Network management and control (was: "Re: more on 1972 ARPANET Film ...")

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Lauren Weinstein <lauren () vortex com>
Date: March 19, 2006 7:58:02 PM EST
To: dave () farber net
Cc: lauren () vortex com
Subject: Network management and control (was: "Re: more on 1972  
ARPANET Film ...")


Dave,

Let's be even more explicit.  When I was reviewing the film
yesterday, I too noted and remembered fondly the presence of the
ARPANET NCC (Network Control Center) that lived at BBN.  Real people
with a real phone number to call for network-related problems.

OK, let's fast-forward some decades.  True, the Net's just a bit
bigger now, and it's no longer possible to remember all of the host
addresses or to have a concise and readable 8 1/2 by 11 inch map
tacked to the wall showing every site and network backbone connection.

But one might imagine that the modern Internet -- which we're
continually told is absolutely *vital* to commerce, national
security, and the continued rotation of planet Earth -- would have
*at least* the level of responsible and verifiable "command and
control" (however widely distributed it would need to be today) that
we had back then.  Yeah, we don't want an Internet "God" ruling the
whole thing.  But now spammers and other crooks use and dispose of
domain names as if they were toilet paper.  Domain registrars
encourage sites to hide their basic contact information (usually for
an extra fee, of course).  And much of the other contact information
in the "whois" domain databases is obviously bogus.

We've come a long way baby, but in terms of the sort of "network
management and control" that Suzanne mentioned, we've moved seriously
backwards -- perhaps to the edge of a potential operational abyss in
some significant ways.

--Lauren--
Lauren Weinstein
lauren () vortex com or lauren () pfir org
Tel: +1 (818) 225-2800
http://www.pfir.org/lauren
Co-Founder, PFIR
   - People For Internet Responsibility - http://www.pfir.org
Co-Founder, IOIC
   - International Open Internet Coalition - http://www.ioic.net
Moderator, PRIVACY Forum - http://www.vortex.com
Member, ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy
Lauren's Blog: http://lauren.vortex.com
DayThink: http://daythink.vortex.com

 - - -

> Begin forwarded message:
>
> From: Suzanne Johnson <sjohnson () pobox com>
> Date: March 19, 2006 3:27:14 PM EST
> To: dave () farber net
> Subject: Re: [IP] 1972 ARPANET Film (was: "an amazing film...")
>
>
>
> Without going too far down memory lane,  in response to Lauren's
> comment  I've got to say that amid the "prehistoric technology" in
> this film is a reference to network manaqement and control, which
> has, in my opinion, never developed to the same point  since that
> time.  One possible exception would be the Ricochet network in the
> mid-nineties.
>
> I was on the system staff at Sumex-Aim (at Stanford) back in the
> early-sevienties.  We were  the first non-defense funded application
> site on the ARPANET.    One day the system staff were all in the
> offices which were located several blocks from the machine room
> containing our computer and  IMP.  We all started getting IMP shut-
> down messages on our terminals. "IMP going down in 30 minutes for 10
> minutes", with a count-down of minutes after that.  We all looked at
> each other and asked who scheduled the shut down.  None of us had.
>
> Then someone remembered an 800 number we'd been given when we
> connected to the ARPANET.  It was for a "network control center
> somewhere back east".  We called the number and asked the person who
> answered what was going on.  Not expecting a coherent answer, we were
> surprised when the person made a quick check and told us:  "your IMP
> has been having intermittent problems for about a week.  It finally
> was able to make a diagnosis of which board was creating the problem.
> We've scheduled and controlled the downtime and a technician is there
> waiting to switch boards.  You will be back up again in 10 minutes."
>
> By the time we all regained our composure, and sent someone to the
> machine room, the IMP was fixed and in the process of coming back up.
> We then recalled that as a part of being connected to the ARPANET,
> we'd had to ensure that access to the IMP was available at all times
> to ARPANET technicians (we'd given a key to them).
>
>         ...Suzanne
>
>
>
> At 8:20 PM -0500 3/18/06, David Farber wrote:
> > Excuse me, I have a sudden urge to dig out some old
> > DECtapes, punched paper tapes, stone knives, and bearskins...
> >
> > --Lauren--
> > Lauren Weinstein
>
>
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