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Netizens-Digest Volume 1 Number 408
Netizens-Digest Friday, October 25 2002 Volume 01 : Number 408
Netizens Association Discussion List Digest
In this issue:
Re: [netz] Only more democracy can save democracy
[netz] What is the contest over ICANN really about?
[netz] Re: IP numbers and the Infrastructure of the Internet
[netz] Re: IP numbers and the Infrastructure of the Internet
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Sat, 12 Oct 2002 17:26:50 +0300 (EET DST)
From: tnu@chania.di.uoa.gr
Subject: Re: [netz] Only more democracy can save democracy
Date: 10.10.02
Sender: Howard C. Berkowitz
Time: 15:54
> NO act of warfare has perfect accuracy; you can be as dead from a poorly
> aimed rifle shot as from a misdirected 2000 pound guided bomb.
True. But that "misdirection" can't be always just a "technical error".
> Let's say human or electronic error wipes out a Kurdish forward hospital
> close to the front lines, but also opens a gap through which the
> Resistance can attack.
>
> Not a very clear situation, is it?
Not clear, indeed. But I can't find any good reason why a hospital *has
to* be bombed in order for the Resistance to gain whatever advantage.
> I'm most familiar with the Copenhagen raid, which was carried out by the
> British. One of the bombers was hit and crashed into a Catholic school,
> killing dozens. The nuns of that school subsequently welcomed the bomber
> pilots and prayed for them, in recognition of a greater good being
> served.
I understand your argument. But a case where a plane gets shot down into a
school is very different from another case when a bomb is sent directly to
a hospital.
>>Anyway, I consider it sacrilege to bomb and
>>kill in the name of Democracy and Freedom [ And I am referring to
>>today's meanings of these two words ].
>
> I'm missing who is advocating this as the primary motivation.
The last three U.S Presidents referring to Gulf War, the attack against
Yugoslavia and the attack against Afghanistan/Talibans [ To be frank, the
attack against Talibans wasn't that "wrong". ]
>>For me, WW2 was a "war", the French-English war was a "war"
>
> ummmm....which one? :-)
Oh, yes. It's a long, long story... <smile>
> Serious question: what should be done by the world community to/for
> dictatorships that cannot be overthrown internally, and are committing
> atrocities on their own citizens?
Serious answer: The world community (that is, US *and* the rest of the
world) should take action. If there cannot be any political solution to
the particular problem, then they could start the attack.
That or another similar way of act hasn't been followed in the last
attacks: The US president had some "inappropriate" problems, well, "wag
the dog", let's bomb Milosevich.
What I am trying to say here, is that US, being the super-power of this
planet, has to play by the rules (that is, act under the commands of the
United Nations), if acceptance and friendship of the foreign countries is
what America wants.
> Let's take a place where there are no conflicting issues of oil
> resources or of balance of power, such as Rwanda?
[ Africa is well-known for its diamond resources. Of course, a diamond
cannot be compared to oil but it's still an issue. ]
AFAIK, the problems in Rwanda (and, generally, in Africa) still exist and
no powerful nation (ok, only US is powerful these days) has done any
significant step towards the end of the civil wars there.
>>I am not into conspiracy theories (at least, not except some weekends when
>>I want to smile a bit) but I don't think that the sole purpose of an
>>attack against a country is just to establish democracy there.
>
> I don't see anyone in the Bush administration proposing that as the
> principal motivation for attack. I see the attack being justified (and I
> don't necessarily agree with it) to eliminate a threat from weapons of
> mass destruction.
That's true. But if the US president says that "USA represents Democracy
and Freedom while country X represents Terror and Evil", then he (and US
forces, in general) seem to act in the name of the Right and Justice.
> When I read the Pentagon Papers, the most cynical but realistic memo I
> saw was from then Assistant Secretary of Defense (International Security
> Affairs) McNaughton to Secretary of Defense MacNamara. It cited the
> reasons for the US to be in Viet Nam:
Nobody says that US doesn't act for its own benefit [ and this isn't
necessarily wrong] . But many people (including me) find that covering its
own benefit under the cape of Democracy, Freedom and Justice is sacrilege.
> Test driving, without question, was present in the Spanish Civil War and
> elsewhere. Engineering test techniques have evolved to a point where
> there can be reasonable certainty that something will work in combat.
