> computing researchers. Either way, this is a bold claim and my own feeling >> is that it requires much more evidence to support it. >> >> The NBC reporting is -- to his telling -- evidence of similar tactics being >> used on the ARPANET, although the Congressional Record testimony seems >> pretty clear that the report confused a bunch of things. Again, it doesn't >> seem to me that enough convincing evidence is presented, but these reports >> are interesting nonetheless and I'd never heard of them before in my own >> research. >> >> One final note about the Cambridge Project. Waldrop also discusses the >> Cambridge Project in "Dream Machine" -- he even recounts a story where >> Licklider, surrounded by protestors who were attempting to burn copies of >> his proposal, showed the youngsters that they needed to fan out the pages if >> they wanted to get it to burn properly (and even lit his own report on >> fire). At the time, this was a known project. The Harvard Crimson even >> reported on it: >> http://www.thecrimson.com/article/1969/9/26/brass-tacks-the-cambridge-project-pi/ >> >> As I mentioned, I have not been able to get a copy of this proposal. The MIT >> archives will almost certainly take their time getting back to me. The >> citation Levine uses for the report is: >> J.C.R. Licklider, "Establishment and Operation of a Program in Computer >> Analysis and Modeling in the Behavioral Sciences" December 5, 1968. MIT >> Institute Archives and Special Collections, MIT Cambridge Project records. >> >> Levine does not seem to quote from this proposal and only cites it once when >> he lists the "data banks" that the Cambridge Project would create (and "make >> available through ARPANET"): >> >> Public opinion polls from all countries >> Cultural patterns of all the tribes and peoples of the world >> Archives on comparative communism [...] files on the contemporary world >> communist movements >> Political participation of various countries [...] This includes such >> variables as voting, membership in associations, activity of political >> parties, etc. >> Youth movements >> Mass unrest and political movements under conditions of rapid social change >> Data on national integration, particularly in "plural" societies; the >> integration of ethnic, racial and religious minorities; the merging or >> splitting of present political units >> International propaganda output >> Peasant attitudes and behavior >> International armament expenditures and trends >> >> (It is unclear is Levine is listing these himself or quoting from the >> proposal; without seeing a copy we cannot verify) >> >> My understanding is that the project ran for ~5 years. The only documentary >> evidence for it that I've been able to find online is the following report, >> presumably written near the end of the project: >> >> http://www.dtic.mil/get-tr-doc/pdf?AD=AD0783626 >> >> >> Without some revelation from people on this list, I don't see enough >> evidence to overturn the narrative clearly expounded by Waldrop, Weinberger, >> and others that the ARPA computing community as established by Licklider was >> a kind of lucky moment where lots of funds could be spent on risky/open >> projects and that most of the rest of ARPA had little idea what these guys >> were even doing, let alone others within the Pentagon. >> >> On Sat, Apr 14, 2018 at 7:15 AM, Dave Walden >> wrote: >>> >>> Jack, >>> >>> My memory is that CCA (Computer Corporation of America -- Tom Merrill's >>> company) did the DataComputer. They might also have been at 545 Tech >>> Square at the time but I am unsure of that. IBM (the "Cambridge >>> Scientific" lab?) was also there (as you note) and did other important >>> things (my memory is vague, so I am uncertain of the following things >>> ... the beginning of CP/CMS operating system, Script text processing >>> system, creation of GML, I think they may also have had the other CTSS >>> system, etc.) but I don't remember this group being connected to the >>> ARPANET (IBM was pushing SNA -- proprietary networking). >>> >>> Dave >>> >>> On 4/14/2018 3:36 AM, Jack Haverty wrote: >>>> Lick's group was part of Project MAC, aka LCS (Laboratory for Computer >>>> Science), It occupied part of 545 Technology Square, along with the MIT >>>> AI Lab. LCS had many subgroups. In addition, the building complex >>>> housed an IBM research group (that did the DataComputer, which was >>>> attached to the ARPANET), and even a stealth office of the CIA (really - >>>> but that's another story), which I accidentally "outed" one day while >>>> trying to run computer cables up to the roof through the elevator shaft. >>>> Oops. >>>> >>> >>> _______ >>> internet-history mailing list >>> internet-history at postel.org >>> http://mailman.postel.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history >>> Contact list-owner at postel.org for assistance. >> >> >> >> >> -- >> Eric >> >> _______ >> internet-history mailing list >> internet-history at postel.org >> http://mailman.postel.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history >> Contact list-owner at postel.org for assistance. >> > > _______ > internet-history mailing list > internet-history at postel.org > http://mailman.postel.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history > Contact list-owner at postel.org for assistance. > From johnl at iecc.com Sun Apr 15 17:02:56 2018 From: johnl at iecc.com (John Levine) Date: 15 Apr 2018 20:02:56 -0400 Subject: [ih] CCA, was Yasha Levine's Surveillance Valley: The Secret Military History of the Internet -- Some Questions In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20180416000257.57A9224C1E29@ary.qy> In article you write: >On Sat, Apr 14, 2018 at 3:53 PM, David Walden > wrote: >> The sale of CCA that I am remembering was *much* earlier than >> when the wikipedia says Rocket bought CCA. CCA is still around, you know. Bloomberg says they moved out to Newton and appear to have merged operations with Rocket. I don't recognize the names of any of the current officers. https://www.bloomberg.com/research/stocks/private/snapshot.asp?privcapId=728447 Rocket bought them in 2010. Dunno if they were bought and sold before that. http://www.rocketsoftware.com/news/rocket-software-announces-acquisition-computer-corporation-america R's, John From brian.e.carpenter at gmail.com Sun Apr 15 21:55:00 2018 From: brian.e.carpenter at gmail.com (Brian E Carpenter) Date: Mon, 16 Apr 2018 16:55:00 +1200 Subject: [ih] .UK vs .GB In-Reply-To: <2d8e4a92-200a-d0fc-b9a9-12d5d2fa9500@gih.com> References: <20180413221258.D240B24AA5BB@ary.qy> <2d8e4a92-200a-d0fc-b9a9-12d5d2fa9500@gih.com> Message-ID: Yes. At CERN we were gatewaying email between DECNET, "ARPANET", Grey Book, EUNET (aka USENET), RSCS (aka EARN aka BITNET), and of course a little X.400 (using Steve Kille's EAN). Here's how we believed an "ARPA" user would send mail to a CERN user in 1987: user%host%cernvax.bitnet at wiscvm.wisc.edu (Non-paywall preprint of the paper: http://cds.cern.ch/record/182913/files/ ) Brian On 16/04/2018 08:44, Olivier MJ Cr?pin-Leblond wrote: > Dear Vint, > > the dates are indeed similar. > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coloured_Book_protocols > > They were indeed contemporary. And when I used them on DEC VAX, the > address was something of the like: CBS%UK.AC.KCL.CC.ELM::ZDEE699? -- > which would be ZDEE699 at UK.AC.KCL.CC.ELM > (my then email address :-) ) > To send to an Internet address: (you for example) > CBS%UK.AC.NSFNET-RELAY::us.va.reston.cnri::vcerf > > Sending to an X.400, one had to start with: > CBS%UK.AC.MHS-RELAY:: > with the rest in quotes. Often the parser in the return made an absolute > mess with X.400 sourced emails. > > Also, note that CBS also accepted bang! paths, but the difference > between the % and @ delimiters in specifically routed emails for > example, vcerf%cnri.reston.va.us at nsfnet-relay.ac.uk didn't exist, thus > it was :: all the way. > > Kindest regards, > > Olivier > > ps. the "transition" came when one ran TCP-IP over X.25. > > On 15/04/2018 21:03, Vint Cerf wrote: >> does anyone on the list recall the rough dates for the "Colored Book >> Protocol" ? Seems possible that these were at least contemporary with >> DNS and UCL was confronted with the need to translate between those >> and the ARPANET and/or Internet protocols of the time. >> >> v >> >> >> On Sun, Apr 15, 2018 at 11:47 AM, Eric Gade > > wrote: >> >> Also worth noting that in a May 1984 draft of RFC 920 (and a few >> drafts prior to this going back to April), ISO-3166 was *not* >> specified as a set for potential TLDs, but .UK *was* given as an >> example. In fact, the inclusion of UK was used by many >> participants discussing the draft to argue in favor of both a >> country-based set of TLDs and a more generic set (note that these >> early drafts used .PUB and .COR instead of .COM and .ORG). It was >> sometime between May and July that the ISO list was proposed as >> the ccTLD set. >> >> On Sun, Apr 15, 2018 at 11:02 AM, John Klensin > > wrote: >> >> Yes, Nigel, I should (for several reasons) have remembered that >> comment in RFC 920, but my recollection is still consistent >> with that >> document and your list.? That timeline list is, IMO, extremely >> useful >> and far more accessible (and, IIR, comprehensive) that the Park >> dissertation. >> >> ? ?john >> >> >> On Sun, Apr 15, 2018 at 10:20 AM, Nigel Roberts >> > wrote: >> > Far be it from me to be seen to clarify John's first hand >> knowledge of >> > RFC 1591, but it's worth pointing out that the decision to use >> > ISO-3166-1 was not first documented in RFC 1591, but already >> in RFC 920 >> > (October 1984) as follows >> > >> >> Countries >> >> >> >> The English two letter code (alpha-2) identifying a country >> according the the ISO Standard for "Codes for the >> Representation of Names of Countries" [5]. >> >> >> >> As yet no country domains have been established.? As they >> are established information about the administrators and >> agents will be made public, and will be listed in subsequent >> editions of this memo." >> >> >> > >> > Stephen Deerhake and I put together an (as yet unfinished) >> hyperlinked >> > timeline of the DNS quite recently. Even though there are >> some places >> > where the editing is still a little rough, I think there is >> some useful >> > stuff which is not easily accessible otherwise. >> > >> > You can find it at http://timeline.as >> > >> > It does need a little work, and we need to move it from >> using TikiWiki >> > (which seemed like a good idea at the time) to something >> faster, but >> > there are some interesting things there... >> > >> > >> > >> > >> > On 04/15/2018 02:13 PM, John Klensin wrote: >> >>> The only explanation I got orally was that "GB stands for >> Great Britain, while UK stands for United Kingdom of Great >> Britain and the Northern Ireland". >> >>> >> >>> That was enough for me. Don't even remember who explained >> it, but it was around the famous entry of .CS into the root >> zone that created the "interesting" situation with >> CS.BERKELEY.EDU (and others) and >> massive weird extra hacking in sendmail.cf >> due to the Janet "reverse" order of >> labels in a domain name. >> >> >> >> Let me try an even less complicated one, based on what I >> was told when >> >> we were evaluating what became the decision to use ISO 3166 >> alpha-2 >> >> codes:? ?The country code system started because of a >> request from the >> >> UK to be able to manage their own DNS hierarchy rather than >> depending >> >> on a US-based organization to manage the TLD.? The ccTLDs >> are US and >> >> UK were decided upon (and possibly delegated) before other >> >> administrative decisions about ccTLDs were made and "UK" >> was what they >> >> asked for. >> >> >> >> FWIW: (1) While RFC 1591 was not published until 1994, it, >> for the >> >> most part, described thinking and procedures that had had >> been in >> >> place for years rather than anything of significant that >> was novel. >> >> (2) YJ Park, whom some of you may know, tried to sort >> though all of >> >> these issues and history while working on her >> dissertation.? The >> >> search for answers to questions of this type might >> reasonably start >> >> with her and that dissertation.? That should lead to some >> context and >> >> references even where she does not have exact answers. >> >> >> >>? ? ? john >> >> >> >> _______ >> >> internet-history mailing list >> >> internet-history at postel.org >> >> >> http://mailman.postel.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history >> >> >> Contact list-owner at postel.org >> for assistance. >> >> >> > _______ >> > internet-history mailing list >> > internet-history at postel.org >> > http://mailman.postel.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history >> >> > Contact list-owner at postel.org >> for assistance. >> >> _______ >> internet-history mailing list >> internet-history at postel.org >> http://mailman.postel.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history >> >> Contact list-owner at postel.org >> for assistance. >> >> >> >> >> -- >> Eric >> >> _______ >> internet-history mailing list >> internet-history at postel.org >> http://mailman.postel.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history >> >> Contact list-owner at postel.org for >> assistance. >> >> >> >> >> -- >> New postal address: >> Google >> 1875 Explorer Street, 10th Floor >> Reston, VA 20190 >> >> >> _______ >> internet-history mailing list >> internet-history at postel.org >> http://mailman.postel.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history >> Contact list-owner at postel.org for assistance. > > > > _______ > internet-history mailing list > internet-history at postel.org > http://mailman.postel.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history > Contact list-owner at postel.org for assistance. > From brian.e.carpenter at gmail.com Sun Apr 15 21:57:26 2018 From: brian.e.carpenter at gmail.com (Brian E Carpenter) Date: Mon, 16 Apr 2018 16:57:26 +1200 Subject: [ih] .UK vs .GB In-Reply-To: <9D412A83-ACD0-4A3F-990C-75F6D8BDAB1B@comcast.net> References: <20180413221258.D240B24AA5BB@ary.qy> <7BD4DD68-9051-4601-B0BC-393E6162C6B7@frobbit.se> <7c21e4d8-7d7d-2821-643e-b57d52001e8f@gih.com> <08b58b42-d9e2-8214-d0fa-b0d540853efa@gmail.com> <9D412A83-ACD0-4A3F-990C-75F6D8BDAB1B@comcast.net> Message-ID: On 16/04/2018 01:01, John Day wrote: > Yes, it was a committee as was SMTP. But before you get to self-satisfied with how smart we all were and they weren?t. It should be pointed out that much of the design of both X.400 and X.500 was driven by the former DARPA participants in the National Software Works project from SRI. I had many an argument with them over various aspects of it. > > The idea of knowing what type the components of an identifier are is not inherently a bad idea. It certainly gives you more information for the database design that goes with it. Yes, the list of X.400 keywords strongly suggests database design rather than human interface design. But even so, it's a kitchen sink list. Brian > > John > >> >> X.400 addressing is a great example of design by committee, in which >> consensus was reached by including everything suggested by anybody. >> There were apparently 14 different keywords. >> >> Bian >> >> >> _______ >> internet-history mailing list >> internet-history at postel.org >> http://mailman.postel.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history >> Contact list-owner at postel.org for assistance. > > . > From demco at webnames.ca Mon Apr 16 00:50:36 2018 From: demco at webnames.ca (John Demco) Date: Mon, 16 Apr 2018 00:50:36 -0700 Subject: [ih] .UK vs .GB In-Reply-To: References: <20180413221258.D240B24AA5BB@ary.qy> <2d8e4a92-200a-d0fc-b9a9-12d5d2fa9500@gih.com> Message-ID: <43A5DF29-F01B-4855-8C91-FD2FECCE797E@webnames.ca> Steve Kille?s X.400 software was called PP, if I recall correctly. The EAN software came from a team led by Gerald Neufeld at the University of British Columbia. Regards, John Demco (formerly at UBC) > On Apr 15, 2018, at 22:30, Brian E Carpenter wrote: > > Yes. At CERN we were gatewaying email between DECNET, "ARPANET", Grey Book, > EUNET (aka USENET), RSCS (aka EARN aka BITNET), and of course a little > X.400 (using Steve Kille's EAN). > > Here's how we believed an "ARPA" user would send mail to a CERN user in 1987: > user%host%cernvax.bitnet at wiscvm.wisc.edu > > (Non-paywall preprint of the paper: http://cds.cern.ch/record/182913/files/ ) > > Brian > > >> On 16/04/2018 08:44, Olivier MJ Cr?pin-Leblond wrote: >> Dear Vint, >> >> the dates are indeed similar. >> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coloured_Book_protocols >> >> They were indeed contemporary. And when I used them on DEC VAX, the >> address was something of the like: CBS%UK.AC.KCL.CC.ELM::ZDEE699 -- >> which would be ZDEE699 at UK.AC.KCL.CC.ELM >> (my then email address :-) ) >> To send to an Internet address: (you for example) >> CBS%UK.AC.NSFNET-RELAY::us.va.reston.cnri::vcerf >> >> Sending to an X.400, one had to start with: >> CBS%UK.AC.MHS-RELAY:: >> with the rest in quotes. Often the parser in the return made an absolute >> mess with X.400 sourced emails. >> >> Also, note that CBS also accepted bang! paths, but the difference >> between the % and @ delimiters in specifically routed emails for >> example, vcerf%cnri.reston.va.us at nsfnet-relay.ac.uk didn't exist, thus >> it was :: all the way. >> >> Kindest regards, >> >> Olivier >> >> ps. the "transition" came when one ran TCP-IP over X.25. >> >>> On 15/04/2018 21:03, Vint Cerf wrote: >>> does anyone on the list recall the rough dates for the "Colored Book >>> Protocol" ? Seems possible that these were at least contemporary with >>> DNS and UCL was confronted with the need to translate between those >>> and the ARPANET and/or Internet protocols of the time. >>> >>> v >>> >>> >>> On Sun, Apr 15, 2018 at 11:47 AM, Eric Gade >> > wrote: >>> >>> Also worth noting that in a May 1984 draft of RFC 920 (and a few >>> drafts prior to this going back to April), ISO-3166 was *not* >>> specified as a set for potential TLDs, but .UK *was* given as an >>> example. In fact, the inclusion of UK was used by many >>> participants discussing the draft to argue in favor of both a >>> country-based set of TLDs and a more generic set (note that these >>> early drafts used .PUB and .COR instead of .COM and .ORG). It was >>> sometime between May and July that the ISO list was proposed as >>> the ccTLD set. >>> >>> On Sun, Apr 15, 2018 at 11:02 AM, John Klensin >> > wrote: >>> >>> Yes, Nigel, I should (for several reasons) have remembered that >>> comment