Slashdot Mirror

Stanford University held a workshop last Friday - The Policy Implications of End-to-End - covering some of the policy questions cropping up which threaten the end-to-end paradigm that serves today's Internet so well. It was attended by representatives from the FCC, along with technologists, economists, lawyers and others. Here are my notes from the workshop. I'm going to try to skip describing each individual's background and resume, instead substituting a link to a biography page whenever I can. (Part one of two.)

The summary provided by the conference organizers has a brief description of end-to-end:

"The "end-to-end argument" was proposed by network architects Jerome Saltzer, David Reed and David Clark in 1981 as a principle for allocating intelligence within a large scale computer network. It has since become a central principle of the Internet's design. End-to-end [e2e] counsels that "intelligence" in a network should be placed at its ends -- in applications -- while the network itself should remain as simple as is feasible, given the broad range of applications that the network might support."

Another way to view end-to-end might be as a sort of network non-interference policy: all bits are created equal. The problem is that there are substantial economic incentives to treat bits differently, and these incentives are changing the architecture of the Internet in ways which may be detrimental to public values.

The workshop covered a number of areas:

• Voice over IP
• Network Security
• Quality of Service
• Content Caching
• Broadband
• Wireless

Jerome Saltzer started off with a technical overview of the end-to-end argument. In summary: digital technology builds systems of stunning complexity, and the way to manage this complexity is to modularize. For networking, this resulted in the layer model that many slashdot readers are familiar with. He suggested that designers should be wary of putting specific functions in lower layers, since all layers above must deal with that design decision. For a longer explanation, one can always read the original paper. If you've never heard of end-to-end before, I do suggest reading this paper before continuing. It's short.

First, Scott Bradner described two competing architectures for voice-over-IP protocols: one which employs central servers to direct and manage calls (the Media Gateway Control model, or Megaco), and one which puts most of the intelligence in the end-points, with the phones/computers originating the calls (the Session Initiation Protocol, or SIP). One important difference: SIP phones can use a central server to direct calls, but Megaco phones have no capability to act independently. Building a great deal of intelligence into the central servers is less end-to-end-compliant than building it into phones at the edges of the network.

One member of the audience pointed out that Federal law requires companies to build wiretapping capabilities into phone switches and wireless network equipment, and wondered how that would be implemented if the phones initiated the connections themselves (SIP). Traditional wiretapping is predicated upon the idea that there is a central server which all communications pass through. The panel candidly replied that when no central server is used and encryption is employed, wiretapping is difficult. One audience member pointed out that wiretapping at centralized switches is not the most effective way to do it, anyway -- since switches can be routed around and communications can be encrypted, the only truly effective way to wiretap would be to build tapping capabilities all the way at the edge of the network -- the phone itself. While some of the audience laughed, I think most of the participants also realized the dark undertones of this suggestion.

Next the discussion turned to innovation. In one model, the central servers would be controlled by companies with a vested interest in managing them conservatively, suppressing competition, etc. In the other, individuals would be able to create/control their own phones on the perimeter of the network, and the only barrier to innovation would be finding someone else to adopt your improvement as well so that the two of you could communicate. In the first model, innovations which benefited the company would be the only ones permitted. In the second one, any innovation which benefited the end-user would be possible.

Finally the discussion moved to a rarely thought about side effect of voice over IP. Universal service -- phone service to (nearly) every resident of the United States -- is funded through access charges on your phone bill. In effect, people in cheap-to-service areas are subsidizing those in expensive-to-service areas, ranging from the badlands of Nevada to wilderness areas of Alaska. From a societal point of view, ubiquitous access to telephones has been a great boon, but providing it requires a societal commitment -- otherwise people living outside of major population centers might never have phone service. Suppose now that traditional telephony is replaced by voice over IP, and no central servers are involved -- there would be no easy way to collect the access charges which subsidize outlying areas. While lowering such taxes may have widespread appeal, completely abandoning the commitment to universal service would be a great loss to society.

The next focus was network security. Firewalls are probably the most obvious breaks in the end-to-end paradigm -- after all, these devices' sole purpose is to stand in the way of network connections, and decide which are permitted and which are not. Participants brought up (but thankfully, quickly moved past) the true-but-useless point that if all operating systems were secured properly, there would be no need for firewalls.

Hans Kruse pointed out that if security must be implemented at the end anyway -- as it must if any incoming traffic is permitted through the firewall -- then there's no reason to do it at the center as well. David Clark put forth the useful distinction between mandatory and discretionary access controls -- mandatory controls being ones put into place by someone else, discretionary ones put into place by you. Discretionary controls do not violate end-to-end, but mandatory ones generally do. Michael Kleeman noted that the reasons firewalls are put into place include the desire to control the actions of users inside the firewall as often as the desire to control access from outside.

Doug Van Houweling spoke regarding Network Address Translation (NAT). NAT allows two networks to be joined together, and is typically used to join a network of machines with non-routable IP addresses to the global internet. NAT is an outgrowth of the limited availability of IPv4 addresses, but is also employed in some cases as a poor man's security measure. Generally, Houweling described NAT as an affront to end-to-end, because any application which requires transparency of addresses breaks, making end-to-end encryption impossible. Added to which, applications sometimes transmit data in the TCP/IP headers which NAT alters. The group noted that NAT can be eliminated simply by putting more addresses into circulation. Later in the workshop, Andrew McLaughlin talked about the address allocation process for IPv6 and said that it is shaping up to be much better than that for IPv4.

The workshop moved on next to Quality of Service. QoS in this case covers a wide range of proposals (and a few working implementations) for selectively speeding up or slowing down network traffic -- a sort of nice for network data flows. The "benign" use of QoS is to ensure that traffic which is strongly time-sensitive like videoconferencing or telephony gets priority over the download of NT Service Pack 16. There are less-benign uses: Cisco's 1999 White Paper which encouraged cable Internet operators to use Cisco's QoS features to speed up access to proprietary (read: profitable) content while slowing down content from competitors was the red flag in the QoS realm, raising concerns about the role of ISPs in traffic delivery and abuses by telecom carriers which are also content providers.

