Morik2005-10-07 05:08:09
Time to clarify a few things:
* noone "invented" networking. The concept of "packet networking" was developed simultaneously by an American researcher and a British researcher. The idea of a "network" at the time was a "circuit network" - ie, to talk to someone you actually bring up a guaranteed circuit (think of it as an unbroken wire link) between the two parties. If you brought the circuit up and then didn't use it at all the resources were still allocated and tied up by this circuit.
* the problem addressed in the 1960's was that connecting to a computer required you to have the specific interface/terminal type for that type of computer. If you wanted to work on two different types of computers then you generally needed two completely seperate physical terminals, completely different in that they only spoke to their paired computer. You also generally had two physically different links, one from each terminal to each computer.
* The ARPAnet was funded by the US DoD through ARPA (Advanced Research Projects .. IIRC) whose end-goal was to provide a method to link together different types of computers above with both themselves (ie, computer to computer talking for things such as file transfer) and between computers and between computers and a generic "terminal" device - ie, you could sit at a terminal and connect to any of the computers, regardless of their type, on the ARPAnet. You connected this computer to an IMP, Interface Message Processor (kind of the precursor to your ADSL router, but not quite), which would be the gateway between that computer and the network.
* now, the original ARPAnet technology is not the same technology that your internet today is built on. About the only holdover is how TELNET and FTP operate.
* at or about this time, people started building computer networks in other countries using different technologies. The easiest one for me to remember was ALOHAnet, a packet radio network linking computers together across Hawaii in the early 70s. Other computers in different locations popped up in different countries, all with their 'own' idea of 'network'.
* some time in the late 70s/early 80s the original ARPAnet idea started hitting scaling issues. People wanted to link together networks in other countries. Some could be linked into the ARPAnet but more research had been done into packet networks and a fun chap named Bob Metcalfe had worked on this thing called "Ethernet" for cheap(!) local area networking. All the pieces were falling into place.
* Another thing to realise is that not all computer 'networks' at the time were on ARPAnet or similar technologies. Things such as Fidonet and UUCP (unix to unix copy) popped up as ways to exchange data between computers over non-permanent dialup links. The idea was this: your computer would contain a bunch of 'things' that it wanted to get from another computer - files, email messages, that kind of stuff. So your computer would periodically dial another computer and they would have a chat, exchanging what information they had for each other. This was actually done to many, many computers all over the world for quite a number of years.
* The result of this was a bit of a paradigm shift to something which resembles what we use today: the idea of 'routers', the IP protocol suite, that kind of thing. Up until then, the end computers just thought they were talking to a bunch of terminals and the ARPAnet hardware (IMP) 'pretended' that these terminals were what the computer expected. This meant that any time you built a new computer that expected a new type of terminal you ended up having to design and build a 'new' IMP. This started to suck. Instead, the smart people realised they could emulate this stuff in software and have each computer speak to a network using something like ethernet. The expensive and complex IMPs therefore went away, replaced with (relatively) dumb devices called routers which would take an IP packet in, look at where it was going and shuffle it along its path. It didn't have to care about the payload at all, only the destination address.
* so now we hit the 80s. The ARPAnet was scheduled to be turned off, replaced by the NSFnet - the National Sciences Foundation network. This was an IP based network for universities to use for academic purposes only. The group of academics, mostly American, who managed things such as the internet 'documentation' (RFCs) for things like protocol descriptions and protocol numbers and whatnot was formalised. This formed the beginnings of the "American control" of the internet - which, at the time, was simply a place for everyone on the NSFnet to 'agree' to certain things so all their computers could communicate. At this time, remember, people were now responsible for writing the software for their computer to talk to the rest of the network, so some respository of information was needed for people to access and use when writing stuff.
