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The Tangled Web Of Fiber Optics Lines & Gates

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the what-will-happen dept.

sdirector writes "Monday, super investor Warren Buffett jolted the nearly prostrate telecom industry by leading an investment of $500 million in Level 3 Communications ... Buffett's investment could set in motion a complex web of relationships and -- if you play it all out in just the right way -- put Bill Gates in charge of every fiber-optic line in the USA." The actual article itself is pretty interesting reading. Update: 07/12 08AM GMT by C :The link was broken, it has now been fixed. Sorry about that.

15 of 220 comments (clear)

  1. link this Gates by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    what a link

  2. Peer-to-peer pioneer kills self by corebreech · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    Story I submitted that got rejected follows. That slashdot refuses to carry this story tells me that the people who run it have sold their souls. My karma here is worthless.

    The New York Times tells us (after we register for free) that Gnutella developer Gene Kan has committed suicide. Let's see, he was young (25) and just over a year ago saw the company he started bought by Sun Microsystems. It would be wrong to jump to conclusions here. It would also be wrong to not start asking questions. Update: 07/11 23:45 GMT by corebreech: Missed this before, but news of his death was withheld until after the body was cremated.

    Additional links:

    CNN story
    San Jose Mercury News stories: Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday
    Kan's web log
    JXTA
    Free Republic discussion on Gene Kan
    Google search

    --
    Is this truly the only Earth I can live on?
    1. Re:Peer-to-peer pioneer kills self by NFNNMIDATA · · Score: 0, Offtopic

      Submitted yahoo version of same story. I wonder how many submissions of this there were? It's certainly relevant to slashdot...

    2. Re:Peer-to-peer pioneer kills self by chabotc · · Score: 1, Offtopic

      I think you would've had a lot more success with posting this story without the obvious tie ins to conspiracy theories. It is sad enough that it happened, but why tie in the anouncement with conspiracies instead of condolences. (I would say leave the conspiracy to the follow ups / replies if you realy need to get them out of your system)

      My condolences to his family and friends and all those who he touched in his life, and it's always a sad event when one of us decides he doesnt want to live on anymore.

    3. Re:Peer-to-peer pioneer kills self by corebreech · · Score: 0, Offtopic

      What tie ins to conspiracy theories? You mean the update? That wasn't part of my original story submission.

      Gene Kan was a guy who was developing the most feared technology in America. The RIAA, MIAA, Microsoft... all these guys absolutely loath him. And then he supposedly kills himself, and we only get to find out about this a week after?

      And only after the body is cremated? Think about that for a moment.

      The story has been submitted to /. a zillion times by now I'm sure, and no doubt at least one was expressed in less diabolical tones. Why wasn't that submission posted?

      --
      Is this truly the only Earth I can live on?
    4. Re:Peer-to-peer pioneer kills self by dimator · · Score: 1, Offtopic

      Think about that for a moment.

      Thought about it. For two moments. Nothing out of the ordinary (aside from the unfortunate suicide). I don't think it would be an amazing happenstance for his family to ask that nothing be revealed until after he was cremated.

      Besides, the cat is long since out of the bag. He already created the technology. What would anyone have to gain by killing him (if that is even what you are implying)? To send a message to other rogue developers? Is corporate America at that point yet? I doubt it, especially when buying laws is so much easier to do.

      --
      python -c "x='python -c %sx=%s; print x%%(chr(34),repr(x),chr(34))%s'; print x%(chr(34),repr(x),chr(34))"
    5. Re:Peer-to-peer pioneer kills self by ejungle · · Score: 0, Offtopic

      I've thought about it.

      Unfortunately, it makes little sense. The p2p cat is already out of the bag. The Copyright/IP has little to gain from his demise. These companies exist to make money. Revenge is not their business.

      Agreed, the circumstances surrounding Mr. Kan's passing are strange, but not inplausible. It'll take considerably more to start me laying such heavy accusations against anyone.

      I do not believe now to be the time nor place for blame. I consider it to be the time for lamenting the loss of a good person. One who made significant inroads in technological advance, and political awareness.

      --
      Remember: umount it before you fsck it.
    6. Re:Peer-to-peer pioneer kills self by corebreech · · Score: 1, Offtopic

      What were the details of his agreement with Sun?

      Yes, we know it was a stock swap, but was there language that allowed Kan to pursue the technology independently if Sun didn't follow through with Gene's original vision?

      If you look at JXTA it seems Sun is selling it as server-enabled peer-to-peer. I take that to mean that the P2P stuff only happens after the server makes the necessary introductions. It seems to me that Sun is thinking they can market this technology not as a way of returning power to individual users as was Gene's ideal but rather as a way of saving bandwidth costs for businesses.

