I know this is a trivial question! Does anyone have a really good definition of the Internet. The only ones I have speaks only to the technology. Sam --------------------------------- Yahoo! Messenger with Voice. Make PC-to-Phone Calls to the US (and 30+ countries) for 2¢/min or less.
Dear Sam, Good question that I also would like to find an answer. Seems to me these trivial questions are the most difficult to answer. as you have said we have a lot of definitions of the internet as a technology device, but now many researchers are interested in finding the place of internet in social interection. Maybe these people could help you and me to find a good definition of the Internet. Eliezer Ferreira Professor of English Center of Arts and Letters UFPE/ Brazil Sam Tilden <tildensam@yahoo.com> escreveu: I know this is a trivial question! Does anyone have a really good definition of the Internet. The only ones I have speaks only to the technology. Sam --------------------------------- Yahoo! Messenger with Voice. Make PC-to-Phone Calls to the US (and 30+ countries) for 2¢/min or less. _______________________________________________ The air-l@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/ --------------------------------- Yahoo! Search Música para ver e ouvir: You're Beautiful, do James Blunt
It's not a trivial question. And whether people understand just what it is has very important consequences. I've got my own answer - somewhat abstract - that it is essentially an agreement or set of agreements ... but rather than offer my quasi formal definition, I'd like to draw your attention to another approach ... I've been asking people to describe rather than to define the Internet as a part of my Chicago Internet interviews for "One Web Day" ... there are perhaps 20 interviews on YouTube ... and a few more I havent put online yet... (I intend to do some more). If you go to YouTube and search for "owd" you will come upon some of the videos. -MM -- ----------------------------------------------------------------- Executive Director, CTCNet Chicago Chapter Co-Founder, Chicago Digital Access Alliance Co-Chair, Illinois Community Technology Coalition President, Association For Community Networking Support the efforts of the Chicago Digital Access Alliance: http://www.digitalaccessalliance.org
Not a trivial question at all. Highly important. Let us take off our own blindfolds. A study by the Ministry of Economic Development in NZ concludes with this comment: "However, the cases also illustrate that *the country is a very long way still from having a vibrant information economy*." http://www.med.govt.nz/pbt/infotech/case-studies/conclusion/conclusion.html Sadly the study was so badly constructed, (full of wrong assumptions) it entirely missed discovering "Why this is so". Let me try and make up a definition of the Internet: The Internet: A massive array of perfectly capable computers, each one with peer status at the end of a communication line. Each of those computers is controlled by a person who usually has no idea how the system works, who to contact, what to search for or how to use the system to do anything useful. The Internet is the "superhighway" populated by people who prefer to walk with blindfolds on. (My research suggests that most "connections" get less than 10 emails a week, and used less than once a week to search on Google. The content of an email is usually a joke, sometimes a video link. Occasionally people send photos to each other. People DON'T join lists, or social networks or groups of any kind. This sort of behaviour was typical for +80% of my small sample. (3 yrs ago) I've been talking to 50+ people recently on another study. Nothing there suggests anything has changed.) John Sam Tilden wrote:
I know this is a trivial question! Does anyone have a really good definition of the Internet.
The only ones I have speaks only to the technology.
Sam
The usual definition I run across, weak as it is, is a network of networks connected through shared protocols, specifically TCP/IP. It gets increasingly complicated and problematic now that mobile phones and other technologies that are not exactly what we think of as "computers" are internet connected as well. When we started this association, we were critiqued for casting the net too narrow by calling it the Association of INTERNET researchers. Rob Kling (who keynoted out first meeting) and I had a conversation, for instance, in which he argued that phenomena such as banking networks which contain/transfer most of the world's economy yet are not "the internet" are extremely important and shouldn't be set outside of "internet" studies. One of our longest time members once commented to me that she was getting increasingly interested in interactive gaming via gaming consoles, but wasn't sure it was appropriate work for AoIR since it wasn't technically "internet." Although these are important and accurate definitional critiques, in practice I think that "internet" has come to be one of those terms that has no precise meaning, yet which continues (for now) to function effectively to lend coherence to a variety of differing yet related phenomena. I would not be surprised to find the term rendered completely meaningless in the future, though. Nancy
I think the standard techno-determinist definition of the internet is that it is a global network of computer networks operating with TCP/IP. I think this already neglects the importance of social systems/virtual communities which are social internets. Therefore I define the internet as a techno-social system consisting of a technological structure (network of computer networks, global, TCP/IP) storing and distributing knowledge and social systems of cognition, communication, and co-operation. The two systems are structurally coupled. I have published a paper on the question of how to define the internet: Fuchs, Christian (2005) The Internet as a Self-Organizing Socio-Technological System. In: Cybernetics & Human Knowing. Vol. 12, No. 3. pp. 57-81. http://cartoon.iguw.tuwien.ac.at/christian/InternetSelfOrg.pdf Christian -- _____________________________ Univ.Ass. Dr. Christian Fuchs ICT&S Center - Advanced Studies and Research in Information and Communication Technologies & Society http://www.icts.uni-salzburg.at University of Salzburg Sigmund Haffner Gasse 18 5020 Salzburg Austria christian.fuchs@sbg.ac.at Phone +43 662 8044 4823 Fax +43 662 6389 4800 Information-Society-Technology: http://cartoon.iguw.tuwien.ac.at/christian/ Managing Editor of tripleC - open access online journal for the foundations of information science: http://triplec.uti.at
Yes, in my brief phrase "Internet as an agreement(s)" I think we lead towards an understanding of this ... it's an agreement around TCP/IP ... that TCP/IP be a protocol over which we can define additional protocols, and around peering agreements by which traffic will be carried through networks held by others. On 10/17/06, Christian Fuchs <christian.fuchs@sbg.ac.at> wrote:
I think the standard techno-determinist definition of the internet is that it is a global network of computer networks operating with TCP/IP.
I think this already neglects the importance of social systems/virtual communities which are social internets. Therefore I define the internet as a techno-social system consisting of a technological structure (network of computer networks, global, TCP/IP) storing and distributing knowledge and social systems of cognition, communication, and co-operation. The two systems are structurally coupled.