* fast forward a little. You now have this setup: people around the world had worked on the software which computers ran, enabling them to talk to the NFSnet. People around the world had built networks and wanted to link them into the NFSnet. The idea of "Internet" was coined to describe a group of networks who implemented the "internet protocol" to chat to each other. Remember that there were a number of networks who were all implemented differently with different hardware, software and couldn't talk together. The only US-centric part of the "internet" was the NSFnet and the early work on the ARPAnet. The ARPAnet at this time was relangated to the military stuff.
* fast forward a little more. Al Gore's participation was involvement in funding to push forward for larger national research network. The ARPAnet was disconnected sometime in the late 80s or early 90s.
* fast forward a little more. The formation of "the internet" as an entity is when the rules for connecting to the NSFnet were relaxed to allow non-research networks to connect. Commercial access to computers and networks had existed before this time but they weren't connected to the NSFnet.
Ok, thats a brief description of internet history. To summarise:
* our "internet" isn't based on the ARPAnet: in fact, its the network generation /past/ the ARPAnet.
* the military involvement was funding for the ARPAnet. Research had existed beforehand into packet networks but the ARPAnet was the first implementation, and proof, that a packet network could and would work
* the military funding didn't actually produce the "internet protocols", in fact I believe the reverse was true - the DoD adopted IP sometime in the mid 80s over something like the OSI protocol suite
* the NSFnet, the US research network running IP, was funded and built by the US, but many other research networks popped up which ran a multitude of things
* when people, both around the US and around the world, started using the IP protocol suite they started connecting to the NSFnet and between each other so they could all talk
* .. and at this point, the "internet" - a collective of networks running the same agreed protocol suite - popped up into existance.
Rightio. Now that the history lesson is out of the way, lets look at the "Control".
The root of the matter, really, is the control of the DNS (domain name system). The DNS is what allows someone who looks at "www.lusternia.com" to resolve that to an internet address and, hopefully, be able to connect to said address. The DNS is another thing everyone on the internet "agrees" upon - ie, everyone agrees to go to the same servers when they're trying to resolve a name they don't know about. Now, originally, these "root servers" were run and operated by a small group of people who also made the decisions as to which domains were run and by who. They also made the choice as to which domain is controlled by which country (ie, who in Australia looked after ".au".) Now, the decisions made for the operation of the DNS, both who gets to control what domain names and the policies for such, affect global economy and not just the US. Other countries are concerned that their internet 'economy' is under direct control of the US Commerce department and therefore is managed in the best interests of the US, not some concept of "global interests".
There. Go google for ARPAnet/NSFnet/internet history. I spent a whole bunch of time in the last 10 years hanging around the American internet networking group so I was exposed to some of the tail end of this research. Twas kinda cool. But the line between US and non-US "internet" isn't clear cut, even in history, so please do some more research and make up your own mind.
Basic history:
http://www.zakon.org/robert/internet/timeline/
http://www.walthowe.com/navnet/history.html
http://www.internetvalley.com/archives/mir...rf-how-inet.txt
.. etc, etc. A lot of searches for NSFnet and ARPAnet don't talk much about the non-US networks, so do google searches for the non-US networks you see listed. I've found historical documents here at the university I work for talking about the "current" Australia computer "network" on crazy custom hardware/networking and what could be done to move it to this "ethernet" thingy to move to IP. Crazy, crazy stuff.
* noone "invented" networking. The concept of "packet networking" was developed simultaneously by an American researcher and a British researcher. The idea of a "network" at the time was a "circuit network" - ie, to talk to someone you actually bring up a guaranteed circuit (think of it as an unbroken wire link) between the two parties. If you brought the circuit up and then didn't use it at all the resources were still allocated and tied up by this circuit.
* the problem addressed in the 1960's was that connecting to a computer required you to have the specific interface/terminal type for that type of computer. If you wanted to work on two different types of computers then you generally needed two completely seperate physical terminals, completely different in that they only spoke to their paired computer. You also generally had two physically different links, one from each terminal to each computer.