in RFC 920, but my recollection is still consistent >>> with that >>> document and your list. That timeline list is, IMO, extremely >>> useful >>> and far more accessible (and, IIR, comprehensive) that the Park >>> dissertation. >>> >>> john >>> >>> >>> On Sun, Apr 15, 2018 at 10:20 AM, Nigel Roberts >>> > wrote: >>>> Far be it from me to be seen to clarify John's first hand >>> knowledge of >>>> RFC 1591, but it's worth pointing out that the decision to use >>>> ISO-3166-1 was not first documented in RFC 1591, but already >>> in RFC 920 >>>> (October 1984) as follows >>>> >>>>> Countries >>>>> >>>>> The English two letter code (alpha-2) identifying a country >>> according the the ISO Standard for "Codes for the >>> Representation of Names of Countries" [5]. >>>>> >>>>> As yet no country domains have been established. As they >>> are established information about the administrators and >>> agents will be made public, and will be listed in subsequent >>> editions of this memo." >>>> >>>> Stephen Deerhake and I put together an (as yet unfinished) >>> hyperlinked >>>> timeline of the DNS quite recently. Even though there are >>> some places >>>> where the editing is still a little rough, I think there is >>> some useful >>>> stuff which is not easily accessible otherwise. >>>> >>>> You can find it at http://timeline.as >>>> >>>> It does need a little work, and we need to move it from >>> using TikiWiki >>>> (which seemed like a good idea at the time) to something >>> faster, but >>>> there are some interesting things there... >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> On 04/15/2018 02:13 PM, John Klensin wrote: >>>>>> The only explanation I got orally was that "GB stands for >>> Great Britain, while UK stands for United Kingdom of Great >>> Britain and the Northern Ireland". >>>>>> >>>>>> That was enough for me. Don't even remember who explained >>> it, but it was around the famous entry of .CS into the root >>> zone that created the "interesting" situation with >>> CS.BERKELEY.EDU (and others) and >>> massive weird extra hacking in sendmail.cf >>> due to the Janet "reverse" order of >>> labels in a domain name. >>>>> >>>>> Let me try an even less complicated one, based on what I >>> was told when >>>>> we were evaluating what became the decision to use ISO 3166 >>> alpha-2 >>>>> codes: The country code system started because of a >>> request from the >>>>> UK to be able to manage their own DNS hierarchy rather than >>> depending >>>>> on a US-based organization to manage the TLD. The ccTLDs >>> are US and >>>>> UK were decided upon (and possibly delegated) before other >>>>> administrative decisions about ccTLDs were made and "UK" >>> was what they >>>>> asked for. >>>>> >>>>> FWIW: (1) While RFC 1591 was not published until 1994, it, >>> for the >>>>> most part, described thinking and procedures that had had >>> been in >>>>> place for years rather than anything of significant that >>> was novel. >>>>> (2) YJ Park, whom some of you may know, tried to sort >>> though all of >>>>> these issues and history while working on her >>> dissertation. The >>>>> search for answers to questions of this type might >>> reasonably start >>>>> with her and that dissertation. That should lead to some >>> context and >>>>> references even where she does not have exact answers. >>>>> >>>>> john >>>>> >>>>> _______ >>>>> internet-history mailing list >>>>> internet-history at postel.org >>> >>>>> http://mailman.postel.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history >>> >>>>> Contact list-owner at postel.org >>> for assistance. >>>> _______ >>>> internet-history mailing list >>>> internet-history at postel.org >>>> http://mailman.postel.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history >>> >>>> Contact list-owner at postel.org >>> for assistance. >>> >>> _______ >>> internet-history mailing list >>> internet-history at postel.org >>> http://mailman.postel.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history >>> >>> Contact list-owner at postel.org >>> for assistance. >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> -- >>> Eric >>> >>> _______ >>> internet-history mailing list >>> internet-history at postel.org >>> http://mailman.postel.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history >>> >>> Contact list-owner at postel.org for >>> assistance. >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> -- >>> New postal address: >>> Google >>> 1875 Explorer Street, 10th Floor >>> Reston, VA 20190 >>> >>> >>> _______ >>> internet-history mailing list >>> internet-history at postel.org >>> http://mailman.postel.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history >>> Contact list-owner at postel.org for assistance. >> >> >> >> _______ >> internet-history mailing list >> internet-history at postel.org >> http://mailman.postel.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history >> Contact list-owner at postel.org for assistance. > > > _______ > internet-history mailing list > internet-history at postel.org > http://mailman.postel.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history > Contact list-owner at postel.org for assistance. From lars at nocrew.org Mon Apr 16 01:15:48 2018 From: lars at nocrew.org (Lars Brinkhoff) Date: Mon, 16 Apr 2018 08:15:48 +0000 Subject: [ih] Datacomputer Message-ID: <7wvacrd0sr.fsf@junk.nocrew.org> Hello, I have some ITS software to use the Datacomputer: DFTP - Allows storage of files on the Datacomputer over the network DCSTAT - Reports status of the CCA Datacomputer. Too bad there's no Datacomputer. We can approximate the date of its demise: Date: 1 September 1980 18:46-EDT From: Robert W. Kerns Subject: The datacomputer is no more! To: KEN at MIT-AI cc: BUG-ITS at MIT-AI The problem is really that the datacomputer was discontinued last March or so. From el at lisse.na Mon Apr 16 01:35:29 2018 From: el at lisse.na (Dr Eberhard W Lisse) Date: Mon, 16 Apr 2018 10:35:29 +0200 Subject: [ih] Datacomputer In-Reply-To: <7wvacrd0sr.fsf@junk.nocrew.org> References: <7wvacrd0sr.fsf@junk.nocrew.org> Message-ID: <997f90a0-eb6d-2b3f-34a0-49e211df23e7@lisse.na> Write an emulator? el On 16/04/2018 10:15, Lars Brinkhoff wrote: > Hello, > > I have some ITS software to use the Datacomputer: > > DFTP - Allows storage of files on the Datacomputer over the network > DCSTAT - Reports status of the CCA Datacomputer. > > Too bad there's no Datacomputer. We can approximate the date of its > demise: > > Date: 1 September 1980 18:46-EDT > From: Robert W. Kerns > Subject: The datacomputer is no more! > To: KEN at MIT-AI > cc: BUG-ITS at MIT-AI > > The problem is really that the datacomputer was discontinued last March > or so. > _______ > internet-history mailing list > internet-history at postel.org > http://mailman.postel.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history > Contact list-owner at postel.org for assistance. > -- Dr. Eberhard W. Lisse \ / Obstetrician & Gynaecologist (Saar) el at lisse.NA / * | Telephone: +264 81 124 6733 (cell) PO Box 8421 \ / Bachbrecht, Namibia ;____/ From jeanjour at comcast.net Mon Apr 16 02:37:18 2018 From: jeanjour at comcast.net (John Day) Date: Mon, 16 Apr 2018 05:37:18 -0400 Subject: [ih] .UK vs .GB In-Reply-To: References: <20180413221258.D240B24AA5BB@ary.qy> <7BD4DD68-9051-4601-B0BC-393E6162C6B7@frobbit.se> <7c21e4d8-7d7d-2821-643e-b57d52001e8f@gih.com> <08b58b42-d9e2-8214-d0fa-b0d540853efa@gmail.com> <9D412A83-ACD0-4A3F-990C-75F6D8BDAB1B@comcast.net> Message-ID: The list of possibilities for X.400 is less than the possibilities for current email. The only difference is they designate the type of the attribute and the current email doesn?t. ;-) So should we conclude that while X.400 included the kitchen sink, the current mail included the bathtub? ;-) John > On Apr 16, 2018, at 00:57, Brian E Carpenter wrote: > > On 16/04/2018 01:01, John Day wrote: >> Yes, it was a committee as was SMTP. But before you get to self-satisfied with how smart we all were and they weren?t. It should be pointed out that much of the design of both X.400 and X.500 was driven by the former DARPA participants in the National Software Works project from SRI. I had many an argument with them over various aspects of it. >> >> The idea of knowing what type the components of an identifier are is not inherently a bad idea. It certainly gives you more information for the database design that goes with it. > > Yes, the list of X.400 keywords strongly suggests database design rather than human interface design. But even so, it's a kitchen sink list. > > Brian > >> >> John >> >>> >>> X.400 addressing is a great example of design by committee, in which >>> consensus was reached by including everything suggested by anybody. >>> There were apparently 14 different keywords. >>> >>> Bian >>> >>> >>> _______ >>> internet-history mailing list >>> internet-history at postel.org >>> http://mailman.postel.