      And yeah, to those who say that Sun is a corporation that is about making money so why should they care about a free Internet, I say this: first, Gene may have been naive enough to believe they'd do the right thing (has was only 25) and second, can you honestly say with a straight face that Sun has the first clue about what they're doing business-wise? With AMD 64-bit systems on the horizon running Linux tell me exactly why we're all going to be buying Sun systems in the future?

      If Gene had rights to pursue JXTA development outside the scope of Sun's server-enabled P2P model, then he's a threat.

      --
      Is this truly the only Earth I can live on?
    7. Re:Peer-to-peer pioneer kills self by corebreech · · Score: 1, Offtopic

      The p2p cat is already out of the bag.

      Is it?

      JXTA has amongst its many features giving developers the opportunity to deal with firewall issues, things like Network Address Translation, that usually spell the end for more homegrown P2P efforts.

      The way I see it, it was a P2P toolkit, that would let any idiot, even me, construct their own P2P application as easily as most any other Java application and freely distribute it and enjoy the ability to work despite firewalls and NAT and whatever other issues JXTA is able to tame.

      Something like this released into the wild poses a much more difficult scenario than, say, applications that aren't designed to be extended or piggybacked in any way, doesn't it?

      And, isn't time an issue here? Once a technology becomes widely used, it is much more difficult to censor than when in infancy, no?

      Does anybody here really believe that the bicycle, if introduced today, would stand a chance against overzealous legislators once the first child experienced a serious accident?

      Killing the true P2P capabilities inherent in JXTA now, before they became widely available, could easily be seen as being key to any number of players on global-economic stage.

      And in any case, even if I am wearing the tin-foil hat, you should all become better acquainted with the facts necessary to prove that. Right now we know squat. That is simply unacceptible.

      I want to know the details of Gene's contract with Sun.

      I want to know why it is we didn't learn of his death until a week after the fact.

      I want to know what he was cremated before the public did get to know of his death.

      --
      Is this truly the only Earth I can live on?
  3. My favorite things by poopbot by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    Credits: on by

    crapfloods and trolling and raping small kittens
    nice wider pages and wanking with mittens
    turd report packages tied up with strings
    these are a few of my favorite things

    grits covered portman and ASCII art doodles
    ACs and CLITers and Katz sex with poodles
    wild trolls that fly with plus five mod scoring
    these are a few of my favorite things

    when the ban hits, when I can't post, when I'm feeling sad
    i simply remember my favorite things
    then i don't feel so bad

    Rob Malda chugs penis in fan fiction slashes
    taco snot over my nose and eyelashes
    BSD dying and that goatse ring
    these are a few of my favorite things

    grits covered portman and ASCII art doodles
    ACs and CLITers and Katz sex with poodles
    wild trolls that fly with plus five mod scoring
    these are a few of my favorite things

    when the ban hits, when I can't post when, I'm feeling sad
    i simply remember my favorite things
    then i don't feel so bad

    - poopbot: lovely snot! wonderful snot!

  4. Interesting... by JanusFury · · Score: 1, Offtopic

    I wonder how a major screwup in the HTML like that got through. Maybe it's because the EDITORS DON'T READ THE STORIES BEFORE PUTTING THEM ON THE FRONT PAGE? Nah, couldn't be. Probably just a supernatural screw up - act of God/CmdrTaco sort of thing. :)

    --
    using namespace slashdot;
    troll::post();
  5. Congrats! by gazbo · · Score: 0, Offtopic
    I've been scanning this article for your jokes, they are all pretty good (evn though I've heard many before) but this one actually had be laughing out loud.

    Good job I'm not in the office or I'd have to explain what was so funny.

    1. Re:Congrats! by gazbo · · Score: 0, Offtopic
      Right now, tonight, or tomorrow morning. I fucking promise, cross my heart and fuck my mother in her grave.

      Gaz

  6. Level3 has connection with MS!?!? by Ilgaz · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    Gee,that explains the problems I lived on broadcast.yahoo.com with Opera... Oh it can't be true? I mean, they completely ignore Opera browser (unknown browser) on their so called "media wizard" or something... also,wait... They select windows media by default, even if you have latest realplayer installed... Most cool of all, while all this stupidness and browser discrimination happens (note,exprienced guys, starting from Opera 6,it supports liveconnect), I see a single tiny logo... "Level3 enabled"

    I don't want to believe all my unanswered feedback, stupid replies like "no it doesn't support" while watching videos etc on other places like CNN, doesn't happen just because of that tiny logo and its partner or something?

    Can't be that simple? or?

  7. Whatever happened by Ilgaz · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    Its a sad story, its something not explained by family and Slashdot takes my respect for not publishing it.

    Also, seeing morons like you trying to run "another slashdot" via messages(as the guy on thread cleverly pointed) makes me sick and also more sure it was a good thing not to cover it via Slashdot.