[ih] A comment on the seven layer model

[touch at strayalpha.com]

> On Apr 22, 2025, at 8:57 PM, Jack Haverty via Internet-history <internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
> 
> Does that fit into the 7-layer, or recursive, models?  Seems like it might be a challenge.  I never tried.

Actually, yes - the key is that the “protocol stack” isn’t really a stack except at the packet level. It’s a DAG (directed acyclic graph) of protocol layers alternated with name translation layers.

With that recursive, dynamic model, both forwarding and layering are the same mechanism. And the mechanism allows the path through the DAG to change on a per-message basis - i.e., so that a TCP connection can be replaced with an optical circuit on-the-fly.

Joe

—
Dr. Joe Touch, temporal epistemologist
www.strayalpha.com