> Not perfectly -- no plan survives contact with the enemy.
Test-drive does not necessarily mean testing a weapon under "live"
circumstances; test-drive also helps promoting new hich-tech war gadgets.
> I absolutely agree that the Palestinian situation must be resolved, and
> I'm not happy with all of Israel's actions. For that matter, the
> Kurdish situation is as or more complex.
I totally agree.
> It's very hard to predict Saddam. I think his primary motivation is
> survival, and then power, first in Iraq and then regionally.
I don't think he will be alive for many years. He has some serious
diseases and he can barely move himslef around.
> I can think of very few plausible scenarios where he would give WMD to
> terrorists, except possibly as a final deterrent to attacks on Iraq.
I don't think that he will use any nuclear weapons. He doesn't want Iraq
to be a large (and, of course, flat) parking garage.
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 24 Oct 2002 07:14:57 -0400 (EDT)
From: <ronda@panix.com>
Subject: [netz] What is the contest over ICANN really about?
There has been some recent discussion on another mailing list I
am on about ICANN and the problem it represents. And the proposal
was to do serious work to develop a distributed system for
Internet naming to replace the DNS. This is a useful proposal
but it cannot solve the problem of what to do to provide an
appropriate form to protect the Internet's infrastructure.
ICANN does the opposite. Instead of providing the needed protection
from political pressures for the Internet's infrastructure, ICANN
intensifies the political fight over the ownership and control of the
technical functions that are critical to the Internet's functioning.
It is important to recognize that the domain name system is
*not* the critical issue with respect to the effort of the
US government to privatize the Internet's infrastructure.
With regard to ICANN and the contest over the development of a means
of protecting the Internet's infrastructure the effort should be to
identify the real problem and to determine what can be done to solve it.
I have just written an article about the nature of the infrastructure
of the Internet that is in danger of being handed over to ICANN by
the U.S. Department of Commerce.
In the article I explain:
"(....)The least critical aspect of this infrastructure is the DNS.
The Internet could function using IP numbers in place of the
names, just as telephone addressing is in general by numbers,
rather than names. But the IP numbers and protocols are
critical to the functioning of the Internet."
>From "The Internet and Its Governance: Where Should We Look for
Models?"
Article url: http://www.circleid.com/articles/2545.asp
The *real issue* as I understand it is that the IP numbers are critical
for the tcp/ip protocol and those have been put into ICANN's hands.
The IP numbers must be unique for the messages to have a destination
on the Internet.
Also the protocol process is critical as the protocols make it possible
for communication to occur. ICANN is also being put in charge of the
protocol process.
There needs to be some means of creating a form to protect these
critical aspects of the Internet's infrastructure. (Port numbers
are also an issue, and are something that the old IANA handled,
and perhaps someone on this list can say a bit about their significance.
Here it seems just a matter of keeping track of them but also this
is an important technical function that is part of the Internet's
technical infrastructure.)
Distributed solutions to the Domain Name problem are possible and
probably the future. In my research about the history of the
international collaboration that created the tcp/ip protocol
suite, I came across the fact that early on the University College
London (UCL) had its own form of domain name system, and the US had its
form of system, and the early tcp/ip development were not affected
by the fact that these were different systems for naming.
I am working on a draft of a paper on the early international collaboration
that made the development of tcp/ip possible. I hope to be able to
make the paper available for comment shortly.
Ronda
ronda@ais.org
http://www.columbia.edu/~rh120
http://www.ais.org/~ronda/new.papers
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 25 Oct 2002 22:10:53 -0400 (EDT)
From: jrh@ais.org (Jay Hauben)
Subject: [netz] Re: IP numbers and the Infrastructure of the Internet
From: "Olivier MJ Crepin-Leblond" <ocl@gih.com>
To: Jay Hauben (jrh@ais.org)
CC'ed to: discuss@isoc-ny.org and members@england.isoc.org
Caveat Emptor: this is all written from my weak memory, so feel free
to correct me on any inaccuracies etc.
