Ronda Hauben on 6 Apr 2001 12:20:33 -0000 |
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[Nettime-bold] Comments submitted to National Academy of Science on DNS Study Comm |
Following are the comments I submitted to the National Academy of Science about the provisional members they appointed to study the Internet's Domain Name System and write a report to the US Congress. Ronda >Date: Thu, 5 Apr 2001 23:48:30 -0400 (EDT) >From: <ronda@panix.com> >Message-Id: <200104060348.XAA02951@panix2.panix.com> >To: nrcisdns@nas.edu >Subject: Comments Submitted to NAS on the provisional committee appointments >Status: R Comments on the Provisional Appointments of the NAS to the Committee on Internet Searching and the Domain Name System: Technical Alternatives and Policy Implications I am requesting that the National Academy of Science reconsider the appointments of those you have chosen as members of this committee, with the exception of those members who are technical experts in the areas that the committee will consider. The other members are not appropriate for the problems and study this committee will need to undertake in order to be able to make a step forward in advising the US government on a difficult technical and policy issue. I am proposing that you redo the committee composition process. That the new process be done in an open fashion with more input as to the criteria needed for determining who are the people with the needed expertise to be on the committee and how to make that decision. I propose that this process be done in an open process which is discussed online and both the criteria and who is determining the criteria be openly discussed, with contributions invited from the online community. As can be seen with regard to the problems that the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has demonstrated, the choice of who will constitute a committee or board is of critical importance to whether there is any possibility that the public interest will be served. It seems that the criteria governing who you have appointed to this committee are an inappropriate set of criteria. Since the Internet is a global metasystem with millions of users around the world who are part of very different networks under dissimilar administrative and political authority and with dissimilar technical requirements, it is crucial that those appointed to this committee have a broad public interest perspective and that they be knowledgeable in the history and development of the Internet. How is it that it has been possible to create such a broad and international metasystem of communicating networks? A part of the answer is that the principles of open architecture were identified and guided the creation of the tcp/ip protocol which has served as an architectural framework for internetwork communication. The principle of open architecture is identified and described in a paper "The Birth of the Internet: An Architectural Conception for Solving the Multiple Network Problem" http://www.columbia.edu/~rh120/other/birth_internet.txt Also these principles are explained in a paper by Barry Leiner "A Brief History of the Internet" http://www.isoc.org/internet/history/brief.html Following is an excerpt from the paper which explains the nature and the implementation of open architecture as the architecture guiding the development of the current Internet. "By 1972, the impact of computer networking was creating a new challenge for those interested in computer communications. This was the problem that Kahn called the Multiple Network Problem. A number of researchers around the world, like Louis Pouzin in France and Donald Davies in Great Britain were already exploring how to build packet switching networks that would conform to their national and local needs. The problem of how to communicate across the boundaries of dissimilar networks was on the horizon. In the article, "Resource-Sharing Computer Communications Networks" published in the "Proceedings of the IEEE" in November, 1972, Kahn considered adjustments at the planning stage of the networks to make interconnection possible. (pg. 1407) This would require agreements at the design stage of the networks and could exclude those networks that had already been developed. The ARPANET, for example, had not been designed with the aim of communicating with other networks. The conception that gave birth to the ARPANET was a conception requiring all those interested in computer networking to become a component part of the ARPANET. The development of Cyclades in France or NPL in Great Britain, however, demonstrated that those designing packet switching networks had their own technical, administrative and political needs and goals to serve. It wasn't feasible for them to either become part of the ARPANET nor to wait till a common plan for interconnection was decided upon to develop their networks. It was becoming ever more urgent that those designing packet switching networks determine how to solve the problem of the interconnection of dissimilar networks. Since it was not appropriate to require all networks to await a common decision of what design parameters they should adopt to be able to connect with other networks, nor that all new networks should become a component part of the ARPANET, a different approach was needed. Recognizing the nature of the problem, Kahn