INP 160: Internet Techonology

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INP 160 Internet Techonology

• Class 5 Internet Standards

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Assignment 1

• Questions about assignment 1?

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Objectives

• What is the proprietary standard?
• What is the open standard?
• What are the most important Internet standards
  bodies?
• IETF
• W3c
• How do standards bodies work?
• What is the RFC process?

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This week's reading

• http//www.anderson.ucla.edu/faculty/art.geoffrion
  /home/ec1/standards.htm
• Very quick reading
• Offers first-hand comments about the browser wars!

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Why are standards important?

• Affect the pace of service development sector
  growth
• E.g., XML, Flash, IP telephony
• Lack of standards makes sector growth difficult
• E.g., electronic payments and online shopping
• Keep the Internet working, despite lack of
  centralized governing body
• Vendor-neutrality
• However, some companies purposely manipulate
  standards to gain market dominance

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Who are the big players?

• Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA)
• Parameter setting for protocol
• Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF)
• Set standards with RFCs
• Contributes most RFCs
• World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)
• Produces languages and other media for www
  development
• Also provides validators
• Key focus is effective and accessible technology

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IANA

• Internet Assigned Numbers Authority
• Coordinator for parameter setting for Internet
  protocol
• E.g, port numbers http//www.iana.org/assignments
  /port-numbers
• MIME types, character sets
• Assigning IP numbers to ISPs

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IETF Primer

• Suppose a user at computer 1 on network 1 wants
  to access resources available on computer 2 on
  network 2...
• What are some potential differences between the
  computers and the networks?
• Why are these differences issues?

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IETF

• Internet Engineering Task Force
• Open to everyone
• Meetings
• Mailing lists
• Working groups that produce RFCs
• Working groups are divided into areas
• Each group has an Area Director, who is a member
  of the Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG)
• Groups are overseen by the Internet Architecture
  Board

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IETF Objectives(From the IETF website)

• Identifying, and proposing solutions to pressing
  operational and technical problems in the
  Internet
• Specifying the development or usage of protocols
  and the near-term architecture to solve such
  technical problems for the Internet
• Making recommendations to the Internet
  Engineering Steering Group (IESG) regarding the
  standardization of protocols and protocol usage
  in the Internet
• Facilitating technology transfer from the
  Internet Research Task Force (IRTF) to the wider
  Internet Community
• Providing a forum for the exchange of information
  within the Internet community between vendors,
  users, researchers, agency contractors, and
  network managers

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Brief IETF history

• First meeting Jan. 1986 21 attendees
• Fourth meeting in 1986
• Vendors started attending
• 7th meeting had over 100 members
• 14th meeting in 1989, where IAB was restructured
  into IETF and IRTF
• Internet Society (ISOC) formed in 1992
• IAB under auspices of ISOC

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RFCs

• Requests for Comments
• Original network designers called them Requests
  for Comments because they were working for the
  Government
• Mostly out of respect for the authority of the
  government
• However, there is a long process for the
  publication of an RFC, and they often include
  standards

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4 Types of RFCs

• Informational
• Suggestions
• Experimental
• Archive of research
• Best Current Practices BCP
• Standards Track

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Importance of RFC process

• RFCs contain the standards that hold the Internet
  together
• Once an RFC is published, can never be revised!

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RFC Process Last Call

• After the Working Group (WG) authors an Internet
  Draft, Last Call is issued
• Editorial comments to author/editor
• Community offers technical comments to WG
• IANA review
• Can last 2-4 weeks

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RFC Process AD and IESG Reviews

• Remember, the WG Area Director (AD) is a member
  of the Internet Engineering Sterring Group (IESG)
• 3 day AG review
• AD sends Internet Draft to IESG for review
• Checks for quality, usefulness
• Can return to author for revision
• If all is well, IESG sends an approval
  announcement

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RFC Process Editing process

• IANA checks it for technical compliance
• Author review
• 48 hours for author to perform editorial changes

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RFC Process Complete

• After the IESG approval and IANA approval, the
  RFC is born
• Total Elapsed time 2.7 weeks to 13.4 years.
• Source http//www.ietf.org/proceedings/02map/slid
  es/ips-22/

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Viewing RFCs

• http//www.ietf.org/rfc.html
• Go to index, find the RFC number for HTML
  Tables
• Find the HTML Tables RFC...
• When was the RFC created?
• What is the RFC about?

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So does IETF really set standards?

• IETF sets specifications,
• but their standards-track RFCs go on as
  recommendations to the Internet Engineering
  Steering Group (IESG)
• RFCs act as a bridge between the research at the
  Internet Research Task Force (IRTF) and the world

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Review Overview of ISOC IETF

• The Internet Society (ISOC) presides over the
  IESG, IETF, IAB, and the IANA
• IESG has authority over IETF working groups and
  has the final say
• IETF produces RFCs through working groups
• IANA checks for RFC compliance with numbering
  standards and coordinates numerical aspects of
  technical standards
• IAB is chartered by ISOC to oversee IETF
  activities
• Also, IAB can be appealed by WG against IESG

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A little more about the IETF

• Open community
• Mostly made up of engineers, researchers and
  vendors
• Every group has a mailing list, for which anyone
  can get a subscription
• Most work is handled through mailing list
• Despite rigorous RFC process, loosely
  self-organized
• Anyone can participate in mail list activity, and
  hence are members of a working group!

