[1] 25 Year Anniversary of TCP/IP by Ronda Hauben ronda@panix.com The following post recently appeared on Usenet: "A phenomenon that has resulted from IT development has been that of the Internet. Why has the impact of Internet been so very great on society? What was the fundamental needs of society, which had remained dormant till now, which are spurring on these developments at such a rapid pace? That Internet an innovative medium, is made possible by several technologies and techniques. One is TCP/IP. Make an independent evaluation of the TCP/IP dimensions of (the) Internet and impact of TCP/IP on the Internet." This issue of the Amateur Computerist is being published at a time of a milestone that needs to make anyone who cares about the Internet pause and reflect. In 1973, the Internet protocol TCP/IP (then called TCP) was designed by Robert E. Kahn and Vinton G. Cerf.(1) Their paper "A Protocol for Packet Network Intercommunication," describing the architecture of the TCP protocol was published in May 1994 in IEEE's "The Transactions on Communications." As another Internet pioneer, Dave Clark, understood, TCP was the glue that brought together several important network technologies. This new protocol made it possible for dissimilar packet switching networks to be able to talk with each other, in a way similar to how an earlier protocol NCP had made it possible for diverse computers using different operating systems to communicate via the ARPANET. What is so important about the creation of this new protocol, TCP, as it was called in 1973, was that it made possible the logical connection of multiple packet switching networks around the world. This has created a communications system that has grown and spread broadly and widely. More importantly, the internetworking of networks made possible by TCP/IP is the basis of a system that makes it possible for people around the world to communicate via their computers in a way that is unprecedented. Thus this issue of the Amateur Computerist is dedicated to raising a rousing cheer for the networking pioneers whose dedications, hard work, and pioneering vision conceived of and created this important means to facilitate networking interconnection and communication and thus human to human communication. And then some of these pioneers took on the difficult tasks of implementing the protocol in a variety of packet switching networks, eventually making it possible for TCP/IP and the Internet to spread around the U.S. and around the world. The article in this issue by Robert E. Kahn, one of the most important of these pioneers, describes both the development of internetworking technology, and some of the other problems that had to be solved to develop the Internet to what it is today. Though written in 1994, the article also describes some of the outstanding problems that he understood the Internet would face as it continued to grow and spread. The article provides an important description of the changing role that the U.S. government has played in the creation and development of the Internet. And it raises the question of what role will government, both the U.S. government, and other governments around the world, need to play in the further development of the Internet as these networking developments continue to grow and spread more broadly and widely? Commenting on the importance of the need to determine the role for government in the present and the future development of the Internet, Kahn writes: This raises the question of the proper long-term role for government in the continued evolution of the Internet. Is the Internet now in a form where government involvement should cease entirely, leaving private-sector interests to determine its future? Or, does government still have an important role to play? This paper concludes that government can still make a series of important contributions. This question continues to be alive today as the decision making processes that will help the Internet to scale are under reconsideration, and the role of government with regard to these processes, hasn't yet been determined. This issue also starts the serialization of a paper about one of the earliest mailing lists created during the early days of the ARPANET. The MsgGroup mailing list was started in 1975, shortly after the creation of TCP/IP. It was created to explore how e-mail facilitated communication and collaborative activity. One of the papers included in the archives of this mailing list recognizes that how decisions are made regarding the developing network would become a problem as adequate consideration wasn't paid to this challenge. This prediction has proven true. Most recently, the problem of how decisions are made with respect to domain names on the Internet has revealed that this early paper was insightful, as the question of decision making, along with the issue of what continuing role governments need to play in overseeing such a decision making process has become an urgent problem to be solved for the ongoing development of the Internet. The article by Robert Shaw, of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) in Geneva describes the problem that has developed with regard to the plan by the U.S. government to transfer not only decisions regarding domain naming, but also the domain name system to the private sector. This issue of the Amateur Computerist also contains an article by Ted Byfield discussing some of the various considerations that the domain name controversy raises. Other articles in this issue include testimony submitted to the U.S. Congress, and via e-mail as well, regarding the problem of the U.S. government's decision to make a significant change in not only the decision making process regarding essential Internet functions, but also in the ownership and control over these essential functions of the Internet. Also included is a proposal submitted via e-mail to government policy advisors, and then posted at the NTIA online web site, a report from the Internet Society meeting in Geneva this past July, and a letter to Congress, and from Congress to the Department of Commerce about the problems of transferring decision making and Internet assets from the U.S. government oversight to a private entity. On November 25, 1998, a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was posted online by the NTIA indicating a cooperative agreement with the private corporation they had created, ICANN, to design and test a private sector corporate entity. However, for now, the U.S. government has claimed that it hasn't yet transferred these functions and instead will be working with ICANN to design a structure. The MoU is online at the NTIA web site, and we welcome views about the nature of this agreement.(2) We hope to have an analysis of it in our next issue. Finally, 1998 marked another important Internet milestone. In 1988 the NSFNET backbone was put into operation. 1988 was also the year that I first got onto the Internet via the MERIT connection to the NSFNET backbone. When I begin to think how different my life would be today without the Internet, it makes me realize the remarkable changes that are possible with the ability to communicate as broadly and widely as the Internet makes possible. More profoundly, the communication made possible via the Internet makes it possible to solve problems that otherwise would be intractable. This capability carries with it a profound hope for the future. So I want to express my personal thanks to those determined pioneers who have brought the world these important new means of global communication. Now it is up to the rest of us to help take up the problems that develop along the way so that this new communications media will spread ever more broadly and widely, and the visions of the pioneers that all gain access, be achieved. That's what this issue about. ----- Notes: (1) See also John Adam, "Architects of the net of nets," IEEE Spectrum, September 1996, p. 57-63. (2) http://www.ntia.doc.gov/ (3) In early January, the NIST (National Institute for Standards and Technology of the U.S. government) announced that it will give ICANN the IANA contract in place of DARPA. This move is contrary to both the stated Memorandum of Agreement that the NTIA signed with ICANN on November 24, 1998 providing only that ICANN design and test a structure, not that they actually administer IANA. Also this NIST announcement was contrary to the report by the Office of Inspector General of the NSF issued in February 1997 that stated that the U.S. government was not allowed to contract out policy setting functions, but only administrative functions. The U.S. government is creating ICANN to function as a policy setting body for it, which is contrary to what it is allowed to do with a private sector organization. --------------------------------------------------------------------- Reprinted from the Amateur Computerist Vol 9 No 1 Winter 1998-1999. The whole issue or a subscription are available for free via email. Send a request to jrh@ais.org or see http://www.ais.org/~jrh/acn/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------