[ih] Internet-history Digest, Vol 11, Issue 2
Jay Hauben
hauben at columbia.edu
Fri Aug 7 18:45:19 PDT 2020
https://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-history/cyberspace/todays-internet-still-relies-on-an-arpanetera-protocol-the-request-for-comments
Might you want to send this link to Sage?
Jay
On Fri, Aug 7, 2020 at 6:50 PM <internet-history-request at elists.isoc.org>
wrote:
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> Today's Topics:
>
> 1. Today?s Internet Still Relies on an ARPANET-Era Protocol: The
> Request for Comments (Steve Crocker)
> (the keyboard of geoff goodfellow)
> 2. Re: Today?s Internet Still Relies on an ARPANET-Era
> Protocol: The Request for Comments (Steve Crocker) (Jack Haverty)
> 3. Re: Today?s Internet Still Relies on an ARPANET-Era
> Protocol: The Request for Comments (Steve Crocker) (Vint Cerf)
> 4. Re: Today?s Internet Still Relies on an ARPANET-Era
> Protocol: The Request for Comments (Steve Crocker) (Dave Crocker)
> 5. Re: Today?s Internet Still Relies on an ARPANET-Era
> Protocol: The Request for Comments (Steve Crocker) (Dave Crocker)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Fri, 7 Aug 2020 11:52:56 -1000
> From: the keyboard of geoff goodfellow <geoff at iconia.com>
> To: Internet-history <internet-history at elists.isoc.org>
> Subject: [ih] Today?s Internet Still Relies on an ARPANET-Era
> Protocol: The Request for Comments (Steve Crocker)
> Message-ID:
> <
> CAEf-zrix+kVN-0OEPEqLZJbKLqLSH97rhZDSSNYMpTCxVXJBZg at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"
>
> *The RFC may be the ARPANET?s most enduring legacy*
> EXCERPT:
>
> Each March, July, and November, we are reminded that the Internet is not
> quite the mature, stable technology that it seems to be. We rely on the
> Internet as an essential tool for our economic, social, educational, and
> political lives. But when the Internet Engineering Task Force
> <https://ietf.org/> meets every four months at an open conference that
> bounces from continent to continent, more than 1,000 people from around the
> world gather with change on their minds. Their vision of the global network
> that all humanity shares is dynamic, evolving, and continuously improving.
> Their efforts combine with the contributions of myriad others to ensure
> that the Internet always works but is never done, never complete.
>
> The rapid yet orderly evolution of the Internet is all the more remarkable
> considering the highly unusual way it happens: without a company, a
> government, or a board of directors in charge. Nothing about digital
> communications technology suggests that it should be self-organizing or,
> for that matter, fundamentally reliable. We enjoy an Internet that is both
> of those at once because multiple generations of network developers have
> embraced a principle and a process that have been quite rare in the history
> of technology. The principle is that the protocols that govern how
> Internet-connected devices communicate should be open, expandable, and
> robust. And the process that invents and refines those protocols demands
> collaboration and a large degree of consensus among all who care to
> participate.
>
> As someone who was part of the small team that very deliberately adopted a
> collaborative, consensus-based process to develop protocols for the ARPANET
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARPANET>?predecessor to the Internet?I have
> been pleasantly surprised by how those ideas have persisted and succeeded,
> even as the physical network has evolved from 50-kilobit-per-second
> telephone lines in the mid-1960s to the fiber-optic, 5G, and satellite
> links we enjoy today. Though our team certainly never envisioned
> unforgeable ?privacy passes
> <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-privacy-pass/>? or unique
> identifiers
> for Internet-connected drones
> <https://datatracker.ietf.org/group/drip/about/>?two proposed protocols
> discussed at the task force meeting this past March?we did circulate our
> ideas for the ARPANET as technical memos among a far-flung group of
> computer scientists, collecting feedback and settling on solutions in much
> the same way as today, albeit at a much smaller scale.
>
> We called each of those early memos a ?Request for Comments? or RFC.
> Whatever networked device you use today, it almost certainly follows rules
> laid down in ARPANET RFCs written decades ago, probably including protocols
> for sending plain ASCII text (RFC 20
> <https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc20.html>, issued in 1969), audio or video
> data streams (RFC 768 <https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc768.html>, 1980),
> and
> Post Office Protocol, or POP, email (RFC 918
> <https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc918.html>, 1984).
