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Creating the New Public Network
Codeine writes: "Tom Lyons argues persuasively that the incumbent competitors might be incapable of delivering an utility IP network. Competition in such commodity markets encourages the breaking of connectivity, ``Connectivity is the fundamental service of the Internet, yet it is connectivity that suffers first when network providers compete for users and services.'' Thus he proposes the Institute for the Promotion of the Internet Protocol Utility."
drip drip drip
Hell yes. I like tomatos!
g to the oatse
c to the izzex
fo shizzle my nizzle I'm going to get a cup of coffee now.
The biggest problem facing the Internet today will not be solved by broadband, wireless, open access cable, a third wire, content control, or better security.
Uhh, what should it be solved with? Good will and intentions? Without the blocks, you cannot build a skyscraper.
As long as I have conectivity where I am and where I will be going, I'm fine.
My other sig is an import.
adam smith's economics and capitalism, or the promise of cheap, reliable broadband for everyone. how often has the promise of "public involvement for the public good" sounded so, well, good, but in the delivery it all goes bad. the USA has always had this attempt of having their cake and eating it too. when you try to have BOTH free markets AND public regulation, what exactly are you trying to do? either have one or the other, with both, you are playing tug of war with yourself.
MORTAR COMBAT!
Has the "IP level of the Internet" stabilized enough to consider making it a "publicly supported & controlled utility"? Sure, it has been around for a while, but are we really ready for it to be a utility? Connectivity is important but do we need the IP level of the Internet to be a utility to guarantee stability? Further, aren't there some benefits to instability, such as innovation? The article is good, but it doesn't convince me that we are ready to this kind of commitment.
How to Download YouTube Videos
"The Palladium was a famous theater in London and another in Hollywood, and the name choice makes more and more sense to me as the story develops about Microsoft's computer security initiative of the same name. It certainly felt like theater, for example, when I received this week a very careful message on the subject from inside Microsoft. It's rare that I hear from any of the troops in Redmond, and the writer's message is an interesting one that made me think a lot -- not just about Palladium, but about the whole power structure behind the protection of intellectual property rights and just where Microsoft fits in. Frankly, I think we're being played for fools. The message follows (with my addition of capital letters where needed).
As a long time reader and watcher, I've always respected your insight. But you should know that you're pretty far off the mark with your recent Palladium commentary. It's basically content creator (be that ISV or copyright holder) driven only, and Microsoft only provides the infrastructure to let that happen. Obviously, I cannot comment on internal issues, but this public interview sums it up pretty accurately [cites a URL that you'll find is the first "I Like It!" entry this week]. Especially the following (an interview with Palladium product manager Mario Juarez published in Digital ID World):......
But hey, this is just Microsoft you say. Microsoft doesn't envision anything so diabolical. And I agree with that statement simply because I don't see Microsoft as a company having much vision at all. That's why it is possible for Palladium to be devised exactly as Mr. Juarez says, from the bottom up for purely altruistic reasons. In fact, I am sure that is how it happened. But then one day somebody near the top of Microsoft realized that what they had was a way of taxing the world, and suddenly, Palladium became strategic for Microsoft.
Now maybe I am a crackpot. And if I am, then you'll be able to take apart everything I have just written, point by point, showing how crazy it is. Please do. I'm waiting.
And I'm still waiting.
As a footnote here, I did a Google search on my writer from Microsoft, and found that he had submitted comments to the Department of Justice asking that Microsoft be dealt with leniently in the penalty phase of the current anti-trust trial. While the writer described himself to the DOJ as an "entrepreneur," he did not identify himself as a Microsoft employee. How entrepreneurial of him! I wonder how many of the positive comments received by the DOJ came from such closeted Microsoft people?
Now back to Palladium. One aspect of this story that really amazes me is the role of the recording, broadcasting, and film industries, which are accorded far more prestige than I think they deserve or that they would receive from Microsoft on a normal day. This is a company, remember, that is consistently acused of stealing intellectual property and has been found guilty of doing so. There is no respect for intellectual property rights that I can see there. Beyond Bill Gates's extensive video collection of Audrey Hepburn movies, I don't think the movie business makes much difference to Microsoft. It's all about the money."
see also: the horrors of becoming involved in phony payper stock markup bookFUDging FraUDs, & ill eagle hostage ransom liesense scams
Competition is a bad motivation. Don't get me wrong, it is a powerful motivator, but a bad one. What is competition? A form of fighting. Fighting is about winning. It is not about doing what is right, what is for the best, nor even what is logical. It is about destroying those who threaten your personal or collective power and ambitions.
I think it is telling that so few today believe anything other than greed and threats to personal power and prestiege can be motivators.
But for the rest of us - no more turd reports, no more entertainment. Just a bunch of GNU/assholes saying pompous open sores bs. Like it should have mattered - I thought the whole point of being able to block people at -1 was already enough. But the editors, like all who gain power, were corrupted. Michael thinks it is wrong to let a library block people from viewing kiddie porn there but it is ok to censor posts.
-klerck
DTABN
let's hear IT for capitollism.
Sadly it looks like the internet is slowly heading down the same route as other communications/network technologies.