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history >>> Contact list-owner at postel.org for assistance. >> >> . >> > From dot at dotat.at Mon Apr 16 04:21:44 2018 From: dot at dotat.at (Tony Finch) Date: Mon, 16 Apr 2018 12:21:44 +0100 Subject: [ih] .UK vs .GB In-Reply-To: <20180414011145.86A9824ABF58@ary.qy> References: <20180414011145.86A9824ABF58@ary.qy> Message-ID: John Levine wrote: > > dig @ns1.cs.ucl.ac.uk. dra.hmg.gb axfr My favourite .gb site used to be ftp.dra.hmg.uk (I think even in the 1990s it was approximately the only site in .gb) from which DRA Malvern (formerly RSRE) distributed their compilers - the ELLA harware description package which included Algol 68RS, and the TenDRA retargetable C compiler. Tony. -- f.anthony.n.finch http://dotat.at/ Malin, Hebrides, Bailey: Southeast, veering south later, 7 to severe gale 9. Rough or very rough, occasionally high later. Occasional rain, showers later. Good, occasionally poor. From dot at dotat.at Mon Apr 16 05:19:09 2018 From: dot at dotat.at (Tony Finch) Date: Mon, 16 Apr 2018 13:19:09 +0100 Subject: [ih] .UK vs .GB In-Reply-To: <43A5DF29-F01B-4855-8C91-FD2FECCE797E@webnames.ca> References: <20180413221258.D240B24AA5BB@ary.qy> <2d8e4a92-200a-d0fc-b9a9-12d5d2fa9500@gih.com> <43A5DF29-F01B-4855-8C91-FD2FECCE797E@webnames.ca> Message-ID: John Demco wrote: > Steve Kille?s X.400 software was called PP, if I recall correctly. Our central mail relay at Cambridge is still called ppsw (short for PP switch) even though it stopped running PP in about 1997. I have a scruffy old ring binder on a shelf above my desk labelled "PP 5.0" in large clear handwriting. I keep it to scare off marauding old postmasters. Our version of the 1990 .cs snafu came a few years earlier - our computer science department is cl.cam.ac.uk and .cl was created in 1987. There's a glorious tutorial from the late days of multiprotocol networking "Hints for getting mail through various gateways to and from JANET" https://stuff.mit.edu/afs/athena/reference/net-directory/documents/JANET-Mail-Gateways.ps (PDF version at http://dotat.at/tmp/JANET-Mail-Gateways.pdf) Tony. -- f.anthony.n.finch http://dotat.at/ the market alone does not distribute wealth or income fairly From el at lisse.na Mon Apr 16 06:10:51 2018 From: el at lisse.na (Dr Eberhard W Lisse) Date: Mon, 16 Apr 2018 15:10:51 +0200 Subject: [ih] .UK vs .GB In-Reply-To: References: <20180413221258.D240B24AA5BB@ary.qy> <2d8e4a92-200a-d0fc-b9a9-12d5d2fa9500@gih.com> <43A5DF29-F01B-4855-8C91-FD2FECCE797E@webnames.ca> Message-ID: As I may have written before I had some emails pass a few times through my MS-DOS uuPC based '286 box because somehow VY.MIL go cut off at some Navy installation (Great Lakes?). And of course a few emails for Kiwis. That had me stumped for a while until I remebered that I was using a German keyboard (where Y and Z are transposed). I even saw a few .UA later, but that was easy, since I can't read my own handwriting :-)-O el On 16/04/2018 14:19, Tony Finch wrote: [...] > Our version of the 1990 .cs snafu came a few years earlier - our computer > science department is cl.cam.ac.uk and .cl was created in 1987. [...] -- Dr. Eberhard W. Lisse \ / Obstetrician & Gynaecologist (Saar) el at lisse.NA / * | Telephone: +264 81 124 6733 (cell) PO Box 8421 \ / Bachbrecht, Namibia ;____/ From brian.e.carpenter at gmail.com Mon Apr 16 12:40:47 2018 From: brian.e.carpenter at gmail.com (Brian E Carpenter) Date: Tue, 17 Apr 2018 07:40:47 +1200 Subject: [ih] .UK vs .GB In-Reply-To: <43A5DF29-F01B-4855-8C91-FD2FECCE797E@webnames.ca> References: <20180413221258.D240B24AA5BB@ary.qy> <2d8e4a92-200a-d0fc-b9a9-12d5d2fa9500@gih.com> <43A5DF29-F01B-4855-8C91-FD2FECCE797E@webnames.ca> Message-ID: Yes, my memory was slightly off, but it was Steve who brought us EAN+PP which gave the user an approximation to X.400 service through the EAN UI. (I say "brought us" because he worked at CERN for a few months doing so.) Regards Brian Carpenter On 16/04/2018 19:50, John Demco wrote: > Steve Kille?s X.400 software was called PP, if I recall correctly. The EAN software came from a team led by Gerald Neufeld at the University of British Columbia. > > Regards, > John Demco > (formerly at UBC) > >> On Apr 15, 2018, at 22:30, Brian E Carpenter wrote: >> >> Yes. At CERN we were gatewaying email between DECNET, "ARPANET", Grey Book, >> EUNET (aka USENET), RSCS (aka EARN aka BITNET), and of course a little >> X.400 (using Steve Kille's EAN). >> >> Here's how we believed an "ARPA" user would send mail to a CERN user in 1987: >> user%host%cernvax.bitnet at wiscvm.wisc.edu >> >> (Non-paywall preprint of the paper: http://cds.cern.ch/record/182913/files/ ) >> >> Brian >> >> >>> On 16/04/2018 08:44, Olivier MJ Cr?pin-Leblond wrote: >>> Dear Vint, > >>> >>> the dates are indeed similar. >>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coloured_Book_protocols >>> >>> They were indeed contemporary. And when I used them on DEC VAX, the >>> address was something of the like: CBS%UK.AC.KCL.CC.ELM::ZDEE699 -- >>> which would be ZDEE699 at UK.AC.KCL.CC.ELM >>> (my then email address :-) ) >>> To send to an Internet address: (you for example) >>> CBS%UK.AC.NSFNET-RELAY::us.va.reston.cnri::vcerf >>> >>> Sending to an X.400, one had to start with: >>> CBS%UK.AC.MHS-RELAY:: >>> with the rest in quotes. Often the parser in the return made an absolute >>> mess with X.400 sourced emails. >>> >>> Also, note that CBS also accepted bang! paths, but the difference >>> between the % and @ delimiters in specifically routed emails for >>> example, vcerf%cnri.reston.va.us at nsfnet-relay.ac.uk didn't exist, thus >>> it was :: all the way. >>> >>> Kindest regards, >>> >>> Olivier > >>> >>> ps. the "transition" came when one ran TCP-IP over X.25. >>> >>>> On 15/04/2018 21:03, Vint Cerf wrote: > >>>> does anyone on the list recall the rough dates for the "Colored Book >>>> Protocol" ? Seems possible that these were at least contemporary with >>>> DNS and UCL was confronted with the need to translate between those >>>> and the ARPANET and/or Internet protocols of the time. >>>> >>>> v >>>> >>>> >>>> On Sun, Apr 15, 2018 at 11:47 AM, Eric Gade >>> > wrote: >>>> >>>> Also worth noting that in a May 1984 draft of RFC 920 (and a few >>>> drafts prior to this going back to April), ISO-3166 was *not* >>>> specified as a set for potential TLDs, but .UK *was* given as an >>>> example. In fact, the inclusion of UK was used by many >>>> participants discussing the draft to argue in favor of both a >>>> country-based set of TLDs and a more generic set (note that these >>>> early drafts used .PUB and .COR instead of .COM and .ORG). It was >>>> sometime between May and July that the ISO list was proposed as >>>> the ccTLD set. >>>> >>>> On Sun, Apr 15, 2018 at 11:02 AM, John Klensin >>> > wrote: >>>> >>>> Yes, Nigel, I should (for several reasons) have remembered that >>>> comment in RFC 920, but my recollection is still consistent >>>> with that >>>> document and your list. That timeline list is, IMO, extremely >>>> useful >>>> and far more accessible (and, IIR, comprehensive) that the Park >>>> dissertation. >>>> >>>> john >>>> >>>> >>>> On Sun, Apr 15, 2018 at 10:20 AM, Nigel Roberts >>>> > wrote: >>>>> Far be it from me to be seen to clarify John's first hand >>>> knowledge of >>>>> RFC 1591, but it's worth pointing out that the decision to use > >>>>> ISO-3166-1 was not first documented in RFC 1591, but already >>>> in RFC 920 >>>>> (October 1984) as follows >>>>> >>>>>> Countries >>>>>> >>>>>> The English two letter code (alpha-2) identifying a country >>>> according the the ISO Standard for "Codes for the >>>> Representation of Names of Countries" [5]. >>>>>> >>>>>> As yet no country domains have been established. As they >>>> are established information about the administrators and >>>> agents will be made public, and will be listed in subsequent >>>> editions of this memo." >>>>> >>>>> Stephen Deerhake and I put together an (as yet unfinished) >>>> hyperlinked >>>>> timeline of the DNS quite recently. Even though there are >>>> some places >>>>> where the editing is still a little rough, I think there is >>>> some useful >>>>> stuff which is not easily accessible otherwise. >>>>> >>>>> You can find it at http://timeline.as >>>>> >>>>> It does need a little work, and we need to move it from >>>> using TikiWiki >>>>> (which seemed like a good idea at the time) to something >>>> faster, but > >>>>> there are some interesting things there... >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> On 04/15/2018 02:13 PM, John Klensin wrote: >>>>>>> The only explanation I got orally was that "GB stands for >>>> Great Britain, while UK stands for United Kingdom of Great >>>> Britain and the Northern Ireland". >>>>>>> >>>>>>> That was enough for me. Don't even remember who explained >>>> it, but it was around the famous entry of .CS into the root >>>> zone that created the "interesting" situation with >>>> CS.BERKELEY.EDU (and others) and >>>> massive weird extra hacking in sendmail.cf >>>> due to the Janet "reverse" order of >>>> labels in a domain name. >>>>>> >>>>>> Let me try an even less complicated one, based on what I >>>> was told when >>>>>> we were evaluating what became the decision to use ISO 3166 >>>> alpha-2 >>>>>> codes: The country code system started because of a >>>> request from the >>>>>> UK to be able to manage their own DNS hierarchy rather than > >>>> depending >>>>>> on a US-based organization to manage the TLD. The ccTLDs >>>> are US and >>>>>> UK were decided upon (and possibly delegated) before other >>>>>> administrative decisions about ccTLDs were made and "UK" >>>> was what they >>>>>> asked for. >>>>>> >>>>>> FWIW: (1) While RFC 1591 was not published until 1994, it, >>>> for the >>>>>> most part, described thinking and procedures that had had >>>> been in >>>>>> place for years rather than anything of significant that >>>> was novel. >>>>>> (2) YJ Park, whom some of you may know, tried to sort >>>> though all of >>>>>> these issues and history while working on her >>>> dissertation. The >>>>>> search for answers to questions of this type might >>>> reasonably start >>>>>> with her and that dissertation. That should lead to some >>>> context and >>>>>> references even where she does not have exact answers. >>>>>> >>>>>> john >>>>>> >>>>>> _______ >>>>>> internet-history mailing list >>>>>> internet-history at postel.org >>>> >>>>>> http://mailman.postel.