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From: webber@brandx.rutgers.edu (Webber)
Newsgroups: comp.sources.d
Subject: Of Paranoia and of Internet (Was: Re: EndOfSourcesList ...)
Message-ID: <301@brandx.rutgers.edu>
Date: Wed, 22-Jul-87 02:36:28 EDT
Article-I.D.: brandx.301
Posted: Wed Jul 22 02:36:28 1987
Date-Received: Fri, 24-Jul-87 01:31:44 EDT
References: <267@brandx.UUCP> <7200004@iaoobelix.UUCP> <289@brandx.rutgers.edu> <1619@celtics.UUCP>
Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J.
Lines: 40
Summary: paranoia? internet?

In article <1619@celtics.UUCP>, roger@celtics.UUCP (Roger B.A. Klorese) writes:
> In article <289@brandx.rutgers.edu> webber@brandx.rutgers.edu (Webber) writes:
> >From my experience trying to get a sources mailing list together, I
> >quickly found out that the gateways out of the U.S. to places like
> >Europe and Austrailia are downright paranoid about communications cost.
> 
> If you consider the fact that they have to pay for them, rather than getting
> gifdts from your and my tax money, to be "downright paranoid", then you are
> right, they're downright paranoid.  Sane people think they're realistic.

Doubtless paranoia is not the appropriate clinical term, but I would
hardly call people who threaten to sue if they transfer messages that
they don't want due to their own laziness as `realistic.'  I hardly
see the relevance of your opinion of the thoughts of sane people.
After all, this isn't sci.psychology.


> >For all practical purposes, they are playing by a different set of rules
> >than the portion of Usenet that is inside the United States (and portions
> >of Canada).  All of these nets are referred to collectively as Internet.
> 
> "The portion of Usenet that is inside the United States (and portions of
> Canada)" is NOT the Internet, nor is the collection of those systems and
> the aforementioned European and Australian nodes.  My system shares UUCP
> connections with its news feeds.  Since it carries news, it is a Usenet
> site.  It is NOT an Internet site, as it has no TCP/IP based connections
> with the network coordinated by the NIC.  (That network is the Internet.)

My observation of common usage is that Internet refers to any site
that can be reached via a mail address that can be parsed according to
the rules set down in the appropriate RFCs.  One of the points of the
message you are quoting from is that I do not think that transport
protocols are a meaningful way to view the boundaries of the net.  If
you can cite a specific RFC that supports your view of the definition
of ``Internet,'' then I will be willing to grant that you are internally
consistant.  However, I will still maintain that whether news and/or
mail is transferred by TCP/IP or UUCP is irrelevant to the question of
where the information flowing through the net forms natural groupings.

----- BOB (webber@aramis.rutgers.edu ; rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!webber)