* The ARPAnet was funded by the US DoD through ARPA (Advanced Research Projects .. IIRC) whose end-goal was to provide a method to link together different types of computers above with both themselves (ie, computer to computer talking for things such as file transfer) and between computers and between computers and a generic "terminal" device - ie, you could sit at a terminal and connect to any of the computers, regardless of their type, on the ARPAnet. You connected this computer to an IMP, Interface Message Processor (kind of the precursor to your ADSL router, but not quite), which would be the gateway between that computer and the network.
* now, the original ARPAnet technology is not the same technology that your internet today is built on. About the only holdover is how TELNET and FTP operate.
* at or about this time, people started building computer networks in other countries using different technologies. The easiest one for me to remember was ALOHAnet, a packet radio network linking computers together across Hawaii in the early 70s. Other computers in different locations popped up in different countries, all with their 'own' idea of 'network'.
* some time in the late 70s/early 80s the original ARPAnet idea started hitting scaling issues. People wanted to link together networks in other countries. Some could be linked into the ARPAnet but more research had been done into packet networks and a fun chap named Bob Metcalfe had worked on this thing called "Ethernet" for cheap(!) local area networking. All the pieces were falling into place.
* Another thing to realise is that not all computer 'networks' at the time were on ARPAnet or similar technologies. Things such as Fidonet and UUCP (unix to unix copy) popped up as ways to exchange data between computers over non-permanent dialup links. The idea was this: your computer would contain a bunch of 'things' that it wanted to get from another computer - files, email messages, that kind of stuff. So your computer would periodically dial another computer and they would have a chat, exchanging what information they had for each other. This was actually done to many, many computers all over the world for quite a number of years.
* The result of this was a bit of a paradigm shift to something which resembles what we use today: the idea of 'routers', the IP protocol suite, that kind of thing. Up until then, the end computers just thought they were talking to a bunch of terminals and the ARPAnet hardware (IMP) 'pretended' that these terminals were what the computer expected. This meant that any time you built a new computer that expected a new type of terminal you ended up having to design and build a 'new' IMP. This started to suck. Instead, the smart people realised they could emulate this stuff in software and have each computer speak to a network using something like ethernet. The expensive and complex IMPs therefore went away, replaced with (relatively) dumb devices called routers which would take an IP packet in, look at where it was going and shuffle it along its path. It didn't have to care about the payload at all, only the destination address.
* so now we hit the 80s. The ARPAnet was scheduled to be turned off, replaced by the NSFnet - the National Sciences Foundation network. This was an IP based network for universities to use for academic purposes only. The group of academics, mostly American, who managed things such as the internet 'documentation' (RFCs) for things like protocol descriptions and protocol numbers and whatnot was formalised. This formed the beginnings of the "American control" of the internet - which, at the time, was simply a place for everyone on the NSFnet to 'agree' to certain things so all their computers could communicate. At this time, remember, people were now responsible for writing the software for their computer to talk to the rest of the network, so some respository of information was needed for people to access and use when writing stuff.
* fast forward a little. You now have this setup: people around the world had worked on the software which computers ran, enabling them to talk to the NFSnet. People around the world had built networks and wanted to link them into the NFSnet. The idea of "Internet" was coined to describe a group of networks who implemented the "internet protocol" to chat to each other. Remember that there were a number of networks who were all implemented differently with different hardware, software and couldn't talk together. The only US-centric part of the "internet" was the NSFnet and the early work on the ARPAnet. The ARPAnet at this time was relangated to the military stuff.
* fast forward a little more. Al Gore's participation was involvement in funding to push forward for larger national research network. The ARPAnet was disconnected sometime in the late 80s or early 90s.
* fast forward a little more. The formation of "the internet" as an entity is when the rules for connecting to the NSFnet were relaxed to allow non-research networks to connect. Commercial access to computers and networks had existed before this time but they weren't connected to the NSFnet.
Ok, thats a brief description of internet history. To summarise:
* our "internet" isn't based on the ARPAnet: in fact, its the network generation /past/ the ARPAnet.