>
> *Anatomy of an RFC*...
>
> [...]
>
> https://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-history/cyberspace/todays-internet-still-relies-on-an-arpanetera-protocol-the-request-for-comments
>
> --
> Geoff.Goodfellow at iconia.com
> living as The Truth is True
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 2
> Date: Fri, 7 Aug 2020 15:12:35 -0700
> From: Jack Haverty <jack at 3kitty.org>
> To: internet-history at elists.isoc.org
> Subject: Re: [ih] Today?s Internet Still Relies on an ARPANET-Era
> Protocol: The Request for Comments (Steve Crocker)
> Message-ID: <2599cd97-c21a-11c6-49d3-cf874fefdaaa at 3kitty.org>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8
>
> Thanks, Geoff, interesting article...
>
> While the RFC has been enduring, I've always wondered -- where are all
> the Comments in response to those thousands of RFCs that Requested them???
>
> Is there some "form" site somewhere where each RFC appears when
> published and has a "Comments" section to collect and preserve the
> Comments.?? That kind of thing is pervasive today on all sorts of news
> sites, blogs, etc.?? But IMHO the RFCs have somehow always been ignoring
> the Cs they Request.
>
> I recall writing only several RFCs, but comments typically came back via
> email discussions. ? Sometimes for years.? I fear most of that aspect of
> Internet History, the comments and discussions, has been lost. ? I
> wonder if the long-standing "technology" of RFCs needs a Version 2,
> which captures and preserves the Comments just as it has done for
> decades with the Requests.
>
> I guess I should write an RFC about that........
>
> /Jack
>
> On 8/7/20 2:52 PM, the keyboard of geoff goodfellow via Internet-history
> wrote:
> > *The RFC may be the ARPANET?s most enduring legacy*
> > EXCERPT:
> >
> > Each March, July, and November, we are reminded that the Internet is not
> > quite the mature, stable technology that it seems to be. We rely on the
> > Internet as an essential tool for our economic, social, educational, and
> > political lives. But when the Internet Engineering Task Force
> > <https://ietf.org/> meets every four months at an open conference that
> > bounces from continent to continent, more than 1,000 people from around
> the
> > world gather with change on their minds. Their vision of the global
> network
> > that all humanity shares is dynamic, evolving, and continuously
> improving.
> > Their efforts combine with the contributions of myriad others to ensure
> > that the Internet always works but is never done, never complete.
> >
> > The rapid yet orderly evolution of the Internet is all the more
> remarkable
> > considering the highly unusual way it happens: without a company, a
> > government, or a board of directors in charge. Nothing about digital
> > communications technology suggests that it should be self-organizing or,
> > for that matter, fundamentally reliable. We enjoy an Internet that is
> both
> > of those at once because multiple generations of network developers have
> > embraced a principle and a process that have been quite rare in the
> history
> > of technology. The principle is that the protocols that govern how
> > Internet-connected devices communicate should be open, expandable, and
> > robust. And the process that invents and refines those protocols demands
> > collaboration and a large degree of consensus among all who care to
> > participate.
> >
> > As someone who was part of the small team that very deliberately adopted
> a
> > collaborative, consensus-based process to develop protocols for the
> ARPANET
> > <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARPANET>?predecessor to the Internet?I
> have
> > been pleasantly surprised by how those ideas have persisted and
> succeeded,
> > even as the physical network has evolved from 50-kilobit-per-second
> > telephone lines in the mid-1960s to the fiber-optic, 5G, and satellite
> > links we enjoy today. Though our team certainly never envisioned
> > unforgeable ?privacy passes
> > <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-privacy-pass/>? or unique
> identifiers
> > for Internet-connected drones
> > <https://datatracker.ietf.org/group/drip/about/>?two proposed protocols
> > discussed at the task force meeting this past March?we did circulate our
> > ideas for the ARPANET as technical memos among a far-flung group of
> > computer scientists, collecting feedback and settling on solutions in
> much
> > the same way as today, albeit at a much smaller scale.
> >
> > We called each of those early memos a ?Request for Comments? or RFC.