Jay:
(feel free to forward to Rhonda & others if you wish)
> Distributed solutions to the Domain Name problem are possible and probably
> the future. In my research about the history of the international
> collaboration that created the tcp/ip protocol suite, I came across the
> fact that early on the UK had its own form of domain name system, and the
> US had its form of system, and the early tcp/ip development was not
> affected by the fact that these were different systems for naming.
I fear that in taking this example, we may be comparing Apples with Oranges.
I recall the early days of the Internet, and the trek that one needed to
pursue
to connect to the Internet when the UK had a different addressing system
than the Internet.
On the surface, the basic difference was that UK addresses, commonly
known as NRS (Name Registry System) were quoted as country first,
then type of address, etc.
For example, for email, you'd have:
somebody@uk.ac.kcl.cc.elm
To send email from the Internet to a UK address, you'd type:
somebody@elm.cc.kcl.ac.uk
Looking in further depth, however, things were more complicated.
For one, the UK ran a number of proprietary networks, each of which
ran their own protocols. The main UK network was academic, and
called JANET. (Joint Academic NETwork) and did not run DNS.
Instead, it ran Coloured Book Software for e-mail, and direct connections
between computers took place using PAD (X.3), and X.21.
A central database at ULCC/UCL (University of London Computer Centre)
held the tables for the corresponding PAD numeric & Name addresses.
E-MAIL from INTERNET to JANET
For e-mail to be passed from the Internet to Janet in 1987 (that's
a short while after .ARPA was fragmented in .MIL, .ORG, .EDU etc.)
you'd type the UK address in standard DNS way, ie. with UK at the end.
Anything with .AC.UK used to have MX records pointing to:
nsfnet-relay.ac.uk. Previous to that time, MX records pointed to
nss.cs.ucl.ac.uk or nss.arc.nasa.gov - can't exactly remember since
this is all from memory & this is a long time ago! The connectivity
used to take place through NASA's SATNET network.
nsfnet-relay.ac.uk (which was initially composed of one VAX,
and then one VAX + 2 Suns) did all the hard work of reversing the
address and then forwarded the e-mail through JANET using CBS.
For .CO.UK, there were other arrangements, namely through a
gateway to PSS - Packet SwitchStream, run by British Telecom,
but that's another can of worms, so let's not even open it...
In some cases, people could route their e-mail through BITNET,
a store and forward network (now defunct - RIP) which made
use of EARN-RELAY.AC.UK at the Rutherford Appleton Labs
(the machine's real name was IB.RL.AC.UK, a huge IBM machine
which is now probably less powerful than a Pentium II laptop)
E-MAIL from JANET to INTERNET
The standard route was using EARN-RELAY.AC.UK because it
was actually cheaper than using NASA's SATNET. However, you
could specify that you wanted to send your e-mail through
nsfnet-relay.ac.uk instead,
(using user%edu.computer@uk.ac.nsfnet-relay)
Note the reversal of DNS names, ie. EDU at the start of the
name. Both relays would do the hard work again, and understand
that you'd want to send e-mail to an Internet address on DNS,
and forward it accordingly.
Of course, there were problems associated with the reversal
of the name. For example, if you needed to send e-mail to
cs.somewhere.edu, the relay would cough - because it may
recognise that edu.somewhere.cs could also be a proper
name - in Czechoslovakia!) So things were not perfect, far
from it!
DIRECT CONNECTIVITY FROM JANET to INTERNET
It was not possible to connect directly to the Internet from
most places in the UK since there was no direct link. The
way to do it was to connect to ULCC computers at
uk.ac.ucl.cs.nss using PAD, which in most machines was some
nice address such as 0000077300456, login using the guest
account, and then select what you wanted to do: telnet, or
ftp, on the Internet side. Transfer of files from UCL's NSS
to yours had to take place using Coloured Book Software,
namely NIFTP. Cumbersome, and expensive, since all traffic
went through NASA's SATNET - using taxpayer's dollars. Yippee!!!
There was no way to connect interactively through the
BITNET gateway at Rutherford Appleton Labs.
DIRECT CONNECTIVITY FROM INTERNET to JANET
Pretty much the same system: connect to NASA's gateway
to JANET (nss.arc.nasa.gov) and then use PAD to connect to
a UK computer.