* the military involvement was funding for the ARPAnet. Research had existed beforehand into packet networks but the ARPAnet was the first implementation, and proof, that a packet network could and would work
* the military funding didn't actually produce the "internet protocols", in fact I believe the reverse was true - the DoD adopted IP sometime in the mid 80s over something like the OSI protocol suite
* the NSFnet, the US research network running IP, was funded and built by the US, but many other research networks popped up which ran a multitude of things
* when people, both around the US and around the world, started using the IP protocol suite they started connecting to the NSFnet and between each other so they could all talk
* .. and at this point, the "internet" - a collective of networks running the same agreed protocol suite - popped up into existance.
Rightio. Now that the history lesson is out of the way, lets look at the "Control".
The root of the matter, really, is the control of the DNS (domain name system). The DNS is what allows someone who looks at "www.lusternia.com" to resolve that to an internet address and, hopefully, be able to connect to said address. The DNS is another thing everyone on the internet "agrees" upon - ie, everyone agrees to go to the same servers when they're trying to resolve a name they don't know about. Now, originally, these "root servers" were run and operated by a small group of people who also made the decisions as to which domains were run and by who. They also made the choice as to which domain is controlled by which country (ie, who in Australia looked after ".au".) Now, the decisions made for the operation of the DNS, both who gets to control what domain names and the policies for such, affect global economy and not just the US. Other countries are concerned that their internet 'economy' is under direct control of the US Commerce department and therefore is managed in the best interests of the US, not some concept of "global interests".
There. Go google for ARPAnet/NSFnet/internet history. I spent a whole bunch of time in the last 10 years hanging around the American internet networking group so I was exposed to some of the tail end of this research. Twas kinda cool. But the line between US and non-US "internet" isn't clear cut, even in history, so please do some more research and make up your own mind.
Basic history:
http://www.zakon.org/robert/internet/timeline/
http://www.walthowe.com/navnet/history.html
http://www.internetvalley.com/archives/mir...rf-how-inet.txt
.. etc, etc. A lot of searches for NSFnet and ARPAnet don't talk much about the non-US networks, so do google searches for the non-US networks you see listed. I've found historical documents here at the university I work for talking about the "current" Australia computer "network" on crazy custom hardware/networking and what could be done to move it to this "ethernet" thingy to move to IP. Crazy, crazy stuff.
Richter2005-10-07 05:14:00
QUOTE(Hajamin @ Oct 6 2005, 06:31 PM)
There is a difference there, Edison is one man. The internet was invented by the US Governement, the Army to be exact.
200327
Well, and he managed to -harness- electricty, and then we figured out how to generate it and such. I can imagine the internet being here since the dawn of time, and only the US military being able to harness its awesome powers recently.
Corr2005-10-07 06:08:57
My problem with an intertational sub-government or a international company controling it, is that suddenly it has one owner is is officially controled. At that point, you won't have some people charging you $20 For domain name registartion and someone else charging you $5 if your lucky on the aniversary date etc.
Single control is always bad, and anyone who thinks "The U.S Government" is coherent enough to be in control of anything is not understanding our massive uncontrolled beurocracy.
Single control is always bad, and anyone who thinks "The U.S Government" is coherent enough to be in control of anything is not understanding our massive uncontrolled beurocracy.
Unknown2005-10-07 06:17:04
QUOTE(Corr @ Oct 7 2005, 04:08 PM)
My problem with an intertational sub-government or a international company controling it, is that suddenly it has one owner is is officially controled. At that point, you won't have some people charging you $20 For domain name registartion and someone else charging you $5 if your lucky on the aniversary date etc.
Single control is always bad, and anyone who thinks "The U.S Government" is coherent enough to be in control of anything is not understanding our massive uncontrolled beurocracy.
Single control is always bad, and anyone who thinks "The U.S Government" is coherent enough to be in control of anything is not understanding our massive uncontrolled beurocracy.
200467
I don't think that will be a problem, reselling will continue as it does with everyone charging what they feel is appropriate for their level of work and desired profit margins.