> > Whatever networked device you use today, it almost certainly follows
> rules
> > laid down in ARPANET RFCs written decades ago, probably including
> protocols
> > for sending plain ASCII text (RFC 20
> > <https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc20.html>, issued in 1969), audio or
> video
> > data streams (RFC 768 <https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc768.html>, 1980),
> and
> > Post Office Protocol, or POP, email (RFC 918
> > <https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc918.html>, 1984).
> >
> > *Anatomy of an RFC*...
> >
> > [...]
> >
> https://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-history/cyberspace/todays-internet-still-relies-on-an-arpanetera-protocol-the-request-for-comments
> >
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 3
> Date: Fri, 7 Aug 2020 18:16:03 -0400
> From: Vint Cerf <vint at google.com>
> To: Jack Haverty <jack at 3kitty.org>
> Cc: "Nelson H. F. Beebe via Internet-history"
> <internet-history at elists.isoc.org>
> Subject: Re: [ih] Today?s Internet Still Relies on an ARPANET-Era
> Protocol: The Request for Comments (Steve Crocker)
> Message-ID:
> <
> CAHxHgge71u5br6S1PAngRRuM6Het9o3wGZi_GdinGcGw6itz5g at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
>
> early on, the comments came back as RFCs. Then came email so less of the
> conversation was captured in RFCs.
> then came Internet Drafts which highlighted conversation again.
> v
>
>
> On Fri, Aug 7, 2020 at 6:12 PM Jack Haverty via Internet-history <
> internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
>
> > Thanks, Geoff, interesting article...
> >
> > While the RFC has been enduring, I've always wondered -- where are all
> > the Comments in response to those thousands of RFCs that Requested them?
> >
> > Is there some "form" site somewhere where each RFC appears when
> > published and has a "Comments" section to collect and preserve the
> > Comments. That kind of thing is pervasive today on all sorts of news
> > sites, blogs, etc. But IMHO the RFCs have somehow always been ignoring
> > the Cs they Request.
> >
> > I recall writing only several RFCs, but comments typically came back via
> > email discussions. Sometimes for years. I fear most of that aspect of
> > Internet History, the comments and discussions, has been lost. I
> > wonder if the long-standing "technology" of RFCs needs a Version 2,
> > which captures and preserves the Comments just as it has done for
> > decades with the Requests.
> >
> > I guess I should write an RFC about that........
> >
> > /Jack
> >
> > On 8/7/20 2:52 PM, the keyboard of geoff goodfellow via Internet-history
> > wrote:
> > > *The RFC may be the ARPANET?s most enduring legacy*
> > > EXCERPT:
> > >
> > > Each March, July, and November, we are reminded that the Internet is
> not
> > > quite the mature, stable technology that it seems to be. We rely on the
> > > Internet as an essential tool for our economic, social, educational,
> and
> > > political lives. But when the Internet Engineering Task Force
> > > <https://ietf.org/> meets every four months at an open conference that
> > > bounces from continent to continent, more than 1,000 people from around
> > the
> > > world gather with change on their minds. Their vision of the global
> > network
> > > that all humanity shares is dynamic, evolving, and continuously
> > improving.
> > > Their efforts combine with the contributions of myriad others to ensure
> > > that the Internet always works but is never done, never complete.
> > >
> > > The rapid yet orderly evolution of the Internet is all the more
> > remarkable
> > > considering the highly unusual way it happens: without a company, a
> > > government, or a board of directors in charge. Nothing about digital
> > > communications technology suggests that it should be self-organizing
> or,
> > > for that matter, fundamentally reliable. We enjoy an Internet that is
> > both
> > > of those at once because multiple generations of network developers
> have
> > > embraced a principle and a process that have been quite rare in the
> > history
> > > of technology. The principle is that the protocols that govern how
> > > Internet-connected devices communicate should be open, expandable, and
> > > robust. And the process that invents and refines those protocols
> demands
> > > collaboration and a large degree of consensus among all who care to
> > > participate.