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history >>>> >>>>>> Contact list-owner at postel.org >>>> for assistance. >>>>> _______ >>>>> internet-history mailing list >>>>> internet-history at postel.org >>>>> http://mailman.postel.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history > >>>> >>>>> Contact list-owner at postel.org >>>> for assistance. >>>> >>>> _______ >>>> internet-history mailing list >>>> internet-history at postel.org >>>> http://mailman.postel.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history >>>> >>>> Contact list-owner at postel.org >>>> for assistance. >>>> >>>> >>>> > >>>> >>>> -- >>>> Eric >>>> >>>> _______ >>>> internet-history mailing list >>>> internet-history at postel.org >>>> http://mailman.postel.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history >>>> >>>> Contact list-owner at postel.org for >>>> assistance. >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> -- >>>> New postal address: >>>> Google > >>>> 1875 Explorer Street, 10th Floor >>>> Reston, VA 20190 >>>> >>>> >>>> _______ >>>> internet-history mailing list >>>> internet-history at postel.org >>>> http://mailman.postel.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history >>>> Contact list-owner at postel.org for assistance. >>> >>> >>> >>> _______ >>> internet-history mailing list >>> internet-history at postel.org >>> http://mailman.postel.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history >>> Contact list-owner at postel.org for assistance. >> >> >> _______ >> internet-history mailing list >> internet-history at postel.org >> http://mailman.postel.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history >> Contact list-owner at postel.org for assistance. > From lars at nocrew.org Mon Apr 16 22:03:39 2018 From: lars at nocrew.org (Lars Brinkhoff) Date: Tue, 17 Apr 2018 05:03:39 +0000 Subject: [ih] Datacomputer In-Reply-To: <997f90a0-eb6d-2b3f-34a0-49e211df23e7@lisse.na> (Eberhard W. Lisse's message of "Mon, 16 Apr 2018 10:35:29 +0200") References: <7wvacrd0sr.fsf@junk.nocrew.org> <997f90a0-eb6d-2b3f-34a0-49e211df23e7@lisse.na> Message-ID: <7wlgdmbf10.fsf@junk.nocrew.org> Dr Eberhard W Lisse wrote: >> Too bad there's no Datacomputer. > Write an emulator? It's not out of the question. Like the original, it should be running in TENEX of course. There was also client software for SAIL and Multics, amongst others. From lars at nocrew.org Tue Apr 17 04:41:58 2018 From: lars at nocrew.org (Lars Brinkhoff) Date: Tue, 17 Apr 2018 11:41:58 +0000 Subject: [ih] MIT-DMS Arpanet SURVEY program Message-ID: <7wr2ne9i0p.fsf@junk.nocrew.org> Hello, I'm looking for information about the MIT-DMS Arpanet SURVEY program. In particular, I'd be very interested if anyone has any idea where to search for the source code. I have made inquiries to the most obvious place, MIT. I haven't been successful contacting Marc Seriff or Abhay Bhushan. It's decribed in these RFCs: https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc308.txt https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc523.txt https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc530.pdf https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc565.txt And there's even a screenshot of the survey data being displayed here, to the upper left: https://archive.org/stream/seyboldreportonw00medi#page/5/mode/1up We do have source code for HOSTAB, which is the client program used to retrieve this data from MIT-DMS. Best regards, Lars Brinkhoff From lyndon at orthanc.ca Tue Apr 17 17:20:56 2018 From: lyndon at orthanc.ca (Lyndon Nerenberg) Date: Tue, 17 Apr 2018 17:20:56 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ih] .UK vs .GB In-Reply-To: <43A5DF29-F01B-4855-8C91-FD2FECCE797E@webnames.ca> References: <20180413221258.D240B24AA5BB@ary.qy> <2d8e4a92-200a-d0fc-b9a9-12d5d2fa9500@gih.com> <43A5DF29-F01B-4855-8C91-FD2FECCE797E@webnames.ca> Message-ID: > Steve Kille?s X.400 software was called PP, if I recall correctly. The > EAN software came from a team led by Gerald Neufeld at the University of > British Columbia. And the UBC X.400 code tied together "cdnnet" (spelling/punctuation long forgotten), a collection of mostly academic sites in Canada that ran an X.400 mail network over X.25 (and for which UBC contributed quite a bit of code to BSD4.[23] as I remember). X.25 was a big thing in Canada throughout the 1980s and early-to-mid 1990s, in the form of the Datapac network, run by the ILECs of the day. There was a semi-serious conversation in the mid-latter 1980s about whether the TLD for Canada might be '.cdn', since that was what the X.400 mail network used to flag its participant's addresses (ala .bitnet) in the ARPA/Usenet world. --lyndon From julf at julf.com Wed Apr 18 03:21:46 2018 From: julf at julf.com (Johan Helsingius) Date: Wed, 18 Apr 2018 12:21:46 +0200 Subject: [ih] .UK vs .GB In-Reply-To: <43A5DF29-F01B-4855-8C91-FD2FECCE797E@webnames.ca> References: <20180413221258.D240B24AA5BB@ary.qy> <2d8e4a92-200a-d0fc-b9a9-12d5d2fa9500@gih.com> <43A5DF29-F01B-4855-8C91-FD2FECCE797E@webnames.ca> Message-ID: <7e84898c-6dc4-ab6a-dae2-582991c5d6ff@julf.com> On 16-04-18 09:50, John Demco wrote: > Steve Kille?s X.400 software was called PP, if I recall correctly. And if I remember correctly, the "PP" stood for "Postman Pat". Julf From julf at julf.com Wed Apr 18 03:34:20 2018 From: julf at julf.com (Johan Helsingius) Date: Wed, 18 Apr 2018 12:34:20 +0200 Subject: [ih] .UK vs .GB In-Reply-To: <7c21e4d8-7d7d-2821-643e-b57d52001e8f@gih.com> References: <20180413221258.D240B24AA5BB@ary.qy> <7BD4DD68-9051-4601-B0BC-393E6162C6B7@frobbit.se> <7c21e4d8-7d7d-2821-643e-b57d52001e8f@gih.com> Message-ID: On 15-04-18 02:18, Olivier MJ Cr?pin-Leblond wrote: > I know we're all laughing about this now, but back then it was no > laughing matter. JANET was running no CCITT W series recommendations and > the policy Europe-wide was to promote X.25 and of course move to X.400 > So all the way until the early nineties (1992?) we were told that the > way forward was to get our house systems in order to send/receive X.400 > emails. I am pretty sure Daniel Karrenberg still has a copy of the EUnet X.400 transition plan that he wrote, fully well knowing it would never be used... Julf From vint at google.com Wed Apr 18 13:38:23 2018 From: vint at google.com (Vint Cerf) Date: Wed, 18 Apr 2018 16:38:23 -0400 Subject: [ih] Fwd: Bob Braden has passed away Message-ID: ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Terry Benzel Date: Wed, Apr 18, 2018 at 3:07 PM Subject: Bob Braden To: Vint Cerf Cc: Terry Benzel I am writing to let you know the sad news that Bob Braden died . As you know he was in failing health. He got very sick with pneumonia and died quickly. At the moment I do not know anything about memorial service. I am in touch with his wife Jean and son David. Terry Benzel Director Networking and Cybersecurity Division Information Sciences Institute University of Southern California This is truly terrible news. With Bob Braden's passing, the three giants of the RFCs have left our midst: Jon Postel, then Joyce Reynolds and now Bob Braden. Bob was a legendary contributor to the early ARPANET Host-Host protocols for the IBM 360 machines and to TCP/IP early in its development. Bob and Joyce became indistinguishable stewards of the RFCs with Jon Postel passing. I always found Bob's thoughtful opinions clarifying and constructive. His Host Requirements series was a seminal contribution in my opinion (see RFC 1122 et seq). See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Braden I will miss his self-deprecating and wry sense of humor and his occasional outbursts of disdain for rank stupidity. Really, there was something ultimately satisfying hearing Bob take apart some piece of particular ineptness in our technical community. Ever willing to work on behalf of the Internet community in which he was such a long time dweller, Bob earned my highest esteem and appreciation. I will miss him greatly but his work is a true monument to dedication and will long be remembered and admired. vint cerf -- New postal address: Google 1875 Explorer Street, 10th Floor Reston, VA 20190 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bob.hinden at gmail.com Wed Apr 18 14:00:16 2018 From: bob.hinden at gmail.com (Bob Hinden) Date: Wed, 18 Apr 2018 14:00:16 -0700 Subject: [ih] Fwd: Bob Braden has passed away In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Vint, Terrible sad news. I had no idea he wasn?t well. I will miss him. Bob > On Apr 18, 2018, at 13:38, Vint Cerf wrote: > > > ---------- Forwarded message ---------- > From: Terry Benzel > Date: Wed, Apr 18, 2018 at 3:07 PM > Subject: Bob Braden > To: Vint Cerf > Cc: Terry Benzel > > > I am writing to let you know the sad news that Bob Braden died . As you know he was in failing health. He got very sick with pneumonia and died quickly. > > At the moment I do not know anything about memorial service. I am in touch with his wife Jean and son David. > > Terry Benzel > Director Networking and Cybersecurity Division > Information Sciences Institute > University of Southern California > > > This is truly terrible news. With Bob Braden's passing, the three giants of the RFCs have left our midst: Jon Postel, then Joyce Reynolds and now Bob Braden. > > Bob was a legendary contributor to the early ARPANET Host-Host protocols for the IBM 360 machines and to TCP/IP early in its development. Bob and Joyce became indistinguishable stewards of the RFCs with Jon Postel passing. I always found Bob's thoughtful opinions clarifying and constructive. His Host Requirements series was a seminal contribution in my opinion > (see RFC 1122 et seq). > > See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Braden > > I will miss his self-deprecating and wry sense of humor and his occasional outbursts of disdain for rank stupidity. Really, there was something ultimately satisfying hearing Bob take apart some piece of particular ineptness in our technical community. Ever willing to work on behalf of the Internet community in which he was such a long time dweller, Bob earned my highest esteem and appreciation. I will miss him greatly but his work is a true monument to dedication and will long be remembered and admired. > > vint cerf > > > > -- > New postal address: > Google > 1875 Explorer Street, 10th Floor > Reston, VA 20190 > _______ > internet-history mailing list > internet-history at postel.org > http://mailman.postel.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history > Contact list-owner at postel.org for assistance. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From brian.e.carpenter at gmail.com Wed Apr 18 14:08:26 2018 From: brian.e.carpenter at gmail.com (Brian E Carpenter) Date: Thu, 19 Apr 2018 09:08:26 +1200 Subject: [ih] Fwd: Bob Braden has passed away In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <15d55a24-9a7f-fbe7-caf7-8a003c5aac24@gmail.com> Very sad. He was indeed a man of wise counsel. Regards Brian Carpenter On 19/04/2018 08:38, Vint Cerf wrote: > ---------- Forwarded message ---------- > From: Terry Benzel > Date: Wed, Apr 18, 2018 at 3:07 PM > Subject: Bob Braden > To: Vint Cerf > Cc: Terry Benzel > > > I am writing to let you know the sad news that Bob Braden died . As you > know he was in failing health. He got very sick with pneumonia and died > quickly. > > At the moment I do not know anything about memorial service. I am in touch > with his wife Jean and son David. > > Terry Benzel > Director Networking and Cybersecurity Division > Information Sciences Institute > University of Southern California > > > This is truly terrible news. With Bob Braden's passing, the three giants of > the RFCs have left our midst: Jon Postel, then Joyce Reynolds and now Bob > Braden. > > Bob was a legendary contributor to the early ARPANET Host-Host protocols > for the IBM 360 machines and to TCP/IP early in its development. Bob and > Joyce became indistinguishable stewards of the RFCs with Jon Postel > passing. I always found Bob's thoughtful opinions clarifying and > constructive. His Host Requirements series was a seminal contribution in my > opinion > (see RFC 1122 et seq). > > See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Braden > > I will miss his self-deprecating and wry sense of humor and his occasional > outbursts of disdain for rank stupidity. Really, there was something > ultimately satisfying hearing Bob take apart some piece of particular > ineptness in our technical community. Ever willing to work on behalf of the > Internet community in which he was such a long time dweller, Bob earned my > highest esteem and appreciation. I will miss him greatly but his work is a > true monument to dedication and will long be remembered and admired. > > vint cerf > > > > > > _______ > internet-history mailing list > internet-history at postel.org > http://mailman.postel.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history > Contact list-owner at postel.org for assistance. > From casner at acm.org Wed Apr 18 14:49:29 2018 From: casner at acm.org (Stephen Casner) Date: Wed, 18 Apr 2018 14:49:29 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ih] Fwd: Bob Braden has passed away In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: When I remotely watched Bob's retirement celebration at ISI, I observed that he looked much older than I remembered. I did not realize that his health had declined. The old guard is slipping away. This is indeed sad. -- Steve On Wed, 18 Apr 2018, Vint Cerf wrote: > ---------- Forwarded message ---------- > From: Terry Benzel > Date: Wed, Apr 18, 2018 at 3:07 PM > Subject: Bob Braden > To: Vint Cerf > Cc: Terry Benzel > > > I am writing to let you know the sad news that Bob Braden died . As you > know he was in failing health. He got very sick with pneumonia and died > quickly. > > At the moment I do not know anything about memorial service. I am in touch > with his wife Jean and son David. > > Terry Benzel > Director Networking and Cybersecurity Division > Information Sciences Institute > University of Southern California > > > This is truly terrible news. With Bob Braden's passing, the three giants of > the RFCs have left our midst: Jon Postel, then Joyce Reynolds and now Bob > Braden. > > Bob was a legendary contributor to the early ARPANET Host-Host protocols > for the IBM 360 machines and to TCP/IP early in its development. Bob and > Joyce became indistinguishable stewards of the RFCs with Jon Postel > passing. I always found Bob's thoughtful opinions clarifying and > constructive. His Host Requirements series was a seminal contribution in my > opinion > (see RFC 1122 et seq). > > See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Braden > > I will miss his self-deprecating and wry sense of humor and his occasional > outbursts of disdain for rank stupidity. Really, there was something > ultimately satisfying hearing Bob take apart some piece of particular > ineptness in our technical community. Ever willing to work on behalf of the > Internet community in which he was such a long time dweller, Bob earned my > highest esteem and appreciation. I will miss him greatly but his work is a > true monument to dedication and will long be remembered and admired. > > vint cerf > > > > -- > New postal address: > Google > 1875 Explorer Street, 10th Floor > Reston, VA 20190 > From paf at frobbit.se Wed Apr 18 20:52:32 2018 From: paf at frobbit.se (Patrik =?utf-8?b?RsOkbHRzdHLDtm0=?=) Date: Thu, 19 Apr 2018 05:52:32 +0200 Subject: [ih] Bob Braden has passed away In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Oh! As Stephen wrote: "The old guard is slipping away". The ISOC text about him and Joyce receiving the Jon Postel award comes into mind: Patrik On 18 Apr 2018, at 22:38, Vint Cerf wrote: > ---------- Forwarded message ---------- > From: Terry Benzel > Date: Wed, Apr 18, 2018 at 3:07 PM > Subject: Bob Braden > To: Vint Cerf > Cc: Terry Benzel > > > I am writing to let you know the sad news that Bob Braden died . As you know he was in failing health. He got very sick with pneumonia and died quickly. > > At the moment I do not know anything about memorial service. I am in touch with his wife Jean and son David. > > Terry Benzel > Director Networking and Cybersecurity Division > Information Sciences Institute > University of Southern California > > > This is truly terrible news. With Bob Braden's passing, the three giants of the RFCs have left our midst: Jon Postel, then Joyce Reynolds and now Bob Braden. > > Bob was a legendary contributor to the early ARPANET Host-Host protocols for the IBM 360 machines and to TCP/IP early in its development. Bob and Joyce became indistinguishable stewards of the RFCs with Jon Postel passing. I always found Bob's thoughtful opinions clarifying and constructive. His Host Requirements series was a seminal contribution in my opinion > (see RFC 1122 et seq). > > See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Braden > > I will miss his self-deprecating and wry sense of humor and his occasional outbursts of disdain for rank stupidity. Really, there was something ultimately satisfying hearing Bob take apart some piece of particular ineptness in our technical community. Ever willing to work on behalf of the Internet community in which he was such a long time dweller, Bob earned my highest esteem and appreciation. I will miss him greatly but his work is a true monument to dedication and will long be remembered and admired. > > vint cerf > > > > -- > New postal address: > Google > 1875 Explorer Street, 10th Floor > Reston, VA 20190 > > _______ > internet-history mailing list > internet-history at postel.org > http://mailman.postel.