[ih] sad news: Peter Kirstein
Vint Cerf
vint at google.com
Fri Jan 10 21:51:37 PST 2020
I had thought that there was some kind of reciprocal agreement that the USG
would charge the X.25 carrier the same amount that the X.25 carrier charged
- a kind of net zero peering arrangement. Let me do a little research.
v
On Fri, Jan 10, 2020 at 8:43 PM Brian E Carpenter <
brian.e.carpenter at gmail.com> wrote:
> Jack,
>
> > I've wondered for
> > years how much of ARPA's expenses we moved into Peter's UCL budget. And
> > whether Peter or anyone else realized what was happening.
>
> It wouldn't surprise me in the least if Peter knew and decided to keep
> quiet. This was presumably around 1980? The transatlantic "who pays?"
> discussions got very explicit when NSFnet entered the picture a few years
> later.
>
> UCL was monitoring usage as early as 1975:
> Monitoring and access control of the London node of ARPANET
> https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/1499799.1499882
> As for many years afterwards, the bulk of traffic was from the US towards
> Europe, and most of the sessions were started by European users. (I
> happened to notice this paper since one of Peter's co-authors was later in
> my team at CERN.)
>
> For proof that Peter was aware of the X.25 cost issue before too long, see
> the bottom of page 10 at http://nrg.cs.ucl.ac.uk/mjh/kirstein-arpanet.pdf
> "The access control was because we were
> incurring IPSS traffic charges on out-going traffic; the logging was
> because the
> funding agencies wanted to know how to allocate costs."
>
> Regards
> Brian Carpenter
>
> On 11-Jan-20 12:48, Jack Haverty via Internet-history wrote:
> > Thanks Vint, I hope it gives them some insight into Peter's work life.
> >
> > I remembered another anecdote that might also be interesting...
> >
> > Peter was the primary contact I knew on the EU side of the US/EU
> > partnership. I never knew the details, but I suspect there was lots of
> > diplomacy, negotiations and agreements involved involving the several
> > governments. Some of them of course involved money - who would pay for
> > this new experimental Internet thing.
> >
> > Some time after the initial gateway linkage made the Internet cross the
> > Atlantic, we put a second pathway into place, by using the public X.25
> > network as just another network subsumed by the Internet.
> >
> > This was called the "VAN Gateway". After it was put into operation,
> > Internet traffic between the EU and US could traverse the satellite
> > network, that ARPA paid for, or it could traverse the international X.25
> > network.
> >
> > The X.25 network consumed money differently than the ARPA-funded parts
> > of the Internet. In particular, the monthly cost of using the X.25
> > pathway was unpredictable. Since the X.25 world evolved from
> > traditional telephone companies, it had retained the notion of "calls",
> > and charged based on how long each call was connected. So a simple
> > 5-minute call would be inexpensive, while a large file transfer that
> > might take a day or more to complete would be quite expensive. It all
> > depended on what those pesky Users (like Peter and his crew) did as they
> > used the Internet.
> >
> > The ARPA beancounters weren't too comfortable with unpredictable and
> > uncontrollable monthly expenses. So we (BBN) brainstormed about what
> > we might do to mitigate that risk.
> >
> > So....... The gateways couldn't really predict what future traffic
> > might appear. It depended on what those pesky Users did. The
> > algorithm we implemented did its best to be somewhat efficient in using
> > that expensive X.25 service. When a datagram arrived that was to be
> > sent over the X.25 path, the gateway would see if the "call" between the
> > two gateways was still active from previous traffic. If not, it would
> > "dial up" the other end and then send the datagram on its way, and also
> > start, or reset, a timer. After a while when the timer expired due to
> > inactivity the gateway would simply "hang up", to prevent the per-minute
> > charges from piling up.
> >
> > That would help, but if someone did a huge file transfer it could still
> > run up a lot of charges for ARPA. More brainstorming....
> >
> > So, ...... We simply configured the timer on the US side to be very
> > short - just long enough to get one datagram across the Atlantic.
> > probably about 1 second. We set the corresponding timer on the EU side
> > somewhat longer - a minute or so, so it would hang up quickly when the
> > user traffic subsided.
> >
> > The X.25 mechanisms behaved like the traditional telephone system, the
> > bill for each "call" would go to whichever party "dialed the phone".
> > With the timers set so differently, almost all of the calls of any
> > duration would be initiated by the gateway on the EU side of the
> > Atlantic, regardless of where the associated TCP connection was created.
> >
> > So, ....The result was that most of the expense of using the X.25
> > pathway, and almost all of the unpredictability, fell onto the EU side
> > of the partnership.
> >
> > Somewhere in my education, I learned that "Management is the Art of
> > Moving Your Expenses Into Someone Else's Budget." I've wondered for
> > years how much of ARPA's expenses we moved into Peter's UCL budget. And
> > whether Peter or anyone else realized what was happening.
> >
> > /Jack Haverty
> >
> >
> > On 1/9/20 8:06 PM, Vint Cerf wrote:
> >> thanks for this reminiscence - I am sharing with Peter's family whom
> >> we will see on Saturday.