> > >
> > > As someone who was part of the small team that very deliberately
> adopted
> > a
> > > collaborative, consensus-based process to develop protocols for the
> > ARPANET
> > > <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARPANET>?predecessor to the Internet?I
> > have
> > > been pleasantly surprised by how those ideas have persisted and
> > succeeded,
> > > even as the physical network has evolved from 50-kilobit-per-second
> > > telephone lines in the mid-1960s to the fiber-optic, 5G, and satellite
> > > links we enjoy today. Though our team certainly never envisioned
> > > unforgeable ?privacy passes
> > > <https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-privacy-pass/>? or unique
> > identifiers
> > > for Internet-connected drones
> > > <https://datatracker.ietf.org/group/drip/about/>?two proposed
> protocols
> > > discussed at the task force meeting this past March?we did circulate
> our
> > > ideas for the ARPANET as technical memos among a far-flung group of
> > > computer scientists, collecting feedback and settling on solutions in
> > much
> > > the same way as today, albeit at a much smaller scale.
> > >
> > > We called each of those early memos a ?Request for Comments? or RFC.
> > > Whatever networked device you use today, it almost certainly follows
> > rules
> > > laid down in ARPANET RFCs written decades ago, probably including
> > protocols
> > > for sending plain ASCII text (RFC 20
> > > <https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc20.html>, issued in 1969), audio or
> > video
> > > data streams (RFC 768 <https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc768.html>,
> 1980),
> > and
> > > Post Office Protocol, or POP, email (RFC 918
> > > <https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc918.html>, 1984).
> > >
> > > *Anatomy of an RFC*...
> > >
> > > [...]
> > >
> >
> https://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-history/cyberspace/todays-internet-still-relies-on-an-arpanetera-protocol-the-request-for-comments
> > >
> >
> > --
> > Internet-history mailing list
> > Internet-history at elists.isoc.org
> > https://elists.isoc.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history
> >
>
>
> --
> new postal address:
> Google, LLC
> 1900 Reston Metro Plaza, Suite 1400
> Reston, VA 20190
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 4
> Date: Fri, 7 Aug 2020 15:40:17 -0700
> From: Dave Crocker <dhc at dcrocker.net>
> To: internet-history at elists.isoc.org
> Subject: Re: [ih] Today?s Internet Still Relies on an ARPANET-Era
> Protocol: The Request for Comments (Steve Crocker)
> Message-ID: <f01b1abb-e6ca-4505-0e27-c76bb66269c9 at dcrocker.net>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed
>
> On 8/7/2020 3:12 PM, Jack Haverty via Internet-history wrote:
> > While the RFC has been enduring, I've always wondered -- where are all
> > the Comments in response to those thousands of RFCs that Requested them?
> >
> > Is there some "form" site somewhere where each RFC appears when
> > published and has a "Comments" section to collect and preserve the
> > Comments.?? That kind of thing is pervasive today on all sorts of news
> > sites, blogs, etc.?? But IMHO the RFCs have somehow always been ignoring
> > the Cs they Request.
>
>
> emails, internet-drafts, web pages, meeting presentations and
> recordings, etc.
>
> There is excellent archiving of the RFCs, but there has been no interest
> historical retention of of the surrounding mass of supporting work
> product. It seems that folk think the usual 'backups' are sufficient...
>
> d/
>
> --
> Dave Crocker
> Brandenburg InternetWorking
> bbiw.net
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 5
> Date: Fri, 7 Aug 2020 15:49:39 -0700
> From: Dave Crocker <dhc at dcrocker.net>
> Cc: "Nelson H. F. Beebe via Internet-history"
> <internet-history at elists.isoc.org>
> Subject: Re: [ih] Today?s Internet Still Relies on an ARPANET-Era
> Protocol: The Request for Comments (Steve Crocker)
> Message-ID: <e7800b82-30f0-6db2-a738-d26387e02843 at dcrocker.net>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed
>
> On 8/7/2020 3:16 PM, Vint Cerf via Internet-history wrote:
> > then came Internet Drafts which highlighted conversation again.
>
> Even I-Ds tend to be used in a more formal way, now, making them more
> representative of RFC development snapshots than of comment indicators,
> which are handled in email and meetings.
>
> There is, occasionally, an I-D done as a comment on other work -- with
> no intent for RFC publication -- but that's extremely rare.
>
> d/
>
> --
> Dave Crocker
> Brandenburg InternetWorking
> bbiw.net
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Subject: Digest Footer
>
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> Internet-history at elists.isoc.org
> https://elists.isoc.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> End of Internet-history Digest, Vol 11, Issue 2
> ***********************************************
>
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