Jon Postel



Introduction

Jon Postel was an American computer Scientist. Aside from being the administrator for the IANA he was also editor-in-chief of the RFC as well as his full time job as Director of Computer networks Division at the University of Southern California. Postel was also a founding member of the Internet Architecture Board. His work on implementing TCP/IP as the standard protocol for sending and receiving information can still be seen on the internet today.



Discussion

Jon attended Van Nuys High, San Fernando Valley in North Los Angeles. The same school attended by both Vinton Cerf(1) one of “The Fathers Of The Internet” and Steve Crocker the inventor of RFC.(2)



After attending high-school Postel would go on to attend UCLA where he would receive his B.S (1966) and his M.A (1968) in engineering. He completed his Ph.D in 1974 in Computer Science. While at UCLA he was responsible for helping to put the first switch on the ARPANET, a moment many consider to be the birth of the Internet.(3) 



Following his work on ARPANET he worked for the Mitre Corporation as well as setting up the Internet Network information Centre for the Stamford Research Institute a predecessor for ICANN.

From 1969 right until his death Jon Postel was the editor in chief for the Request for Comment (RFC) document series (4). The RFC was used in the early days of the APRANET/Internet as a way for the then researchers to voice anything from queries to establishing proper protocols for the then fledgling Internet. Postel worked as both an editor as well as authoring/co-authoring a number of very influential RFC’s most notably RFCs 791(6), 792 and 793which are used to define the basic protocols of the internet protocol suite Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP).



TCP/IP is the basic communication protocol/language we use on the internet. It was developed by Robert E. Kahn and Vinton Cerf in the spring of 1973. TCP/IP was developed as a replacement for Cerf’s NCP protocol. It uses multiple layers and packets to shift information between computers. The TCP layer is used for sending data in small packets, the data is then reassembled by the receiving computer. IP handles the addressing of each packet so that it arrives at the receiving address correctly. Postel proposed the shift from NCP to TCP/IP in RFC 801(7). On January 1st 1983 NCP was officially rendered obsolete when the ARPANET changed its core networking protocols to TCP/IP, this is seen by many as the start of what we know as the internet.

It wasn’t until he established the Internet Assigned Number Authority (IANA) that Postel would come into the spotlight globally. The IANA is responsible for running Top-Level Domains (TLDs) such as .com .uk .org etc. Postel and the IANA were responsible for I.P address allocation as well as root zone management in the Domain Name System, DNS.



DNS helps to simplify web browsing by converting I.P addresses from numerical to simple text e.g. www.name.com could have an address as 192.0.33.11 but in order for it to be easily memorized we need it as text or addresses. The DNS root server consists of 13 root servers of which all I.P addresses are. So instead of having to remember the numerical value of every web site we know, DNS helps us not unlike a directory or index would. As chief of the IANA it was Postel’s job to allocate names and root numbers to businesses and individuals. A task that led him to being considered “God of the Internet”(8)



As a test on January 28th 1998 Postel emailed 8 of the then 12 regional root nameservers instructing them to change their root zone server from Network Solutions NSI’s root to the IANA. The operator allowed this, thus dividing control of naming between IANA and the four remaining U.S roots at NASA. Although creating a certain level of controversy (5) it in no way hampered the Internet at the time. It did however bring about changes brought into practice by the U.S National Telecommunications and Information Administration NTIA, “A proposal to improve technical management of Internet names and addresses” which included changes to who had authority over the Internet DNS root zone, which mainly increased U.S control over the Internet as a whole.



Postels Law “Be conservative in what you do, be liberal in what you accept from others” otherwise known as the Robustness Principle. It relates to code that sends data on command should conform completely to specifications, but code that receives input should accept non-conformant input as long as the meaning is clear.



Conclusion



In 1991 Jon Postel had heart valve replacement surgery. Although the surgery was successful the valve was faulty and began to leak around October 7th 1998. On October 16th 1998 less than 9 months after the DNS root incident while recovering from a follow up surgery Jon Postel died of heart failure at the age of 55.



ISOC annually award a prize in Postels honour, to an outstanding individual who has made important progress within the data communication industry.

Jon Postel was a true Internet pioneer, his footsteps can still be seen and are still followed to this day. His work on both TCP/IP and through the RFC can be seen and viewed for free on the Internet.

















References



  1. “I remember IANA” by Vinton Cerf, RFC 2468 viewed 09/10/11

http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc2468.html



  1. “Host Software” by Steve Crocker, RFC 1 viewed on 07/10/11

http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc1



  1. “Obituary: Jon Postel” by Chris Gulker, Independent.co.uk, viewed on 07/10/11

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/obituary-jon-postel-1179966.html



  1. “How the Internet Got Its Rules” by Stephen D. Crocker, viewed on 08/10/11

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/07/opinion/07crocker.html



  1. “Internet Reconfiguration Concerns Federal Officials” Rajiv Chandrasekaran, Washington Post (January 31/1998), viewed on 10/10/11

http://songbird.com/pab/mail/0472.html



  1. “Transmission Control Protocol” by Jon Postel, RFC 791

http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc793.txt



  1. “ NCP/TCP Transition Plan” by Jon Postel, RFC 801, viewed on 11/10/11

http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc801.html



  1. “Internet Pioneer Postel Dies” by Ted Bridis from the Los Angeles Times viewed on 13/10/11

http://www.isoc.org/postel/lat.shtml




Jess Scanlan