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+Network Working Group                                          E. Krol
+Request for Comments: 1462                      University of Illinois
+FYI: 20                                                     E. Hoffman
+                                                   Merit Network, Inc.
+                                                              May 1993
+
+
+                     FYI on "What is the Internet?"
+
+Status of this Memo
+
+   This memo provides information for the Internet community.  It does
+   not specify an Internet standard.  Distribution of this memo is
+   unlimited.
+
+Abstract
+
+   This FYI RFC answers the question, "What is the Internet?" and is
+   produced by the User Services Working Group of the Internet
+   Engineering Task Force (IETF). Containing a modified chapter from Ed
+   Krol's 1992 book, "The Whole Internet User's Guide and Catalog," the
+   paper covers the Internet's definition, history, administration,
+   protocols, financing, and current issues such as growth,
+   commercialization, and privatization.
+
+Introduction
+
+   A commonly asked question is "What is the Internet?" The reason such
+   a question gets asked so often is because there's no agreed upon
+   answer that neatly sums up the Internet. The Internet can be thought
+   about in relation to its common protocols, as a physical collection
+   of routers and circuits, as a set of shared resources, or even as an
+   attitude about interconnecting and intercommunication. Some common
+   definitions given in the past include:
+
+      * a network of networks based on the TCP/IP protocols,
+      * a community of people who use and develop those networks,
+      * a collection of resources that can be reached from those
+        networks.
+
+   Today's Internet is a global resource connecting millions of users
+   that began as an experiment over 20 years ago by the U.S.  Department
+   of Defense. While the networks that make up the Internet are based on
+   a standard set of protocols (a mutually agreed upon method of
+   communication between parties), the Internet also has gateways to
+   networks and services that are based on other protocols.
+
+
+
+
+
+Krol & Hoffman                                                  [Page 1]
+
+RFC 1462                 What is the Internet?                  May 1993
+
+
+   To help answer the question more completely, the rest of this paper
+   contains an updated second chapter from "The Whole Internet User's
+   Guide and Catalog" by Ed Krol (1992) that gives a more thorough
+   explanation. (The excerpt is published through the gracious
+   permission of the publisher, O'Reilly & Associates, Inc.)
+
+The Internet (excerpt from "The Whole Internet User's Guide and
+Catalog")
+
+   The Internet was born about 20 years ago, trying to connect together
+   a U.S. Defense Department network called the ARPAnet and various
+   other radio and satellite networks. The ARPAnet was an experimental
+   network designed to support military research--in particular,
+   research about how to build networks that could withstand partial
+   outages (like bomb attacks) and still function.  (Think about this
+   when I describe how the network works; it may give you some insight
+   into the design of the Internet.) In the ARPAnet model, communication
+   always occurs between a source and a destination computer. The
+   network itself is assumed to be unreliable; any portion of the
+   network could disappear at any moment (pick your favorite
+   catastrophe--these days backhoes cutting cables are more of a threat
+   than bombs). It was designed to require the minimum of information
+   from the computer clients. To send a message on the network, a
+   computer only had to put its data in an envelope, called an Internet
+   Protocol (IP) packet, and "address" the packets correctly. The
+   communicating computers--not the network itself--were also given the
+   responsibility to ensure that the communication was accomplished. The
+   philosophy was that every computer on the network could talk, as a
+   peer, with any other computer.
+
+   These decisions may sound odd, like the assumption of an "unreliable"
+   network, but history has proven that most of them were reasonably
+   correct. Although the Organization for International Standardization
+   (ISO) was spending years designing the ultimate standard for computer
+   networking, people could not wait. Internet developers in the US, UK
+   and Scandinavia, responding to market pressures, began to put their
+   IP software on every conceivable type of computer. It became the only
+   practical method for computers from different manufacturers to
+   communicate. This was attractive to the government and universities,
+   which didn't have policies saying that all computers must be bought
+   from the same vendor. Everyone bought whichever computer they liked,
+   and expected the computers to work together over the network.
