The Internet protocol suite (commonly TCP/IP) is the set of communications protocols that implement the communications stack on which the Internet and most commercial networks run. It is named for two of the most important protocols in it: the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) and the Internet Protocol (IP), which were also the first two networking protocols defined. Today's IP networking represents a synthesis of two developments that began to evolve in the 1960s and 1970s, namely LANs (Local Area Networks) and the Internet, which, together with the invention of the World Wide Web have revolutionized computing. Read the full background at Internet Protocol Wikipedia
40 years ago the Request for Comments (RFC) process for the Internet was born. The RFC process continues to be the way Internet protocols are expressed today. We have one very special man to thank for this and his name is Dr. Stephen D. Crocker. He has played a key role in shaping the modern day Internet. For this, I felt that a special tribute to him was in order as we take a look at his countless contributions from the foundation of the Internet to the Internet as we know it today. more»
When I was employed, I ran my own mail server and my own BlackBerry Enterprise Server, and I had things tuned pretty much exactly as I wanted them. My incoming mail got some custom processing that looked the sender's address up in my address book and assigned the message a category... I was a very happy email user. Now that I'm on my own, I've decided not to run my own server and all that software, and I've switched to Gmail and the T-Mobile BlackBerry server... Surprisingly, though, I'm mostly still happy... more»
Think for a moment of the enduring legacy of African slavery in America. Think of the way it tainted this country's culture and politics; think of the bloody Civil War, the ghettos... What if we could roll back the clock and ensure that our society was "designed" so that slavery was never permitted and never happened? ... But what if I told you that my computer science lab was working on a "new Internet" that would solve all the terrible security and privacy problems of the existing one? Would you find this claim more credible than a proposed retroactive solution to the problem of slavery? more»
Remarkable how Ethernet has evolved and been widely adopted over this quarter of a century period extending its reach from LAN to MAN to WAN and from 10meg to 10gigE. One has to credit the IEEE for quite an efficient job as a standards body. Over in the IP world, this month of March will see IETF 74 meet in San Francisco and continue to ponder transitions, address translations, double translations, even carrier grade translations... more»
An acquaintance wondered why the people who run the systems that receive mail get to make all the rules about what gets delivered. After all, he noted: "The sender pays for bandwidth and agrees to abide by the bandwidth provider's rules." It is useful to think of the Internet as a collection of tubes, all leading from the periphery to the middle, where the middle is approximately "the peering point." The sender has paid for the tubes leading from himself to the middle... more»
Here is a list of the most viewed news and blog postings that were featured on CircleID in 2008... Best wishes for 2009 and Happy New Year from all of us here at CircleID. more»
After more than two years of work behind closed doors, the Global Network Initiative is launching this week. That's the corporate code of conduct on free speech and privacy I've been talking about in generalities for quite some time. By midnight Tuesday U.S. East Coast time, the full set of documents and list of initial signatories will be made publicly available at globalnetworkinitiative.org. more»
Do you care any more about zillion different IM services? Do you care about the IM protocol wars that have plagued the usage of IM for the last years? Odds are that if you are an IM user like me, you probably don't. Why not? Simple... we've unified the IM services on the client side and basically stopped caring about the various services and protocols. I was reminded of this fact this morning when I received a message saying that an update was available for Adium on my Mac that solved a really annoying disconnection problem with Yahoo!Messenger. more»
The following is most of the generic Top-Level Domain (gTLD) strings applied for in the 2000 and 2003 applications. Some are two, and even one character ASCII strings. Some have since been approved, or disapproved (which of course means nothing in the 2008 round). It is a universe of 180 strings. Enjoy. more»
Here's my opening remarks from Media Access Project's Innovation '08 in Santa Clara this morning. A DVD will be available shortly. This was a lively discussion, with Google and Vuze on the case. Good morning and welcome. My name is Richard Bennett and I'm a network engineer. I've built networking products for 30 years and contributed to a dozen networking standards, including Ethernet and Wi-Fi... I'm opposed to net neutrality regulations because they foreclose some engineering options that we're going to need for the Internet to become the one true general-purpose network that links all of us to each other, connects all our devices to all our information, and makes the world a better place. Let me explain. more»
NeuStar, Inc. today announced that it has appointed Alex Berry as senior vice president and general manager of NeuStar's Internet Infrastructure Services group, which includes domain name registry services as well as the UltraDNS and Webmetrics service lines. ›››
Recognizing the rapid growth of the Asia/Pacific region, Hostway Corporation, the global Web hosting leader, is offering preregistration for the highly anticipated .asia top-level domain (TLD). Registration for this new TLD officially opens for governments and trademark holders in October. ›››
As a response to the forecasts prepared by several investigators indicating that by the year 2011 the central pool of version 4 (IPv4) Internet addresses could be completely depleted, LACNIC announces it is launching a regional campaign so that all the region's networks will be adapted to the new version 6 of the protocol (IPv6) before January 1st, 2011. 185 weeks, and counting... ›››
By utilizing the UltraDNS Directory Service Platform, companies who maintain data centers with either Cogent or Level 3 were able to avoid the "black holes" in cyberspace created by this dispute and route Level 3 or Cogent subscribers to alternative websites or mail servers seamlessly. As reported by multiple news outlets last week, Level 3 Communications shut down the equipment supporting a private peering relationship with Cogent Communications on Wednesday, October 5th. ›››