proposed a technical solution. Shortly after the successful ICCC'72 ARPANET demonstration, Kahn left BBN and went to work at the Information Processing Techniques Office (IPTO) at ARPA. Joining the IPT office as a program manager, Kahn set out to develop certain projects and also took over responsibility for one that had already been funded. A new initiative was to create a ground-based packet radio network. An existing initiative was to create a satellite-based packet switching network. (12) Focusing on radio broadcasting technology, Kahn led an effort to create a ground packet radio network. This kind of packet communications network was of particular interest to the Department of Defense with their need for mobile communications. Kahn planned to build on the experience gained by researchers at the University of Hawaii who created AlohaNet. AlohaNet had demonstrated that packet radio technology was feasible for a one-hop system. (13) Kahn's objective was to create a multinode ground packet radio network (PRNET) where each node could be mobile. In parallel, he sought to create a packet satellite network (SATNET) utilizing Intelsat satellites. Thinking about how to create a ground packet radio network, (PRNET) Kahn realized that it would be desirable (indeed necessary) for users on PRNET to be able to access the computational resources on ARPANET. The packet satellite network was mainly intended for transiting to European sites, but there was still the problem of connecting (in both directions) to computer resources over there as well. How then to link up these three packet networks, two that would be based on utilizing radio transmission and the other which used shared point to point leased lines from the telephone company? At first, Kahn considered creating a local protocol for PRNET to make it possible to use the ARPANET Host-to-Host protocol NCP (Network Control Protocol). However, the limitations of NCP meant that would not be an option. These problems included: 1) NCP addressing did not have a way of addressing Hosts on other networks. 2) NCP required a reliable IMP subnetwork to transmit packets to their destination. But other networks were not always likely to have reliable end-end communication. 3) Error control was essential on an end-end basis, but did not exist for NCP. Thus dissimilar and possibly unreliable networks required a different architecture and different protocol design from the architecture and protocol design creating the ARPANET. Once there are other networks, the challenge becomes: How to provide for their interconnection and how to insure end-end communication for the attached host computers? Is there a new architecture and protocol design which can support resource sharing across the boundaries of dissimilar networks? Simplifying the problem leads to the question: How to transmit computer data messages on dissimilar networks without requiring changes to the participating networks? What protocol design will allow for the diversity that will exist in administrative, political, and technical aspects of dissimilar packet switching networks? (...) The ARPANET solved the difficult problem of communication in a network with dissimilar computers and dissimilar operating systems. However, when the objective is to share resources across the boundaries of dissimilar networks, the problems to be solved are compounded. Different networks mean that there can be different packet sizes to accommodate, different network parameters such as different communication media rates, different buffering and signaling strategies, different ways of routing packets, and different propagation delays. Also dissimilar networks can have different error control techniques and different ways of determining the status of network components.(16) Though Kahn originally considered the possibility of seeking changes to each of the constituent networks to solve the Multiple Network Problem, he soon recognized the advantage of an architecture that would directly accommodate the diversity of networks. (17) To do so he conceived of a meta-level architecture independent of the underlying network technology. The means of achieving this was to design a protocol to be embedded in the operating system of Host computers on each participating network. The protocol would also specify how black boxes or "gateways" would interface between networks and how they would participate in routing packets through dissimilar networks. Describing the thinking that went into solving the Multiple Network Problem, "A Brief History of the Internet" outlines the origin of the conception that Kahn would call the open architecture networking environment. The article explains: The Internet was based on the idea that there would be multiple independent networks of rather arbitrary design, beginning with the ARPANET as the pioneering packet switching network, but soon to include packet satellite networks, ground-based packet radio networks and other networks. The Internet as we now know it embodies a key underlying technical idea, namely that of open architecture networking. In this approach, the choice of any individual network technology was not dictated by a particular network architecture but rather could be selected freely by a provider and made to interwork with the other networks through a meta-level "Internetwork Architecture." Up