+
+   At about the same time as the Internet was coming into being,
+   Ethernet local area networks ("LANs") were developed. This technology
+   matured quietly, until desktop workstations became available around
+   1983. Most of these workstations came with Berkeley UNIX, which
+   included IP networking software. This created a new demand: rather
+
+
+
+Krol & Hoffman                                                  [Page 2]
+
+RFC 1462                 What is the Internet?                  May 1993
+
+
+   than connecting to a single large timesharing computer per site,
+   organizations wanted to connect the ARPAnet to their entire local
+   network. This would allow all the computers on that LAN to access
+   ARPAnet facilities. About the same time, other organizations started
+   building their own networks using the same communications protocols
+   as the ARPAnet: namely, IP and its relatives. It became obvious that
+   if these networks could talk together, users on one network could
+   communicate with those on another; everyone would benefit.
+
+   One of the most important of these newer networks was the NSFNET,
+   commissioned by the National Science Foundation (NSF), an agency of
+   the U.S. government. In the late 80's the NSF created five
+   supercomputer centers. Up to this point, the world's fastest
+   computers had only been available to weapons developers and a few
+   researchers from very large corporations. By creating supercomputer
+   centers, the NSF was making these resources available for any
+   scholarly research. Only five centers were created because they were
+   so expensive--so they had to be shared. This created a communications
+   problem: they needed a way to connect their centers together and to
+   allow the clients of these centers to access them.  At first, the NSF
+   tried to use the ARPAnet for communications, but this strategy failed
+   because of bureaucracy and staffing problems.
+
+   In response, NSF decided to build its own network, based on the
+   ARPAnet's IP technology. It connected the centers with 56,000 bit per
+   second (56k bps) telephone lines.  (This is roughly the ability to
+   transfer two full typewritten pages per second.  That's slow by
+   modern standards, but was reasonably fast in the mid 80's.)  It was
+   obvious, however, that if they tried to connect every university
+   directly to a supercomputing center, they would go broke. You pay for
+   these telephone lines by the mile. One line per campus with a
+   supercomputing center at the hub, like spokes on a bike wheel, adds
+   up to lots of miles of phone lines. Therefore, they decided to create
+   regional networks. In each area of the country, schools would be
+   connected to their nearest neighbor. Each chain was connected to a
+   supercomputer center at one point and the centers were connected
+   together. With this configuration, any computer could eventually
+   communicate with any other by forwarding the conversation through its
+   neighbors.
+
+   This solution was successful--and, like any successful solution, a
+   time came when it no longer worked. Sharing supercomputers also
+   allowed the connected sites to share a lot of other things not
+   related to the centers. Suddenly these schools had a world of data
+   and collaborators at their fingertips. The network's traffic
+   increased until, eventually, the computers controlling the network
+   and the telephone lines connecting them were overloaded. In 1987, a
+   contract to manage and upgrade the network was awarded to Merit
+
+
+
+Krol & Hoffman                                                  [Page 3]
+
+RFC 1462                 What is the Internet?                  May 1993
+
+
+   Network Inc., which ran Michigan's educational network, in
+   partnership with IBM and MCI. The old network was replaced with
+   faster telephone lines (by a factor of 20), with faster computers to
+   control it.
+
+   The process of running out of horsepower and getting bigger engines
+   and better roads continues to this day. Unlike changes to the highway
+   system, however, most of these changes aren't noticed by the people
+   trying to use the Internet to do real work. You won't go to your
+   office, log in to your computer, and find a message saying that the
+   Internet will be inaccessible for the next six months because of
+   improvements. Perhaps even more important: the process of running out
+   of capacity and improving the network has created a technology that's
+   extremely mature and practical. The ideas have been tested; problems
+   have appeared, and problems have been solved.