This segment started with an overview of QoS. There are several ways to implement QoS on a network. The simplest is to build a network with a capacity great enough to never be maxed out; if the network has sufficient bandwidth, there's no need to worry about QoS in the first place. There are costs, though, to maintain sufficient excess capacity on the network. This is called "adequate provisioning" if it is your preferred method of managing traffic, or "over-provisioning" if you prefer one of the other QoS approaches. The other ways under consideration are an integrated service architecture and a differentiated service architecture. The former would monitor and track each individual data flow -- the call you place to your mother in Singapore could be treated differently from the call you place to your grandmother in Kracow. The latter would only allow differentiation between classes of services -- all videoconferencing would be treated similarly, for example. Of the three, adequate provisioning is fully end-to-end while DiffServ is less so, and IntServ is highly non-compliant.

Jerome Saltzer (from the audience) made the point that no QoS technique provides real guarantees of service, and any technique except having plenty of excess bandwidth available violates the principles of end-to-end. He emphasized that people should be aware of the trade-offs.

Jamie Love mentioned not only the Cisco white paper but pointed out that this situation lent itself to behavior like that which has landed Microsoft in hot water -- using one's control of a particular system to speed up one's own content and impede competitors' from flowing. A member of the audience countered QoS would allow companies to create different levels of service -- pay more for fast access, less for slow access -- and that this was a good thing.

There were two distinct classes of problems identified. The first is similar to the distinction among methods for carrying voice over IP: the companies that control the QoS-enabled servers get to control who gets to innovate in QoS-related areas. The second, related problem is that of carriers using QoS features to promote their own content. The second problem has traditionally been solved by requiring a separation of carriage and content -- keeping the owner of the lines and the provider of content over those lines separate. The current FCC and FTC are not enforcing that traditional check against monopolization of content in telecommunications; thus it's likely that unless governmental policies change, AOL/Time Warner will be a position to promote its own content through control of the cable Internet services it owns.

Doug Van Houweling then spoke and noted that the Internet2 project is taking a very strong stance promoting QoS, because that stance is seen as necessary to promote investment in Internet2 architecture.

An audience member spoke up and suggested that the best regulatory course would be regulation with a light touch -- regulation could provide the minimum necessary controls to provide really necessary QoS while disallowing abusive uses. At this point Deborah Lathen asked the $64,000 question: how would the FCC make this fine regulatory distinction? No one had a good answer to that question.

In Part two tomorrow: transparent caching, broadband and wireless access, and capitalism.

parvati writes "According to a newscientist.com story a 1968 Stanford University film demonstrating the use of the first mouse may be used to refute BT's claim of a 1976 patent on hyperlinks. In the film the mouse is used to click on hyperlinks." I've got a patent pending on swallowing, oxidation, and chewing gum.

tewl writes: "Saw this [article] on [New Scientist] -- 'BT's hopes of enforcing its U.S. patent on Internet hyperlinking (New Scientist, 1 July, p 17) may be dashed by an old movie clip. The U.S.-based Internet Patent News Service is pointing patent lawyers to a website which says it hosts film of a prior demonstration of hyperlinking prior demonstration of hyperlinking. BT is basing its claim on a 1976 patent (4873662) that through a legal quirk remains in force until 2006. The 90-minute film was shot by Stanford University in 1968 when Douglas Englebart showed 1000 people the first mouse -- using it to click on hyperlinks.'" What's not open-and-shut here?

braind writes: "The Stanford group has developed a new way to simulate protein folding ("distributed dynamics") which should remove the previous barriers to simulating protein folding. However, this method is extremely computationally demanding and we need your help. You can read more on the site." It's interesting seeing all these projects coming out - just a reminder that distributed is still around and we can always use more on our team. *grin* [addendum from timothy:] Note that the SDK used for this project was discussed here a few days ago, so you can even roll -- err, fold -- your own.

Duncan3 writes: "After almost 3 months of public testing the Mithral Client-Server Software Development Kit is now officially out. The Mithral CS-SDK is a part of the Cosm Project which longtime slashdot readers will remember, and is fully buzzword-compliant with "distributed computing", "peer-to-peer", "file-sharing", and "cycle-sharing" - meaning you can easily build any of those types of applications in a weekend. So I expect to see slashdot readers put out at least 20 projects by next Thursday. The Folding@home project based at Stanford has been running for a couple months now doing protein folding and uses the CS-SDK. You can visit them at and download their client software or OpenGL screensaver for Linux x86/Alpha, Tru64, and Win32." Interesting to see how mainstream distributed computing has become even in just the past 12 or so months. Fold proteins, find aliens, break crypto ... what else?

martin writes "On Dec. 9, 1968, Douglas C. Engelbart and the group of 17 researchers working with him in the Augmentation Research Center at Stanford Research Institute in Menlo Park, Calif., presented a 90-minute live public demonstration of the on live system, NLS, they had been working on since 1962. The public presentation was a session in the of the Fall Joint Computer Conference held at the Convention Center in San Francisco, and it was attended by about 1,000 computer professionals. This was the public debut of the computer mouse. But the mouse was only one of many innovations demonstrated that day, including hypertext, object addressing and dynamic file linking, as well as shared-screen collaboration involving two persons at different sites communicating over a network with audio and video interface. The original 90-minute video of this event is part of the Engelbart Collection in Special Collections of Stanford University. Hyperlinks Mouse Web-board Kinda knocks BT's patent for hyperlinking out of the water" The stuff is in Real format.

