Slashdot Mirror

http://www.rageboy.com/stupidnet.html

which is over twenty years old, explains the concept well. A good analogy is how X Windows has survived because it didn't enforce policy.

Going to slashdot is safe? No SSL here.

GCHQ has already spoofed Slashdot in the past. So no, going to Slash dot is not safe.

If they want you, they can't get you?

All right then. Let's all just roll over and die, why don't we?

Look, I get your cynicism, but don't let it run to fatalism. There are things you can do:

• - Stop making it easy on them. Stop using Windows. Seriously. Understand that what's convenient for you is often convenient for them.
• - Stop using proprietary software at all. Yes, yes, HeartBleed nothing is safe bla bla bla. I'm not talking about safe, though; I'm talking about safer. And FOSS is, objectively, a safer environment, and will remain so even after it becomes popular.
• - Start building and using federated, encrypted, decentralised, peer-to-peer systems. I honestly don't know why geeks didn't do this years ago, but why the fuck is Facebook the state of the art in social media? I mean, seriously. It's not only a privacy disaster area, it's a badly polished piece of shit to boot. We know that They don't like TOR because it's harder for Them. We know That they don't like bittorrent because it's harder for Them. So why the fuck are we not taking a clue from that and creating a UseNET we can go back to? I mean, I get why the peons don't, but we're geeks, for fuck sake. That used to mean something.
• - Start re-imagining an internet whose physical characteristics resemble its protocols. At the outset, we thought it would be cool to have generic protocols that ran more or less transparently on any old network at all. What we didn't realise was that just because stupid networks were possible, that didn't mean they were inevitable. The whole ICANN/ITU fiasco is all the evidence we need to see that the world's telcos have begun to realise how much ground they've lost and they want it back. But that doesn't mean we have to give it to them. Mesh topologies using low-power devices are the only we we cut them back down to size.

You can get all fatalistic if you like, but if your only response to the encroachments of authority is to run further and faster, then (apologies to Scotsmen everywhere) you're not a real geek.

The telcos actually tried to implement a layered architecture for differentiated services in the 1980's and '90s - it was called the Advanced Intelligent Network and was being rolled out in stages along with a last mile interface stacks known as ISDN ("it still does nothing"), and eventually B-ISDN (broadband ISDN, or "basically, it still does nothing").

Then usage of the Internet began growing exponentially, and we stopped hearing much about AIN, although it's out there taking care of 800-number lookups and a few things like that on expensive, synchronous mode, mainframe-like switch hardware and software sold by Northern Telecom and Lucent. But we still needed a separate phone network to handle phone service (and business videoconferencing, etc.) with acceptable quality and robustness, or so thought the telco executives. A senior engineer at Bell Labs named David Isenberg decided to take a closer look at the two approaches and had an epiphany - all the economics were in favor of the open, decentralized IP approach, where service innovation occurred at the endpoints via the free market mechanism, rather than the monolithic architecture and business model where the monopolist providers controlled the rollout and pricing of new features (sound familiar?). His paper The Rise of the Stupid Network is a considered a classic, and he now blogs as an independent consultant. Once you read his "stupid network" paper, his position on net neutrality will not be a surprise.

Chris Locke predicted this behavior with his book Gonzo Marketing. Some exerpts from it are here.

People are interested in REAL conversations, not the contrived sort of marketdroid speech that makes people want to gag. People are also very good about recognizing BS when it occurs, and the internet is an effective way to provide negative feedback. (How long will it be before the HP blog comes down?)

Skynet was after all created at CMU. Now Microsoft is giving money to CMU. Will Terminators have glowing blue eyes instead of glowing red eyes?

It's how we warn ourselves unconsciously about the future. Cloning was science fiction at one time. Skynet was science fiction at one time. And the really messed up part about it was that the first Terminator movie was made before the Star Wars program was created.

Science fiction can easily be based on true, classified, covered up stories too. But the believer is descreditted to the point that he's laughed at by science. Remember the remake of the movie "The Blob"? Who's to say that our government didn't do an experiment with an organism on a satellite that unexpectedly crashed? It could have happened. If the media didn't cover it, no one would believe it. Those who witnessed such events, know that the majority of people who watch science fiction movies won't look for the possibility of there being more science than fiction. But they also know that there will always be those who will.

The "attempting to add value decreases the value" theme was very well explored in a paper called "Rise of the Stupid Network." It's at: http://www.rageboy.com/stupidnet.html

It explains very well why networks should only get data from one place to another while doing nothing else.

A coworker just bet me it would be less than an hour before this post was marked as a troll since I'm an unregistered user. I think it will be marked as a flame, because it's on-topic.

And if you require some additional reading material to help you through your journey, check here. Life transcends slashdot. Really.

We now return you to the topic.

