[ih] Memories of Flag Day?

Fri Aug 11 07:21:16 PDT 2023

I just mistyped - I meant to type "ping6", not "ping". So try "ping6
2001:4860:4860::8888"

Cheers,
Andy

On Fri, Aug 11, 2023 at 9:53 AM Andrew G. Malis <agmalis at gmail.com> wrote:

> Jack,
>
> If you have a smartphone, then you're using IPv6.
>
> You may be using IPv6 in your home network as well. Try opening a terminal
> and typing "ping 2001:4860:4860::8888". If that works, then you're using
> IPv6.
>
> Cheers,
> Andy
>
>
> On Fri, Aug 11, 2023 at 8:17 AM vinton cerf via Internet-history <
> internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
>
>> On Thu, Aug 10, 2023 at 12:16 PM Jack Haverty via Internet-history <
>> internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
>>
>> > I've been wondering if the IETF is still effective today.   It's been
>> > trying for decades to cajole the Internet into adopting IPV6.
>> >
>> > Instead we now live with a multi-protocol Internet, and the complexity
>> > and problems that come with it.  In the 90s, the world embraced TCP and
>> > got rid of all the other protocols.   As I understand it, the IETF now
>> > "puts new technology on the shelf, where anyone is free to pick it up
>> > and use it" - quite different from the management process that
>> > orchestrated "Flag Day" and managed the evolution of the Internet
>> > technology in the field.   Some people have "picked up" IPV6, but many
>> > have not.   I can't tell if I have. I also have no idea how I would do
>> > it.   Or why I should.
>> >
>> users should not have to care or notice.
>>
>> >
>> > Perhaps someone can fill in the history of how the Internet got from
>> > then to now?  I sent an email on this topic a week or so ago, but it
>> > seems to have never come out of the elists.isoc.org system.   FYI, here
>> > it is, in case you didn't get it:
>> >
>> > --------------------
>> >
>> > IIRC, the "Flag Day" was one piece of a larger plan.
>> >
>> > I don't recall the timing of the pieces - it was 40+- years ago. But
>> > there was also a bureaucratic action in that same era to declare TCP a
>> > "DoD Standard", and require its presence in DoD procurements - any
>> > computer system in a DoD purchase using networking had to have TCP.
>> > Also, there was a program created by NIST (or was it still NBS then?) to
>> > provide a test suite for conformance to the TCP standard.   So any
>> > contractor who wanted to sell something to DoD had to have TCP, and by
>> > going through the NIST test suite they could get a certificate proving
>> > that they had TCP implemented properly. I don't remember which of these
>> > happened in what order or how it related to Flag Day (1/1/1983).   But
>> > it all seems to me to be part of some larger plan to migrate the
>> > admittedly small existing network to a new standard.
>> >
>> > At BBN, we went through the NIST process to become a certified testing
>> > lab, so we could run the tests for anyone who needed it and issue
>> > conformance certificates.  I'm not sure how many other such labs there
>> > were.  We also provided consulting services to help people understand
>> > TCP and figure out why their software didn't pass the tests.   This was
>> > never seen as any kind of "money maker", but seemed important to do it,
>> > since we had access to IMPs and such which made it easy to set up a
>> > small test lab.
>> >
>> > I never saw "the plan", but it struck me that there was a lot going on
>> > behind the scenes to make things like this happen, outside of the
>> > research or Arpanet community or technology per se, in order to
>> > facilitate the introduction of TCP to DoD.  Maybe someone else knows
>> > more about who was involved in all that activity.   Somebody made those
>> > things happen...
>> >
>> > In retrospect, it seems to me that such "soft technology" (conformance
>> > certification etc.) was complementary to the technical work documented
>> > in the stream of RFCs, and was important to making TCP "real", and
>> > establishing a bit of regulation around its use "in the field" with
>> > mechanisms such as "Flag Day" to enforce a migration from old to new.
>> >
>> > The Internet is now arguably world class "infrastructure".   But, IMHO,
>> > it still lacks a lot of the mechanisms that surround other, older,
>> > infrastructures that move things from point A to point B - e.g.,
>> > highways, electrical service, railroads, airplanes, etc.   The early
>> > work on things like Flag Day, TCP Conformance Tests, DoD
>> > Standardization, and such were the beginning of adding a management