I have published a paper on the question of how to define the internet:
Fuchs, Christian (2005) The Internet as a Self-Organizing Socio-Technological System. In: Cybernetics & Human Knowing. Vol. 12, No. 3. pp. 57-81. http://cartoon.iguw.tuwien.ac.at/christian/InternetSelfOrg.pdf
Christian
-- _____________________________ Univ.Ass. Dr. Christian Fuchs ICT&S Center - Advanced Studies and Research in Information and Communication Technologies & Society http://www.icts.uni-salzburg.at University of Salzburg Sigmund Haffner Gasse 18 5020 Salzburg Austria christian.fuchs@sbg.ac.at Phone +43 662 8044 4823 Fax +43 662 6389 4800 Information-Society-Technology: http://cartoon.iguw.tuwien.ac.at/christian/ Managing Editor of tripleC - open access online journal for the foundations of information science: http://triplec.uti.at
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-- ----------------------------------------------------------------- Executive Director, CTCNet Chicago Chapter Co-Founder, Chicago Digital Access Alliance Co-Chair, Illinois Community Technology Coalition President, Association For Community Networking Support the efforts of the Chicago Digital Access Alliance: http://www.digitalaccessalliance.org
A definition of the Internet is different from a definition of the activity of using the Internet - Internetting or whatever verb we decide is useful. Defining what "the Internet" means is a little like defining what "book" means; it's technically useful (and necessary for certain professions - publishers, booksellers, etc.), but most people are interested in the experience of reading the book (which contains the technical definition), not in the book itself. The Internet itself is really quite simple from a definitional standpoint: you can see this by what's required, technically, to be *on* the Internet: a computer with a network interface, an Internet Protocol number, and TCP/IP protocol. Everything else is an add-on, including the various file transfer systems (FTP, Web) and email, chat, IM, etc. But as a definition, it's does nothing to explain the experience of Internetting, of course. Anyone care to try a definition of Internetting? (There's probably a much better word for this, I realize.) Neil Randall Yes, in my brief phrase "Internet as an agreement(s)" I think we lead towards an understanding of this ... it's an agreement around TCP/IP ... that TCP/IP be a protocol over which we can define additional protocols, and around peering agreements by which traffic will be carried through networks held by others. On 10/17/06, Christian Fuchs <christian.fuchs@sbg.ac.at> wrote:
I think the standard techno-determinist definition of the internet is that it is a global network of computer networks operating with TCP/IP.
I think this already neglects the importance of social systems/virtual communities which are social internets. Therefore I define the internet as a techno-social system consisting of a technological structure (network of computer networks, global, TCP/IP) storing and distributing knowledge and social systems of cognition, communication, and co-operation. The two systems are structurally coupled.
I have published a paper on the question of how to define the internet:
Fuchs, Christian (2005) The Internet as a Self-Organizing Socio-Technological System. In: Cybernetics & Human Knowing. Vol. 12, No. 3. pp. 57-81. http://cartoon.iguw.tuwien.ac.at/christian/InternetSelfOrg.pdf
Christian
-- _____________________________ Univ.Ass. Dr. Christian Fuchs ICT&S Center - Advanced Studies and Research in Information and Communication Technologies & Society http://www.icts.uni-salzburg.at University of Salzburg Sigmund Haffner Gasse 18 5020 Salzburg Austria christian.fuchs@sbg.ac.at Phone +43 662 8044 4823 Fax +43 662 6389 4800 Information-Society-Technology: http://cartoon.iguw.tuwien.ac.at/christian/ Managing Editor of tripleC - open access online journal for the foundations of information science: http://triplec.uti.at
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-- ----------------------------------------------------------------- Executive Director, CTCNet Chicago Chapter Co-Founder, Chicago Digital Access Alliance Co-Chair, Illinois Community Technology Coalition President, Association For Community Networking Support the efforts of the Chicago Digital Access Alliance: http://www.digitalaccessalliance.org _______________________________________________ The air-l@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/
I don't agree to separate internet and internetting, a technical structure and human activity. If there were no human beings organized in social groups, there wouldn't be an internet and the internet wouldn't develop. Without meaningful human knowledge and social activity the internet is a dead block, useless. Hence I argue that one shouldn't separate the term internet from social activity, but to integrate social activity into definitions of the internet in the first place. Common definitions such as the one of the Federal Networking Council simply neglect the central role of social activity on the net, they are techno-centristic. Best Christian Am 17.10.2006 16:20 Uhr schrieb "Neil Randall" unter <nrandall@watarts.uwaterloo.ca>:
A definition of the Internet is different from a definition of the activity of using the Internet - Internetting or whatever verb we decide is useful. Defining what "the Internet" means is a little like defining what "book" means; it's technically useful (and necessary for certain professions - publishers, booksellers, etc.), but most people are interested in the experience of reading the book (which contains the technical definition), not in the book itself.
The Internet itself is really quite simple from a definitional standpoint: you can see this by what's required, technically, to be *on* the Internet: a computer with a network interface, an Internet Protocol number, and TCP/IP protocol. Everything else is an add-on, including the various file transfer systems (FTP, Web) and email, chat, IM, etc. But as a definition, it's does nothing to explain the experience of Internetting, of course.
Anyone care to try a definition of Internetting? (There's probably a much better word for this, I realize.)
Neil Randall
Yes, in my brief phrase "Internet as an agreement(s)" I think we lead towards an understanding of this ... it's an agreement around TCP/IP ... that TCP/IP be a protocol over which we can define additional protocols, and around peering agreements by which traffic will be carried through networks held by others.
On 10/17/06, Christian Fuchs <christian.fuchs@sbg.ac.at> wrote:
I think the standard techno-determinist definition of the internet is that it is a global network of computer networks operating with TCP/IP.
I think this already neglects the importance of social systems/virtual communities which are social internets. Therefore I define the internet as a techno-social system consisting of a technological structure (network of computer networks, global, TCP/IP) storing and distributing knowledge and social systems of cognition, communication, and co-operation. The two systems are structurally coupled.
I have published a paper on the question of how to define the internet:
Fuchs, Christian (2005) The Internet as a Self-Organizing Socio-Technological System. In: Cybernetics & Human Knowing. Vol. 12, No. 3. pp. 57-81. http://cartoon.iguw.tuwien.ac.at/christian/InternetSelfOrg.pdf
Christian
-- _____________________________ Univ.Ass. Dr. Christian Fuchs ICT&S Center - Advanced Studies and Research in Information and Communication Technologies & Society http://www.icts.uni-salzburg.at University of Salzburg Sigmund Haffner Gasse 18 5020 Salzburg Austria christian.fuchs@sbg.ac.at Phone +43 662 8044 4823 Fax +43 662 6389 4800 Information-Society-Technology: http://cartoon.iguw.tuwien.ac.at/christian/ Managing Editor of tripleC - open access online journal for the foundations of information science: http://triplec.uti.at
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An overall definition of Internetting would include a technical definition of the Internet; in fact, it must do so (I was trying to suggest that in my first message). But a technical definition of the Internet has a different purpose and a different audience. Neil I don't agree to separate internet and internetting, a technical structure and human activity. If there were no human beings organized in social groups, there wouldn't be an internet and the internet wouldn't develop. Without meaningful human knowledge and social activity the internet is a dead block, useless. Hence I argue that one shouldn't separate the term internet from social activity, but to integrate social activity into definitions of the internet in the first place. Common definitions such as the one of the Federal Networking Council simply neglect the central role of social activity on the net, they are techno-centristic. Best Christian Am 17.10.2006 16:20 Uhr schrieb "Neil Randall" unter <nrandall@watarts.uwaterloo.ca>:
A definition of the Internet is different from a definition of the
activity
of using the Internet - Internetting or whatever verb we decide is useful. Defining what "the Internet" means is a little like defining what "book" means; it's technically useful (and necessary for certain professions - publishers, booksellers, etc.), but most people are interested in the experience of reading the book (which contains the technical definition), not in the book itself.