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history > Contact list-owner at postel.org for assistance. -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 256 bytes Desc: OpenPGP digital signature URL: From dot at dotat.at Thu Apr 19 02:44:36 2018 From: dot at dotat.at (Tony Finch) Date: Thu, 19 Apr 2018 10:44:36 +0100 Subject: [ih] .UK vs .GB In-Reply-To: <7e84898c-6dc4-ab6a-dae2-582991c5d6ff@julf.com> References: <20180413221258.D240B24AA5BB@ary.qy> <2d8e4a92-200a-d0fc-b9a9-12d5d2fa9500@gih.com> <43A5DF29-F01B-4855-8C91-FD2FECCE797E@webnames.ca> <7e84898c-6dc4-ab6a-dae2-582991c5d6ff@julf.com> Message-ID: Johan Helsingius wrote: > > And if I remember correctly, the "PP" stood for "Postman Pat". You made me open the binder to find the exact quote :-) http://mailman.postel.org/pipermail/internet-history/2018-April/004566.html PP 5.0 manual, section 1.4 Etymology > PP is not an acronym, There is no truth in the rumour that PP stands for > "Postman Pat" -- a famous British postman. Tony. -- f.anthony.n.finch http://dotat.at/ Faeroes, East Southeast Iceland: Cyclonic, mainly southwesterly, 7 to severe gale 9, becoming southerly or southwesterly 5 to 7. Rough or very rough. Rain or showers. Good, occasionally poor. From scott.brim at gmail.com Thu Apr 19 03:34:12 2018 From: scott.brim at gmail.com (Scott Brim) Date: Thu, 19 Apr 2018 10:34:12 +0000 Subject: [ih] Fwd: Bob Braden has passed away In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I've been thinking about him since I heard yesterday. I hadn't seen him in about ten years and I would have loved to hear (again) what he thought of the state of the Internet. Thinking of Bob reminds me how much things have changed since Host Requirements. Scott -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From wayne at playaholic.com Thu Apr 19 08:25:07 2018 From: wayne at playaholic.com (Wayne Hathaway) Date: Thu, 19 Apr 2018 11:25:07 -0400 Subject: [ih] Bob Braden has passed away In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <201804191525.w3JFP7fE011469@mail72c28.carrierzone.com> Having only been involved with ARPANET for a decade or so and mostly confined to the IBM world, my interactions with most on this list were few. But Bob was one major exception, and I daresay without his advice, counseling, and friendship, I doubt I would have done anything at all. I know we are all heading to the same ending, but somehow it's still a shock when it happens to someone so important to you. Bob, you are missed, but we are all richer because you shared what time you had with us. Thank you so much. Wayne Hathaway then wayne at ames-67 now wayne at playaholic.com From paul at redbarn.org Thu Apr 19 10:16:12 2018 From: paul at redbarn.org (Paul Vixie) Date: Thu, 19 Apr 2018 10:16:12 -0700 Subject: [ih] Bob Braden has passed away In-Reply-To: <201804191525.w3JFP7fE011469@mail72c28.carrierzone.com> References: <201804191525.w3JFP7fE011469@mail72c28.carrierzone.com> Message-ID: <5AD8CEDC.3090905@redbarn.org> i feel sure that bob did not intentionally live as an example to others, but he did anyway, for me. From jmamodio at gmail.com Thu Apr 19 10:21:58 2018 From: jmamodio at gmail.com (Jorge Amodio) Date: Thu, 19 Apr 2018 12:21:58 -0500 Subject: [ih] Fwd: Bob Braden has passed away In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I posted it on a FB comment, I believe we should nominate Bob as a posthumous Inductee to the ISOC Internet Hall of Fame. My .02 Regards Jorge On Wed, Apr 18, 2018 at 3:38 PM, Vint Cerf wrote: > > ---------- Forwarded message ---------- > From: Terry Benzel > Date: Wed, Apr 18, 2018 at 3:07 PM > Subject: Bob Braden > To: Vint Cerf > Cc: Terry Benzel > > > I am writing to let you know the sad news that Bob Braden died . As you > know he was in failing health. He got very sick with pneumonia and died > quickly. > > At the moment I do not know anything about memorial service. I am in touch > with his wife Jean and son David. > > Terry Benzel > Director Networking and Cybersecurity Division > Information Sciences Institute > University of Southern California > > > This is truly terrible news. With Bob Braden's passing, the three giants > of the RFCs have left our midst: Jon Postel, then Joyce Reynolds and now > Bob Braden. > > Bob was a legendary contributor to the early ARPANET Host-Host protocols > for the IBM 360 machines and to TCP/IP early in its development. Bob and > Joyce became indistinguishable stewards of the RFCs with Jon Postel > passing. I always found Bob's thoughtful opinions clarifying and > constructive. His Host Requirements series was a seminal contribution in my > opinion > (see RFC 1122 et seq). > > See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Braden > > I will miss his self-deprecating and wry sense of humor and his occasional > outbursts of disdain for rank stupidity. Really, there was something > ultimately satisfying hearing Bob take apart some piece of particular > ineptness in our technical community. Ever willing to work on behalf of the > Internet community in which he was such a long time dweller, Bob earned my > highest esteem and appreciation. I will miss him greatly but his work is a > true monument to dedication and will long be remembered and admired. > > vint cerf > > > > -- > New postal address: > Google > 1875 Explorer Street, 10th Floor > Reston, VA 20190 > > _______ > internet-history mailing list > internet-history at postel.org > http://mailman.postel.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history > Contact list-owner at postel.org for assistance. > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From vint at google.com Thu Apr 19 12:42:46 2018 From: vint at google.com (Vint Cerf) Date: Thu, 19 Apr 2018 15:42:46 -0400 Subject: [ih] Bob Braden has passed away In-Reply-To: <5AD8CEDC.3090905@redbarn.org> References: <201804191525.w3JFP7fE011469@mail72c28.carrierzone.com> <5AD8CEDC.3090905@redbarn.org> Message-ID: that is so for many of us, Paul. v On Thu, Apr 19, 2018 at 1:16 PM, Paul Vixie wrote: > i feel sure that bob did not intentionally live as an example to others, > but he did anyway, for me. > _______ > internet-history mailing list > internet-history at postel.org > http://mailman.postel.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history > Contact list-owner at postel.org for assistance. > -- New postal address: Google 1875 Explorer Street, 10th Floor Reston, VA 20190 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From julf at julf.com Mon Apr 23 12:32:11 2018 From: julf at julf.com (Johan Helsingius) Date: Mon, 23 Apr 2018 21:32:11 +0200 Subject: [ih] .UK vs .GB In-Reply-To: References: <20180413221258.D240B24AA5BB@ary.qy> <2d8e4a92-200a-d0fc-b9a9-12d5d2fa9500@gih.com> <43A5DF29-F01B-4855-8C91-FD2FECCE797E@webnames.ca> <7e84898c-6dc4-ab6a-dae2-582991c5d6ff@julf.com> Message-ID: Thanks, Tony - I stand corrected :) Julf On 19-04-18 11:44, Tony Finch wrote: > Johan Helsingius wrote: >> >> And if I remember correctly, the "PP" stood for "Postman Pat". > > You made me open the binder to find the exact quote :-) > http://mailman.postel.org/pipermail/internet-history/2018-April/004566.html > > PP 5.0 manual, section 1.4 Etymology > >> PP is not an acronym, There is no truth in the rumour that PP stands for >> "Postman Pat" -- a famous British postman. > > Tony. > From vint at google.com Thu Apr 26 23:23:44 2018 From: vint at google.com (Vint Cerf) Date: Fri, 27 Apr 2018 06:23:44 +0000 Subject: [ih] Fwd: Bob Braden In-Reply-To: <62B5DD4F-47A6-4F0B-A760-9946CA622718@isi.edu> References: <62B5DD4F-47A6-4F0B-A760-9946CA622718@isi.edu> Message-ID: ---------- Forwarded message --------- From: Terry Benzel Date: Fri, Apr 27, 2018, 01:46 Subject: Re: Bob Braden To: Vint Cerf Vint It has been a sad week. We put up an article on the ISI web site and have been in touch with the family. You can reach Jean at jwyatt at oxy.edu, David at dpbraden at gmail.com and Tom through Tom?s at braden at math.umass.edu. Terry Benzel On Apr 18, 2018, at 1:27 PM, Vint Cerf wrote: THAT IS TERRIBLE NEWS, TERRY :-(((((((((( I am so grateful to you for letting me know. I will put up on the internet-history list. Please put me in touch with Jean and son David - just ask if they will receive communications from old friends. vint On Wed, Apr 18, 2018 at 3:07 PM, Terry Benzel wrote: > I am writing to let you know the sad news that Bob Braden died . As you > know he was in failing health. He got very sick with pneumonia and died > quickly. > > At the moment I do not know anything about memorial service. I am in touch > with his wife Jean and son David. > > Terry Benzel > Director Networking and Cybersecurity Division > Information Sciences Institute > University of Southern California -- New postal address: Google 1875 Explorer Street, 10th Floor Reston, VA 20190 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From vint at google.com Sat Apr 28 19:53:25 2018 From: vint at google.com (Vint Cerf) Date: Sat, 28 Apr 2018 22:53:25 -0400 Subject: [ih] Fwd: Video of Barry's funeral service In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I have permission from Marilyn Wessler to share the video of Barry Wessler's memorial celebration. For those of you involved in the ARPANET period, Barry was a key player as deputy to Larry Roberts. Most especially, Barry cooked up the graduate student meetings (minus the Principal Investigators) and that led to friendships that have lasted for decades). Vint ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Marilyn Wessler Date: Sat, Apr 28, 2018 at 4:34 PM Subject: Video of Barry's funeral service To: Dear