martin writes "On Dec. 9, 1968, Douglas C. Engelbart and the group of 17 researchers working with him in the Augmentation Research Center at Stanford Research Institute in Menlo Park, Calif., presented a 90-minute live public demonstration of the on live system, NLS, they had been working on since 1962. The public presentation was a session in the of the Fall Joint Computer Conference held at the Convention Center in San Francisco, and it was attended by about 1,000 computer professionals. This was the public debut of the computer mouse. But the mouse was only one of many innovations demonstrated that day, including hypertext, object addressing and dynamic file linking, as well as shared-screen collaboration involving two persons at different sites communicating over a network with audio and video interface. The original 90-minute video of this event is part of the Engelbart Collection in Special Collections of Stanford University. Hyperlinks Mouse Web-board Kinda knocks BT's patent for hyperlinking out of the water" The stuff is in Real format.

martin writes "On Dec. 9, 1968, Douglas C. Engelbart and the group of 17 researchers working with him in the Augmentation Research Center at Stanford Research Institute in Menlo Park, Calif., presented a 90-minute live public demonstration of the on live system, NLS, they had been working on since 1962. The public presentation was a session in the of the Fall Joint Computer Conference held at the Convention Center in San Francisco, and it was attended by about 1,000 computer professionals. This was the public debut of the computer mouse. But the mouse was only one of many innovations demonstrated that day, including hypertext, object addressing and dynamic file linking, as well as shared-screen collaboration involving two persons at different sites communicating over a network with audio and video interface. The original 90-minute video of this event is part of the Engelbart Collection in Special Collections of Stanford University. Hyperlinks Mouse Web-board Kinda knocks BT's patent for hyperlinking out of the water" The stuff is in Real format.

beekman1 writes: "Stanford has up their first edition of Making the Macintosh. Where many articles deal with the political aspects of this period (Steve Jobs taking over, etc.) this one has the technical details like the evolution of the mouse from lab testing to production device. Link aquired from ArsTechnica"

esoteric0 writes: "Those boys at Stanford are at it again: They created some new algorithms for 'combining multiple range and color images, allow us to reliably and accurately digitize the external shape and surface characteristics of many physical objects.' " It's not just a mouthful -- they've created a cool digitized version of buildings, maps, and Michelangelo's David. Ever wonder what his toe looks like when digitized at .05mm?

EPIC has just released a harsh criticism of the Pretty Poor Privacy specification from W3C. Although automatic data transfer is not in the P3P spec itself any longer (taken out after polls showed people didn't like it), implementations of P3P will still include automatic data transfer mechanisms - the idea behind P3P is that viewers will be required to reveal their addresses and other personal information to every commercial site they access or be denied entrance, and that this data transfer will be effectively hidden from users so it will be "out of sight, out of mind". (For a more in-depth article about P3P and Internet privacy generally, see this paper, written in response to Lessig's support of P3P in his recent book.)

honkytonkyman writes "You may remember the matchbox Web server Slashdotted a while back. Since then, the matchbox Web server has been expanded with a micro disk drive, ethernet, standard vga, keyboard and mouse connectors -- all in a near-matchbox-sized package, a true PC in a matchbox. Stanford professor Vaughan Pratt has founded Tiqit to market these miniature PCs." This micro PC makes the (admittedly beefier) Xybernaut and friends look like an old Compaq luggable next to a Vaio. I'd like one with an input for use as external storage for my digital camera.

wtpooh writes: "Many librarians and archivists are concerned about the impermanence of online scientific journals. They are accustomed to saving the paper journals for decades and do not have faith that the online versions will still be accessible in the future (What happens when a publisher goes out of business and shuts down its Web site, for example)." (Read more.)

"To help solve this problem, the Stanford Library is collaborating with the National Science Foundation and Sun to create a system called LOCKSS (Lots Of Copies Keep Stuff Safe). LOCKSS is an open source, java/linux based server system which is designed to run on cheap computers at libraries and permanently cache journals to which the libraries subscribe. The LOCKSS systems talk to each other to preserve the integrity of their caches and ensure that there are always at least a minumum number of copies of each article around the world. Read about the current alpha test at the LOCKSS homepage or in this article in the Chronicle of Higher Education "

Sounds like self-interrogating distributed file systems can be useful to people unlikely to get sued by rock bands, as if that wasn't obvious.

csy writes, "I've just returned from the symposium on Spiritual Machines hosted by Douglas Hofstadter as previously publicized on /., and I thought I'd write Slashdot a quick summary of the events from my recollection (other posters will no doubt correct the errors I make here, and I don't summarize all the speakers, only those I consider more interesting)."

"The interest in the symposium was amazing. The lecture hall was packed, and people who couldn't get into the main lecture hall had to watch the talk by live video in an overflow room (which was packed to the brim as well). There were the old and the young, male and female. Interest was no doubt spurred by the symposium's very controversial thesis, recent interest in Bill Joy's article in Wired, and the very distinguished cast of speakers. The irony of the fact that the symposium was punctuated by microphone failures and abruptly dimming lights in the room was not lost on anyone.

Ray Kurzweil spoke first, and he spoke of how rapidly increasing CPU speeds would result in intelligent, spiritual machines. He spoke of how the current exponential shrinkage of transistor sizes was not the first such trend, but rather a series in the natural progression of technology: from mechanical computing devices, to vacuum tubes, to transistors, to integrated circuits, and he expressed his optimism for the future. He spoke of how the human brain could be scanned, to replicate its functionality in silicon. His conviction in these advances, and the ability of humans to reverse engineer the human brain, made him express a highly optimistic position.

Bill Joy spoke next. He opened by stating that he believed in the ability of computers and nanomachinery to continue to advance, but it was precisely his belief in this advancement that led to his position that the continued development of nano-machinery and self-replicating machines would pose a new and different kind of threat to human kind ('knowledge of mass destruction'). He made a particularly eloquent point about how that while science has always sought the truth and that free information has great value, but just as the Romans realized that to 'always apply a Just Law rigidly would be the greatest injustice,' so must we seek a restraint, and 'avoid the democratization of evil.' It wasn't exactly clear to me from his speech what form he thought this restraint must take, but his speech was extremely compelling, and it is clear to me that at the least, self-replicating machines will create new and serious challenges for mankind.

