[ih] inter-network communication history

[Dave Crocker]

On 11/6/2019 4:08 PM, Jack Haverty wrote:
> The flaw in my definition of computers talking to computers comes from
> the tweaks added to the technology well after TCP/IP itself -- things
> like firewalls, port forwarding, NAT, et al.  When I worked at Oracle,
> we ran our own internet, which had thousands of computers attached that
> could all talk to each other.  But only one of them could talk out to
> the rest of the world.


Here I'll disagree.  Nothing about those additional components gets in 
the way of your definition.  (That's written as an small, implicit pun.)

In spite of the changes those components effect, the computers at the 
end points still interoperate, which is what your language specifies.

As for the Oracle example, I'll suggest that it merely demonstrates that 
'the' Internet includes other internets, and that while true, I don't 
offer it as much of an insight.

As for the strong reactions Internet architecture purists have about 
these additional components, mostly it seems to stem from a failure to 
appreciate the operational importance of administrative boundaries.  For 
some reason, we think it fine to have those when doing global routing, 
but not for other aspects of transit data processing, in spite of the 
continuing and pervasive demonstration of their need.

I'm never any good at attributing quotations or getting their wording 
right, but there was long ago an observation that a law, which is 
violated by a large percentage of the population, is not a very good 
law.  The same logic applies to architectural purity criticisms of NATs, 
etc.

d/

-- 
Dave Crocker
Brandenburg InternetWorking
bbiw.net