until that time there was only one general method for federating networks. This was the traditional circuit switching method where networks would interconnect at the circuit level, passing individual bits on a synchronous basis along a portion of an end-to-end circuit between a pair of end locations. Recall that Kleinrock had shown in 1961 that packet switching was a more efficient switching method. Along with packet switching, special purpose interconnection arrangements between networks were another possibility. While there were other limited ways to interconnect different networks, they required that one be used as a component of the other, rather than acting as a "peer" of the other in offering end-to-end service. Barry M. Leiner. Vinton G. Cerf, David D. Clark, Robert E. Kahn, Leonard Kleinrock, Daniel C. Lynch, Jon Postel, Larry G. Roberts, and Stephen Wolff A Brief History of the Internet, pg. 4. http://www.isoc.org/internet/history/brief.html To create an environment where the networks would be peers of each other, rather than where one would have to be a component of the other, there was the need to design a protocol to embody this open architecture concept. Such a protocol would make it possible to communicate across the boundaries of dissimilar packet switching networks. The challenge in accommodating dissimilar networks is at once a conceptual and architectural problem. Kahn recognized the need for a communications protocol to transmit packets from one network, and reformat them as needed for transmission through successive networks. This would require that there be black boxes or gateway computers and software that would provide the interfaces between the dissimilar networks and which would route the packets to their destination. (18) Also there would need to be software to carry out the functions required by the protocol. Appropriate software modules, and perhaps other modifications to allow efficient performance, would then have to be embedded in the operating systems of the host computers in each of the participating networks and gateways would have to be introduced between them. The design for such a protocol would be a guide to create the specification standard for the software and hardware that each network would agree to implement to become part of an internetwork communications system. The standards or agreements to cooperate would be set out in the protocol. The research creating the ARPANET had developed the conception of networking protocols and the need for such protocols. Robert Metcalfe is the inventor of the Ethernet, the most widespread technology used for local area networking. In his PhD thesis, he reviews the technical experience gained from developing the ARPANET and ALOHANET. Metcalfe describes the role of protocols in developing computer networking. He writes: The ways in which processes organize their (local and remote) cooperation are called "protocols". We use the word to refer to a set of agreements among communicating processes relating to (1) rendezvous (who and where), (2) format (what and how), and (3) timing (when) of data and control exchanges. Robert M. Metcalfe, "Packet Communication", Peer-to-Peer Communication, Inc., San Jose, 1996, pg. 100. Metcalfe notes what these areas include: (...) at least four problem areas in which protocol agreements must be made: (1) routing, (2) flow, (3) congestion, and (4) security. Ibid. An internetworking protocol would need to be a communications protocol. As such it would specify the software and hardware to do flow control, error checking, to break a message into packets in the sending Host computers, and to provide for packet reassembly in the destination Host computers, to provide a means of addressing computers on other packet networks and other needed functions. The protocol would specify the role and software for the gateways. Metcalfe enumerates some of the issues that Kahn had identified to create the architecture for the Internet and for the protocol that would make an Internet possible. Metcalfe writes: Among these issues were optimal packet and message size, message fragmentation and reassembly, flow and congestion control, naming, addressing, and routing, store-and-forward delay, error control, and the texture of interprocess communication. Metcalfe, pg. xx Before he left BBN in 1972, Kahn had written a memo about his thinking about a communications-oriented set of operating system principles titled "Communications Principles for Operating Systems".(19) Metcalfe refers to the memo as influential in his thinking about protocol development. Elaborating the notion of open architecture, the authors of "A Brief History of the Internet" write: In an open architecture network, the individual networks may be separately designed and developed and each may have its own unique interface which it may offer to users and/or other providers, including other Internet providers. Each network can be designed in accordance with the specific environment and user requirements of that network. There are generally no constraints on the types of network that can be included or on their geographic scope, although certain pragmatic considerations will dictate what makes sense to offer. Leiner et al, pg. 4 The ground rules Kahn worked out to guide the creation and design of an open architecture environment include: o Each distinct