Obviously, the amount of processing power required was
high, and no more than a few dozen people could connect
across at any one time. Ooooh, I feel so priviledged now, just
thinking about it. :-)
CONCLUSION
While it was possible for the two networks to interact, this
was never seamless, and the amount of traffic seen today
on the Internet would never be carried if the UK
had not changed it's networks to embrace tcp-ip. This was
done in the early nineties - a gradual change. Having lived it,
I often take a backseat view of all of the current turmoils the
Internet is going through. Would you believe it, the initial
offical policy in the UK, with our European Neighbours, was to
replace NRS with X.400 & other X.xxx protocols!!! We were a
hair away from actually going ahead with it, until wisdom prevailed,
and everything was changed to DNS & TCP-IP.
IMHO however, the conclusion that transpires from the early
days of JANET & the Internet, was that in order for things to
run smoothly, you need a smooth protocol end-to-end.
The more gateways, the more converters, the more unrelated
databases there are, the more errors, complications and
catastrophes are likely to happen.
In my opinion, a classic KISS applies: Keep It Simple Stupid.
Kind regards,
- --
Olivier MJ Crepin-Leblond, Ph.D. |--> Global Information Highway Limited
E-mail:<ocl@gih.com> | Tel:+44 (0)7956 84 1113 | Fax:+44 (0)20 7937 7666
Web: http://www.gih.com/ & http://www.nsrc.org/codes/country-codes.html
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 25 Oct 2002 23:18:59 -0400
From: "Howard C. Berkowitz" <hcb@gettcomm.com>
Subject: [netz] Re: IP numbers and the Infrastructure of the Internet
I'm confused, because the discussion below doesn't have anything to
do with addresses such as 192.0.2.1/24 (IP) or
47000500100000C0A0F2C3B142 (OSI). It is referring to names, which
map to addresses (and vice versa).
>From: "Olivier MJ Crepin-Leblond" <ocl@gih.com>
>
>To: Jay Hauben (jrh@ais.org)
>CC'ed to: discuss@isoc-ny.org and members@england.isoc.org
>Caveat Emptor: this is all written from my weak memory, so feel free
>to correct me on any inaccuracies etc.
>
>Jay:
>(feel free to forward to Rhonda & others if you wish)
>
>> Distributed solutions to the Domain Name problem are possible and probably
>> the future. In my research about the history of the international
>> collaboration that created the tcp/ip protocol suite, I came across the
>> fact that early on the UK had its own form of domain name system, and the
>> US had its form of system, and the early tcp/ip development was not
>> affected by the fact that these were different systems for naming.
>
>I fear that in taking this example, we may be comparing Apples with Oranges.
>I recall the early days of the Internet, and the trek that one needed to
>pursue
>to connect to the Internet when the UK had a different addressing system
>than the Internet.
You're talking here about naming, not addressing. I can't think of a
time the addressing system ever differed regionally.
>
>On the surface, the basic difference was that UK addresses, commonly
>known as NRS (Name Registry System) were quoted as country first,
>then type of address, etc.
>
>For example, for email, you'd have:
>
>somebody@uk.ac.kcl.cc.elm
>
>To send email from the Internet to a UK address, you'd type:
>
>somebody@elm.cc.kcl.ac.uk
>
>Looking in further depth, however, things were more complicated.
>For one, the UK ran a number of proprietary networks, each of which
>ran their own protocols. The main UK network was academic, and
>called JANET. (Joint Academic NETwork) and did not run DNS.
>Instead, it ran Coloured Book Software for e-mail, and direct connections
>between computers took place using PAD (X.3), and X.21.
>A central database at ULCC/UCL (University of London Computer Centre)
>held the tables for the corresponding PAD numeric & Name addresses.
Both IP and OSI protocols could run over any of these networks.
>
>E-MAIL from INTERNET to JANET
>
>For e-mail to be passed from the Internet to Janet in 1987 (that's
>a short while after .ARPA was fragmented in .MIL, .ORG, .EDU etc.)
>you'd type the UK address in standard DNS way, ie. with UK at the end.
again, this is a name, not an address. DNS, X.500, etc., map the name
to an address.
>
>Anything with .AC.UK used to have MX records pointing to:
>nsfnet-relay.ac.uk. Previous to that time, MX records pointed to
>nss.cs.ucl.ac.uk or nss.arc.nasa.gov - can't exactly remember since
>this is all from memory & this is a long time ago! The connectivity
>used to take place through NASA's SATNET network.