John Holland, the inventor of Genetic algorithms, took a more skeptical view of the ability of increasing computer speeds, even at exponential rates, to naturally result in machine intelligence. In his words, 'progress in software has not followed Moore's law.' He believes in its eventuality, but not in the time frame proposed (2100). He gave the example of Go vs. Chess, where the number of positions in Go are approximately 10^30 greater than in chess, and simply by adding additional rows and columns, the number of positions increase exponentially -- eliminating gains made from exponential increase in computer speeds. He said that while genetic algorithms enable the evolution of computer programs, the fitness function and the training environment to use (he gave the example of evolving an ecosystem) are often unclear. He emphasized the need for strong theory and he concluded with a very (in my mind) profound statement, 'Predictions 30 years ahead have always proven to be wrong, except in the cases where there is a strong theory behind it.'

Ralph Merkle addressed the claims made by Bill Joy directly. He said that rather than to speculate on the dangers of nanotechnology and take hasty action, we need to find out whether nanotechnology gives an edge to the 'offensive or the defensive,' and to understand this, more research is need, and not, in Bill Joy's words, 'relinquishment.' (Joy later asked Merkle 'Do you think biological weaponry gives an advantage to the offensive or defensive,' to which Merkle embarrassingly replied, 'I'm not sure.')

John Koza, drawing from examples in Genetic programming, said that while human-competitive results by machines are certainly possible (e.g. the evolution of previously patented circuit designs), much more computational power is needed to evolve the equivalent of a human mind.

Other choice moments: Holland asked Joy during the panel discussion how much progress have we seen in Operating Systems in the past 30 years, to which Joy replied 'the function of an operating system is fixed.'

In conclusion, the speakers largely differed over the time frame for intelligent, spiritual machines, and the amount of danger self-replicating machinery posed to humanity -- but no one in the panel seemed to think the Moore's law would run out of steam, or that intelligent machines would not be eventually possible -- although Hofstadter does admit that this is as much by construction of the panel, which did not include any serious naysayers."

csy writes, "I've just returned from the symposium on Spiritual Machines hosted by Douglas Hofstadter as previously publicized on /., and I thought I'd write Slashdot a quick summary of the events from my recollection (other posters will no doubt correct the errors I make here, and I don't summarize all the speakers, only those I consider more interesting)."

"The interest in the symposium was amazing. The lecture hall was packed, and people who couldn't get into the main lecture hall had to watch the talk by live video in an overflow room (which was packed to the brim as well). There were the old and the young, male and female. Interest was no doubt spurred by the symposium's very controversial thesis, recent interest in Bill Joy's article in Wired, and the very distinguished cast of speakers. The irony of the fact that the symposium was punctuated by microphone failures and abruptly dimming lights in the room was not lost on anyone.

Ray Kurzweil spoke first, and he spoke of how rapidly increasing CPU speeds would result in intelligent, spiritual machines. He spoke of how the current exponential shrinkage of transistor sizes was not the first such trend, but rather a series in the natural progression of technology: from mechanical computing devices, to vacuum tubes, to transistors, to integrated circuits, and he expressed his optimism for the future. He spoke of how the human brain could be scanned, to replicate its functionality in silicon. His conviction in these advances, and the ability of humans to reverse engineer the human brain, made him express a highly optimistic position.

Bill Joy spoke next. He opened by stating that he believed in the ability of computers and nanomachinery to continue to advance, but it was precisely his belief in this advancement that led to his position that the continued development of nano-machinery and self-replicating machines would pose a new and different kind of threat to human kind ('knowledge of mass destruction'). He made a particularly eloquent point about how that while science has always sought the truth and that free information has great value, but just as the Romans realized that to 'always apply a Just Law rigidly would be the greatest injustice,' so must we seek a restraint, and 'avoid the democratization of evil.' It wasn't exactly clear to me from his speech what form he thought this restraint must take, but his speech was extremely compelling, and it is clear to me that at the least, self-replicating machines will create new and serious challenges for mankind.

John Holland, the inventor of Genetic algorithms, took a more skeptical view of the ability of increasing computer speeds, even at exponential rates, to naturally result in machine intelligence. In his words, 'progress in software has not followed Moore's law.' He believes in its eventuality, but not in the time frame proposed (2100). He gave the example of Go vs. Chess, where the number of positions in Go are approximately 10^30 greater than in chess, and simply by adding additional rows and columns, the number of positions increase exponentially -- eliminating gains made from exponential increase in computer speeds. He said that while genetic algorithms enable the evolution of computer programs, the fitness function and the training environment to use (he gave the example of evolving an ecosystem) are often unclear. He emphasized the need for strong theory and he concluded with a very (in my mind) profound statement, 'Predictions 30 years ahead have always proven to be wrong, except in the cases where there is a strong theory behind it.'

Ralph Merkle addressed the claims made by Bill Joy directly. He said that rather than to speculate on the dangers of nanotechnology and take hasty action, we need to find out whether nanotechnology gives an edge to the 'offensive or the defensive,' and to understand this, more research is need, and not, in Bill Joy's words, 'relinquishment.' (Joy later asked Merkle 'Do you think biological weaponry gives an advantage to the offensive or defensive,' to which Merkle embarrassingly replied, 'I'm not sure.')

John Koza, drawing from examples in Genetic programming, said that while human-competitive results by machines are certainly possible (e.g. the evolution of previously patented circuit designs), much more computational power is needed to evolve the equivalent of a human mind.

Other choice moments: Holland asked Joy during the panel discussion how much progress have we seen in Operating Systems in the past 30 years, to which Joy replied 'the function of an operating system is fixed.'

In conclusion, the speakers largely differed over the time frame for intelligent, spiritual machines, and the amount of danger self-replicating machinery posed to humanity -- but no one in the panel seemed to think the Moore's law would run out of steam, or that intelligent machines would not be eventually possible -- although Hofstadter does admit that this is as much by construction of the panel, which did not include any serious naysayers."

