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

[Ivar A. M. Hartmann]

If we're talking about about *network* neutrality, then the status of the
device/terminal, whether free or closed, isn't relevant. That would be
trying to load the notion that has been described, among other things, as *
generativity*, into network neutrality.
I know the cloud makes the distinction between the terminal and the network
even foggier these days, but I believe it remains workable and relevant.
Best,
Ivar


On Thu, Jan 24, 2013 at 2:20 PM, Riaz K Tayob <riaz.tayob at gmail.com> wrote:

>  [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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