...richie

This seems a perfect place to plead guilty to all the charges that have been leveled here. speaking strictly for myself and not my co-authors, I take this opportunity (and what a relief it is to finally come clean!) to admit to being everything everyone has said. It's all true. I'm boring. I'm a communist. I'm a drug-addled hippy. I pander to suits. I'm naive. I desperately want to control your thinking. More than that, I'm a secret agent for the NSA. I have a side deal going with Microsoft to destroy the Internet. I once kicked Little Elian Gonzalez's adorable furry puppy.

As a card-carrying anarchist, I love the mayhem and disinfotainment going on here with respect to the book. Gluetrain is excellent, yes. Pouring hot grits down your pants: highly recommended. But my favorite has been "I'm fed up with being told what to think (Score:4, Insightful)" -- which begins: "Whilst I'm sure this is an interesting book..." I translate this as meaning: "Although I haven't actually read the book, that's not going to stop me from telling you what to think about it." (btw, "whilst" -- nice touch!) That this spew about "communist ideals" and (far worse) "paradigm shifts" would be considered insightful begs the question of what passes for insight these latter days. but everyone's entitled to an opinion, right? here's mine: learn to read, bunky.

forgive me for saying this, but the detractors here have been so pedestrian! surely this group is bright enough to do better. for a real slash-and-burn job on the manifesto, see my own review: Clues You Can Lose.

anyway, great fun to read this stuff. allow me to leave you with one quote from the book, which /. itself proves so well: "Armed only with imagination, we're gonna rip the fucking lid off. There's your market."

thank you,

Dale Carnegie
EGR
Gonzo Marketing: Winning Through Worst Practices

This seems a perfect place to plead guilty to all the charges that have been leveled here. speaking strictly for myself and not my co-authors, I take this opportunity (and what a relief it is to finally come clean!) to admit to being everything everyone has said. It's all true. I'm boring. I'm a communist. I'm a drug-addled hippy. I pander to suits. I'm naive. I desperately want to control your thinking. More than that, I'm a secret agent for the NSA. I have a side deal going with Microsoft to destroy the Internet. I once kicked Little Elian Gonzalez's adorable furry puppy.

As a card-carrying anarchist, I love the mayhem and disinfotainment going on here with respect to the book. Gluetrain is excellent, yes. Pouring hot grits down your pants: highly recommended. But my favorite has been "I'm fed up with being told what to think (Score:4, Insightful)" -- which begins: "Whilst I'm sure this is an interesting book..." I translate this as meaning: "Although I haven't actually read the book, that's not going to stop me from telling you what to think about it." (btw, "whilst" -- nice touch!) That this spew about "communist ideals" and (far worse) "paradigm shifts" would be considered insightful begs the question of what passes for insight these latter days. but everyone's entitled to an opinion, right? here's mine: learn to read, bunky.

forgive me for saying this, but the detractors here have been so pedestrian! surely this group is bright enough to do better. for a real slash-and-burn job on the manifesto, see my own review: Clues You Can Lose.

anyway, great fun to read this stuff. allow me to leave you with one quote from the book, which /. itself proves so well: "Armed only with imagination, we're gonna rip the fucking lid off. There's your market."

thank you,

Dale Carnegie
EGR
Gonzo Marketing: Winning Through Worst Practices

If you enjoy reading articles where companies get royally trashed for internet-related-stupidity, subscribe to Entropy Gradient Reversals, an email newsletter from Chris Locke (one of the co-authors of this book), and his alter-ego, Rageboy.

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{{if you haven't read Ender's Game, this probably won't mean much to you.}}

>> * An account with a history of positively moderated posts

Wow. That would have made Val & Peter Wiggin's lives easier. Remember the time they spent creating those personas? Peter's political beliefs gradually became "syndicated" on a few of the Nets. Card couldn't have foreseen the exact structure of the Net (and who's to say that present-day structure is the structure?), but I think it's safe to say that our "major news nets" would include /., cnn.com, and nytimes.com.
Card hypothesized syndicated columnists (Jon Katz & Chris Locke both come to mind) whose opinions were posted -- much like Martin Luther's theses -- and debated vehemently. the debate was very public, and the political figures of the day stayed tuned, because the popular opinion in the debates let them know how to adjust their platforms.
Val & Peter (Locke and Demosthenes) were so well-known, and made such good points, that they eventually became political figures.
So... let's presume a persona comes into being on the Net. Let's say that this persona takes the name "DrTuring" and becomes immediately (and enduringly) popular with the online community. Let's say that a "Write-in DrTuring for President" campaign starts, and takes root. How much would Bill Gates pay the real DrTuring for the keys to that account? How much would Bush, Jr. pay? Are we no longer discussing profits of a few thousand bucks?
As more and more people enter the online community, political sites and news-debate sites will grow in power, and that power will have to spill over into the real world.

The entire concept of property (and even identity) is "virtual." Before the Industrial Revolution, you could pay to have documents forged that introduced you as whomever you pleased. With the advent of the photograph, identity became a more tangible thing. And now, with the advent of the "nick," technology has caught up.

another 2 cents from
Jurph;
penny for your thoughts?