Seems like the entire networking stack is held together with string and duct tape and unnecessarily complicated.
The more you learn about network technology the more you realize how cobbled together it all is. Old, temporary fixes become permanent standards as new fixes are written on top of them. Apache, which was the most widely used web server for a long time, is literally named that because it was “a patchy” server. It’s amazing that any of it works at all. It’s even more amazing that it’s been developed to the point where people with no technical training can use it.
The open nature of IP is what allows such a varied conglomerate of devices to share information with each other, but it also allows for very haphazard connections. The first modems were just an abuse of the existing voice phone network. The internet is a functional example of building the airplane while you’re flying it. We try to revise the standards as we go, but we can’t shut the whole thing down and rebuild it from scratch. There are no green fields.
It has always been so. It must be so. It will continue to be so.
When 9/11 happened, it took out a major data center, and people were panicking that it was going to take down the internet. But the DNS network detected that and started routing traffic away from there automatically. It may be cobbled together, but it’s robust and resilient.
The more you learn about network technology the more you realize how cobbled together it all is. Old, temporary fixes become permanent standards as new fixes are written on top of them. Apache, which was the most widely used web server for a long time, is literally named that because it was “a patchy” server. It’s amazing that any of it works at all. It’s even more amazing that it’s been developed to the point where people with no technical training can use it.
The open nature of IP is what allows such a varied conglomerate of devices to share information with each other, but it also allows for very haphazard connections. The first modems were just an abuse of the existing voice phone network. The internet is a functional example of building the airplane while you’re flying it. We try to revise the standards as we go, but we can’t shut the whole thing down and rebuild it from scratch. There are no green fields.
It has always been so. It must be so. It will continue to be so.
(the flexibility of it all is really amazing though - in 2009 phreakmonkey was able to connect a laptop to the internet with a 1964 Livermore Data Systems Model A acoustic coupler modem and access Wikipedia!)
When 9/11 happened, it took out a major data center, and people were panicking that it was going to take down the internet. But the DNS network detected that and started routing traffic away from there automatically. It may be cobbled together, but it’s robust and resilient.
You can nuke the Internet, just don’t misconfigure a bgp router
Fat fingering BGP config has nuked the internet quite a few times already.
I thought the internet was at Big Ben?
Nothing quite as permanent as a temporary fix!
Very cool post, thanks for sharing