The Internet itself is really quite simple from a definitional standpoint: you can see this by what's required, technically, to be *on* the Internet: a computer with a network interface, an Internet Protocol number, and TCP/IP protocol. Everything else is an add-on, including the various file transfer systems (FTP, Web) and email, chat, IM, etc. But as a definition, it's does nothing to explain the experience of Internetting, of course.
Anyone care to try a definition of Internetting? (There's probably a much better word for this, I realize.)
Neil Randall
Yes, in my brief phrase "Internet as an agreement(s)" I think we lead towards an understanding of this ... it's an agreement around TCP/IP ... that TCP/IP be a protocol over which we can define additional protocols, and around peering agreements by which traffic will be carried through networks held by others.
On 10/17/06, Christian Fuchs <christian.fuchs@sbg.ac.at> wrote:
I think the standard techno-determinist definition of the internet is that it is a global network of computer networks operating with TCP/IP.
I think this already neglects the importance of social systems/virtual communities which are social internets. Therefore I define the internet as a techno-social system consisting of a technological structure (network of computer networks, global, TCP/IP) storing and distributing knowledge and social systems of cognition, communication, and co-operation. The two systems are structurally coupled.
I have published a paper on the question of how to define the internet:
Fuchs, Christian (2005) The Internet as a Self-Organizing Socio-Technological System. In: Cybernetics & Human Knowing. Vol. 12, No. 3. pp. 57-81. http://cartoon.iguw.tuwien.ac.at/christian/InternetSelfOrg.pdf
Christian
-- _____________________________ Univ.Ass. Dr. Christian Fuchs ICT&S Center - Advanced Studies and Research in Information and Communication Technologies & Society http://www.icts.uni-salzburg.at University of Salzburg Sigmund Haffner Gasse 18 5020 Salzburg Austria christian.fuchs@sbg.ac.at Phone +43 662 8044 4823 Fax +43 662 6389 4800 Information-Society-Technology: http://cartoon.iguw.tuwien.ac.at/christian/ Managing Editor of tripleC - open access online journal for the foundations of information science: http://triplec.uti.at
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Neil, Therein lies the rub. If the definition of the internet is technical then the audience consists of people whose interest is the hardware/software that are the constituants of the network of networks. Just as studying "books" is different from what is contained in books. Sam Neil Randall <nrandall@watarts.uwaterloo.ca> wrote: An overall definition of Internetting would include a technical definition of the Internet; in fact, it must do so (I was trying to suggest that in my first message). But a technical definition of the Internet has a different purpose and a different audience. Neil --------------------------------- Get your email and more, right on the new Yahoo.com
But a dead block would still exist. If everyone went offline simultaneously for a few hours, the Internet wouldn't stop existing for that time. It wouldn't even be inactive; bots and pings live on. So either you expand "human activity", or concede to the separateness.
-----Original Message----- From: air-l-bounces@listserv.aoir.org [mailto:air-l-bounces@listserv.aoir.org] On Behalf Of Christian Fuchs Sent: Tuesday, October 17, 2006 7:27 AM To: air-l@listserv.aoir.org Subject: Re: [Air-l] A definition of the internet
I don't agree to separate internet and internetting, a technical structure and human activity.
If there were no human beings organized in social groups, there wouldn't be an internet and the internet wouldn't develop. Without meaningful human knowledge and social activity the internet is a dead block, useless.
Sam and Ellis have been arguing that if no humans were online, the internet would still exist and there would still be activities (by bots, etc.) and that a medium as form is different from the content. There is a main difference between technological actants and human actors: Humans are anticipatory, thinking systems that have morals and can actively plan the future and choose from different options of behaviour according to their judgements. Hegel pointed out that active thought distinguishes the human from the animal. Humans are different from natural and technological system. Hence if everyone went offline, the internet as physical system and the objectified knowledge stored in it would still be around. But no-one would actively use that potential knowledge, nobody would produce new knowledge. The internet would be completely useless, hence it only makes sense, it gains its meaning only by social activity of humans. There would be no knowledge-in-action, all dynamics would get lost, there would just be deterministic processes initiated by bots which are not knowledge processes because technologies are not knowledgeable actors. I like the idea of Giddens of humans as knowledgeable actors: technologies are not knowledgeable. The reason why I oppose Latour and ANT is that this difference between human and non-human gets lost, this is undialectical thinking. A "dead block" internet still exists, but doesn't develop, without development there is no real Being as Being is always a dynamic, ever-changing dialectical process. Christian Am 17.10.2006 17:35 Uhr schrieb "Ellis Godard" unter <egodard@csun.edu>:
But a dead block would still exist. If everyone went offline simultaneously for a few hours, the Internet wouldn't stop existing for that time. It wouldn't even be inactive; bots and pings live on. So either you expand "human activity", or concede to the separateness.
On 10/17/06, Michael Maranda <mmaranda@afcn.org> wrote:
Yes, in my brief phrase "Internet as an agreement(s)" I think we lead towards an understanding of this ... it's an agreement around TCP/IP ... that TCP/IP be a protocol over which we can define additional protocols, and around peering agreements by which traffic will be carried through networks held by others.
