[ih] History of Naming on The Internet - is it still relevant?

[touch at strayalpha.com]

> On Jul 21, 2025, at 11:27 AM, Dave Crocker via Internet-history <internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
> 
> On 7/21/2025 11:15 AM, Karl Auerbach via Internet-history wrote:
>> Why do I (and also ISO/OSI) believe that an association protocol (between application layer and transport layer) ought to be there?  And why couldn't DNS take up the slack?
> 
> 
> Looking at the TLS spec, a long time ago, I discovered that it is extensible, in a way that seems designed to fill exactly that slot.
> 
> I had been interested in decoupling applications from direct linkage to TCP, so that it could maintain multiple, independent transport paths between end points, and thereby potentially be robust against an outage.

Considering the protocol stack as a dynamic path through a tree of possibilities (rather than a static “stack”), this can be easily achieved. I have an example in my course materials of how this approach can support a “shift” of traffic from a TCP connection to an optical circuit on-the-fly - and back, as needed.

Joe