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

[touch at strayalpha.com]

> On Jul 23, 2025, at 6:28 PM, Craig Partridge <craig at tereschau.net> wrote:
> 
> On Wed, Jul 23, 2025 at 6:55 PM touch--- via Internet-history <internet-history at elists.isoc.org <mailto:internet-history at elists.isoc.org>> wrote:
>> The user thinks in terms of socket connections; the rest can be opaque.
>> 
> 
> I'd argue that the history of the Internet says that's not quite true.  Users care about the path their traffic takes in the network (various issues about ensuring certain traffic did not transit certain countries over the years).   Users care about performance, and before carriers sorta figured out how to ensure good service, we found users playing around with reaching into the routing layer.

Most people want some combination of opacity and transparency. E.g., if you can get a TCP connection and a WDM channel, both with the same constraints (country routing, policy, price, etc.), it’s nice to let your system attach in a way that can shift between the two seamlessly.

Joe