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IETF meetings

• Though most work is done through email, there are
  still meetings
• Very informal-- most members wear t-shirts and
  jeans
• IETF meetings are week long dweebfests whose
  primary goal is to reinvigorate the WGs to get
  their tasks done...
• http//www.cdt.org/standards/ietf.shtml

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W3C

• Unlike the IETF, not open
• Only representatives of member organizations can
  attend
• Membership can cost 5k-50k annually!
• 350 member organizations, including Apple,
  Microsoft, ATT, etc.
• Created in 1994, and led by Tim Berners-Lee,
  inventor of the World Wide Web
• Not technically a standards-setting organization
• Creates technologies
• W3C cannot enforce standards

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Examples of W3C work/services

• W3C creates HTML/XHTML specifications
• Also provides validator
• http//validator.w3.org/
• Developed over 50 technical specifications,
  including
• HTML
• XML
• PNGs
• http//www.w3.org/Consortium/technology

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W3C GoalsFrom W3C site, W3C is 7 Points

• 1. Universal Access-- all people regardless of
  hardware, software, software, network
  infrastructure, native language, culture,
  geographical location, or physical or mental
  ability
• - E.g., Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI)
• 2. Semantic Web-- expressions that both computers
  and people understand. Allows the computer to do
  work without human having to translate query into
  obscure commands
• - E.g., natural language processing

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W3C Goals Cont'

• 3. Trust-- take responsibility for what you
  publish
• - Methods for authenticating who publishes what
• - Prevent authors from taking advantage of the
  Web's infrastructure
• - E.g., Browser hijacking, gateways to uncensored
  material, etc.
• 4. Interoperability-- Vendor-neutral content,
  promoting open (non-proprietary) computer
  languages and protocols that avoid the market
  fragmentation of the past

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W3C Goals Cont'

• 5. Evolvability-- simplicity, modularity,
  compatibility, and extensibility
• 6. Decentralization-- flexibility for distributed
  systems
• 7. Cooler Multimedia-- E.g., Scalable Vector
  Graphics (SVG), Synchronized Multimedia
  Integration Language (SMIL, pronounced "smile"),
  PNGs, etc.

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W3C Organization

• W3C activities organized into groups
• Working Groups, which are responsible for
  technical development
• Interest Groups, which do general work and act as
  bridge between W3C and world
• Coordinating Groups, which facilitate
  communication between different groups
• W3C Advisory Board-- just advice!
• W3C Team
• 60 researchers
• Manages W3C activities
• W3C Technical Architecture Group (TAG)
• Resolves architectural issues found during W3C
  activities

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W3C Technical Development

• Members review proposals for work (Activity
  Proposals)
• When there is a consensus among members, a W3C
  activity is born
• A Working Group is formed
• Includes the W3C team, representatives from
  member organizations, and invited experts
• There are approximately 30 Working Groups at any
  given time

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4 domains of W3C Activities

• Architecture Domain
• Technologies that facilitate the web
• Interaction Domain
• Improve user interaction with the web
• e.g., Formats, language
• Technology and Society Domain
• Addresses social and legal concerns
• Public policy
• Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI)
• Accessibility, usability for people w/
  disabilities and limited technology

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Open Standards vs. Proprietary Standards

• Open Standards
• Supported by 3rd parties
• Everyone can create products
• Open Source is the extreme instantiation
• E.g., standards produces by IETF W3C
• Closed Standards
• Legal ownership by company/individual
• Company or individual produces products
• May not work with other products

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Are closed standards bad?

• Can lead to vendor lock-in
• Market fragmentation
• E.g., Microsoft's extension of Java
• However, can have performance advantages
• Non-compliance can streamline production and
  performance of an application

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Open Source in the Network Era

• In reaction to these proprietary strategies, the
  open source movement developed software that
  relinquishes control in favor of adoption. Such
  free software has played an important role in
  Internet infrastructure, and its adherents argue
  that it will supplant such proprietary standards
  in the network era.
• - West and Dedrick, Proprietary vs. Open
  Standards in the Network Era An Examination of
  the Linux Phenomenon

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What do open standards offer?

• Consumer can choose a product for its own
  merits-- not just because it works with their
  system
• Interoperable application development is less of
  a headache
• E.g., Browser wars between Netscape and IE lead
  to a very fragmented web
• Netscape and IE implemented non-standards
  compliant HTML
• Web browsers still implement proprietary
  solutions, which fragment the Web

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Review

• What is the proprietary standard?
• What is the open standard?
• What are the most important Internet standards
  bodies?
• IETF
• W3c
• How do standards bodies work?
• What is the RFC process?

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Homework Review and RFC

• Due in two weeks
• Choose one RFC
• Can use the RFC index to browse
  http//www.ietf.org/iesg/1rfc_index.txt
• Mention
• How many people involved
• Type of RFC
• Title of RFC
• RFC number date
• Brief summary
• Should be less than one page

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Example

• RFC 2616 Hypertext Transfer Protocol HTTP/1.1
  (1999)
• Total number of contributers 7 people (including
  Tim Berners-Lee) from 7 organizations
• Type Standards track
• Summary
• This RFC defines the protocol for HTTP/1.0, as
  defined in RFC 2068.
• HTTP is a stateless protocol used on the Web
  since 1990, and is appropriate for a variety of
  functions. It can act as a bridge for a variety
  of applications in a hyperlinked environment.
• HTTP can be used by user agents, proxies,
  gateways, and a variety of other systems. It uses
  a MIME-like format, and can even be used by
  applications such as FTP, SMTP, etc!
• HTTP 1.1 is an update of the previous version,
  HTTP 1.0, which does not sufficiently take into
  consideration the effects of hierarchical
  proxies, caching, the need for persistent
  connections, or virtual hosts

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Due...

• Assignment 1 is due next week!