Subject: Re: Continuing the story - another stab at an IETF missionstatement

From: "Tom Petch" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 11 Mar 2004 11:35:15 -0000

Harald,

Yes, you did reply last month, with allusions to standing on the quicksand.

I use The Internet to mean the public network and to exclude (enterprise)
networks behind NAT/PAT ie most enterprise networks.  I appreciate you do
not but still don't know if my usage is widespread or not ie will the use
of (capitalised) Internet help or confuse.  (My initial training in this
came from an IBM course).

I like the phrase Internet Protocol Suite - not widely used - and so refer
to networks based on the IPS to encompass the wider suite of networks.  But
then this allows for isolated networks where you specifically say
interconnected.  Or, staying with your terminology, you could add to the
definition 'including those connected via protocol gateways' which covers
NAT, PAT and anything else we may come up with (to keep out those with
malicious intent).

(Of the other posts, I don't think spherical geometry will help clarify
this while the reference to equivalence classes I find mistaken, since
there are discussions on not letting packets through as part of spam
control:-)

Tom Petch

-----Original Message-----
From: Harald Tveit Alvestrand <[email-masked]>
To: Tom Petch <[email-masked]>; [email-masked] <[email-masked]>
Date: 10 March 2004 03:49
Subject: Re: Continuing the story - another stab at an IETF
missionstatement

>--On 18. februar 2004 18:06 +0000 Tom Petch <[email-masked]>
>wrote:
>
>> I find your definition of the Internet delightfully ambiguous.  I was
>> taught that the Internet (as opposed to an internet or the internet) was
>> the public network accessible through public IPv4 addresses (this
predates
>> IPv6) ie the Internet ceased at a firewall or other such IP level
gateway.
>>
>> Reading your definition, I cannot tell where you stand; are firewalls
and
>> networks behind them included in IETF mission or not?
>
>Tom,
>reviewing, I cannot tell whether I answered this one or not....
>I was definitely intending to include them, since IMHO they are connected
>to the internet (see "both core and edge networks", "host to host"). If
you
>can suggest words to make this clearer, I'd appreciate it!
>
>                      Harald