[discuss] Internet: the INTER-connection of local NET-works

Thu May 22 15:28:10 UTC 2014

On Sun, May 18, 2014 at 01:28:05PM -0600, willi uebelherr wrote:
> Never i found in any answer a realy stable argumentation, that
> "geographically local" is impossible.

Of course it isn't impossible.  That's how the original phone networks
worked.  The problem is (to use the technical term ;-) it sucks.

For instance, in the old days, when you moved house, you had to change
your phone number.  This meant that if 100 people knew your phone
number, you had to tell 100 people the new number.  

Today if I move my services from one data centre to another, I don't
have to do anything.  I withdraw the route in one location and
announce it in another, but all the addressing and naming and
everything remains exactly the same.  If my address were dependent on
my physical location, then all my services would need to be updated.
This is a major pain in the neck for no benefit of any kind that I can
see.  Why would anyone want to do that?

> >_my_ communication happens with colleagues at the IETF, and they're
> >not in any meaningful sense "local" to me.  In my company (which is
> >small -- only 300ish people) we have offices on both coasts of the US,
> >in the UK, and in Australia; I have people who report to me working
> >from Spain and Canada.  I interact at least as much with them as I do
> >anyone living in the same town as I.  I think your premise is false.
> 
> But you are a single person and are working for continuation of this
> "Governance" structure.

I assure you that my interest in maintaining this "Governance"
discussion is so small as to be in the noise.  I work on the
technology of the Internet -- the one we actually have deployed, and
that is working for many millions of people, not some mythical beast
that requires rebuilding the entire network from scratch for no
apparent benefit.  These governance discussions are, I think, a
necessary evil, not a good thing.  

Moreover, you are simply pretending that your geographic-based network
requires no governance.  It still requires agreements between
different geographic areas.  It still requires governance of the radio
waves that you're planning to use.  It still requires dispute
resolution if two diffrent people are stepping on the same location
(because, for instance, two ISPs are in racks next to each other in
the same data centre -- i.e. below the resolution of GPS).  And so on.

> Following of that you have never any
> interest for a free and libre communication system. because with
> that you need to search a new job. Maybe.

That is an _ad hominem_, and nothing more.  Please address my
argument: at least as much of my communication is with people outside
my immediate geographic location as within it.  Your presumption that
most communication is contained in a geographic area is false in at
least some cases, and as near as I can tell that has been one of the
glorious advantages of the Internet: that commonality of interests
even among tiny minorities in any geographic locale can all come
together online and turn into a much larger community.  You seem to
want to wave that away.

Best regards,

A
-- 
Andrew Sullivan
ajs at anvilwalrusden.com