Donald Davies: End Transmission

RalfM writes: "D. W. Davies,landmark scientist, has passed away. He coined the term 'packet switching' and did lots of research on the whole gamut of networking and data transmission. Read about it here." Not many people can claim "I conceived the use of a purpose-designed network employing packet switching in which the stream of bits is broken up into short messages, or 'packets', that find their way individually to the destination, where they are reassembled into the original stream."

Comments

Re:But, why would anyone want to say...

[Detritus]

The Internet is more than just a packet switched network. The idea that made it possible is the catenet (concatenated networks). See IEN 48, The Catenet Model for Internetworking, Vint Cerf, 1978. The catenet model made it possible to build an Internet out of many incompatible and proprietary networks. Like the Borg, the catenet model could assimilate other networks, without discarding their hardware or software.

Worked with Turing after WWII

[Cy Guy]

Per this Obit from The Times of London, Davies worked with Alan Turing after the war to help build first ACE computer. Later in life he was an early advocate of security for networks, which he spent the last 20 years researching.

Davies was also awarded the Royal honor of Commander of the British Empire (CBE), essentially one level short of knighthood, for his contributions to computing science.

A Pioneer is Lost

[zpengo]

This Internet timeline mentions Davies as early as 1967. So does This one. There are few people who could have claimed to have been around the Internet scene for as long as 37 years. Most people don't even realize that it goes back that far.

Internet Hall of Fame?

[zpengo]

I'm sure this is an idea that has already been attempted, but I've not yet seen it done well. Does anyone know of a good site, intended for a non-tech audience, that gives an accurate and thorough account of the history of the Internet?

The few that I've seen make the mistake of considering the WWW and the Internet to be the same thing, and start things off with Berners-Lee. He's a celebrity, but he was standing on the shoulders of giants.

Re:what? no museum? pretty sad..

[Vanders]

We know who invented TV, but few people know who invented the electron gun that it relies on

This is another common misconception, that John Loggie Baird (sp?) invented modern television. His invention used a mechanical scanning disk, not an electron gun. The electron gun TV was a seperate invention (And i can't even name it's inventor off the top of my head). Baird still gets the credit for inventing TV, however.

I'll stop being pedantic now...;)

Re:no museum?...So let's start one at Slashdot.

[Netsnipe]

Your post reminds me of the Isaac Asmiov series, Foundation where mankind in the future has colonised the galaxy, but it has taken so long that mankind has not only forgotten who pioneered space travel, but also the planet from which he had originated from.

I don't think anyone can even remember the name of the person who invented paper and the first ink-based writing device. Unfortunately, that's how history works.

But it is sad how in today's era of mass commercialism and consumerism, that any advances, especially technological ones, are eventually and pitifully reduced to a tacky marketable product all for the sake of a quick profit. This all but takes away the end-user's appreciation of the history, effort and time put into making the scientific and technological breakthroughs that were needed to overcome what seemed to be previously impassable barriers and limits.

Those of us reading this article can only wonder how many failures and heartbreaks, and moments of near surrender pioneers have to endure just to make a breakthrough which will benefit humanity as a whole only to see it result in a tacky mass produced product that hardly anyone will remember you for. Mainstream society now consists of techno-peasants who only think about the enjoyment they are getting out of using whatever technology before them without bothering or wanting to appreciate how much blood, sweat and tears have gone into them; let alone how they truly work beneath a shiny colourful marketable veneer. All they really think about eagerly is how long before they can purchase the next feature-packed bloated version of their product and chuck out the old without though.

IMHO: Perhaps Slashdot should take up the initiative and begin an Computing Hall of Fame, so that the pioneers of the ever so rapidly changing computer age, both past and present, be remembered in our lifetimes for helping bringing the world much, much closer together by those who truly appreciate them.

D. W. Davies - I salute you. Thank you very, very much for all you've done for us all.

When I die, my last word will be

[Dungeon Dweller]

ACK

Re:what? no museum? pretty sad..

[Jon Peterson]

That's not _quite_ fair is it!

Yes, we all know who invented the lightbulb, because a lightbulb is a very useful thing.

We don't know who invented the technique to manufacture argon, or to create tungsten filament wire, or who figured out how to make a glass bulb that wouldn't shatter. All these were doubtless very important steps forward, but not in themselves useful.

Was inventing packet-switching all that important? More important than inventing the blast furnace? More important than inventing fractional distillation?

We know who invented TV, but few people know who invented the electron gun that it relies on, and few still the people who discovered the physical principles that the electron gun is based around.

