As standardisation initiatives continued, the management and operation of JANET began to mature. By 1987, the funding bodies had set up several organisations to administer the network (see Figure 2.5). The Network Advisory Committee (NAC) established policy, which the JNT and Network Executive implemented. While the JNT was responsible for campus network facilities within universities and the issue of standards, the Network Executive managed the operation of JANET. As part of this responsibility, the Network Executive had set up a series of Network Operations Centres to control the operation of the switches located on the backbone of JANET. In consultation with these centres, the Network Coordination Centre organised fault reporting and resolution.95 The overall responsibility for JANET lay with the Department of Education and Science, which funded the network through the Computer Board and the research councils. With the Telecommunications Act becoming law in 1984, the legal status of JANET and its relationship with the DES changed. The Act stipulated that any company that wished to operate a telecommunications system must have a licence. As a result, this law would affect JANET. A former head of the JNT, Peter Linington, remembers, “we tried to argue that the Department of Education had Crown exemption, and so, therefore had the UGC, and so the CB and JNT, but it was a very long stretch. The view of the DTI was pretty much that it was for the Courts to decide and they couldn’t give advice!”96 After much discussion, the situation was eventually resolved. To comply with the Act, the Office of Telecommunications (Oftel), in association with the DES and the DTI, agreed to confer Crown Body status on JANET. This status would mean that the Secretary of State for Education and Science would run the network on behalf of the Crown, obviating the need for a licence. This decision formalised the situation about who could access JANET.
94
On complements see S. Greenstein, “When Technologies Converge,” IEEE Micro, vol. 19, no. 1, 1999, pp. 8-9.
95
See Smith, “Joint Academic Network,” pp. 101-103 and P. Stone, JANET: A Report on its Use for Libraries (London: British Library Board, 1990), p. 13.
96
Figure 2.5. Organisational hierarchy in 1987.97
Before the Act became law, any university, research council funded institution, or individuals holding a research grant in polytechnics, could connect to the network.98 Anyone who could legally access JANET could then use the facilities provided for academic-related purposes. With the establishment of the Crown Body status, the Department of Education and Science extended the list of eligible sites to government research laboratories and the British Library. Other sites could apply for connection, but the funding bodies would only grant access if it benefited the DES community,
97
The Network Advisory Committee reported to the Research Councils and the Computer Board and had overall management responsibility for JANET. The Network Executive managed the Wide Area Network. The Joint Network Team was responsible for several tasks. These included the management of campus networks, the implementation of the interim Coloured Book protocols, product
development, and liaison with several communities including universities.
98
M. Wells, “The JANET project,” University Computing, vol. 6, no. 1, 1984, pp. 56-62.
Government Department of Education and Science Research Councils and Computer Board Funding Councils Network Advisory Committee University Grants Committee Polytechnics and Colleges Funding Council (PCFC)
Network Executive Joint Network Team
JANET National User Group (JNUG)
Network Co- ordination Centre Network Operations Centres Regional User Groups Special Interest Groups National Physics User Group JANET User Group for Libraries
and the Network Executive would not permit access to other networks, including the ARPANET, for these organisations.
The issue of providing access to a network for authorised users, while excluding unauthorised users, can be a significant problem. In the 21st century, the issues of security and hacking are considerable causes for concern. However, they are not new and the security of information systems has posed challenges to those who administer them for years. While the frequency of attacks was lower during the 1980s, there were individuals who tried to access resources without authorisation. In 1987, students hacked into a PSS gateway and accessed services on public networks.99 Providing access to the Packet Switching Service was expensive, and breaches such as these raised an important issue, as well as being embarrassing for the Network Executive. As Robert Cooper, a former Director of Networking, remembers “we do actually breed hackers in the university community; computer science departments are notorious places and a lot of hacking during the early days was coming from academic sites.”100 People on other networks, such as the ARPANET and the Internet, shared these concerns.101 To help protect JANET from this type of abuse, the funding bodies needed to introduce new controls. While these would affect how everyone used the network, the benefits would outweigh the potential disadvantages. Consequently, the Network Executive reviewed and improved three areas: authentication, authorisation, and accounting.102 The team looked at how gateways within the network handled the tasks of authenticating and authorising people and how it could restrict the activities of users. It also looked at how it could simplify the accountancy, by consolidating small bills into single invoices issued to organisations.103
99
I.L. Smith, Network Executive Report - February 1987 (Chilton, Oxon: Network Executive, 1987), pp. 1-6.
