Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ukma!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!monster.cis.ohio-state.edu!bob From: bob@monster.cis.ohio-state.edu (Bob Sutterfield) Newsgroups: news.sysadmin Subject: Re: Internet Message-ID: Date: 10 May 89 05:19:56 GMT References: <10499@orstcs.CS.ORST.EDU> Sender: news@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu Reply-To: Bob Sutterfield Organization: The Ohio State University Dept of Computer & Information Science Lines: 20 In-reply-to: ghe@nucthy.physics.orst.edu's message of 10 May 89 00:46:51 GMT In article <10499@orstcs.CS.ORST.EDU> ghe@nucthy.physics.orst.edu (Guangliang He) writes: Could anyone tell me what is the precise definition of 'Internet'? I'll take a stab at a loose definition: When capitalized, "Internet" generally refers to that set of interconnected machines between which packets can be routed using IP (the Internet routing Protocol) and which can all exchange IP-routed packets with, e.g., sri-nic.arpa. When in lower case, "internet" means any set of local connections that interoperate in some way to enable the exchange of information between entities not on the same local network. Used this way, the international X.25 packet switching vendors' facilities form an internet where they touch, and the telephone companies form an internet, and the collection of interconnected computer networks that (among themselves) talk protocols like TCP/IP, DECnet, Appletalk, XNS, RJE (Bitnet), UUCP, and Fido collectively form some sort of internet. A company's internal network might also meet this definition, though it might not necessarily interoperate with "the rest of the world."