> >>
> >> vint
> >>
> >>
> >> On Thu, Jan 9, 2020 at 5:11 PM Jack Haverty via Internet-history
> >> <internet-history at elists.isoc.org
> >> <mailto:internet-history at elists.isoc.org>> wrote:
> >>
> >> Peter was, IMHO, possibly the most important driving force behind
> >> getting the fledgling Internet to actually work! Peter (and his
> >> group)
> >> was the only "real" User of the Internet back in 1981. Or at
> >> least the
> >> most memorable to me.
> >>
> >> Summer/Fall 1981 was when Vint added an "Internet" task to my
> group's
> >> contract at BBN, with the assignment to make the Internet work
> >> reliably
> >> as a 24x7 communications service, just like we had been doing for
> the
> >> ARPANET for a decade. The Internet then was just a handful or so of
> >> "gateways" (now called "routers") interconnecting networks.
> >>
> >> Most "Internet traffic" then actually moved across the ARPANET,
> which
> >> was not only reliable but also rarely did nasty things like
> >> dropping IP
> >> datagrams, reordering them, and otherwise mangling datagram
> >> flows. The
> >> neonatal TCP implementations, running over the ARPANET, didn't
> >> have much
> >> real work to do in moving users' data. The ARPANET did most of the
> >> heavy lifting for them.
> >>
> >> However, Peter and the UCL group were actually trying to use an
> >> Internet
> >> path which involved at least 2 resource-starved gateways and several
> >> networks of different speeds, delays, etc. Unlike most users, the
> >> Internet was supporting Peter's group's everyday activities, not
> just
> >> occasional network experiments. And they really used it. And they
> >> exposed lots of problems.
> >>
> >> Being on the EU side of the Atlantic, they always had a 5 hour or so
> >> headstart on us every day. So there were often problems, waiting
> for
> >> BBN to "fix the Internet" every morning - especially after it became
> >> known that BBN was tasked to make the Internet work as a 24x7
> reliable
> >> service.
> >>
> >> IMHO, that pressure from real users with real problems was a key
> >> driver
> >> to all the things we had to do to get the Internet out of the
> >> "research
> >> lab" to come online as a reliable communications service.
> >>
> >> Peter made (us make) the Internet work...
> >>
> >> /Jack Haverty
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> On 1/8/20 8:09 PM, Vint Cerf via Internet-history wrote:
> >> > Looking at this from a different perspective, we had Peter in
> >> our midst and
> >> > contributing heavily to networking successes and spread from
> >> about 1967
> >> > when I first met him while at UCLA. That's over half a century.
> >> What a
> >> > gift! His work is still evident and his story of collaboration
> >> undiminished
> >> > by his departure from our midst. Yes, another giant has left us,
> >> but his
> >> > work remains to remind us of what we can do when we work
> >> together. None of
> >> > that is gone though we shall not see him again in this world.
> >> >
> >> > I am glad to have called him "friend" for many, many years.
> >> > vint
> >> >
> >> >
> >> > On Wed, Jan 8, 2020 at 9:27 PM Bob Hinden via Internet-history <
> >> > internet-history at elists.isoc.org
> >> <mailto:internet-history at elists.isoc.org>> wrote:
> >> >
> >> >>
> >> >>> On Jan 8, 2020, at 11:38 AM, Toerless Eckert via
> >> Internet-history <
> >> >> internet-history at elists.isoc.org
> >> <mailto:internet-history at elists.isoc.org>> wrote:
> >> >>> On Thu, Jan 09, 2020 at 08:26:00AM +1300, Brian E Carpenter via
> >> >> Internet-history wrote:
> >> >>>> This is really bad news. And don't forget his team's true
> >> pioneering in
> >> >> video-conferencing over the Internet too.
> >> >>> Indeed
> >> >> Yes, very sad news indeed. Sigh...
> >> >>
> >> >> Bob
> >> >>
> >> >>> All MICE and friends will miss him dearly, and keep fond
> memories.
> >> >>>
> >> >>> Toerless
> >> >>>
> >> >>>> Regards
> >> >>>> Brian Carpenter
> >> >>>>
> >> >>>> On 09-Jan-20 06:17, Vint Cerf via Internet-history wrote:
> >> >>>>> I am sorry to relay the sad news that Peter Kirstein passed
> >> away this
> >> >>>>> morning (London time). He was a key implementer and promoter
> of
> >> >> networking,
> >> >>>>> participating in both the ARPANET and Internet developments
> >> as well as
> >> >> the
> >> >>>>> UK Coloured Book and Open Systems Interconnection protocols.
> >> >>>>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_T._Kirstein
> >> >>>>>
> >> >>>>> vint cerf
> >> >>>>>
> >> >>>>>
> >> >>>> --
> >> >>>> Internet-history mailing list
> >> >>>> Internet-history at elists.isoc.org
> >> <mailto:Internet-history at elists.isoc.org>
> >> >>>> https://elists.isoc.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history
> >> >>> --
> >> >>> ---
> >> >>> tte at cs.fau.de <mailto:tte at cs.fau.de>
> >> >>> --
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> >> <mailto:Internet-history at elists.isoc.org>
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> >> >>
> >> >
> >> --
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> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> --
> >> New postal address:
> >> Google
> >> 1875 Explorer Street, 10th Floor
> >> Reston, VA 20190
>
>
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