On 19:59 12/08/02, Robert Cannon said:
I would be sort of curious whether you think any of
these come close to being satisfactory, why, and what
would make a satisfactory legal definition of the
Internet.
I would not like to bore people here with too many considerations but I am
puzzled by serveral points.
1. none of these diffinitions match the idea of the father of the Internet:
to interconnect technologies.
2. all but one (which says 'TCP/IP onwards') match the whole international
Tymnet/OSI/IP history.
3. one talks of 7.000.000 computers, forgetting 12.5 Minitel CPUs. They
think machines not usage.
There is a deafening silence about the true infrastructure of the Internet:
the namespace. Protocols are necessary but do not make a network. So, there
are only two considered layers (a) telecomunications (hardware) (b)
information (software). Not (3) relational layer (brainware). Over a very
extensive network definitions compilation, of 19 285 words, the word
'relation" is not present a single time.
My own definition could be "our growing consensus to relate and live
independently from distance and time through an increasing number of named
extended services built over an indiferentiating base of value added
services". This would match their definitions, the one of Vint, what does
the IETF and the reality of the day to day use of URLs and domain names
(cicularly defined in ACPA and others as what is proposed by the DN
Registries) and of the GAC concerns.
jfc