On 19:59 12/08/02, Robert Cannon said: >I would be sort of curious whether you think any of >these come close to being satisfactory, why, and what >would make a satisfactory legal definition of the >Internet. I would not like to bore people here with too many considerations but I am puzzled by serveral points. 1. none of these diffinitions match the idea of the father of the Internet: to interconnect technologies. 2. all but one (which says 'TCP/IP onwards') match the whole international Tymnet/OSI/IP history. 3. one talks of 7.000.000 computers, forgetting 12.5 Minitel CPUs. They think machines not usage. There is a deafening silence about the true infrastructure of the Internet: the namespace. Protocols are necessary but do not make a network. So, there are only two considered layers (a) telecomunications (hardware) (b) information (software). Not (3) relational layer (brainware). Over a very extensive network definitions compilation, of 19 285 words, the word 'relation" is not present a single time. My own definition could be "our growing consensus to relate and live independently from distance and time through an increasing number of named extended services built over an indiferentiating base of value added services". This would match their definitions, the one of Vint, what does the IETF and the reality of the day to day use of URLs and domain names (cicularly defined in ACPA and others as what is proposed by the DN Registries) and of the GAC concerns. jfc