[ih] 'Internet' vs 'internet'

[Toerless Eckert]

IMHO it does not make sense at all to talk about the "Internet" as
a scientific/technical term (as opposed to pure marketing) unless
someone provides an agreed upon definition. The absence of a clear
definition ha always annoyed me.

I like the idea of defining "The Internet" as the set of IP hosts
that are "on the Internet" and the transit infraatructure
connecting them. Its also fine to add to such a document
definitions for "access to the Internet" such as via NAT,
application layer gateways or the like. Those add-on terms wouldn't
be so important and probably harder to categorize given all the
variety of constraints vs. being "on the Internet".

Why has nobody tried to revisit that subject in an RFC after rfc1775 ?
None of the discussion points on this thread seem to be blockers
but IMHO easily aligned. So i wonder whats the big blocker.
Just nobody who cares enough about precise terminology ?

Cheers
    Toerless

On Thu, Oct 04, 2018 at 05:40:40PM -0700, Joe Touch wrote:
> 
> 
> > On Oct 4, 2018, at 11:22 AM, Jack Haverty <jack at 3kitty.org> wrote:
> > 
> > Hi Joe,
> > 
> > Your criteria are a good description of what, IIRC, it meant to "be on
> > the Internet" back in the 80s.  But today, I suspect the vast majority
> > of people who think their computers/phones/devices are "on the Internet"
> > wouldn't meet one or more of the criteria.  So they must be all on
> > something else, if not the Internet?
> 
> Lots of people use airplanes to get access to goods without traveling on an airplane themselves. 
> 
> The same is true here. There???s a distinct difference between ???access to Internet information??? and ???Internet access???. The latter allows users to run their own servers; the former is dependent on a ???distilled??? product only.
> 
> > 
> > Meanings of words are determined by how people use them.   I think "the
> > Internet" changed meanings long ago, and continues to change.
> > 
> 
> Agreed, but lots of people learned the difference between AOL and Internet access too, One was distilled services presented through a specific interface; the other is extensible based on agreement of the endpoints. If we value that latter principle, we need to encourage the most complete Internet access we can - that???s partly what net neutrality is all about.
> 
> Joe
> 
> > /Jack
> > 
> > 
> > On 10/04/2018 07:33 AM, Joe Touch wrote:
> >> 
> >> 
> >>> On Oct 3, 2018, at 12:12 PM, Jack Haverty <jack at 3kitty.org
> >>> <mailto:jack at 3kitty.org>> wrote:
> >>> 
> >>> ...
> >>> 
> >>> At Oracle, we had our own world-wide internet, and assigned our own IP
> >>> addresses, regardless of whether or not the particular number was in use
> >>> in the public Internet.  But we were connected to the Internet through
> >>> computers which were dual-homed, and thus could receive email, use FTP,
> >>> etc. as needed. We could interact with the obvious players, e.g.,
> >>> Yahoo!, but also with computers inside our customers' private internets.
> >> 
> >> I would call that ???accessing Internet content???, but definitely NOT being
> >> ???on the Internet??? (note: I appreciate this also applies to nearly all
> >> consumer access because of NATs).
> >> 
> >> Being ???on the Internet??? IMO has minimum requirements; I presented these
> >> as candidate requirements at a meeting in 2004:
> >> 
> >> Internet User ???Bill of Rights"
> >> 
> >> The Internet is an association of communicating parties. Consenting
> >> parties should be able to communicate in an unrestricted fashion,
> >> insofar as they do not impinge on the corresponding rights of other
> >> parties. The following is a list of specific rights to that end:
> >> 
> >> 1. REAL IP: Users have the right to a real IP address, routable from
> >> anywhere on the Internet.
> >> 
> >> 2. REAL DNS (& REVERSE-DNS): Users have the right to a valid reverse DNS
> >> name for that IP address, and the forward lookup of that name that
> >> matches that address.
> >> 
> >> 3. RECEIVE ANY: Users have the right to receive any valid IP packet,
> >> using any valid transport protocol on any valid port (if applicable), up
> >> to the limits of their local resources and network connection.
> >> 
> >> 4. SEND ANY: Users have the right to send any valid IP packet to any
> >> valid real IP address, using any transport protocol, on any valid port
> >> (if applicable), provided it uses an inconsequential amount of resources
> >> of the network and potential receiver until mutual consent is established.
> >> 
> >> 5. ENFORCEMENT: Users have the right to know the ISP responsible for
> >> traffic from any valid IP address, sufficient to register a complaint
> >> regarding violations of any of these rules. 
> >> 
> >> ??????
> >> Everything else is, at best, access to Internet *information* but
> >> undermines the ability to participate directly in Internet protocols
> >> themselves. That???s sort of like saying you can watch TV, but only from
> >> still photos taken across the street through a smudged window.
> >> 
> >> Calling that ???the Internet??? isn???t evolution of terms to common usage.
> >> It???s misleading advertising.
> >> 
> >> Joe
> >> 
> 

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