>> > structure around the Internet technology.
>> >
>> > As near as I can tell, no such effort continues today.   It may have
>> > faded away back in the 1980s, before TCP became the dominant
>> > technology.   Perhaps the Internet is just too new for such machinery to
>> > be created?
>> >
>> > Other infrastructures have gone through stages as rules, regulations,
>> > and practices congeal.  In the early days of electricity it was common
>> > for accidents to occur, causing fires, deaths, or other disasters.
>> > Electrical Codes, safety mechanisms, licensing, rules and practices have
>> > made using electricity much less dangerous.  The same is true of
>> > highways, railroads, etc.
>> >
>> > I've always wondered what happened to that "management framework" that
>> > started in the 1980s around the Internet infrastructure, and why it
>> > hasn't resulted in mechanisms today to make the Internet "safer".   I
>> > suspect all infrastructures need things like electrical codes, UL
>> > testing, development of fuses, circuit breakers, GFIs, etc., that are
>> > used in the electrical infrastructure.   But nobody seems to be doing
>> > that for the Internet?
>> >
>> > There's lots of such mechanisms I know about in the US to manage
>> > infrastructures.  My car occasionally gets a government-mandated
>> > recall.  Airplanes get grounded by FAA.  Train crashes are investigated
>> > by the Department of Transportation.   Other governments have similar
>> > mechanisms to manage infrastructure.
>> >
>> > Has any Internet component, hardware or software, ever been
>> > recalled...?   "Flag Day" was the last enforcement action I can
>> remember.
>> >
>> > Jack Haverty
>> >
>> >
>> > --------------------
>> >
>> > On 8/9/23 18:50, John Gilmore via Internet-history wrote:
>> > > I had a "tourist" account at the MIT-AI system running ITS, back in
>> the
>> > > NCP days.  I used to log in to it over a TIP that had RS232 cables
>> > > quietly connecting it to a Telenet node.  I'd dial in to a local
>> Telenet
>> > > access point, connect to the cross-connect's node and port, and be
>> > > talking to a TIP, where I'd "@o 134" to get to MIT-AI.
>> > >
>> > > When NCP was turned off on the Flag Day, that stopped working.  At
>> MIT,
>> > > as I understand it, they decided not to implement TCP/IP for ITS.  The
>> > > workaround for tourists like me was to borrow someone's account at
>> > > MIT-OZ, which had TCP support and could also talk to ITS (over
>> > > Chaosnet?).  So I'd connect from the TIP using TCP to MIT-OZ, and then
>> > > connect to MIT-AI.  It worked OK, though I had to remember when (and
>> how
>> > > many times) to double the escape characters.  My access was via a
>> dialup
>> > > modem, which was probably the slowest part of the whole system.
>> > >
>> > > Moving to the present day...
>> > >
>> > > I continue to see Internet old-timers who long nostalgicly for
>> somebody,
>> > > somewhere, to force a "flag day" to shut down IPv4.  The IETF has
>> > > unfortunately been captured by these folks, who object to making even
>> > > tiny improvements to IPv4 protocols on the grounds that "we shouldn't
>> > > make it easier to use IPv4 because that would reduce the urgency of
>> > > switching to IPv6".  It is taken for granted in much of IETF that
>> "IPv4
>> > > is dead, or it should be" even though it carries far more global daily
>> > > traffic, to a far broader range of locations, than IPv6 does.  There
>> was
>> > > even a move to "declare IPv4 Historic" which would officially
>> recommend
>> > > that nobody use it any more.  That draft RFC was approved in 2017 by
>> the
>> > > Sunset4 working group on a vote of three zealots, but it got killed
>> once
>> > > saner heads looked at the implications.  For a discussion of that
>> > > history, and pointers to the source materials, see section 4 of:
>> > >
>> > >
>> >
>> https://www.ietf.org/archive/id/draft-schoen-intarea-ietf-maintaining-ipv4-01.txt
>> > >
>> > > (The IETF, predictably, declined to support the publication of an RFC
>> > > describing this history or succinctly stating that IETF would continue
>> > > maintaining IPv4.)
>> > >
>> > >       John
>> > >
>> >
>> > --
>> > Internet-history mailing list
>> > Internet-history at elists.isoc.org
>> > https://elists.isoc.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history
>> >
>> --
>> Internet-history mailing list
>> Internet-history at elists.isoc.org
>> https://elists.isoc.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history
>>
>