Is TCP/IP really a core, defining feature of the Internet? Wouldn't it still be "the Internet" if we could somehow replace TCP/IP with something functionally equivalent? I have a difficult time making the current networking protocols selected out of the middle of the networking stack a defining feature of what I view as a merely a means of linking disparate networks. Couldn't we rightfully say that a device on the other side of a bridge linking a non-IP network to the Internet is just as much on the Internet as a device on an IP network? I certainly don't deny (a) the major historical role that TCP/IP has played and continues to play in the development and operation of the Internet and (b) the dominance of TCP/IP in the majority of computer networks. But it just seems to me that TCP/IP as the underlying protocol of the majority of the Internet is a historical accident. Other protocols that provided the same functionality could just as easily been used. An Internet with some other functionally-equivalent protocol would still be the Internet just as my LAN at home is still essentially the same despite moving from Ethernet over Cat5 to 802.11g over the air. It also seems to me that the slow-moving-but-supposedly-imminent move to IPv6 provides some support for my argument since we are replacing one of the core protocols used on the Internet with another protocol but it's still going to be the Internet. I am also uncomfortable conflating the effects and uses of the Internet with its definition. Your initial thoughts related to "agreements" seems to me to be the closest to what I would call a "good" definition. Kevin
I pretty much concur... with the caveat as you mention the slow but supposedly impending move to IP v 6... and with the idea that the functionality of TCP/IP actually being replaced.... by an equivalent or better protocol/protocol defining mechanism. The functional idea of the TCP/IP (that I am pointing to) whether ip v4 or v 6 is that we have a basic protocol and from this sessions can be initiatied and more importantly new protocols can be defined. And so we have agreement on protocols and means of defining and referencing further protocols ... and we have networks that agree (peering) to handle such traffic in certain ways. Now I dont know if in this loosely framed statement I'm taking an essentialist approach, but I think it is very important to see the Internet in this way ... in order to defend the Internet conceptually.... in the realm of public opinion, academic research and in legal contest (legislative, judiciary and other institutional fronts (e.g. FCC)) ... If we study discourse on connectivity/broadband/Internet we see these terms often conflated, sometimes strategically/intentionally, sometimes not (accident of insufficient clarity). Broadband has a set of legal definitions too... and the gap between the public and political discourse on this and the legal definitions (per FCC, et al) is quite stark. Over-all this connects to the broader topics of commercial speech and the gap between what is allowable as commercial speech and what is understood from commercial speech. I raise the issue of Broadband in relation to Internet because as people fight for connectivity and political leaders make hay out of the issue ... they run the risk of not getting what they think they are pushing for. As researchers and public intellectuals we have a role in this process, and we should take pains to make the distinctions clear .. for example when legislation calls for Broadband deployment, we should ask why it doenst explicitly call for Broadband Internet deployment? The Internet ... TCP/IP networks with peering agreements has a certain character because of it's technical specification and the peering agreements based on that specification. That character is defined in a manner such that connection speeds are not central... rather it is the notion of a stack (OSI) where different layers are accorded different roles. As we hear the cry for Broadband or Big Broadband with greater and greater speeds (comparing with the bandwidth available in other countries, or in other regions (whatever the unit of comparison)) the focus shifts away from what is central to the Internet, and establishes a basis on which to extend our capacity in such a way that we move away from the essential character of the Internet. Another way we risk this shift away from the Internet is in the calls for building more "Intelligence" into the network (sometimes with 'security' being the driving wedge). Reading David Isenberg's work on the "Rise of the Stupid Network" we see the virtues of the TCP/IP based networks as one where the intelligence of the network is by design at the edges. I'd also point to conceptual work of Garth Graham - taking the TCP/IP as a form of social contract... where we are all peers. Imagine a reconceptualization of politics in such a frame... I know a number of us are. Regards to all. -MM On 10/17/06, Kevin Guidry <krguidry@gmail.com> wrote:
On 10/17/06, Michael Maranda <mmaranda@afcn.org> wrote:
Yes, in my brief phrase "Internet as an agreement(s)" I think we lead towards an understanding of this ... it's an agreement around TCP/IP ... that TCP/IP be a protocol over which we can define additional protocols, and around peering agreements by which traffic will be carried through networks held by others.
Is TCP/IP really a core, defining feature of the Internet? Wouldn't it still be "the Internet" if we could somehow replace TCP/IP with something functionally equivalent? I have a difficult time making the current networking protocols selected out of the middle of the networking stack a defining feature of what I view as a merely a means of linking disparate networks. Couldn't we rightfully say that a device on the other side of a bridge linking a non-IP network to the Internet is just as much on the Internet as a device on an IP network? I certainly don't deny (a) the major historical role that TCP/IP has played and continues to play in the development and operation of the Internet and (b) the dominance of TCP/IP in the majority of computer networks. But it just seems to me that TCP/IP as the underlying protocol of the majority of the Internet is a historical accident. Other protocols that provided the same functionality could just as easily been used. An Internet with some other functionally-equivalent protocol would still be the Internet just as my LAN at home is still essentially the same despite moving from Ethernet over Cat5 to 802.11g over the air. It also seems to me that the slow-moving-but-supposedly-imminent move to IPv6 provides some support for my argument since we are replacing one of the core protocols used on the Internet with another protocol but it's still going to be the Internet. I am also uncomfortable conflating the effects and uses of the Internet with its definition. Your initial thoughts related to "agreements" seems to me to be the closest to what I would call a "good" definition.
Kevin _______________________________________________ The air-l@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
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-- ----------------------------------------------------------------- Executive Director, CTCNet Chicago Chapter Co-Founder, Chicago Digital Access Alliance Co-Chair, Illinois Community Technology Coalition President, Association For Community Networking Support the efforts of the Chicago Digital Access Alliance: http://www.digitalaccessalliance.org
I pretty much concur... with the caveat as you mention the slow but supposedly impending move to IP v 6... and with the idea that the functionality of TCP/IP actually being replaced.... by an equivalent or better protocol/protocol defining mechanism.
I think the first book I saw on IPv6 was circa 1994; even then, it was heralded as the "next big thing", soon to be coming to a network very near you. We are, in fact, much closer to IPv6 now than then. At that point, the software on the edges of the network - on the clients, built into the daemons running on servers providing service to the edge, built into the routers that make the network RUN - just wasn't there. In a very real sense, the technological underpinnings have taken well over a decade to build. The addressing scheme has been worked out for ages; the "experimental" deployment networks for IPv6 have now been shut down. People are very successfully using IPv6 in small-scale networks - think building-level, just-above-small-business level - where they have a relatively strong network staff and good gateways set up between IPv4 (outside) and IPv6 (inside). For new corporate deployments, IPv6 is starting to make a whole lot of sense. [In a lot of cases, ipv4->ipv6 gateways happen to also be corporate border firewalls or proxies.] For home - not so much, yet. Earthlink and others are trying to encourage home users along the path with the development of things like their custom firmware for Linksys 802.11g access points. ;)
Another way we risk this shift away from the Internet is in the calls for building more "Intelligence" into the network (sometimes with 'security' being the driving wedge). Reading David Isenberg's work on the "Rise of the Stupid Network" we see the virtues of the TCP/IP based networks as one where the intelligence of the network is by design at the edges.