Chris Callison-Burch writes: "Douglas Hofstadter has organized a symposium at Stanford discussing whether in the next few decades computational technology will outstrip us intellectually and spiritually, and thereby wrench us from our self-appointed crown as 'the highest product of evolution.' Speakers include: Ray Kurzweil, Hans Moravec, and Bill Joy. Date: April 1, 2000. Free and open to the public."

This is really an all-star cast, and a hot-button issue. Before the question above is answered, though, aren't there even more fundamental ones to get at, like whether computers can achieve consciousness at all? Aibo, after all, is not Fido.

Chris Callison-Burch writes: "Douglas Hofstadter has organized a symposium at Stanford discussing whether in the next few decades computational technology will outstrip us intellectually and spiritually, and thereby wrench us from our self-appointed crown as 'the highest product of evolution.' Speakers include: Ray Kurzweil, Hans Moravec, and Bill Joy. Date: April 1, 2000. Free and open to the public."

This is really an all-star cast, and a hot-button issue. Before the question above is answered, though, aren't there even more fundamental ones to get at, like whether computers can achieve consciousness at all? Aibo, after all, is not Fido.

A reader asks, "We've all heard of SSH. My question is whether SSH is really the best option, or the only option? Many security experts and cryptographers believe SSH users may be lulled into a false sense of security, because of some outstanding security issues. An open-source project based at Stanford purports to have solved these problems."

The Stanford group claims SRP to be safe against snooping and immune to reply attacks. SRP exchanges a session key in the process of authentication, provides mutual authentication to resist dictionary attacks, offers what is supposed to be perfect forward secrecy, and does not require the server host to keep any information secure. This comparison of these two technologies should provide food for thought. Can SRP replace SSH? Does it truly offer more security? Is it the better choice? In simple terms, what are *your* thoughts?

bineronbrain wrote to us with class notes from Stanford Online's ee380 class. The guest speaker was David Ditzel, Transmeta's CEO, who goes into quite a bit of detail about the basic architecture, and teaches about how the code-morpher works and the implication it has for compiler-writers. Pretty cool stuff and you can grab the audio recording, as well as the class notes. For some reason, it's only availible in Media Player format - which means I'll never hear/see it again, of course. *sigh*

Lansdowne writes "Douglas Engelbart, the father of the mouse, has begun a 10-week free colloquium entitled 'An In-Depth Look at The Unfinished Revolution'. A course description is available, as are live and archived webcasts. Based on the first session, this looks like a great series for the thinking Slashdotter."

Lansdowne writes "Douglas Engelbart, the father of the mouse, has begun a 10-week free colloquium entitled 'An In-Depth Look at The Unfinished Revolution'. A course description is available, as are live and archived webcasts. Based on the first session, this looks like a great series for the thinking Slashdotter."

Lansdowne writes "Douglas Engelbart, the father of the mouse, has begun a 10-week free colloquium entitled 'An In-Depth Look at The Unfinished Revolution'. A course description is available, as are live and archived webcasts. Based on the first session, this looks like a great series for the thinking Slashdotter."

Lansdowne writes "Douglas Engelbart, the father of the mouse, has begun a 10-week free colloquium entitled 'An In-Depth Look at The Unfinished Revolution'. A course description is available, as are live and archived webcasts. Based on the first session, this looks like a great series for the thinking Slashdotter."

Last week, The Bazaar, an Open Source meeting and exhibition, was held for the first time in New York City. It was not a well-attended event, with fewer than 3000 registered visitors, and the view from the show's main floor was downright dismal because most of the people there spent most of their time in tutorial sessions, not cruising the (sparse) display booths. But it was still an event many found valuable. Here are some "show tales" from Slashdot readers who were there. (click below)

From Jordan Greenberg:

The Bazaar was my first real chance to meet any of the big names of the Linux community. Though I missed all of the daytime events due to work, I showed up just in time to be bored by Ralph Nader and retreat to the Andover.net party before things got too crazy. Once there I was able to chat with such legends as ESR, Bruce Perens, Maddog Hall, Jeff and Robin, and was even able to make RMS laugh about the whole to GNU or not to GNU Linux naming debate. Personally, I was never a big fan of saying GNU/Linux - I think it sounds awkward and confusing and I did not like RMS demanding that people in his presence use the GNU (right Chris?).

With almighty tequila coursing through my veins, I found myself in the midst of a sermon by RMS on why he believes we need GNU terminology - and coming from his mouth it suddenly made sense (or perhaps that was the tequila too). Linux, or GNU/Linux as RMS would have it, depends not only on the quality of the software but about the freedom within, granted by the GPL. By using the GNU prefix we remind ourselves and others of this. GNU/Linux is not just about the software, but about the ideals behind that software.

But it still sounds awkward. "The problem is," I said to RMS and the others that were still listening, "that you need a catchier name for it. How about calling yourself an "impaladin?"

"Impaladin?" asked RMS

"Yes, impaladin - Have GNU will travel"

RMS laughed - he approved

So feel free to use this new name - maybe even create an impaladin distribution or just laugh at it - but enjoy.

-------------

Isaac Salpeter's take:

The heart of this conference was not to be found on the exhibition floor, nor in the (repetitive axe-grinding of the) keynotes, but in the classes and general sessions. Suggestion for the future: more open discussions and cooperation, less Ralph Nader yammering about how much Microsoft sucks.

Best conversation overheard:

"So, will the Andover party have a cash bar?"

"No, there's free beer."

"Uh-oh, Stallman's gonna be pissed..."

--------------------

Annelise Anderson, representing FreeBSD, says:

Whatever its raw edges, The Bazaar conference was worthwhile for the usual networking reasons. The best of the networking went on at the reception hosted by andover.net and the follow-on reception at the FAO Schwarz toy store, an inspired location for this crowd. This one was thanks to FAO Schwartz and IBM.

