Internet Experiment Note

After DARPA began the Internet program in earnest in 1977, the project members were in need of communication and documentation of their work in order to realize the concepts laid out by Bob Kahn and Vint Cerf some years before. The Request for Comments (RFC) series was considered the province of the ARPANET project and the Network Working Group (NWG) which defined the network protocols used on it. Thus, the members of the Internet project decided on publishing their own series of documents, Internet Experiment Notes, which were modeled after the RFCs.{{Cite web |title=History of the Internet & Related Networks |url=https://www.internetsociety.org/internet/history-internet/brief-history-internet-related-networks/ |access-date=2025-05-06 |website=Internet Society |language=en-US |quote=Throughout the development of the Internet, its protocols and other aspects of its operation have been documented first in a series of documents called Internet Experiment Notes and, later, in a series of documents called Requests for Comment (RFCs).}}{{Cite web |title=History » RFC Editor |url=https://www.rfc-editor.org/history/ |access-date=2025-04-25}}

Jon Postel became the editor of the new series, in addition to his existing role of administering the long-standing RFC series. Between March, 1977, and September, 1982, 206 IENs were published. After that, with the plan to terminate support of the Network Control Protocol (NCP) on the ARPANET and switch to TCP/IP, the production of IENs was discontinued, and all further publication was conducted within the existing RFC system.{{Cite book |last=Scheible |first=Jeff |url=https://www.google.com/books/edition/Digital_Shift/SzB0DwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PA1995&printsec=frontcover |title=Digital Shift: The Cultural Logic of Punctuation |date=2015-03-15 |publisher=U of Minnesota Press |isbn=978-1-4529-4437-1 |language=en |quote=IENs, or Internet Experiment Notes, were a shorter-running series of protocol documents modeled after RFCs that Postel edited from 1977 to 1982.}}

The second, third and fourth versions of TCP, including the split into TCP/IP, were developed during the IEN work.{{Cite web |last=Cerf |first=Vinton |date=March 1977 |title=Specification of Internet Transmission Control Program: TCP (Version 2) |url=https://www.rfc-editor.org/ien/ien5.pdf |page=3, 92}}{{Cite web |last1=Cerf |first1=Vinton G. |last2=Postel |first2=Jon |date=January 1978 |title=Specification of Internetwork Transmission Program: TCP Version 3 |url=https://www.rfc-editor.org/ien/ien21.pdf}}{{Cite web |last=Postel |first=Jon |date=September 1978 |title=Specification of Internetwork Transmission Control Protocol: TCP Version 4 |url=https://www.rfc-editor.org/ien/ien55.pdf}} The "Final Report" of the "TCP Project", mentions some of the people involved, including groups from Stanford University, University College London, USC-ISI, MIT, BBN, NDRE, among others.{{Cite IETF|ien=151}}

Key networking principles, such as the robustness principle, were defined during the IEN work.{{Cite book |last=Council |first=National Research |url=https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Internet_s_Coming_of_Age/lm2C8PJY-NYC?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PA39&printsec=frontcover |title=The Internet's Coming of Age |last2=Sciences |first2=Division on Engineering and Physical |last3=Applications |first3=Commission on Physical Sciences, Mathematics, and |last4=Board |first4=Computer Science and Telecommunications |last5=Infrastructure |first5=Committee on the Internet in the Evolving Information |date=2001 |publisher=National Academies Press |isbn=978-0-309-17205-9 |language=en}}

• International Network Working Group
• List of Internet pioneers

{{Reflist}}

• [https://archives.lib.umn.edu/repositories/3/archival_objects/49529 IEN scan archive at the University of Minnesota]
• [http://www.rfc-editor.org/ien/ien-index.html IEN index at rfc-editor.org]

Category:History of the Internet

Category:Internet Standards