+
+   For our purposes, the most important aspect of the NSF's networking
+   effort is that it allowed everyone to access the network. Up to that
+   point, Internet access had been available only to researchers in
+   computer science, government employees, and government contractors.
+   The NSF promoted universal educational access by funding campus
+   connections only if the campus had a plan to spread the access
+   around. So everyone attending a four year college could become an
+   Internet user.
+
+   The demand keeps growing. Now that most four-year colleges are
+   connected, people are trying to get secondary and primary schools
+   connected. People who have graduated from college know what the
+   Internet is good for, and talk their employers into connecting
+   corporations. All this activity points to continued growth,
+   networking problems to solve, evolving technologies, and job security
+   for networkers.
+
+What Makes Up the Internet?
+
+   What comprises the Internet is a difficult question; the answer
+   changes over time. Five years ago the answer would have been easy:
+   "All the networks, using the IP protocol, which cooperate to form a
+   seamless network for their collective users." This would include
+   various federal networks, a set of regional networks, campus
+   networks, and some foreign networks.
+
+   More recently, some non-IP-based networks saw that the Internet was
+   good. They wanted to provide its services to their clientele. So they
+   developed methods of connecting these "strange" networks (e.g.,
+   Bitnet, DECnets, etc.) to the Internet. At first these connections,
+   called "gateways", merely served to transfer electronic mail between
+   the two networks. Some, however, have grown to translate other
+
+
+
+Krol & Hoffman                                                  [Page 4]
+
+RFC 1462                 What is the Internet?                  May 1993
+
+
+   services between the networks as well. Are they part of the Internet?
+   Maybe yes and maybe no. It depends on whether, in their hearts, they
+   want to be. If this sounds strange, read on--it gets stranger.
+
+Who Governs the Internet?
+
+   In many ways the Internet is like a church: it has its council of
+   elders, every member has an opinion about how things should work, and
+   you can either take part or not. It's your choice. The Internet has
+   no president, chief operating officer, or Pope. The constituent
+   networks may have presidents and CEO's, but that's a different issue;
+   there's no single authority figure for the Internet as a whole.
+
+   The ultimate authority for where the Internet is going rests with the
+   Internet Society, or ISOC. ISOC is a voluntary membership
+   organization whose purpose is to promote global information exchange
+   through Internet technology.  (If you'd like more information, or if
+   you would like to join, contact information is provided in the "For
+   More Information" section, near the end of this document.)  It
+   appoints a council of elders, which has responsibility for the
+   technical management and direction of the Internet.
+
+   The council of elders is a group of invited volunteers called the
+   Internet Architecture Board, or the IAB. The IAB meets regularly to
+   "bless" standards and allocate resources, like addresses. The
+   Internet works because there are standard ways for computers and
+   software applications to talk to each other. This allows computers
+   from different vendors to communicate without problems. It's not an
+   IBM-only or Sun-only or Macintosh-only network. The IAB is
+   responsible for these standards; it decides when a standard is
+   necessary, and what the standard should be. When a standard is
+   required, it considers the problem, adopts a standard, and announces
+   it via the network. (You were expecting stone tablets?) The IAB also
+   keeps track of various numbers (and other things) that must remain
+   unique. For example, each computer on the Internet has a unique 32-
+   bit address; no other computer has the same address.  How does this
+   address get assigned? The IAB worries about these kinds of problems.
+   It doesn't actually assign the addresses, but it makes the rules
+   about how to assign addresses.
+
+   As in a church, everyone has opinions about how things ought to run.