The BSDs could -- should -- have had a stronger presence here, perhaps with a combined exhibit booth in addition to the volunteers demo-ing on their own computers. Patrick Lynch of the NY users' group organized a pan-BSD BOF; Bob Bruce showed up there and said we might see an IPO with FreeBSD's name on it before the middle of next year. My little Sony picturebook was a source of some amazement -- FreeBSD -current running on such a little thing, with a couple of those stunning Eterms. The publishers in attendance were generally unaware that along with the multiple Linux distros, FreeBSD and the other BSDs exist and transfer an enormous amount of the traffic on the Internet.

---------------

Adam Matos, Systems Administrator and Student, The Beacon School, writes:

While attending The Bazaar here in Manhattan, I found it to be fascinating that so many people support the Linux community. I came with a colleague and teacher of mine, Chris Lehmann, Technology coordinator for The Beacon School. Chris was the one who first showed me Linux and how useful it can be. At Beacon we use Linux on our primary servers and wanted to let others know that schools, too, use Linux.

I attended a tuturial Wednesday morning, Enterprise System Management, that was suposed to teach me about running Linux servers. I walked out 10 minutes into the tuturial. I took a quick look at what was planned for the session and noticed I knew a majority of it. Not because I think I know it all, but because we've done most of it at Beacon. Such things as configuring Samba and writing shell scripts were something I learned under Chris Lehmanns's coordination at school. With less than two years Linux experience, I've been given the title Systems Administrator.

As I leave The Bazaar, I feel more comfortable about how many other Linux enthusiasts are out there. Linux is something everyone I feel can start adapting to. People can change.

---------------

From Nopalzin Torrres, Systems & Network Administrator, IllusionFusion!:

I was nervous when I first arrived, but the Open Source community welcomed my desire to learn and contribute. I walked out of the Building Firewalls with Open BSD tutorial saying "Damn, I can really make this work". I also picked up some great info on Samba and Linux system admin. I had a great time and met some great guys.

---------------

starlady (AKA Jessica Lee Sheffield) finishes off by saying:

Having been to a show every month for the past four months, I thought I had some idea of what to expect when entering the exhibit floor, but my expectations were largely confounded as this was a much smaller show than I have experienced. I wasn't surprised to see Geek Compound 3.0 greet me as I walked through the door - Andover's .org pavilion, which was comprised of Linux.com, Linuxfund.org, NetBSD, KDE, and others, in addition to Slashdot and Freshmeat, of course. As I continued on through the floor looking for the UserFriendly booth, I noticed that several of the powerhouse booths at past shows, notably Red Hat and VA Linux, had a surprisingly subdued presence at this one, while Caldera (of "E-business!" fame at COMDEX) wasn't even in attendance.

The atmosphere at The Bazaar was very community-oriented, which is why it's a shame that the attendance was so low. Without the distractions of marketing ploys, people were free to discuss projects, collaboration, or simply say "Hey, I like your work." I had very nice conversations with some of the leading names in the Open Source community, and even witnessed a random guy walk up to Bob Young, notice his red beret, and ask, "Hey, are you with Red Hat or something?"

When Mr. Young nodded with a smile, the guy proceeded to ask him support questions, while I and Paul Ferris of LinuxToday snuck off before our snickering gave the game away. To his credit, Mr Young was very gracious in answering the man's questions and making him feel comfortable.

The relaxed nature of The Bazaar made it possible for smaller organizations to catch the eye and ear of the community and publicize their own open source efforts. One such was The Beacon School, an alternative public school in New York City where the students administrate Linux servers and run projects on them. The students are very enthusiastic and eager to be involved in the community, and I believe they made a very good impression on the attendees (except perhaps the ones that kept shooting the Nerf weapons kindly provided by Copyleft). Speaking of Nerf, Copyleft's "Shoot the Star Wars action figures, win a prize" campaign was a roaring success. I took a Slashdot frisbee home with me, so I can't complain. :)

All in all, I think The Bazaar was a success for its first year. The traffic wasn't as high as anyone would have liked due to bad placement within the Javits center, but I believe that is something they can improve in the future. The show was a great chance to see old friends and make new ones in the Open Source world, and I think a lot of positive things will come of that.

---------------

There were things that could have been improved, and the timing was wrong; theBazaar was held in the middle of finals week for most area colleges, which I believe was a big factor in the low attendance. And for some reason the heat in the Jacob Javits Convention Center wasn't working properly, which gave the whole thing a (literally) chilly atmosphere. Oh, well. Maybe next year's edition will be better-timed and better-attended.

- Robin "roblimo" Miller

Jacob Javits Convention Center, Manhattan,NY Tonight the Free Software Foundation gave out its Second Annual Award for the Advancement of Free Software. The nominees were introduced by our own CmdrTaco, fetchingly clad in a light blue plaid shirt. The awards themseleves were presentd by Richard M. Stallman, who wore a wonderfully fuzzy, warm-looking red, white, grey, and blue sweater. (More below)

The awards were given out in conjunction with theBazar, a gathering of Open Source experts, boosters, and devotees featuring a number of tutorials on assorted Open Source and GNU/Linux-related topics.

Last year's Award for the Advancement of Free Software went to PERL-meister Larry Wall. This year the three finalists were Donald Knuth, John Gilmore, and Miguel de Icaza.

And the winner was (drum roll please) Miguel de Icaza!

Miguel lent the proceedings a moment of extra drama by arriving - literally - at the second his name was announced, right after RMS said he was not there and could not, therefore, be expected to make a speech. But there he was, and the speech was both brief and charming.

A surprise award was also given to Blockstackers, which has donated a significant amount of money to the Free Software Foundation. This award was accepted by a shocked - and literally blushing - Rob Malda.

We join the Free Software Foundation in congratulating Miguel de Icaza.

See pictures of the award ceromony and participants here.

