Network visibility

Fri Oct 22 05:19:41 UTC 2021

----- Original Message -----
> From: "Miles Fidelman" <mfidelman at 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 at baylink.com
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