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Netizens-Digest Volume 1 Number 379
Netizens-Digest Friday, April 6 2001 Volume 01 : Number 379
Netizens Association Discussion List Digest
In this issue:
[netz] Comments Submitted to the NAS on their Committee Appointments
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Date: Fri, 6 Apr 2001 00:16:13 -0400 (EDT)
From: ronda@panix.com
Subject: [netz] comments submitted to the NAS on their committee appointments
Thanks for the response to the draft comments I sent to this list.
Following are the comments I submitted in time for the April 5 deadline
Ronda
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To: nrcisdns@nas.edu
Subject: Comments Submitted to NAS on the provisional committee appointments
Status: R
Comments on the Provisional Appointments of the NAS to the
Committee on Internet Searching and the Domain Name System:
Technical Alternatives and Policy Implications
I am requesting that the National Academy of Science reconsider
the appointments of those you have chosen as members of
this committee, with the exception of those members who
are technical experts in the areas that the committee will consider.
The other members are not appropriate for the problems and study
this committee will need to undertake in order to be able
to make a step forward in advising the US government on a
difficult technical and policy issue. I am proposing that
you redo the committee composition process. That the new
process be done in an open fashion with more input as to
the criteria needed for determining who are the people with
the needed expertise to be on the committee and how to make
that decision. I propose that this process be done in an
open process which is discussed online and both the criteria
and who is determining the criteria be openly discussed,
with contributions invited from the online community.
As can be seen with regard to the problems that the Internet
Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has demonstrated,
the choice of who will constitute a committee or board is of
critical importance to whether there is any possibility that the
public interest will be served.
It seems that the criteria governing who you have appointed
to this committee are an inappropriate set of criteria.
Since the Internet is a global metasystem with millions of users
around the world who are part of very different networks under
dissimilar administrative and political authority and with dissimilar
technical requirements, it is crucial that those appointed to this
committee have a broad public interest perspective and that they
be knowledgeable in the history and development of the Internet.
How is it that it has been possible to create such a broad and
international metasystem of communicating networks?
A part of the answer is that the principles of open architecture
were identified and guided the creation of the tcp/ip protocol
which has served as an architectural framework for internetwork
communication.
The principle of open architecture is identified and described
in a paper "The Birth of the Internet: An Architectural
Conception for Solving the Multiple Network Problem"
http://www.columbia.edu/~rh120/other/birth_internet.txt
Also these principles are explained in a paper by Barry Leiner
"A Brief History of the Internet"
http://www.isoc.org/internet/history/brief.html
Following is an excerpt from the paper which explains the
nature and the implementation of open architecture as the
architecture guiding the development of the current Internet.
"By 1972, the impact of computer networking was creating a
new challenge for those interested in computer communications.
This was the problem that Kahn called the Multiple Network
Problem. A number of researchers around the world, like Louis
Pouzin in France and Donald Davies in Great Britain were already
exploring how to build packet switching networks that would
conform to their national and local needs. The problem of how to
communicate across the boundaries of dissimilar networks was
on the horizon.
In the article, "Resource-Sharing Computer Communications
Networks" published in the "Proceedings of the IEEE" in November,
1972, Kahn considered adjustments at the planning stage of the
networks to make interconnection possible. (pg. 1407) This would
require agreements at the design stage of the networks and could
exclude those networks that had already been developed. The
ARPANET, for example, had not been designed with the aim of
communicating with other networks. The conception that gave birth
to the ARPANET was a conception requiring all those interested in
computer networking to become a component part of the ARPANET.
The development of Cyclades in France or NPL in Great
Britain, however, demonstrated that those designing packet
switching networks had their own technical, administrative and
political needs and goals to serve. It wasn't feasible for them
to either become part of the ARPANET nor to wait till a common
plan for interconnection was decided upon to develop their
networks. It was becoming ever more urgent that those designing
packet switching networks determine how to solve the problem of
the interconnection of dissimilar networks.
Since it was not appropriate to require all networks to await
a common decision of what design parameters they should adopt to
be able to connect with other networks, nor that all new networks
should become a component part of the ARPANET, a different
approach was needed. Recognizing the nature of the problem,
Kahn proposed a technical solution.