Unknown2005-10-07 08:59:13
QUOTE(Richter @ Oct 6 2005, 09:19 PM)
The first time I watched all of those Anit-matrix things I was depressed for about three days. Before that I used to joke about how cool it would be if the bad guys won in the end, after that, nope, not anymore
Unknown2005-10-07 10:45:49
1: Just like electricity, no one has legal control over the idea of the internet. However, India (who has energy problems) ain't tapping into any US energy companies because it has the 'right' to.
2: The problem is the control the US has on the internet. Simple answer to other countries: Disconnect from our internet and develop your own. Sure, it'll knock global commerce down a notch, but it's 'fair'.
2: The problem is the control the US has on the internet. Simple answer to other countries: Disconnect from our internet and develop your own. Sure, it'll knock global commerce down a notch, but it's 'fair'.
Morik2005-10-07 12:41:56
QUOTE(BobStar @ Oct 7 2005, 06:45 PM)
1: Just like electricity, no one has legal control over the idea of the internet. However, India (who has energy problems) ain't tapping into any US energy companies because it has the 'right' to.
2: The problem is the control the US has on the internet. Simple answer to other countries: Disconnect from our internet and develop your own. Sure, it'll knock global commerce down a notch, but it's 'fair'.
2: The problem is the control the US has on the internet. Simple answer to other countries: Disconnect from our internet and develop your own. Sure, it'll knock global commerce down a notch, but it's 'fair'.
200614
The purpose of the "internet" is so that these "seperate networks" actually communicate to each other. The internet is not a single thing someone owns, because by its very nature it is a composite of seperately run - and owned - networks who have decided the whole is the better than the sum of its parts and thusly decided to connect together at various points.
Do you have an idea of how the internet actually exists? It isn't one network. Not by a long shot. Take a big map of the world, draw lots and lots (like, quite literally, lots - something under 65000 but above 10,000) of physical networks that are quite seperate and then join them together in every major city in the world. Those points at which each physically and administratively seperate network connect is the "inter(between) net(work)". The only thing that makes it work "together" is that these network operators agree to use the same protocols, share the same IP address space, use the same protocol numbers, use one single Domain Name System root to resolve names. This is where the concept of "internet" came from - the groups assigned the task of managing these databases of shared IP addresses, protocol descriptions, numbering/naming schemes, they were the ones called "internet" - "internet engineering task force (IETF)", "internet assigned names/numbers authority (IANA)". The ISI - "internet sciences(?) institute" consisted of people studying how networks work /together/.
The "internet" is collaboration. It isn't owned by a single person, or a single country. Its simply collaboration. The problem again is that the groups who maintain the databases of names and numbers are "owned" by the US and now are considered more of a financial, economic and political entity to control and the choices made by these entities can affect entire countries.
So there isn't "your internet". There isn't "our internet". There just is "the internet". You can't disconnect from "the US internet" because, well, there really isn't one.
Thaemorn2005-10-07 18:17:56
Everyone knows Australia is really responsible for the Internet.
You should all be grateful we let you borrow it.
You should all be grateful we let you borrow it.
Narsrim2005-10-07 18:37:43
I have full faith in the US government to keep control of whatever it truly does have control over and manipulate to the best for the US. That's what governments do... and the US has gotten quite good at it. The internet is no exception.
Unknown2005-10-07 18:44:28
QUOTE(Thaemorn @ Oct 8 2005, 04:17 AM)
Everyone knows Australia is really responsible for the Internet.
You should all be grateful we let you borrow it.
You should all be grateful we let you borrow it.
200758
Damn straight, I've been collecting my dividends for years now.
Corr2005-10-07 18:50:31
QUOTE(Quidgyboo @ Oct 7 2005, 06:17 AM)
I don't think that will be a problem, reselling will continue as it does with everyone charging what they feel is appropriate for their level of work and desired profit margins.
200473
There is no "work" involved in registering a domain name.
If one company is given sole control over such registrations, then they will set a price and it can not go below that price.