Friends and Family, If you were unable to attend the funeral and would like to see the streamed video, it is available at the following link. Please enter the password as written below. URL: https://totalwebcasting.com/view/?func=VOFF&id=whc&date= 2018-04-15&seq=2 Password: Wessler2018 Sending love, Marilyn -- New postal address: Google 1875 Explorer Street, 10th Floor Reston, VA 20190 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From joly at punkcast.com Sun Apr 29 13:55:26 2018 From: joly at punkcast.com (Joly MacFie) Date: Sun, 29 Apr 2018 16:55:26 -0400 Subject: [ih] Fwd: Video of Barry's funeral service In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Presumably this was just live video. Link is dead now, On Sat, Apr 28, 2018 at 10:53 PM, Vint Cerf wrote: > I have permission from Marilyn Wessler to share the video of Barry > Wessler's memorial celebration. For those of you involved in the ARPANET > period, Barry was a key player as deputy to Larry Roberts. Most especially, > Barry cooked up the graduate student meetings (minus the Principal > Investigators) and that led to friendships that have lasted for decades). > > Vint > > ---------- Forwarded message ---------- > From: Marilyn Wessler > Date: Sat, Apr 28, 2018 at 4:34 PM > Subject: Video of Barry's funeral service > To: > > > Dear Friends and Family, > > If you were unable to attend the funeral and would like to see the > streamed video, it is available at the following link. Please enter the > password as written below. > > URL: https://totalwebcasting.com/view/?func=VOFF&id=whc&date=2018 > -04-15&seq=2 > Password: Wessler2018 > > Sending love, > Marilyn > > > > > > -- > New postal address: > Google > 1875 Explorer Street, 10th Floor > Reston, VA 20190 > > _______ > internet-history mailing list > internet-history at postel.org > http://mailman.postel.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history > Contact list-owner at postel.org for assistance. > > -- --------------------------------------------------------------- Joly MacFie 218 565 9365 Skype:punkcast -------------------------------------------------------------- - -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From vint at google.com Sun Apr 29 17:49:41 2018 From: vint at google.com (Vint Cerf) Date: Sun, 29 Apr 2018 20:49:41 -0400 Subject: [ih] Fwd: Video of Barry's funeral service In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: i didn't test it - let me double check with Marilyn. v On Sun, Apr 29, 2018 at 4:55 PM, Joly MacFie wrote: > Presumably this was just live video. Link is dead now, > > > > On Sat, Apr 28, 2018 at 10:53 PM, Vint Cerf wrote: > >> I have permission from Marilyn Wessler to share the video of Barry >> Wessler's memorial celebration. For those of you involved in the ARPANET >> period, Barry was a key player as deputy to Larry Roberts. Most especially, >> Barry cooked up the graduate student meetings (minus the Principal >> Investigators) and that led to friendships that have lasted for decades). >> >> Vint >> >> ---------- Forwarded message ---------- >> From: Marilyn Wessler >> Date: Sat, Apr 28, 2018 at 4:34 PM >> Subject: Video of Barry's funeral service >> To: >> >> >> Dear Friends and Family, >> >> If you were unable to attend the funeral and would like to see the >> streamed video, it is available at the following link. Please enter the >> password as written below. >> >> URL: https://totalwebcasting.com/view/?func=VOFF&id=whc&date=2018 >> -04-15&seq=2 >> Password: Wessler2018 >> >> Sending love, >> Marilyn >> >> >> >> >> >> -- >> New postal address: >> Google >> 1875 Explorer Street, 10th Floor >> >> Reston, VA 20190 >> >> >> _______ >> internet-history mailing list >> internet-history at postel.org >> http://mailman.postel.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history >> Contact list-owner at postel.org for assistance. >> >> > > > -- > --------------------------------------------------------------- > Joly MacFie 218 565 9365 Skype:punkcast > -------------------------------------------------------------- > - > -- New postal address: Google 1875 Explorer Street, 10th Floor Reston, VA 20190 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From vint at google.com Sun Apr 29 17:50:57 2018 From: vint at google.com (Vint Cerf) Date: Sun, 29 Apr 2018 20:50:57 -0400 Subject: [ih] Fwd: Video of Barry's funeral service In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: just tried it - it works - password protected. don't know why it was dead for you?? v On Sun, Apr 29, 2018 at 8:49 PM, Vint Cerf wrote: > i didn't test it - let me double check with Marilyn. > > v > > > On Sun, Apr 29, 2018 at 4:55 PM, Joly MacFie wrote: > >> Presumably this was just live video. Link is dead now, >> >> >> >> On Sat, Apr 28, 2018 at 10:53 PM, Vint Cerf wrote: >> >>> I have permission from Marilyn Wessler to share the video of Barry >>> Wessler's memorial celebration. For those of you involved in the ARPANET >>> period, Barry was a key player as deputy to Larry Roberts. Most especially, >>> Barry cooked up the graduate student meetings (minus the Principal >>> Investigators) and that led to friendships that have lasted for decades). >>> >>> Vint >>> >>> ---------- Forwarded message ---------- >>> From: Marilyn Wessler >>> Date: Sat, Apr 28, 2018 at 4:34 PM >>> Subject: Video of Barry's funeral service >>> To: >>> >>> >>> Dear Friends and Family, >>> >>> If you were unable to attend the funeral and would like to see the >>> streamed video, it is available at the following link. Please enter the >>> password as written below. >>> >>> URL: https://totalwebcasting.com/view/?func=VOFF&id=whc&date=2018 >>> -04-15&seq=2 >>> Password: Wessler2018 >>> >>> Sending love, >>> Marilyn >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> -- >>> New postal address: >>> Google >>> 1875 Explorer Street, 10th Floor >>> >>> Reston, VA 20190 >>> >>> >>> _______ >>> internet-history mailing list >>> internet-history at postel.org >>> http://mailman.postel.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history >>> Contact list-owner at postel.org for assistance. >>> >>> >> >> >> -- >> --------------------------------------------------------------- >> Joly MacFie 218 565 9365 Skype:punkcast >> -------------------------------------------------------------- >> - >> > > > > -- > New postal address: > Google > 1875 Explorer Street, 10th Floor > Reston, VA 20190 > -- New postal address: Google 1875 Explorer Street, 10th Floor Reston, VA 20190 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From joly at punkcast.com Sun Apr 29 18:18:42 2018 From: joly at punkcast.com (Joly MacFie) Date: Sun, 29 Apr 2018 21:18:42 -0400 Subject: [ih] Fwd: Video of Barry's funeral service In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Now works. Must have been a temporary outage. On Sun, Apr 29, 2018 at 8:50 PM, Vint Cerf wrote: > just tried it - it works - password protected. don't know why it was dead > for you?? > > v > > > On Sun, Apr 29, 2018 at 8:49 PM, Vint Cerf wrote: > >> i didn't test it - let me double check with Marilyn. >> >> v >> >> >> On Sun, Apr 29, 2018 at 4:55 PM, Joly MacFie wrote: >> >>> Presumably this was just live video. Link is dead now, >>> >>> >>> >>> On Sat, Apr 28, 2018 at 10:53 PM, Vint Cerf wrote: >>> >>>> I have permission from Marilyn Wessler to share the video of Barry >>>> Wessler's memorial celebration. For those of you involved in the ARPANET >>>> period, Barry was a key player as deputy to Larry Roberts. Most especially, >>>> Barry cooked up the graduate student meetings (minus the Principal >>>> Investigators) and that led to friendships that have lasted for decades). >>>> >>>> Vint >>>> >>>> ---------- Forwarded message ---------- >>>> From: Marilyn Wessler >>>> Date: Sat, Apr 28, 2018 at 4:34 PM >>>> Subject: Video of Barry's funeral service >>>> To: >>>> >>>> >>>> Dear Friends and Family, >>>> >>>> If you were unable to attend the funeral and would like to see the >>>> streamed video, it is available at the following link. Please enter the >>>> password as written below. >>>> >>>> URL: https://totalwebcasting.com/view/?func=VOFF&id=whc&date=2018 >>>> -04-15&seq=2 >>>> Password: Wessler2018 >>>> >>>> Sending love, >>>> Marilyn >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> -- >>>> New postal address: >>>> Google >>>> 1875 Explorer Street, 10th Floor >>>> >>>> Reston, VA 20190 >>>> >>>> >>>> _______ >>>> internet-history mailing list >>>> internet-history at postel.org >>>> http://mailman.postel.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history >>>> Contact list-owner at postel.org for assistance. >>>> >>>> >>> >>> >>> -- >>> --------------------------------------------------------------- >>> Joly MacFie 218 565 9365 Skype:punkcast >>> -------------------------------------------------------------- >>> - >>> >> >> >> >> -- >> New postal address: >> Google >> 1875 Explorer Street, 10th Floor >> >> Reston, VA 20190 >> >> > > > > -- > New postal address: > Google > 1875 Explorer Street, 10th Floor > > Reston, VA 20190 > > -- --------------------------------------------------------------- Joly MacFie 218 565 9365 Skype:punkcast -------------------------------------------------------------- - -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... 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