Shortly after the successful ICCC'72 ARPANET demonstration,
Kahn left BBN and went to work at the Information Processing
Techniques Office (IPTO) at ARPA. Joining the IPT office as
a program manager, Kahn set out to develop certain projects and
also took over responsibility for one that had already been funded.
A new initiative was to create a ground-based packet radio
network. An existing initiative was to create a satellite-based
packet switching network. (12)
Focusing on radio broadcasting technology, Kahn led an effort
to create a ground packet radio network. This kind of packet
communications network was of particular interest to the Department
of Defense with their need for mobile communications.
Kahn planned to build on the experience gained by researchers
at the University of Hawaii who created AlohaNet. AlohaNet had
demonstrated that packet radio technology was feasible for a
one-hop system. (13) Kahn's objective was to create a multinode
ground packet radio network (PRNET) where each node could be mobile.
In parallel, he sought to create a packet satellite network (SATNET)
utilizing Intelsat satellites.
Thinking about how to create a ground packet radio network,
(PRNET) Kahn realized that it would be desirable (indeed necessary)
for users on PRNET to be able to access the computational resources
on ARPANET. The packet satellite network was mainly intended for
transiting to European sites, but there was still the problem of
connecting (in both directions) to computer resources over there
as well. How then to link up these three packet networks, two that
would be based on utilizing radio transmission and the other which
used shared point to point leased lines from the telephone company?
At first, Kahn considered creating a local protocol for PRNET to make
it possible to use the ARPANET Host-to-Host protocol NCP (Network
Control Protocol). However, the limitations of NCP meant that would
not be an option. These problems included:
1) NCP addressing did not have a way of addressing Hosts on
other networks.
2) NCP required a reliable IMP subnetwork to transmit packets to
their destination. But other networks were not always likely to
have reliable end-end communication.
3) Error control was essential on an end-end basis, but did not
exist for NCP.
Thus dissimilar and possibly unreliable networks required a different
architecture and different protocol design from the architecture and
protocol design creating the ARPANET.
Once there are other networks, the challenge becomes: How to
provide for their interconnection and how to insure end-end
communication for the attached host computers? Is there a new
architecture and protocol design which can support resource sharing
across the boundaries of dissimilar networks? Simplifying the problem
leads to the question: How to transmit computer data messages on
dissimilar networks without requiring changes to the participating
networks? What protocol design will allow for the diversity that will
exist in administrative, political, and technical aspects of dissimilar
packet switching networks?
(...)
The ARPANET solved the difficult problem of communication in
a network with dissimilar computers and dissimilar operating
systems. However, when the objective is to share resources across
the boundaries of dissimilar networks, the problems to be solved
are compounded. Different networks mean that there can be
different packet sizes to accommodate, different network
parameters such as different communication media rates, different
buffering and signaling strategies, different ways of routing
packets, and different propagation delays. Also dissimilar
networks can have different error control techniques and
different ways of determining the status of network components.(16)
Though Kahn originally considered the possibility of seeking
changes to each of the constituent networks to solve the Multiple
Network Problem, he soon recognized the advantage of an architecture
that would directly accommodate the diversity of networks. (17) To
do so he conceived of a meta-level architecture independent of the
underlying network technology. The means of achieving this was to
design a protocol to be embedded in the operating system of Host
computers on each participating network. The protocol would also
specify how black boxes or "gateways" would interface between
networks and how they would participate in routing packets through
dissimilar networks.
Describing the thinking that went into solving the Multiple
Network Problem, "A Brief History of the Internet" outlines the
origin of the conception that Kahn would call the open
architecture networking environment. The article explains:
The Internet was based on the idea that there would be
multiple independent networks of rather arbitrary design,
beginning with the ARPANET as the pioneering packet
switching network, but soon to include packet satellite
networks, ground-based packet radio networks and other
networks. The Internet as we now know it embodies a key
underlying technical idea, namely that of open architecture
networking. In this approach, the choice of any individual
network technology was not dictated by a particular network
architecture but rather could be selected freely by a
provider and made to interwork with the other networks
through a meta-level "Internetwork Architecture." Up until
that time there was only one general method for federating
networks. This was the traditional circuit switching method
where networks would interconnect at the circuit level,
passing individual bits on a synchronous basis along a
portion of an end-to-end circuit between a pair of end
locations. Recall that Kleinrock had shown in 1961 that
packet switching was a more efficient switching method.
