----- Original Message -----
From: "Miles Fidelman" <mfidelman@meetinghouse.net>
Guys,
You guys were in grade school, some of us were there at the beginning (well, in my case, 2 years after the beginning). I can assure you that folks made a big deal about what was and wasn't the Internet, and the distinction between "an internet" and "the (capital I) Internet." Opinions varied then, and opinions vary now.
But... by and large, as I understand the general zeitgeist:
- you're either on the Internet, or you're not - the key question is whether you can send & receive IP packets from the public address space (i.e., the classified segments are internets, but not part of THE Internet). There are also disagreements on where the Internet ends - at the demarc, or at the IP stack in your machine (I argue the latter, but that's debatable)
Seth Breidbart has the last word on this point, I think: The Internet is "the largest equivalence class in the reflexive, transitive, symmetric closure of the relationship 'can be reached by an IP packet from'." The associated press has, in the last year or two, disparaged the capitalization of the word Internet, proving they do not understand there's a difference. If they won't capitalize "my" name, I won't capitalize theirs. But I will capitalize Internet in all relevant uses. This is an *engineering definition*, it matters that you name the right object, and I am one of the people who will, in fact, die on this hill. The associated press can bite me. Cheers, -- jra -- Jay R. Ashworth Baylink jra@baylink.com Designer The Things I Think RFC 2100 Ashworth & Associates http://www.bcp38.info 2000 Land Rover DII St Petersburg FL USA BCP38: Ask For It By Name! +1 727 647 1274