Channels of Sharing are Complicated

Centuries ago, John Milton wrote, “I cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue,” referring, at least in part, to those who keep their intelligence to themselves. Without some form of communication – without manifesting that intelligence in word or deed – there is generally no evidence of intelligence or intelligent life. Our knowledge must create ripples in space and time if it is to be shared, and it must be shared to benefit others. For this reason, we create networks, which might be defined as “channels of sharing”. All virtue and all goodness is valued only in sharing, whether by having mercy on another person or communicating the answer to life, the universe, and everything. Only by sharing do we come to the notice of others, and only with the help of others do we share the load of living.

Sharing involves risk. Will the other person understand? Will they accept what I’ve shared, or turn against me? Will they appreciate what I have shared, or judge me harshly? All communication involves the risks of misunderstanding, judgement, and ridicule. We must choose carefully when sharing information, tools, knowledge – even compassion, love, loyalty, and devotion. In a way, that’s one of the “equations” of living in a society, although public social media platforms have made that more, er, interesting. Often we segregate our sharing based on some measurable characteristic. For example, we share with people of our own race, gender, color, or national origin, but not with the “others”. And we share in different ways with different social groups.

In fact, you might say that the average person has as many personalities as there are groups of people whose opinions they care about: we are one person at home, another at the office, still another on the Internet, and yet another when we’re golfing, as examples. Each of these channels can have different rules, mores, idioms, dialects, and vocabulary. As we grow up, we learn to be *one* self, sharing with everyone in very much the same way, restricting only *what* we share, not *how* we share it. You begin to deeply understand the basics of human communication. If you’re serious about it, you begin to try to normalise your messaging to include less moody prejudice and more honest opinion, modulated only by personal privacy.

Thus it has been with computer networks. For a very long time, there were at least as many network protocols – *selves* – as there were brands and styles of computers. Different methods were needed to share information from one system to another, sometimes even involving specially-crafted physical interface cables to handle the translation. Eventually, though, computer networks began to gravitate toward a standard approach, “one self to rule them all”, as it were. This singular personality is known as TCP/IP. Learning how the TCP/IP protocols work will serve you well in understanding, designing, and debugging computer networks. Let’s get started.