Fame has never been that strongly linked to importance...

My Condolences

[Effugas]

I give my condolences to the family, the friends, and the untold and uncountable engineers who Mr. Davies' work has influenced. I can only say that if it is the humble goal of all engineers to truly expand the knowledge and define the methods by which humanity seeks to function, then Mr. Davies truly succeeded to a degree that all of us can only aspire to reach.

I didn't know him, but his work has directly influenced my life and my studies. (One of his more intriguing discoveries is referenced in my Signature!) To those who complain that others may have received more fame than he, I can only say that genuine impact is of greater value than any shallow fame, and that Mr. Davies truly contributed genuinely to the lives of myself, my coworkers, and each of you who may read this message.

God speed, Donald Davies. You did well for yourself. Engineers throughout the world salute you, and your contributions.

Goodbye.

Yours Truly,

Dan Kaminsky

But, why would anyone want to say...

[Sir_Winston]

But, why would anyone want to say "I conceived the use of a purpose-designed network employing packet switching in which the stream of bits is broken up into short messages, or 'packets', that find their way individually to the destination, where they are reassembled into the original stream," when one could put it as simply and eloquently as Al Gore when he said "I invented the Internet"? :-)

But seriously, it's sad whenever we lose one of the pioneers. Not too many people these days really know or understand that the Internet didn't just "materialize" in the mid-nineties, and so the pioneering work done by so many universities and by so many involved with Arpanet and Usenet gets ignored in the popular consciousness. If you tell the average Internet user that the roots of the Internet really go back at least to the sixties with the work that was being done at universities and in the government, they'll stare at you in disbelief. Or apathy...

Re:But, why would anyone want to say...

[BrianH]

Too true. A few months back I was explaining some of the basics of the Internet to some prospective clients when one of them asked me how long I'd been using it. I told him that I'd first used the Internet in 1989 and that I'd used the Web since mid-1994. Out of nowhere one of the clients looked at me and said "You're lying, the Internet wasn't even invented until 1995!"

I was honestly to stunned to even reply for a good 30 seconds. When I did try to correct him, he immediately got defensive and insinuated that I was trying to pull something over on them. When I finally chuckled and said "And I'll bet you think Microsoft invented the Internet", he looked at me in all seriousness and said "No. AOL did."

Needless to say, I didn't get the contract. In retrospect, that was probably a good thing :)

what? no museum? pretty sad..

[QuantumRiff]

invent a light bulb, get a museum and lots of credit, (even though other kinds of street lights were used before) Develop a small, cheap method of transportation, which has caused sprawl, pollution, gridlock, drunk driving deaths, and a small feeling of personal freedom, go down in the annals of history. Kill 6 million people on the basis of their religion, and everyone knows your name. Invent the basis of the future, the foundation from which business, commerce, and information can freely pass, a basis from which undoubtedly every is touched, directly or indirectly, and people say "who?"

I'll bet 95% of the people who read this will know exactly who the first 3 are, but until this article, didn't even know that the fourth person existed.

Such a sad, over sensationalized world we live in!

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If God Droppd Acid, Would he see People???

D.W. Davies contributions

[javaDragon]

D.W. Davies left a strong trace inside the core of our internet world, his name can even be found in RFCs.

First, his contribution to the creation of the Internet :

RFC243 and RFC290 (bibliography) :

D. W. Davies, "Communication Networks to Serve Rapid-response
Computers," Proc IFIP Congress 68, p. 650-656, August 1968.

D. W. Davies, "The Principles of a Data Communication Network for
Computers and Remote Peripherals," Proc IFIP Congress 68, p. 709-714,
August 1968.

RFC2235 (Internet Timeline) :

1967
ACM Symposium on Operating Principles
- Plan presented for a packet-switching network
- First design paper on ARPANET published by Lawrence G. Roberts

National Physical Laboratory (NPL) in Middlesex, England develops
NPL Data Network under D. W. Davies

Second, contributions concerning security :

RFC1750 (randomness generation) :

[...] It has been shown by Donald W. Davies that this sort of shifted partial output feedback significantly weakens an algorithm compared will feeding all of the output bits back as input. In particular, for DES, repeated encrypting a full 64 bit quantity will give an expected repeat in about 2^63 iterations. Feeding back anything less than 64 (and more than 0) bits will give an expected repeat in between 2**31 and 2**32 iterations!
[...]

RFC2025 (public key mechanism, bibliography) :

[Davi89]: D. W. Davies and W. L. Price, "Security for Computer
Networks", Second Edition, John Wiley and Sons, New York, 1989.