>
>nsfnet-relay.ac.uk (which was initially composed of one VAX,
>and then one VAX + 2 Suns) did all the hard work of reversing the
>address and then forwarded the e-mail through JANET using CBS.
>
>For .CO.UK, there were other arrangements, namely through a
>gateway to PSS - Packet SwitchStream, run by British Telecom,
>but that's another can of worms, so let's not even open it...
>
>In some cases, people could route their e-mail through BITNET,
>a store and forward network (now defunct - RIP) which made
>use of EARN-RELAY.AC.UK at the Rutherford Appleton Labs
>(the machine's real name was IB.RL.AC.UK, a huge IBM machine
>which is now probably less powerful than a Pentium II laptop)
>
>E-MAIL from JANET to INTERNET
>
>The standard route was using EARN-RELAY.AC.UK because it
>was actually cheaper than using NASA's SATNET. However, you
>could specify that you wanted to send your e-mail through
>nsfnet-relay.ac.uk instead,
>(using user%edu.computer@uk.ac.nsfnet-relay)
>
>Note the reversal of DNS names, ie. EDU at the start of the
>name. Both relays would do the hard work again, and understand
>that you'd want to send e-mail to an Internet address on DNS,
>and forward it accordingly.
>
>Of course, there were problems associated with the reversal
>of the name. For example, if you needed to send e-mail to
>cs.somewhere.edu, the relay would cough - because it may
>recognise that edu.somewhere.cs could also be a proper
>name - in Czechoslovakia!) So things were not perfect, far
>from it!
>
>DIRECT CONNECTIVITY FROM JANET to INTERNET
>
>It was not possible to connect directly to the Internet from
>most places in the UK since there was no direct link. The
>way to do it was to connect to ULCC computers at
>uk.ac.ucl.cs.nss using PAD, which in most machines was some
>nice address such as 0000077300456, login using the guest
>account, and then select what you wanted to do: telnet, or
>ftp, on the Internet side. Transfer of files from UCL's NSS
>to yours had to take place using Coloured Book Software,
>namely NIFTP. Cumbersome, and expensive, since all traffic
>went through NASA's SATNET - using taxpayer's dollars. Yippee!!!
>
>There was no way to connect interactively through the
>BITNET gateway at Rutherford Appleton Labs.
>
>DIRECT CONNECTIVITY FROM INTERNET to JANET
>
>Pretty much the same system: connect to NASA's gateway
>to JANET (nss.arc.nasa.gov) and then use PAD to connect to
>a UK computer.
>
>Obviously, the amount of processing power required was
>high, and no more than a few dozen people could connect
>across at any one time. Ooooh, I feel so priviledged now, just
>thinking about it. :-)
>
>CONCLUSION
>
>While it was possible for the two networks to interact, this
>was never seamless, and the amount of traffic seen today
>on the Internet would never be carried if the UK
>had not changed it's networks to embrace tcp-ip. This was
>done in the early nineties - a gradual change. Having lived it,
>I often take a backseat view of all of the current turmoils the
>Internet is going through. Would you believe it, the initial
>offical policy in the UK, with our European Neighbours, was to
>replace NRS with X.400 & other X.xxx protocols!!! We were a
>hair away from actually going ahead with it, until wisdom prevailed,
>and everything was changed to DNS & TCP-IP.
>
>IMHO however, the conclusion that transpires from the early
>days of JANET & the Internet, was that in order for things to
>run smoothly, you need a smooth protocol end-to-end.
>The more gateways, the more converters, the more unrelated
>databases there are, the more errors, complications and
>catastrophes are likely to happen.
>
>In my opinion, a classic KISS applies: Keep It Simple Stupid.
>
>Kind regards,
>
>--
>Olivier MJ Crepin-Leblond, Ph.D. |--> Global Information Highway Limited
>E-mail:<ocl@gih.com> | Tel:+44 (0)7956 84 1113 | Fax:+44 (0)20 7937 7666
>Web: http://www.gih.com/ & http://www.nsrc.org/codes/country-codes.html
------------------------------
End of Netizens-Digest V1 #408
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