Most of the very oldest services surviving on the network - as well as some of the newer ones that are gaining what will be difficult-to-dislodge popularity - take intelligence-at-edge very seriously. Oldsters: mail, usenet. [~35 and ~26 year old services, respectively...] shell connections. Middle-aged services: http [~13 year old - just coming into its teen years] Young services not doing so well: "walled garden" instant messaging programs where a "smart" server is controlled by some corporation. AIM, MSN, Yahoo! IM, etc all fall into this camp. [I would be very, very impressed if any of those three corporations were to commit to providing their IM service in perpetuity forever. I just don't see it happening. Feel free to correct me, vendor representatives ;) ] Young services doing really well: Bittorrent, Jabber-based federated IM [google talk et al..], a few of the other p2p applications. One of the marks of a relatively successful internet service - I think - is that service's resistance to being destroyed or completely disrupted by acts of god or acts of congress. There's not a whole heck of a lot that can be done to disable a service whose spread only requires a couple of operators to exchange IP addresses in order to federate / communicate with each other's servers. The whole DNS could implode, and folks would fairly quickly replace it. There's just not enough "special magic" for ICANN or any other body to completely wreck things. Maybe disrupt for a while -- c.f. the current court battle over spamhaus -- but the replacement engineered would likely be much less prone to a repeat of the same attack. [Hey, even if the central DNS roots went away -- enough of the data is cached *all over the place* that things would not immediately go awry.
I'd also point to conceptual work of Garth Graham - taking the TCP/IP as a form of social contract... where we are all peers. Imagine a reconceptualization of politics in such a frame... I know a number of us are.
It used to be that the social contract was that people behave relatively sanely in order to get Jon Postel (in his IANA guise) to allocate IP addresses for them. I find that I think those days were superior to the current ICANN boondoggles. --elijah
Just to mess things up at the technical level and to add a little to what some others have mentioned, giving such primacy to TCP/IP and excluding 'private' networks such as Frame Relay is problematic. At the core a lot of this now runs on common fiber and 'the internet' is just one of several virtual networks that run over the very same fibers, through the routers etc etc, moreover one is getting networks layered on or tunneled in other networks (specific protocols are using for traffic shaping for example, which is vital to the smooth running of, logically, other networks) - thus choosing which layers / levels of abstraction etc one is counting in and out of being 'the internet' is a matter of valued choices. One could also put up a good argument for the relative contingency of the particularity of the protocols in question, where as the governance structure of the internet through the RFC system, ICANN, the values behind end-to-end design etc etc seems vital to the way that it is constituted. To say nothing with the intersection with geographically bound legal systems,,, ren On 17 Oct 2006, at 22:50, elw@stderr.org wrote:
I pretty much concur... with the caveat as you mention the slow but supposedly impending move to IP v 6... and with the idea that the functionality of TCP/IP actually being replaced.... by an equivalent or better protocol/protocol defining mechanism.
I think the first book I saw on IPv6 was circa 1994; even then, it was heralded as the "next big thing", soon to be coming to a network very near you.
We are, in fact, much closer to IPv6 now than then. At that point, the software on the edges of the network - on the clients, built into the daemons running on servers providing service to the edge, built into the routers that make the network RUN - just wasn't there.
In a very real sense, the technological underpinnings have taken well over a decade to build. The addressing scheme has been worked out for ages; the "experimental" deployment networks for IPv6 have now been shut down. People are very successfully using IPv6 in small-scale networks - think building-level, just-above-small-business level - where they have a relatively strong network staff and good gateways set up between IPv4 (outside) and IPv6 (inside).
For new corporate deployments, IPv6 is starting to make a whole lot of sense. [In a lot of cases, ipv4->ipv6 gateways happen to also be corporate border firewalls or proxies.] For home - not so much, yet. Earthlink and others are trying to encourage home users along the path with the development of things like their custom firmware for Linksys 802.11g access points. ;)
Another way we risk this shift away from the Internet is in the calls for building more "Intelligence" into the network (sometimes with 'security' being the driving wedge). Reading David Isenberg's work on the "Rise of the Stupid Network" we see the virtues of the TCP/IP based networks as one where the intelligence of the network is by design at the edges.
Most of the very oldest services surviving on the network - as well as some of the newer ones that are gaining what will be difficult-to- dislodge popularity - take intelligence-at-edge very seriously.
Oldsters: mail, usenet. [~35 and ~26 year old services, respectively...] shell connections.
Middle-aged services: http [~13 year old - just coming into its teen years]
Young services not doing so well: "walled garden" instant messaging programs where a "smart" server is controlled by some corporation. AIM, MSN, Yahoo! IM, etc all fall into this camp.
[I would be very, very impressed if any of those three corporations were to commit to providing their IM service in perpetuity forever. I just don't see it happening. Feel free to correct me, vendor representatives ;) ]
Young services doing really well: Bittorrent, Jabber-based federated IM [google talk et al..], a few of the other p2p applications.
One of the marks of a relatively successful internet service - I think - is that service's resistance to being destroyed or completely disrupted by acts of god or acts of congress.
There's not a whole heck of a lot that can be done to disable a service whose spread only requires a couple of operators to exchange IP addresses in order to federate / communicate with each other's servers.
The whole DNS could implode, and folks would fairly quickly replace it. There's just not enough "special magic" for ICANN or any other body to completely wreck things. Maybe disrupt for a while -- c.f. the current court battle over spamhaus -- but the replacement engineered would likely be much less prone to a repeat of the same attack.
[Hey, even if the central DNS roots went away -- enough of the data is cached *all over the place* that things would not immediately go awry.
I'd also point to conceptual work of Garth Graham - taking the TCP/ IP as a form of social contract... where we are all peers. Imagine a reconceptualization of politics in such a frame... I know a number of us are.
It used to be that the social contract was that people behave relatively sanely in order to get Jon Postel (in his IANA guise) to allocate IP addresses for them. I find that I think those days were superior to the current ICANN boondoggles.
--elijah _______________________________________________ The air-l@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http:// listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
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I pretty much concur... with the caveat as you mention the slow but supposedly impending move to IP v 6... and with the idea that the functionality of TCP/IP actually being replaced.... by an equivalent or better protocol/protocol defining mechanism.
The logical layer protocol has migrated from NCP to IPv4 to IPv6. There are those who refer to the Internet as starting in 1969 as the ARPANet using NCP - I would agree. In 1980 the network has a Y2K style migration to IP. And now it has a snails pace migration to IPv6. These are software upgrades - but the network has remained the same network.
Another way we risk this shift away from the Internet is in the calls for building more "Intelligence" into the network (sometimes with 'security' being the driving wedge). Reading David Isenberg's work on the "Rise of the Stupid Network" we see the virtues of the TCP/IP based networks as one where the intelligence of the network is by design at the edges.
Young services not doing so well: "walled garden" instant messaging programs where a "smart" server is controlled by some corporation. AIM, MSN, Yahoo! IM, etc all fall into this camp.