Along with packet switching, special purpose interconnection
arrangements between networks were another possibility.
While there were other limited ways to interconnect
different networks, they required that one be used as a
component of the other, rather than acting as a "peer" of
the other in offering end-to-end service.
Barry M. Leiner. Vinton G. Cerf, David D.
Clark, Robert E. Kahn, Leonard Kleinrock,
Daniel C. Lynch, Jon Postel, Larry G.
Roberts, and Stephen Wolff
A Brief History of the Internet, pg. 4.
http://www.isoc.org/internet/history/brief.html
To create an environment where the networks would be peers
of each other, rather than where one would have to be a component
of the other, there was the need to design a protocol to embody
this open architecture concept. Such a protocol would make it
possible to communicate across the boundaries of dissimilar
packet switching networks.
The challenge in accommodating dissimilar networks is at once
a conceptual and architectural problem. Kahn recognized the
need for a communications protocol to transmit packets from one
network, and reformat them as needed for transmission through
successive networks. This would require that there be black boxes
or gateway computers and software that would provide the interfaces
between the dissimilar networks and which would route the packets
to their destination. (18) Also there would need to be software
to carry out the functions required by the protocol. Appropriate
software modules, and perhaps other modifications to allow efficient
performance, would then have to be embedded in the operating systems
of the host computers in each of the participating networks and
gateways would have to be introduced between them. The design for such
a protocol would be a guide to create the specification standard
for the software and hardware that each network would agree to
implement to become part of an internetwork communications system.
The standards or agreements to cooperate would be set out in the
protocol.
The research creating the ARPANET had developed the
conception of networking protocols and the need for such
protocols. Robert Metcalfe is the inventor of the Ethernet, the
most widespread technology used for local area networking. In
his PhD thesis, he reviews the technical experience gained from
developing the ARPANET and ALOHANET. Metcalfe describes the role
of protocols in developing computer networking. He writes:
The ways in which processes organize their (local and
remote) cooperation are called "protocols". We use the word
to refer to a set of agreements among communicating
processes relating to (1) rendezvous (who and where), (2)
format (what and how), and (3) timing (when) of data and
control exchanges.
Robert M. Metcalfe, "Packet
Communication", Peer-to-Peer
Communication, Inc., San Jose, 1996,
pg. 100.
Metcalfe notes what these areas include:
(...) at least four problem areas in which protocol
agreements must be made: (1) routing, (2) flow, (3)
congestion, and (4) security.
Ibid.
An internetworking protocol would need to be a
communications protocol. As such it would specify the software and
hardware to do flow control, error checking, to break a message
into packets in the sending Host computers, and to provide for
packet reassembly in the destination Host computers, to provide a
means of addressing computers on other packet networks and other
needed functions. The protocol would specify the role and
software for the gateways.
Metcalfe enumerates some of the issues that Kahn had
identified to create the architecture for the Internet and for the
protocol that would make an Internet possible. Metcalfe writes:
Among these issues were optimal packet and message size,
message fragmentation and reassembly, flow and congestion
control, naming, addressing, and routing, store-and-forward
delay, error control, and the texture of interprocess
communication.
Metcalfe, pg. xx
Before he left BBN in 1972, Kahn had written a memo about his
thinking about a communications-oriented set of operating system
principles titled "Communications Principles for Operating
Systems".(19) Metcalfe refers to the memo as influential in his
thinking about protocol development.
Elaborating the notion of open architecture, the authors
of "A Brief History of the Internet" write:
In an open architecture network, the individual networks may
be separately designed and developed and each may have its
own unique interface which it may offer to users and/or
other providers, including other Internet providers. Each
network can be designed in accordance with the specific
environment and user requirements of that network. There are
generally no constraints on the types of network that can be
included or on their geographic scope, although certain
pragmatic considerations will dictate what makes sense to
offer.
