[ih] history of protocol bugs

[Craig Partridge]

Fun question and it also raises the question of "what's a bug?"  So, for
instance, here are 3 TCP "bugs" -- which of these are the kinds of bugs
you're interested in?

1. 20 years ago, a software vendor shipped code that computed the wrong
checksum on a FIN-ACK if the FIN-ACK had to be retransmitted.

2. In 1974, Ray Tomlinson was using an early TCP to connect to a printer
and his host kept crashing and he discovered printer outputs that combined
data from multiple TCP connections because every TCP connection was
starting with sequence number 0 when the host rebooted.  He realized that
TCP needed a way to select initial sequence numbers that prevented old
segments from being confused with new segments.

3. Around 1990, people realized that the TCP sequence number space was too
small for gigabit links and a TCP option was developed to expand the
sequence space.

All three could be described as bugs: #1 - failure to implement spec, #2 -
 failure to recognize a potential failure point, and #3 - failure to
anticipate evolution.  Or you could say just #1 was a bug and #2 and #3
were learning experiences.  Or you could label #3 as simply a growth issue
that was deferred by the original designers.....

Which of these bugs (or kinds of bugs) do you want to track?

Craig

On Fri, Nov 10, 2023 at 2:16 AM Gergely Buday via Internet-history <
internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:

> Hi there,
>
> is there a written history of Internet protocol bugs?
>
> Somebody suggested to find the obsolete RFCs and figure out why they went
> obsolete.
>
> Other than that, what would you recommend to figure out this history?
>
> - Gergely
> --
> Internet-history mailing list
> Internet-history at elists.isoc.org
> https://elists.isoc.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history
>


-- 
*****
Craig Partridge's email account for professional society activities and
mailing lists.