The smart server may be in the middle of the IM service, but in terms of the layer 3/4 logical Internet network, it is still on an end. The IP network continues to be "stupid" routing those packets exactly the same as any other packets, with the minimal amount of processing possible in order to maximize transmission. The router - the network - is not optimized for any one application - is apathetic to what application you run - and passes all traffic equally. The evolutionary move away from the stupid network is not something at the application layer - but at the Internet layer - the rise of deep packet inspection, filtering, and routing. In the past, routers expended as little processing power as possible to enable those packets to fly. But if the router is so powerful that a processing overhead will not impair transmission, then the packets can be processed - and acted on accordingly. Now you have routers that are intelligently and can treat different packets differently. Routers can say application X gets priority - or user Y gets priority - or application Z will be blocked - or traffic to destination V will instead by routed to destination Q. This is also a dramatic change from the stupid network. Intelligence is back in the network and discrimination of traffic is possible. =~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~= Cybertelecom :: Federal Internet Law & Policy www.cybertelecom.org Read Garrison Keillor, Congress' shameful retreat from American values, Chicago Tribune Oct 4 http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/chi-0610040035oct04,1,2100411.col...
On Oct 17, 2006, at 10:51 AM, Kevin Guidry wrote:
But it just seems to me that TCP/IP as the underlying protocol of the majority of the Internet is a historical accident.
I disagree. Choices and controversies - not accidents - created the TCP/IP Internet that we use today. The work of scholars such as Janet Abbate and Neil Randall (as well as my own work, which is why I'm sensitive on this point :-) describe these choices and controversies in great detail. Of course the Internet (like all things) changes over time, and I agree with those who say that the definitions of the Internet vary according to the perspectives and interests of those who wish to define it. Andy Russell History of Science and Technology Johns Hopkins University
On 10/17/06, Andrew Russell <arussell@jhu.edu> wrote:
I disagree. Choices and controversies - not accidents - created the TCP/IP Internet that we use today.
You're absolutely correct and I apologize if I was unclear in my meaning; I may have selected the wrong choice of words. I maintain that latching onto TCP/IP instead of their underlying principles, principles that emerged through those choices and controversies, is at best a shortsighted way to define the Internet. Kevin
On Tue, 17 Oct 2006 12:06:47 -0400, Andrew Russell wrote
On Oct 17, 2006, at 10:51 AM, Kevin Guidry wrote:
But it just seems to me that TCP/IP as the underlying protocol of the majority of the Internet is a historical accident.
I disagree. Choices and controversies - not accidents - created the TCP/IP Internet that we use today. The work of scholars such as Janet Abbate and Neil Randall (as well as my own work, which is why I'm sensitive on this point :-) describe these choices and controversies in great detail. Of course the Internet (like all things) changes over time, and I agree with those who say that the definitions of the Internet vary according to the perspectives and interests of those who wish to define it.
Andy Russell History of Science and Technology Johns Hopkins University _______________________________________________ The air-l@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
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-- Distributed System Laboratory (http://dslab.ee.ncku.edu.tw) Department of Electrical Engineering National Cheng Kung University, Tainan, Taiwan, R.O.C.
Kevin Guidry wrote:
TCP/IP as the underlying protocol of the majority of the Internet is a historical accident. Other protocols that provided the same functionality could just as easily been used. Well, there were massive efforts underway around the same time in the ITU and related venues to establish X.400 as the major standard for interconnecting different networks. It would have been a different Inter-Network for sure. The domain layer and the transport layer were identical, so your email address was also used for routing. It would have been technically impossible to use the TLD "tv" outside Tuvalu. And the network topology with gateways at the national borders resembled the multilateral political model of the ITU/UN culture.
In the end, the Internet (as we know it) won over the tightly-controlled X.400 network. Which is not an accident, but happened for various reasons, the major one being that X.400 was tightly controlled, I guess.
my LAN at home is still essentially the same despite moving from Ethernet over Cat5 to 802.11g over the air. I bet it is not the same. It probably has changed the routines of using it, as well as security and other considerations, like sharing it with the neighbors.
we are replacing one of the core protocols used on the Internet with another protocol but it's still going to be the Internet. Or it is not, depending on where you look. The Internet we know is already not there anymore (if it ever has been) in China, Saudi-Arabia, and even some places in Germany, where Nazi websites are filtered by the ISPs. And look at the Net Neutrality debate in the US. If you mean "any data network that allows me to connect to others around the world", then we will always have some "Internet", and we had it before with earlier services. But then X.400 also was an "Internet". But it will have different features.
I think the debate is becoming a bit tiring. It is up to us how we define the "Internet", depending on our research purposes. We can also call it "Bill" if we want. More important is how the definition helps us doing research ojn specific aspects of the beast. Instead of having this "no, my definition is more right than yours" go on forever, it would be more helpful to list the different research strands and theories and try to come up with definitions of "the Internet" from the different perspectives. That would be much more fruitful to my understanding. From a political science point of view, I would say: The debate over net neutrality shows very nicely that part of the political struggle over what kind of network we want is defining the "Internet". Best, Ralf -- ------------------------------------------------------------ Dipl. Pol. Ralf Bendrath University of Bremen Collaborative Research Center "Transformations of the State" Linzer Str. 9a, D-28359 Bremen, Germany Tel. +49 (421) 218-8735 Fax +49 (421) 218-8721 official http://www.sfb597.uni-bremen.de/homepages/bendrath personal http://userpage.fu-berlin.de/~bendrath blog http://bendrath.blogspot.com
All, Boy, lots of good sources and concepts coming out in this thread. Thanks to everyone. I agree that it depends on what purpose you are defining it for, as well as what audience. Although I think it might be useful to discuss a functional definition for general purposes, such as undergrad instruction. For my students, I differentiate between the internet and the web. The internet is the technical/physical infrastructure (regardless of protocols) that supports the web. For myself, I see the entire global communication infrastructure, once it goes completely digital, to effectively "be" the internet. The web is the information (in whatever form) that resides or transits the internet (email, webpages, streaming media, whatever). I believe that I picked this up from Kirsten Foot. This makes sense to me in its relation to the difference between the electromagnetic spectrum and the equipment that utilizes it (transmitters/ receivers) and broadcast radio or TV (content). Broadly, I think this general discussion hits on a particular social science problem with the internet and/or the web, which is how to bound what you are studying? -TED Ted M. Coopman Department of Communication University of Washington On Tue, 17 Oct 2006, Ralf Bendrath wrote:
Kevin Guidry wrote:
TCP/IP as the underlying protocol of the majority of the Internet is a historical accident. Other protocols that provided the same functionality could just as easily been used. Well, there were massive efforts underway around the same time in the ITU and related venues to establish X.400 as the major standard for interconnecting different networks. It would have been a different Inter-Network for sure. The domain layer and the transport layer were identical, so your email address was also used for routing. It would have been technically impossible to use the TLD "tv" outside Tuvalu. And the network topology with gateways at the national borders resembled the multilateral political model of the ITU/UN culture.
