nanog mailing list archives

Re: Network visibility


From: "Jay R. Ashworth" <jra () baylink com>
Date: Fri, 22 Oct 2021 05:19:41 +0000 (UTC)

----- Original Message -----
From: "Miles Fidelman" <mfidelman () meetinghouse net>

Guys,

You guys were in grade school, some of us were there at the beginning
(well, in my case, 2 years after the beginning).  I can assure you that
folks made a big deal about what was and wasn't the Internet, and the
distinction between "an internet" and "the (capital I) Internet."
Opinions varied then, and opinions vary now.

But... by and large, as I understand the general zeitgeist:

- you're either on the Internet, or you're not - the key question is
whether you can send & receive IP packets from the public address space
(i.e., the classified segments are internets, but not part of THE
Internet).  There are also disagreements on where the Internet ends - at
the demarc, or at the IP stack in your machine (I argue the latter, but
that's debatable)

Seth Breidbart has the last word on this point, I think:

The Internet is "the largest equivalence class in the reflexive, transitive, 
symmetric closure of the relationship 'can be reached by an IP packet from'."

The associated press has, in the last year or two, disparaged the capitalization
of the word Internet, proving they do not understand there's a difference.

If they won't capitalize "my" name, I won't capitalize theirs.

But I will capitalize Internet in all relevant uses.

This is an *engineering definition*, it matters that you name the right
object, and I am one of the people who will, in fact, die on this hill.

The associated press can bite me.

Cheers,
-- jra
-- 
Jay R. Ashworth                  Baylink                       jra () baylink com
Designer                     The Things I Think                       RFC 2100
Ashworth & Associates       http://www.bcp38.info          2000 Land Rover DII
St Petersburg FL USA      BCP38: Ask For It By Name!           +1 727 647 1274


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