Doug Muth shares an "article in Wired News about the CTO of a company, Matrixcubed, who is being denied admission to Comdex - because he is 17 and you must be 18 to attend. This is really sad that Comdex is ignoring the realities of the IT industry like this." The profitable company was founded, by the now-17-year-old CTO, three years ago.

Update: 10/22 14:00 by michael : eswierk writes "After reading the Wired article about Mike Lavers being too young for Comdex, I immediately dashed off a email to Comdex imploring them to stop being a Big Dumb Corporation and admit the kid. Who knew I'd get a reply from the VP. I don't normally distribute personal email, but this seems like one worth repeating to those foaming at the mouth.

Date: Fri, 22 Oct 1999 08:56:40 -0400
From: Bill Sell
Subject: Re: Mike Lavers too young for Comdex

Ed, as far as I can tell, Mike never asked anyone in management about attending. This is a case of the Internet gone amok again with a fable and fiction, not fact. Too bad.

Bill Sell
Vice President & General Manager, COMDEX"

I'm not sure I see the foaming, however. According to the original Wired article, COMDEX was contacted and refused to make an exception for their policy, then refused to comment to Wired News. And of course, Sell still hasn't offered to actually let Lavers or any other under-agers attend. Where's the fiction, where's the fable? More than likely, COMDEX's insurance coverage is based upon only adults being present, and would be difficult to change at this late date, which is why they don't want to change their policy now; but that's no excuse for not having anticipated younger attendees in the first place, or for trying to spin it after the fact as an internet fable. COMDEX might do better to solve the problem instead of spinning it.

Aigeanta writes "According to MacInTouch, Apple just reduced the processing speed of G4s by 50Mhz, without a price reduction or change in configuration, and cancelled all outstanding orders. If you still want one, you have to reorder with a slower processor. "

The always excellent Russ Nelson sent us a report on the competition for the lucrative title of "World's Smallest Web Server". Apparently there are a few folks going for it. He writes "HP has one. Dallas Semiconductor has one (only $50). MMC Embedded has one that isn't even in the running, although it does have COM1-4 and LPT1. Dawning Technologies' entry is a joke: far too big to be "smallest". Stanford has one which is best known. And Rt-Control has one named uCsimm because it fits in a SIMM module. The latter two get bonus points for running Linux. Phar Lap claims to have one, but it's a non-starter, being PC-104 based. Dekad Ltd says theirs is really small, but they don't have an Ethernet interface. The one from iReady really seems to be the smallest, but it too lacks Ethernet. Emware's one is so small it doesn't need any hardware (how they claim it's smallest without reference to any hardware, I'll never know). "

Rick writes "Several companies now market digital VCR-like devices ReplayTV and TiVo). Articles on such were featured in this weeks Newsweek and the Wall Street Journal. These offer 10-14 hours of archivial TV, computer recording setup, random access playback, and easy commercial skipping. These free you from fumbling with tapes or arranging your evening around a TV schedule. A bit pricey now- $699/$499- but as with all new technology, should decline. "

strider5 writes "HandyKey has come up with a one-handed keyboard/mouse alternative for those sick the same old thing! They claim that it will work on *nix and Palms in addition to Windows systems... pretty neat! A variety of similar devices are summarized on a page at Stanford, but aren't quite as nifty. " I think everyone on earth wants a twiddler. If I had 2, I could type twice as fast, right?

It's that time again :) Saturday (not Friday - I didn't realize it was Thursday until awhile after I posted this..), the DC Linux Users group will be having an Installfest in Bethesda, Maryland. I'll be there (NOTE: I am NOT CmdrTaco), and so will half a dozen Red Hat guys. Feel free to drop by. You can get the skinny here. We are notorious for our fests. Secondly, Cowdog wrote in with a link to some cool Tux reversions. Yo quiero ese Tux! But, Tux does not stop there: according to DrMalte, his brother found some Tux-shaped shampoo bottles. Finally, phargrov writes "'Itsy' project leader Bill Hamburgen of Compaq Computer Corporation Western Research Laboratory (formerly DEC WRL) will speak about Itsy at Stanford University on Wednesday the 24th. Details available on the EE380 class page. "

It's that time again :) Saturday (not Friday - I didn't realize it was Thursday until awhile after I posted this..), the DC Linux Users group will be having an Installfest in Bethesda, Maryland. I'll be there (NOTE: I am NOT CmdrTaco), and so will half a dozen Red Hat guys. Feel free to drop by. You can get the skinny here. We are notorious for our fests. Secondly, Cowdog wrote in with a link to some cool Tux reversions. Yo quiero ese Tux! But, Tux does not stop there: according to DrMalte, his brother found some Tux-shaped shampoo bottles. Finally, phargrov writes "'Itsy' project leader Bill Hamburgen of Compaq Computer Corporation Western Research Laboratory (formerly DEC WRL) will speak about Itsy at Stanford University on Wednesday the 24th. Details available on the EE380 class page. "

NYC writes " Definitely check out this site. The web site is running of a computer measuring 2.7" by 1.7" by .25" for a volume of about a cubic inch. The processor is an AMD 486-SX with 16MB of RAM running RedHat 5.2. Super Cool." Update: 01/25 01:12 by CT : Didn't take long: It got cracked and taken down a few hours ago.

Students at Stanford organised a peaceful Linux demonstration at a local career fair handing out flyers. David Weekly did a write-up on how it went. Link courtesy of LT.

seizure augustus writes "Wired has an interesting story on crackers preparing to attack Iraq's digital infrastructure. How much do you suppose they could really accomplish? " Is this the future of warfare, or is this a joke? Thoughts anyone?

Josh Baugher writes " Reverse Engineering the LEGO RCX Really interesting notes from a talk on the reverse engineering of the LEGO RCX. Gives an idea of how reverse engineering is done. "

D. Richard Hipp writes "I just made my quarterly pilgramage to Don Knuth's web site where I descovered that he has coined a new word, "wyde", and is encouraging people to use it to mean a 16-bit quantity. He also advocates the use of "tetrabyte" and "octabyte" to mean 32-bit and 64-bit values. See his arguments for these new words here Opinions, anyone? "

Ryan Kleeberger writes "Play the classic game Adventure on the Web! It was cool before, now it's even cooler." The classics never die, they just get ported to strange new platforms. And the web certainly is strange.