In the end, the Internet (as we know it) won over the tightly-controlled X.400 network. Which is not an accident, but happened for various reasons, the major one being that X.400 was tightly controlled, I guess.
my LAN at home is still essentially the same despite moving from Ethernet over Cat5 to 802.11g over the air. I bet it is not the same. It probably has changed the routines of using it, as well as security and other considerations, like sharing it with the neighbors.
we are replacing one of the core protocols used on the Internet with another protocol but it's still going to be the Internet. Or it is not, depending on where you look. The Internet we know is already not there anymore (if it ever has been) in China, Saudi-Arabia, and even some places in Germany, where Nazi websites are filtered by the ISPs. And look at the Net Neutrality debate in the US. If you mean "any data network that allows me to connect to others around the world", then we will always have some "Internet", and we had it before with earlier services. But then X.400 also was an "Internet". But it will have different features.
I think the debate is becoming a bit tiring. It is up to us how we define the "Internet", depending on our research purposes. We can also call it "Bill" if we want. More important is how the definition helps us doing research ojn specific aspects of the beast. Instead of having this "no, my definition is more right than yours" go on forever, it would be more helpful to list the different research strands and theories and try to come up with definitions of "the Internet" from the different perspectives. That would be much more fruitful to my understanding.
From a political science point of view, I would say: The debate over net neutrality shows very nicely that part of the political struggle over what kind of network we want is defining the "Internet".
Best, Ralf
Hi, I like Doc Searls and David Weinberger's 'World of Ends What the Internet Is and How to Stop Mistaking It for Something Else' 1. The Internet isn't complicated. 2. The Internet isn't a thing. It's an agreement. 3. The Internet is stupid. 4. Adding value to the Internet lowers its value. 5. All the Internet's value grows on its edges. 6. Money moves to the suburbs. 7. The end of the world? Nah, the world of ends. 8. The Internet's three virtues: a. No one owns it b. Everyone can use it c. Anyone can improve it 9. If the Internet is so simple, why have so many been so boneheaded about it? 10. Some mistakes we can stop making already more detail at: http://www.worldofends.com/ --- cheers martin
8. The Internet's three virtues: a. No one owns it
I think this confuses a happy thought with a competitive market place where no firm has sufficient market power to impose its will significantly. If, however, a given market has a consolidated market, with one or two Internet service providers, and individuals are limited to the choise of those providers with market power - then all of a sudden someone seems to own it. Ed Whitacre of AT&T said that Google should not get a free ride on his Internet network. Mr. Whitacre seems to think that AT&T owns its network. =~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~= Cybertelecom :: Federal Internet Law & Policy www.cybertelecom.org Read Garrison Keillor, Congress' shameful retreat from American values, Chicago Tribune Oct 4 http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/chi-0610040035oct04,1,2100411.col...
We might each have a definition thats "really good" for our own purpose(s), and all have different definitions. Moreover, any one definition would be useless for at least one other person, and no definition would be "really good" for everyone. Words are tools. Meanings are contextual and strategic. Essentialism is hollow. :) That said, I define it (much as Nancy has) as a network of TCP/IP networks to distinguish it from cyberspace (social life distributed through/on/as/in the Internet), but with an explicit awareness of hardware, software, and otherware convergences. -eg
-----Original Message----- From: air-l-bounces@listserv.aoir.org [mailto:air-l-bounces@listserv.aoir.org] On Behalf Of Sam Tilden Sent: Monday, October 16, 2006 4:28 PM To: air-l@listserv.aoir.org Subject: [Air-l] A definition of the internet
I know this is a trivial question! Does anyone have a really good definition of the Internet.
The only ones I have speaks only to the technology.
Sam
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One need not give up on definitions to give up on essentialist definitions. Words are like tools, but tools that cannot be shared with others, and that produce things that are incompatible with what other people need or find useful, are useless. --Christian Nelson On Oct 16, 2006, at 11:16 PM, Ellis Godard wrote:
We might each have a definition that’s "really good" for our own purpose(s), and all have different definitions. Moreover, any one definition would be useless for at least one other person, and no definition would be "really good" for everyone. Words are tools. Meanings are contextual and strategic. Essentialism is hollow. :)
That said, I define it (much as Nancy has) as a network of TCP/IP networks to distinguish it from cyberspace (social life distributed through/on/as/in the Internet), but with an explicit awareness of hardware, software, and otherware convergences.
-eg
-----Original Message----- From: air-l-bounces@listserv.aoir.org [mailto:air-l-bounces@listserv.aoir.org] On Behalf Of Sam Tilden Sent: Monday, October 16, 2006 4:28 PM To: air-l@listserv.aoir.org Subject: [Air-l] A definition of the internet
I know this is a trivial question! Does anyone have a really good definition of the Internet.
The only ones I have speaks only to the technology.
Sam
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Right. Which is why I offered a definition, after rejecting the essentialism implicit in Sam's original message.
-----Original Message----- From: air-l-bounces@listserv.aoir.org [mailto:air-l-bounces@listserv.aoir.org] On Behalf Of Christian Nelson Sent: Tuesday, October 17, 2006 4:47 AM To: air-l@listserv.aoir.org Subject: Re: [Air-l] A definition of the internet
One need not give up on definitions to give up on essentialist definitions. Words are like tools, but tools that cannot be shared with others, and that produce things that are incompatible with what other people need or find useful, are useless. --Christian Nelson
On Oct 16, 2006, at 11:16 PM, Ellis Godard wrote:
We might each have a definition that's "really good" for our own purpose(s), and all have different definitions. Moreover, any one definition would be useless for at least one other person, and no definition would be "really good" for everyone. Words are tools. Meanings are contextual and strategic. Essentialism is hollow. :)
That said, I define it (much as Nancy has) as a network of TCP/IP networks to distinguish it from cyberspace (social life distributed through/on/as/in the Internet), but with an explicit awareness of hardware, software, and otherware convergences.
-eg
Hi Sam, I believe that there are many books out there that define the Internet (or "internet") from its historical origin (e.g., ARPARNET, network of networks) and from sociological perspectives (e.g., Steve Jones's edited books). In the meantime, I particularly like Annette Markham's work that examines the actual users' understanding of the Internet and their experience of it in a ground up fashion. Markham, Annette N. 1998. Life Online: Researching Real Experience in Virtual Space. Walnut Creek: Altamira Press. The book is almost a decade old and I know that she's been updating it. She also discusses how we researchers (qualitative researchers more specifically) can conceptualize the Internet or Internet communication to better utilize it for our specific research goals. Markham, Annette N. 2004. "Internet Communication as a Tool for Qualitative Research." In Qualitative Research: Theory, Methods, and Practice, 95-124. Ed. David Silverman. London: Sage. http://faculty.uvi.edu/users/amarkha/writing/silvermandraft.html In the meantime, about a couple months ago we had a thread related to this question. Jillana Enteen started a thread about the differences among CMC, ICT, and digital communication. Revisiting the thread may be helpful: http://listserv.aoir.org/pipermail/air-l-aoir.org/2006-July/010219.html Cheers, Han On 10/16/06, Sam Tilden <tildensam@yahoo.com> wrote:
I know this is a trivial question! Does anyone have a really good definition of the Internet.