Leiner et al, pg. 4
The ground rules Kahn worked out to guide the creation and
design of an open architecture environment include:
o Each distinct network would have to stand on its own and no
internal changes could be required to any such network to
connect it to the Internet.
o Communication would be on a best effort basis. If a packet
didn't make it to the final destination, it would shortly be
retransmitted from the source.
o Black boxes would be used to connect the networks; these
would later be called gateways and routers. There would be
no information retained by the gateways about the individual
flows of packets passing through them, thereby keeping them
simple and avoiding complicated adaptation and recovery from
various failure nodes.
o There would be no global control at the operations level.
Leiner et al.
All of these ground rules are a significantly different
conceptual approach from that used on the ARPANET. The ARPANET
required any computer system sharing resources with other
computers on its network to become a component part of it.
Communications on the IMP subnetwork were via dedicated logical
links and once a packet was sent to the IMP subnetwork its
transmission was guaranteed via an error free transmission
system. The IMPS carried out the interface function with the
communication subnetwork and the Host computers. The IMP
subnetwork was a complex rather than a simple system.
The ground rules for an open architecture network
environment are such that all networks are welcome to join in
the interconnection on a peer basis, rather than one as a
component of the other. Messages are to be broken into packets, and
the packets retransmitted until there is an acknowledgement of their
successful transmission. This simplifies the error detection
process and provides for a beginning flow control mechanism.
Black boxes are to be used as gateways but their functions are to
be limited so they can be kept simple. No one entity is to be
allowed to establish control at the operational level of the
participating networks."
from Ronda Hauben, "The Birth of the Internet: An
Architectural Conception for Solving the Multiple Network
Problem" http://www.columbia.edu/~rh120/other/birth_internet.txt
Also Robert Kahn and Barry Leiner have an understanding of open
architecture and the role open architecture has played in making
the Internet the metasystem that can welcome such a diversity of
dissimilar networks into a complex human-computer communications
system.
Kahn and Leiner are the kind of scientists with relevant expertise
who it is important to have on the committee. Instead those who have
irrelevant and inappropriate expertise were chosen, like one member
whose expertise is in corporate governance. These two people I have
suggested as members for the committee also understand the issues
involved in the need to create an adequate directory structure
for the Internet to help solve the problem that has been caused
by trying to make the current DNS system become a directory structure,
a function it was not created to serve and it cannot serve.
Also it was important to include someone with knowledge of the history
and development of the Internet. Unfortunately the NSF is not
supporting the needed research so that the important advances
represented by the Internet can be recognized and built on.
I have a number of papers on the history which it would be crucial
for any committee to consider and to find a way to further the
study of.
For example, the basic nature of the Internet as a complex system
relying on feedback to adjust to a changing environment is
clarified if one understands some of the background of JCR Licklider
who has been called the grandfather of the Internet. The goal
that he identified for the developing network has served as
a vision inspiring the engineers and programmers who have worked
on Internet development over the past number of years.
I recently submitted a proposal to the NSF describing the importance
of this study. The proposal is at
http://www.colubmia.edu/~rh120/other/nsfprop.txt
I have offered to contribute to the committee and thus far such
an offer has been ignored.
In a situation like this where there is a significant
public interest at stake, it is crucial that there be an open
process and an open means to encourage online discussion of the
issues being considered by the committee. In this regard it
would be a minimum requirement that the committee have a
newsgroup that was open for all to post to and to discuss as part
of, and that supported collaborative discussion of the issues
under consideration by the committee.
To begin with it would be appropriate to reconstitute the committee
by asking for public discussion and comments on the draft statement
of scope and rewriting that statement based on the discussion that
ensued. There has been some important and interesting discussion
on at least one mailing list, the Netizens mailing list,
and it would be good to see much more such online discussion.
This is the process needed to identify the key issues to be
determined by this committee in order to provide a useful report
to the US Congress.
Please also see the article I wrote that is in Telepolis on the
creation of this committee.
http://www.heise.de/tp/english/inhalt/te/7248/1.html
Ronda Hauben
ronda@panix.com
(212)787-9361
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End of Netizens-Digest V1 #379
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