Unknown2005-10-07 19:09:29
QUOTE(Corr @ Oct 8 2005, 04:50 AM)
There is no "work" involved in registering a domain name.
If one company is given sole control over such registrations, then they will set a price and it can not go below that price.
If one company is given sole control over such registrations, then they will set a price and it can not go below that price.
200770
That depends on the kind of market you are opperating in. For example, Telstra has control over basically all the telecommunications in the country here, but is forced to open up the market to competitors or it is in breach of the Fair Trading Act, or the Trade Practices Act, or something.
Corr2005-10-07 19:54:49
Well thats the situation that currently exists isn't it?
They want to form some new Agency or something that is going to control the internet in the way they can all the world over. And I don't see them opening that up to "fair trade" because "fair trade" is what got the situation they are in now.
They want to form some new Agency or something that is going to control the internet in the way they can all the world over. And I don't see them opening that up to "fair trade" because "fair trade" is what got the situation they are in now.
Narsrim2005-10-07 20:16:00
QUOTE(Corr @ Oct 7 2005, 03:54 PM)
Well thats the situation that currently exists isn't it?
They want to form some new Agency or something that is going to control the internet in the way they can all the world over. And I don't see them opening that up to "fair trade" because "fair trade" is what got the situation they are in now.
They want to form some new Agency or something that is going to control the internet in the way they can all the world over. And I don't see them opening that up to "fair trade" because "fair trade" is what got the situation they are in now.
200803
Are you advocating "unfair trade"?
Corr2005-10-07 20:27:57
I'm saying that the only way someone could claim new control of the internet would be through a process of unfair trade. And I think that would be a bad thing.
Laysus2005-10-07 23:14:39
I just panicked when I saw references to the DoC and wondered when Visaeris was going to start raiding again >.>
Raezon2005-10-08 00:33:28
Ultimately the best way I can liken it is this...
Imagine a puppet show... currently the US pulls the strings to make the puppets move but China can ban its citizens from viewing the puppet show. This new international oversight committee, upon gaining the power to pull the strings, will be set upon by people like China to stop making certain puppets move. Right now, there's no real way for places like China to say, "Stop access to this website!!" because the US will tell them to go stuff it whereas if there's an international agency, China can petition and say, this website is bad, stop it, and they'll actually do something about it depending on how they "feel" about the website.
That's the general problem as I understand it.
Imagine a puppet show... currently the US pulls the strings to make the puppets move but China can ban its citizens from viewing the puppet show. This new international oversight committee, upon gaining the power to pull the strings, will be set upon by people like China to stop making certain puppets move. Right now, there's no real way for places like China to say, "Stop access to this website!!" because the US will tell them to go stuff it whereas if there's an international agency, China can petition and say, this website is bad, stop it, and they'll actually do something about it depending on how they "feel" about the website.
That's the general problem as I understand it.
Stangmar2005-10-08 00:44:11
I think all these European countries need to stuff it. The internet has been just fine and still is, we are NOT destroying it. They just don't like the idea of the US having control of anything, be it the internet or a potato gun. And it's not like we're in control of it anyway.
Fain2005-10-08 02:55:37
Since this is an internet history thread, 10 points goes to the person who can tell me who Ray Tomlinson was. He invented something -huge- which helped make the Arpanet a success but since he was a cool hippie he gave away what he made for free, like most of the internet pioneers. I love these guys cause of their philosophies on the internet, if it weren't for people like Ray Tomlinson who felt open source was important the internet would have probably never reached the levels it has today. And man, its still young.. just think of how much more it can evolve.
As far as control goes, noone should control a worldwide communication network of free information that can bridge gaps between peoples.
As far as control goes, noone should control a worldwide communication network of free information that can bridge gaps between peoples.
Fain2005-10-08 02:59:55
QUOTE
They want to form some new Agency or something that is going to control the internet in the way they can all the world over.
ICANN?? W3C??? WHOIS?? There are already lots of organizations who control the internet the world over. Doesn't mean other countries don't have a say in how the internet is set up.