The only ones I have speaks only to the technology.
Sam
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-- Han N. Lee, Ph.D. Student Department of Communication, Machmer Hall University of Massachusetts 240 Hicks Way Amherst, MA 01003-9278 Curriculum Project Assistant Commonwealth College 408 Goodell Building 140 Hicks Way Amherst, MA 01003-9272 vm: 413) 577-0729
For a collection of legal (statutory, regulatory, case law) definitions of the Internet, see http://www.cybertelecom.org/notes/internet.htm My favor definition of the Internet is the Federal Networking Council from 1995 "Internet" refers to the global information system that -- (i) is logically linked together by a globally unique address space based on the Internet Protocol (IP) or its subsequent extensions/follow-ons; (ii) is able to support communications using the Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) suite or its subsequent extensions/follow-ons, and/or other IP-compatible protocols; and (iii) provides, uses or makes accessible, either publicly or privately, high level services layered on the communications and related infrastructure described herein." -- FNC Resolution: Definition of "Internet" 10/24/95 http://www.itrd.gov/fnc/Internet_res.html Link no longer valid --- Sam Tilden <tildensam@yahoo.com> wrote:
I know this is a trivial question! Does anyone have a really good definition of the Internet.
The only ones I have speaks only to the technology.
Sam
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=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~= Cybertelecom :: Federal Internet Law & Policy www.cybertelecom.org Read Garrison Keillor, Congress' shameful retreat from American values, Chicago Tribune Oct 4 http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/chi-0610040035oct04,1,2100411.col...
Hi Sam I've found the following (non-techie) description useful: Hargittai and DiMaggio: the internet is not a fixed object, but rather a protean family of technologies and services (2001: 5) through which users can, in theory, gain access to the web, chat rooms, instant messaging, email and so on. Sue -----Original Message----- From: air-l-bounces@listserv.aoir.org [mailto:air-l-bounces@listserv.aoir.org] On Behalf Of Sam Tilden Sent: Tuesday, 17 October 2006 00:28 To: air-l@listserv.aoir.org Subject: [Air-l] A definition of the internet I know this is a trivial question! Does anyone have a really good definition of the Internet. The only ones I have speaks only to the technology. Sam --------------------------------- Yahoo! Messenger with Voice. Make PC-to-Phone Calls to the US (and 30+ countries) for 2¢/min or less. _______________________________________________ The air-l@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/ -- No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.408 / Virus Database: 268.13.4/477 - Release Date: 16/10/2006 -- No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.408 / Virus Database: 268.13.4/477 - Release Date: 16/10/2006 -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.408 / Virus Database: 268.13.4/477 - Release Date: 16/10/2006
Sam Tilden wrote:
I know this is a trivial question! Does anyone have a really good definition of the Internet.
The only ones I have speaks only to the technology.
We used the definition below in the Dynamic Platform Standards Project's proposal for net neutrality. It's a definition of the technical behavior of the Internet Protocol (not TCP/IP, but IP in itself), and we intend it as a definition of the technical behavior that assures net neutrality, but in the correct, broadest sense. I'm not sure what speaking of the technology takes away from anyone's purposes. Here we speak in deliberately general terms, rather than particulars of how many bytes represent what kind of information in any specific protocol, in order to describe the functions and purposes it supports adequately. The Internet Protocol has a lot of specifics, but it also is very general in a way very like the way the digital computer is general. It isn't just the basis for interoperability of different types of networks; it's the basis for the genericity and flexibility of the Internet as a platform for creation and communication. In general terms, it describes a set of technical behaviors that support nearly anything you can think of. Section 2 ("Findings") explains this aspect: Points 2, 3, 5 and 6 are most technically relevant: (from http://www.dpsproject.com/legislation.html) (2) The success of the Internet is built on the establishment of certain commonly observed principles of practice, expressed in "Internet protocols," governing the manner in which transmissions are exchanged. Interoperation among competing Internet providers on the basis of these principles assures that the Internet remains a generic, flexible platform that supports innovation and free expression. (3) This flexible platform, commonly referred to as the "IP layer" of the Internet, enables users to independently develop innovative applications by devising rules and conventions describing how information transmitted between connected users will be interpreted in order to serve diverse purposes. The vast collection of applications that have been freely created in this manner is commonly referred to as the "application layer" of the Internet. (5) Among the commonly-observed principles of practice that govern Internet transmissions are the following: a) Transmissions are broken down into small pieces referred to as "packets," comprised of small portions of the overall information useful to the users at each transmission's endpoints. A small set of data is prefixed to these packets, describing the source and destination of each packet and how it is to be treated. b) Internet routers transmit these packets to various other routers, changing routers freely as a means of managing network flow. c) Internet routers transmit packets independently of each other and independently of the applications that the packets are supporting. (6) These principles governing the IP layer establish a technical behavior that not only assures the platform's flexibility, but also assures its reliability, availability, universal accessibility, and uniform treatment of information flow. The IP layer assures that all applications may compete on a level basis of connectivity, be they commercially developed by a major corporation and made available to millions, or non- commercial applications developed by individuals and offered at no charge. Under Section 3 is the more specific, yet still general, definition we use for nailing down legal language: (A) Internet.- The term "Internet" means the worldwide, publicly accessible system of interconnected computer networks that transmit data by packet switching using the standard Internet Protocol (IP), some characteristics of which include: i) Transmissions between users who hold globally reachable addresses, and which transmissions are broken down into smaller segments referred to as "packets" comprised of a small portion of information useful to the users at each transmission's endpoints, and a small set of prefixed data describing the source and destination of each transmission and how the packet is to be treated; ii) routers that transmit these packets to various other routers on a best efforts basis, changing routers freely as a means of managing network flow; and iii) said routers transmit packets independently of each other and independently of the particular application in use, in accordance with globally defined protocol requirements and recommendations. (B) Internet access.- The term "Internet access" means a service that enables users to transmit and receive transmissions of data using the Internet protocol in a manner that is agnostic to the nature, source or destination of the transmission of any packet. Such IP transmissions may include information, text, sounds, images and other content such as messaging and electronic mail. Seth Johnson Corresponding Secretary New Yorkers for Fair Use
Sam
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