+   Internet users express their opinions through meetings of the
+   Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). The IETF is another volunteer
+   organization; it meets regularly to discuss operational and near-term
+   technical problems of the Internet. When it considers a problem
+   important enough to merit concern, the IETF sets up a "working group"
+   for further investigation. (In practice, "important enough" usually
+   means that there are enough people to volunteer for the working
+
+
+
+Krol & Hoffman                                                  [Page 5]
+
+RFC 1462                 What is the Internet?                  May 1993
+
+
+   group.) Anyone can attend IETF meetings and be on working groups; the
+   important thing is that they work. Working groups have many different
+   functions, ranging from producing documentation, to deciding how
+   networks should cooperate when problems occur, to changing the
+   meaning of the bits in some kind of packet. A working group usually
+   produces a report. Depending on the kind of recommendation, it could
+   just be documentation and made available to anyone wanting it, it
+   could be accepted voluntarily as a good idea which people follow, or
+   it could be sent to the IAB to be declared a standard.
+
+   If you go to a church and accept its teachings and philosophy, you
+   are accepted by it, and receive the benefits. If you don't like it,
+   you can leave. The church is still there, and you get none of the
+   benefits. Such is the Internet. If a network accepts the teachings of
+   the Internet, is connected to it, and considers itself part of it,
+   then it is part of the Internet. It will find things it doesn't like
+   and can address those concerns through the IETF. Some concerns may be
+   considered valid and the Internet may change accordingly.  Some of
+   the changes may run counter to the religion, and be rejected. If the
+   network does something that causes damage to the Internet, it could
+   be excommunicated until it mends its evil ways.
+
+Who Pays for It?
+
+   The old rule for when things are confusing is "follow the money."
+   Well, this won't help you to understand the Internet. No one pays for
+   "it"; there is no Internet, Inc. that collects fees from all Internet
+   networks or users. Instead, everyone pays for their part.  The NSF
+   pays for NSFNET. NASA pays for the NASA Science Internet.  Networks
+   get together and decide how to connect themselves together and fund
+   these interconnections. A college or corporation pays for their
+   connection to some regional network, which in turn pays a national
+   provider for its access.
+
+What Does This Mean for Me?
+
+   The concept that the Internet is not a network, but a collection of
+   networks, means little to the end user. You want to do something
+   useful: run a program, or access some unique data. You shouldn't have
+   to worry about how it's all stuck together. Consider the telephone
+   system--it's an internet, too. Pacific Bell, AT&T, MCI, British
+   Telephony, Telefonos de Mexico, and so on, are all separate
+   corporations that run pieces of the telephone system. They worry
+   about how to make it all work together; all you have to do is dial.
+
+   If you ignore cost and commercials, you shouldn't care if you are
+   dealing with MCI, AT&T, or Sprint. Dial the number and it works.
+
+
+
+
+Krol & Hoffman                                                  [Page 6]
+
+RFC 1462                 What is the Internet?                  May 1993
+
+
+   You only care who carries your calls when a problem occurs. If
+   something goes out of service, only one of those companies can fix
+   it. They talk to each other about problems, but each phone carrier is
+   responsible for fixing problems on its own part of the system.  The
+   same is true on the Internet. Each network has its own network
+   operations center (NOC). The operation centers talk to each other and
+   know how to resolve problems. Your site has a contract with one of
+   the Internet's constituent networks, and its job is to keep your site
+   happy. So if something goes wrong, they are the ones to gripe at. If
+   it's not their problem, they'll pass it along.
+
+What Does the Future Hold?
+
+   Finally, a question I can answer. It's not that I have a crystal ball
+   (if I did I'd spend my time on Wall Street instead of writing a
+   book). Rather, these are the things that the IAB and the IETF discuss
+   at their meetings. Most people don't care about the long discussions;
+   they only want to know how they'll be affected. So, here are
+   highlights of the networking future.
+
+New Standard Protocols
+
+   When I was talking about how the Internet started, I mentioned the
+   International Standards Organization (ISO) and their set of protocol
+   standards. Well, they finally finished designing it. Now it is an
+   international standard, typically referred to as the ISO/OSI (Open
+   Systems Interconnect) protocol suite. Many of the Internet's
+   component networks allow use of OSI today. There isn't much demand,
+   yet. The U.S. government has taken a position that government
+   computers should be able to speak these protocols. Many have the
+   software, but few are using it now.