network would have to stand on its own and no internal changes could be required to any such network to connect it to the Internet. o Communication would be on a best effort basis. If a packet didn't make it to the final destination, it would shortly be retransmitted from the source. o Black boxes would be used to connect the networks; these would later be called gateways and routers. There would be no information retained by the gateways about the individual flows of packets passing through them, thereby keeping them simple and avoiding complicated adaptation and recovery from various failure nodes. o There would be no global control at the operations level. Leiner et al. All of these ground rules are a significantly different conceptual approach from that used on the ARPANET. The ARPANET required any computer system sharing resources with other computers on its network to become a component part of it. Communications on the IMP subnetwork were via dedicated logical links and once a packet was sent to the IMP subnetwork its transmission was guaranteed via an error free transmission system. The IMPS carried out the interface function with the communication subnetwork and the Host computers. The IMP subnetwork was a complex rather than a simple system. The ground rules for an open architecture network environment are such that all networks are welcome to join in the interconnection on a peer basis, rather than one as a component of the other. Messages are to be broken into packets, and the packets retransmitted until there is an acknowledgement of their successful transmission. This simplifies the error detection process and provides for a beginning flow control mechanism. Black boxes are to be used as gateways but their functions are to be limited so they can be kept simple. No one entity is to be allowed to establish control at the operational level of the participating networks." from Ronda Hauben, "The Birth of the Internet: An Architectural Conception for Solving the Multiple Network Problem" http://www.columbia.edu/~rh120/other/birth_internet.txt Also Robert Kahn and Barry Leiner have an understanding of open architecture and the role open architecture has played in making the Internet the metasystem that can welcome such a diversity of dissimilar networks into a complex human-computer communications system. Kahn and Leiner are the kind of scientists with relevant expertise who it is important to have on the committee. Instead those who have irrelevant and inappropriate expertise were chosen, like one member whose expertise is in corporate governance. These two people I have suggested as members for the committee also understand the issues involved in the need to create an adequate directory structure for the Internet to help solve the problem that has been caused by trying to make the current DNS system become a directory structure, a function it was not created to serve and it cannot serve. Also it was important to include someone with knowledge of the history and development of the Internet. Unfortunately the NSF is not supporting the needed research so that the important advances represented by the Internet can be recognized and built on. I have a number of papers on the history which it would be crucial for any committee to consider and to find a way to further the study of. For example, the basic nature of the Internet as a complex system relying on feedback to adjust to a changing environment is clarified if one understands some of the background of JCR Licklider who has been called the grandfather of the Internet. The goal that he identified for the developing network has served as a vision inspiring the engineers and programmers who have worked on Internet development over the past number of years. I recently submitted a proposal to the NSF describing the importance of this study. The proposal is at http://www.colubmia.edu/~rh120/other/nsfprop.txt I have offered to contribute to the committee and thus far such an offer has been ignored. In a situation like this where there is a significant public interest at stake, it is crucial that there be an open process and an open means to encourage online discussion of the issues being considered by the committee. In this regard it would be a minimum requirement that the committee have a newsgroup that was open for all to post to and to discuss as part of, and that supported collaborative discussion of the issues under consideration by the committee. To begin with it would be appropriate to reconstitute the committee by asking for public discussion and comments on the draft statement of scope and rewriting that statement based on the discussion that ensued. There has been some important and interesting discussion on at least one mailing list, the Netizens mailing list, and it would be good to see much more such online discussion. This is the process needed to identify the key issues to be determined by this committee in order to provide a useful report to the US Congress. Please also see the article I wrote that is in Telepolis on the creation of this committee. http://www.heise.de/tp/english/inhalt/te/7248/1.html Ronda Hauben ronda@panix.com (212)787-9361 _______________________________________________ Nettime-bold mailing list Nettime-bold@nettime.org http://www.nettime.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nettime-bold