[governance] We need a new formulation of end-to-end analysis

[Riaz K Tayob]

[what do others think?]


    We need a new formulation of end-to-end analysis

End-to-end analysis is the major theoretization of the Internet that was 
proposed by Jerome Saltzer, David Reed and David Clark 
<http://www.reed.com/dpr/locus/Papers/EndtoEnd.html> from 1981. In their 
seminal paper and later ones, they formulated what became known as the 
end-to-end principle 
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/End-to-end_principle>, interpreted often 
as "application-specific functions ought to reside in the end hosts of a 
network rather than in intermediary nodes -- provided they can be 
implemented 'completely and correctly' in the end hosts". Ths principle 
is much quoted by proponents of strong network neutrality requirements, 
including myself. In reality, Saltzer, Reed and Clark derive this 
"networks better be dumb or at least not too smart" approach from an 
underlying analysis of what happens when bits travel from an end (a 
computer connected to a network) to another end in a network.

However both network neutrality and the end-to-end principle capture 
only part of what we try to make them say. What we have in mind is that 
the analysis of what happens in a network should be conducted by 
considering what happens between the human using one device and another 
human using another device or between one such human and a remote 
device, such as a distant storage device, server or peer computer. We 
need an end-to-end analysis which is understood as /human-to-human/ or 
/human-to-remote computer/. What will it change? One must first 
acknowledge that with this extended approach, one can't hope to extend 
the probabilistic model which makes the original formulation of Saltzer, 
Clark & Reed so compelling. The new formulation can't replace the old 
one, it can only provide a qualitative extension to it.^1 
<http://paigrain.debatpublic.net/?p=6418&lang=en#footnote_0_6418> In the 
early 1980s, the reference model of a computer connected to the Internet 
was that it was a general-purpose computer (small mainframe, workstation 
or personal computer) controlled by the user, a trusted person acting on 
his behalf or a user organization (such as the MIT Laboratory for 
Computer Science). This is unfortunately not a realistic assumption 
today, at least until we succeed in recreating this situation. 
Smartphone or tablet manufacturers or OS providers severely restrict 
what users can run as software or control as parameters on their 
devices. Multifunction ADSL or optical fiber boxes are considered by 
many ISPs as part of their infrastructure and not the user's property 
under her control. EBook readers consider not only the device, but the 
entire collection of eBooks on it to be their own. Many of the real-life 
impediments to having a non-discriminatory human-controlled 
decentralized Internet arise from the non-openness/non-freedom (to run 
the software of one's choice) of either terminal devices or "spaces", 
"slices" or "machines" used in "cloud" storage and other forms of 
centralized servers.

If we want a much greater share of citizens to understand what is at 
stake when we speak of network neutrality we must make it clear that it 
is human-to-human and human-to-personal data activities that we want to 
be under decentralized human control.

 1. The two sentences added for clarification on 24 January 2013. [?
    <http://paigrain.debatpublic.net/?p=6418&lang=en#identifier_0_6418>]

http://paigrain.debatpublic.net/?p=6418&lang=en

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