+
+   It's really unclear how much demand there will be for OSI,
+   notwithstanding the government backing. Many people feel that the
+   current approach isn't broke, so why fix it? They are just becoming
+   comfortable with what they have, why should they have to learn a new
+   set of commands and terminology just because it is the standard?
+
+   Currently there are no real advantages to moving to OSI. It is more
+   complex and less mature than IP, and hence doesn't work as
+   efficiently. OSI does offer hope of some additional features, but it
+   also suffers from some of the same problems which will plague IP as
+   the network gets much bigger and faster. It's clear that some sites
+   will convert to the OSI protocols over the next few years.  The
+   question is: how many?
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Krol & Hoffman                                                  [Page 7]
+
+RFC 1462                 What is the Internet?                  May 1993
+
+
+International Connections
+
+   The Internet has been an international network for a long time, but
+   it only extended to the United States' allies and overseas military
+   bases. Now, with the less paranoid world environment, the Internet is
+   spreading everywhere. It's currently in over 50 countries, and the
+   number is rapidly increasing. Eastern European countries longing for
+   western scientific ties have wanted to participate for a long time,
+   but were excluded by government regulation. This ban has been
+   relaxed. Third world countries that formerly didn't have the means to
+   participate now view the Internet as a way to raise their education
+   and technology levels.
+
+   In Europe, the development of the Internet used to be hampered by
+   national policies mandating OSI protocols, regarding IP as a cultural
+   threat akin to EuroDisney.  These policies prevented development of
+   large scale Internet infrastructures except for the Scandinavian
+   countries which embraced the Internet protocols long ago and are
+   already well-connected.  In 1989, RIPE (Reseaux IP Europeens) began
+   coordinating the operation of the Internet in Europe and presently
+   about 25% of all hosts connected to the Internet are located in
+   Europe.
+
+   At present, the Internet's international expansion is hampered by the
+   lack of a good supporting infrastructure, namely a decent telephone
+   system. In both Eastern Europe and the third world, a state-of-the-
+   art phone system is nonexistent. Even in major cities, connections
+   are limited to the speeds available to the average home anywhere in
+   the U.S., 9600 bits/second. Typically, even if one of these countries
+   is "on the Internet," only a few sites are accessible. Usually, this
+   is the major technical university for that country. However, as phone
+   systems improve, you can expect this to change too; more and more,
+   you'll see smaller sites (even individual home systems) connecting to
+   the Internet.
+
+Commercialization
+
+   Many big corporations have been on the Internet for years. For the
+   most part, their participation has been limited to their research and
+   engineering departments. The same corporations used some other
+   network (usually a private network) for their business
+   communications. After all, this IP stuff was only an academic toy.
+   The IBM mainframes that handled their commercial data processing did
+   the "real" networking using a protocol suite called System Network
+   Architecture (SNA).
+
+   Businesses are now discovering that running multiple networks is
+   expensive. Some are beginning to look to the Internet for "one-stop"
+
+
+
+Krol & Hoffman                                                  [Page 8]
+
+RFC 1462                 What is the Internet?                  May 1993
+
+
+   network shopping. They were scared away in the past by policies which
+   excluded or restricted commercial use. Many of these policies are
+   under review and will change. As these restrictions drop, commercial
+   use of the Internet will become progressively more common.
+
+   This should be especially good for small businesses. Motorola or
+   Standard Oil can afford to run nationwide networks connecting their
+   sites, but Ace Custom Software couldn't. If Ace has a San Jose office
+   and a Washington office, all it needs is an Internet connection on
+   each end. For all practical purposes, they have a nationwide
+   corporate network, just like the big boys.
