------------------------------------------------------------------------ ANEWS-2 August 1980 ARPANET NEWSLETTER ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ TOPIC: TIP Login Addendum. Send replies to DCACODE535@ISI, (202)692-6175 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ The following is further discussion from Maj. Joseph Haughney at Defense Communications Agency (DCA) regarding TIP Login. Regards, Jake --------- ADDENDUM TO 1 July 1980 DCA Newsletter We have received several messages from users who are concerned with our TIP Login development efforts. We hope this message will clarify or allay a number of these concerns. The ARPANET is comprised of a large number of sophisticated users. We appreciate their interest and advice on possible network improvements and will take these into consideration in making network decisions. The ARPANET Newsletter was published in part to obtain user reaction and in light of comments received, it has achieved it's purpose. The ARPANET currently has an operational budget of approximately $5,000,000 per year and represents and investment of over $50,000,000 in hardware and software by the government. TIP Login is a method to control access to resources so that they can be more effectively utilized. Our initial efforts are directed to controlling access to the TIPs to prevent unauthorized users from dialing in. It will permit publishing of TIP phone numbers and allow users to be given access to several TIPs as long as they have authorization for those TIPs in the TIP Login data base. This concept will be of great advantage to those authorized users who travel a lot, since they would have a list of phone numbers that they can call anywhere in the country, and, if their data base record contains the proper authorization, they can access any local TIP. This is one advantage of the TIP Login. Other advantages are: a. Accurate representation of network users. This information will increase the accuracy of the WHOIS program and provide readily available management information without the necessity of the user surveys which we now require. b. Development of regional TIPs to support the many users who are not associated with TIP sponsoring organizations. With the present situation, we cannot spread the TIP access load among several TIPs in the same geographical area. Knowing who the dial in users are, would enable us to shift them to TIPS that have spare capacity or justify a regional TIP if the load is too heavy. Another area of TIP Login which is of concern to some users is our mention of the inclusion of controls similar to TIP login for hosts. The first point to be made is that TIP Login will study what needs to be done and what can be done to control host terminal access. From our viewpoint, we wish to control unauthorized dial-in access to the ARPANET through the Host front ends. We are not trying to provide a statment of requirements or a design at this time. As part of the design effort we need to know the magnitude and types of users, so that we can make reasonable decisions on what can and should be done. That is the reason behind our request for accurate input data. In conclusion, TIP Login is being developed to provide the authorized user with improved services. We have attempted to reduce administrative overhead while improving management control. Some thought was given to introducing a charging system similar to commercial networks (e.g. by packet, or access period). Such a system would add economic realism to network use. However, such mechanisms would be costly to implement and add a lot of needless administrative overhead to the ARPANET. TIP Login will be designed to support the middle road between minimal network controls that presently exist on the network and complete network access and billing controls as might be found on a commercial network.