[173220] in North American Network Operators' Group
Re: Verizon Public Policy on Netflix
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Michael Conlen)
Mon Jul 21 08:31:18 2014
X-Original-To: nanog@nanog.org
From: Michael Conlen <mike@conlen.org>
In-Reply-To: <23918467.6502.1405708370460.JavaMail.root@benjamin.baylink.com>
Date: Mon, 21 Jul 2014 08:31:04 -0400
To: Jay Ashworth <jra@baylink.com>
Cc: NANOG <nanog@nanog.org>
Errors-To: nanog-bounces@nanog.org
On Jul 18, 2014, at 2:32 PM, Jay Ashworth <jra@baylink.com> wrote:
> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: "Owen DeLong" <owen@delong.com>
>=20
>> But the part that will really bend your mind is when you realize that
>> there is no such thing as "THE Internet".
>=20
> "The Internet as "the largest equivalence class in the reflexive, =
transitive, symmetric closure of the relationship 'can be reached by an =
IP packet from'"
> -- Seth Breidbart.
I happen to like this idea but since we are getting picky and =
equivalence classes are a mathematical structure 'can be reached by an =
IP packet from=92 is not an equivalence relation. I will use ~ as the =
relation and say that x ~ y if x can be reached by an IP packet from y
In particular symmetry does not hold. a ~ b implies that a can be =
reached by b but it does not hold that b ~ a; either because of NAT or =
firewall or an asymmetric routing fault. It=92s also true that =
transitivity does not hold, a ~ b and b ~ c does not imply that a ~ c =
for similar reasons.=20
Therefore, the hypothesis that =91can be reached by an IP packet from=92 =
partitions the set of computers into equivalence classes fails.=20
Perhaps if A is the set of computers then =93The Internet=94 is the =
largest subset of AxA, say B subset AxA, such for (a, b) in B the three =
relations hold and the relation partitions B into a single equivalence =
class.=20
That really doesn=92t have the same ring to it though does it.=20
=97
Mike