Allison Huynh writes "In the HBR (sept/oct. 98) issue, there's this positive article call "Dawn of the E-lance Economy" that mentioned Linux and Linus Torvalds prominently! It's mainly a speculative piece on the future of economic organization rather than a rigorous analysis of our favourite Penguin. Nevertheless, it makes great use of Linux as a discontinuous and innovative example in economic trend calling." The full article costs money ($100 for an annual subscription fee), but there is an executive summary available (Ed: I expect that e-lancing will become standard next century. I would expect to see the development of syndicates that protect their members from unscrupulous companies and that build a reputation for themselves. Do you agree? Would you want to work for such a syndicate?) Allison also asked us to plug an Open Source Forum at Stanford University this November. Please e-mail him if you have suggestions on topics and speakers you would like to see there.

Tim Macinta writes "Google quite possibly the most accurate search engine out there, now has the capability narrow your search focus to search all major Linux sites Give it a try - they use a pretty unique ranking algorithm for search results and it usually results in very accurate results at least for the main search service (I haven't pounded on the Linux search service much yet). It's also interesting to note that the servers which run Google are running Linux. " Several folks have submitted this, but today was the first time that I successfully used Google without it crashing. It looks pretty excellent.

Tim Macinta writes "Google quite possibly the most accurate search engine out there, now has the capability narrow your search focus to search all major Linux sites Give it a try - they use a pretty unique ranking algorithm for search results and it usually results in very accurate results at least for the main search service (I haven't pounded on the Linux search service much yet). It's also interesting to note that the servers which run Google are running Linux. " Several folks have submitted this, but today was the first time that I successfully used Google without it crashing. It looks pretty excellent.

Ben Mehling writes "I couldn't resist - The VIRTUAL CREATURES project is an NSF funded research and development project. The interdisciplinary team is exploring the educational potential of a new way of seeing living creatures and interacting with them. They want help from students and teachers alike to suggest/design teaching modules. This is a very interesting concept in education... "

Reader and veteran book reviewer Danny Yee has written a review of Donald Knuth's The Art of Computer Programming. This book is a bit different from the normal pack, getting at the heart of how most computer systems function underneath, with much exploration into the algorithims and methods. So, for a better grasp of the fundament of computing, click below. The Art of Computer Programming
1: Fundamental Algorithms
2: Seminumerical Algorithms
3: Sorting and Searching

Donald E. Knuth
Addison-Wesley 1997, 1998

AbookreviewbyDannyYee(danny@cs.usyd.edu.au),Copyright©1998
Danny's Homepage

The tale of how Knuth took a decade off from writing The Art of Computer Programming to create the TeX typesetting language is one of the great legends of computer science. The appearance of a third edition of The Art of Computer Programming - typeset in you will never guess what! - is therefore a landmark event.

For those unfamiliar with the work, it is not about computer programming in the broad sense, but about the algorithms and methods which lie at the heart of most computer systems. Fundamental Algorithms contains background information for the series. Chapter one provides mathematical preliminaries and basic programming concepts, along with an introduction to the MIX assembly language, used throughout for implementations. Chapter two covers simple information structures: lists, trees, and related data structures.

The two chapters in Seminumerical Algorithms cover pseudo-random numbers - their generation and statistical testing - and numerical computation - doing arithmetic with floating point numbers, rationals, and polynomials. Almost everyone who has ever programmed has written a bubble sort at some point, but the full complexities of sorting algorithms are another story entirely. After an introduction to the mathematics of permutations, Sorting and Searching presents and analyses an extensive array of algorithms for sorting in memory (insertion, exchange, selection, permutations, Sorting and Searching presents and analyses an extensive array of algorithms for sorting in memory (insertion, exchange, selection, merging, and distribution algorithms), sorting on secondary storage, and searching,

The Art of Computer Programming is not a work for everyone, not even for all programmers. It will be an valuable reference for those working on the implementation and optimisation of key algorithms and data structures, but the more mathematically inclined will dip into it simply for pleasure. Knuth himself clearly enjoys the subtleties of the mathematics as much as anything: he writes at one point

Even if sorting were almost useless, there would be plenty of rewarding reasons for studying it anyway! The ingenious algorithms that have been discovered show that sorting is an extremely interesting topic to explore in its own right. Many fascinating unsolved problems remain in this area, as well as quite a few solved ones. [ Sorting and Searching, page 3]

and he provides some gloriously learned historical tidbits and mathematical digressions. The mathematics is heavy going in places, but the more difficult sections are marked and the material is laid out in such a way that those seeking algorithms to implement and performance analyses can skip the proofs and derivations and the more esoteric material.

Exercises are liberally provided, along with proper answers, which take up around a quarter of each volume. The exercises are carefully graded in difficulty on a scale from 0 to 50, and range from trivial tests of definitions to unsolved research problems. Reading The Art of Programming is a serious enough undertaking in itself (I have only read about a third of it so far myself), but anyone who succeeds in doing all the exercises will probably have earnt themselves several doctorates!

There is plenty of new material in this third edition, including new algorithms, examples, and exercises. The somewhat archaic MIX language has been retained, but we are promised its replacement by a modern, RISC "MMIX" in the next edition. Another incentive to purchase this edition, for those who already have the second, is the vastly improved typesetting. But the most exciting news of all is that volumes four and five are finally going to appear, followed by another revision of volumes one to three and then maybe by volumes six and seven (on the theory of languages and compilers).

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Thanks to Danny for graciously submitting this review. If you are interested in picking this book up, grab volume one here, volume two here and volume three here. If anyone else is interested in doing reviews, please e-mail me, hemos.