100
R. Cooper, Interview by D. Rutter, 19 August 2003.
101
See J. Abbate, Inventing the Internet (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1999), p. 138, and S. Hallam, “Misconduct on the Information Highway: Abuse and Misuse of the Internet,” Online Information 94: 18th International Online Information Meeting Proceedings, London, 6-8 December 1994 D.I. Raitt and B. Jeapes eds. (Oxford: Learned Information, 1994), pp. 593-602.
102
I. Smith, “Gateway Authentication, Authorisation and Accounting,” Proceedings of Networkshop 16, University of Reading, 22-24 March 1988 (Reading: University of Reading, 1988), pp. 77-81.
103
Later initiatives to improve the security of the network included the formation of the Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT) during 1994, which responded to security issues. Other networks, such as the Internet, also established CERTs. See D. Jackson, Computer Security and the Academic and Research Community, UKERNA, 1994, Available from:
http://www.ja.net/documents/NetworkNews/Issue42/SECURITY.HTML, Accessed on: 13 May 2004 and K. Fifthen and B. Fraser, “CERT Incident Response and the Internet,” Communications of the ACM, vol. 37, no. 8, 1994, pp. 108-113.
Ensuring that those who had a legal right to access JANET could do so was important. The Network Executive also ensured that authorised users could represent their views, by establishing user groups during 1984. People could use these groups to let the funding bodies know their views on such issues as the performance of the network, proposed upgrades, and policy matters. The Network Executive proposed two types of user group: regional user groups and Special Interest Groups (see Figure 2.5). Both staff from the computer centres and end users could join either of these groups. Delegates from these groups were members of the National User Group, which liaised with the Network Advisory Committee on matters relating to user representation.104 During the mid 1980s, communities of users set up interest groups. Nuclear physicists were the first to establish a user group and librarians followed this in 1986 with the establishment of the JANET User Group for Libraries (JUGL). This group represented the views of the community and considered the services provided by the network for librarians.105 Sponsored by several organisations such as the Standing Conference of National and University Libraries, JUGL actively became involved in services on JANET. With the introduction of a newsletter and conferences, it considered many topics, including the increasing number of online catalogues on the network.106 Since 1984, these had increased from a small number of early systems to 16 online catalogues at universities.107 By 1987, libraries and other users had access to a growing number of services on JANET. These included online databases such as Dialog, access to British Telecom’s PSS, a JANET news service for network-related information, and the JANET e-mail service.108 Since the development of the Grey Book mail protocol during the early 1980s, the number of institutions using electronic mail had steadily increased. By 1987, the Name Registration Scheme contained over 600 entries for institutions that used e-mail.109
104
M. Wells, “A Progress Report on JANET,” University Computing, vol. 8, no. 3, 1986, pp. 146-153.
105
A. Buxton, “JANET and the Librarian,” The Electronic Library, vol. 6, no. 4, 1988, pp. 250-263.
106
For example, in the first issue of the newsletter, Michele Shoebridge described the University of Birmingham Library’s OPAC. See M. Shoebridge, “Birmingham University Library’s OPAC,” JUGL Newsletter, Summer 1990, pp. 9-10.
107
Directory of University Library Catalogues on JANET (Brighton: University of Sussex, 1986), pp. 1-31.
108
One of the first online databases was Dialog, launched during 1966. Many others followed. On the evolution of online services see C.P. Bourne and T.B. Hahn, A History of Online Information Services, 1963-1976 (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2003). See also About Us, Dialog, 2005, Available from: http://www.dialog.com/about, Accessed on: 16 March 2005.
109
J. Linn, “Survey of POSTMASTER and Other Recommended Names for Sites Registered in the NRS for JNT-MAIL over JANET,” Proceedings of Networkshop 15, University of Edinburgh, 8-10 April 1987 (Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh, 1987), pp. 315-331.