+
+Privatization
+
+   Right behind commercialization comes privatization. For years, the
+   networking community has wanted the telephone companies and other
+   for-profit ventures to provide "off the shelf" IP connections.  That
+   is, just like you can place an order for a telephone jack in your
+   house for your telephone, you could do this for an Internet
+   connection. You order, the telephone installer leaves, and you plug
+   your computer into the Internet. Except for Bolt, Beranek and Newman,
+   the company that ran the ARPAnet, there weren't any takers.  The
+   telephone companies have historically said, "We'll sell you phone
+   lines, and you can do whatever you like with them." By default, the
+   Federal government stayed in the networking business.
+
+   Now that large corporations have become interested in the Internet,
+   the phone companies have started to change their attitude. Now they
+   and other profit-oriented network purveyors complain that the
+   government ought to get out of the network business. After all, who
+   best can provide network services but the "phone companies"?  They've
+   got the ear of a lot of political people, to whom it appears to be a
+   reasonable thing. If you talk to phone company personnel, many of
+   them still don't really understand what the Internet is about. They
+   ain't got religion, but they are studying the Bible furiously.
+   (Apologies to those telephone company employees who saw the light
+   years ago and have been trying to drag their employers into church.)
+
+   Although most people in the networking community think that
+   privatization is a good idea, there are some obstacles in the way.
+   Most revolve around the funding for the connections that are already
+   in place. Many schools are connected because the government pays part
+   of the bill. If they had to pay their own way, some schools would
+   probably decide to spend their money elsewhere. Major research
+   institutions would certainly stay on the net; but some smaller
+   colleges might not, and the costs would probably be prohibitive for
+   most secondary schools (let alone grade schools).  What if the school
+   could afford either an Internet connection or a science lab? It's
+
+
+
+Krol & Hoffman                                                  [Page 9]
+
+RFC 1462                 What is the Internet?                  May 1993
+
+
+   unclear which one would get funded. The Internet has not yet become a
+   "necessity" in many people's minds. When it does, expect
+   privatization to come quickly.
+
+   Well, enough questions about the history of the information highway
+   system. It's time to walk to the edge of the road, try and hitch a
+   ride, and be on your way.
+
+Acknowledgments
+
+   We would like to thank O'Reilly & Associates for permission to
+   reprint the chapter from their book by Ed Krol (1992), "The Whole
+   Internet User's Guide and Catalog."
+
+For More Information
+
+   Hoffman, E. and L. Jackson. (1993) "FYI on Introducing the Internet
+   --A Short Bibliography of Introductory Internetworking Readings for
+   the Network Novice," 4 p.  (FYI 19, RFC 1463).
+
+      To find out how to obtain this document and other on-line
+      introductory readings, send an e-mail message to:
+      nis-info@nis.merit.edu, with the following text:
+      send access.guide.
+
+   Krol, Ed. (1992) The Whole Internet User's Guide and Catalog,
+   O'Reilly & Associates, Sebastopol, CA. ISBN 1-56592-025-2.
+
+   Quarterman, J. (1993) "Recent Internet Books," 15 p. (RFC 1432).
+
+   The Internet Society
+   Phone: (703) 620-8990
+   Fax: (703) 620-0913
+   E-mail: isoc@cnri.reston.va.us
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Krol & Hoffman                                                 [Page 10]
+
+RFC 1462                 What is the Internet?                  May 1993
+
+
+Security Considerations
+
+   Security issues are not discussed in this memo.
+
+Authors' Addresses
+
+   Ed Krol
+   Computing and Communications Service Office
+   Univ. of Illinois Urbana Champaign (UIUC)
+   1304 W Springfield
+   Urbana, IL 61801
+
+   Phone: (217)333-7886
+   EMail: e-krol@uiuc.edu
+
+
+   Ellen Hoffman
+   Merit Network, Inc.
+   2901 Hubbard, Pod-G
+   Ann Arbor, MI 48105
+
+   Phone: (313) 936-3000
+   EMail: ellen@merit.edu
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
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+
+
+Krol & Hoffman                                                 [Page 11]
+
\ No newline at end of file