As soon as someone realises that there's money or power to be made(and lots of it) a once free (as in speech) technology becomes market controlled and regulated, in general the overall network gets dumbed down, and all but obsolete as new technologies come along.
Here are a few examples from the past few hundred years or so..
Science-Art, initially sciences and arts were free (thousands of years ago), they go locked down and made illegal in part for a hell of a long time.
snail-mail, this is a very good example of a vanishing technology, currently being opened up to full competition in the UK with the possibility of increased prices and a poorer service(YMMV).
Good old radio,
In the beginning anyone could put together an AM radio and broadcast anything, now a days they even control what you can listen to, and the airwaves are all sold out.
The Telephone,the common telephone has started to vanish in the UK, cell phones and broad-band are replacing standard telephone technologies almost to the point where telephone networks no longer operate for voice communications.
There's a very long story here especially in the US with bell labs and all that,
I believe there are lots of regulations in place if you ever wanted to start up a Telco. The selling off of the air waves regulation of other networks by governments makes telephone networks highly capitalised.
And now the internet,
Getting less private and more dictated, the market is not yet saturated enough for it to make a big difference to Joe public and corporations and governments are looking at taking over before Joe public realises what there going to miss.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
CmdrTaco: You sit here, dear.
CowboiKneel: All right.
CmdrTaco (to Waitress): Morning!
Waitress: Morning!
CmdrTaco: Well, whatve you got?
Waitress: Well, theres egg and bacon; egg, sausage and bacon; egg and snot; egg, bacon and snot; egg, bacon, sausage, and snot; snot, bacon, sausage, and snot; snot, egg, snot, snot, bacon, and snot; snot, sausage, snot, snot, bacon, snot, tomato, and snot;
Slashdot Crew (starting to chant): Snot, snot, snot, snot
Waitress: Snot, snot, snot, egg, and snot; snot, snot, snot, snot, snot, snot, baked beans, snot, snot, snot
Slashdot Crew (singing): Snot! Lovely snot! Lovely snot!
Waitress: or Lobster Thermidor au Crevette with a Mornay sauce served in a Provencale manner with shallots and aubergines garnished with truffle pate, brandy and with a fried egg on top and snot.
CowboiKneel: Have you got anything without snot?
Waitress: Well, theres snot, egg, sausage, and snot, thats not got much snot in it.
CowboiKneel: I dont want any snot!
CmdrTaco: Why cant he have egg, bacon, snot, and sausage?
CowboiKneel: Thats got snot in it!
CmdrTaco: Hasnt got as much snot in it as snot, egg, sausage, and snot, has it?
Slashdot Crew: Snot, snot, snot, snot! (crescendo through next few lines)
CowboiKneel: Could you do the egg, bacon, snot, and sausage without the snot then?
Waitress: Urgghh!
CowboiKneel: What do you mean Urgghh? I dont like snot!
Slashdot Crew: Lovely snot! Wonderful snot!
Waitress: Shut up!
Slashdot Crew: Lovely snot! Wonderful snot!
Waitress: Shut up! (Slashdot Crew stops) Bloody Slashdot fags! You cant have egg, bacon, snot and sausage without the snot.
CowboiKneel (shrieks): I dont like snot!
CmdrTaco: Sshh, dear, dont cause a fuss. Ill have your snot. I love it. Im having snot, snot, snot, snot, snot, snot, snot, beaked beans, snot, snot, snot, and snot!
Slashdot Crew (singing): Snot, snot, snot, snot. Lovely snot! Wonderful snot!
Waitress: Shut up!! Baked beans are off.
CmdrTaco: Well could I have his snot instead of the baked beans then?
Waitress: You mean snot, snot, snot, snot, snot, snot
Slashdot Crew (singing elaborately): Snot, snot, snot, snot. Lovely snot! Wonderful snot! Snot, sno-o-o-o-o-ot, snot, sno-o-o-o-o-ot snot. Lovely snot! Lovely snot! Lovely snot! Lovely snot! Lovely snot! Snot, snot, snot, snot!
- poopbot: for all your crapflooding needs
BhXO1C3pbX
The current administration has not been very friendly to such highly regulated non-business-friendly things as a public IP network. The concept of 'public good' seems to have been tossed out the window. OTOH, the current round of business scandals certainly sets the tone for such a thing. Several of the current scandals threaten to darken serious portions of the Internet, at least temporarily. My own home connection (Adelphia) is threatened, for that matter.
On the more historic side, apparently nobody remembers The Source or any of the early highly-proprietary online services. Even CompuServe, AOL, and Prodigy only survived by becoming Internet portals, though all but AOL are all but gone. People simply didn't want to be locked in. They wanted the "IP Utility" that the Internet originally offered. Ever since the Internet was privatized, there's been a tug-of-war to turn it back into a proprietary cash-cow, despite the teachings of even recent history.
But then again, we went to the Moon, and threw all of that away.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
And of course, the Intellectual Property of the Institute for the Promotion of the Internet Protocol Utility would give us IPIPIPU.
'Ip 'Ip 'Ooray
Try NetBSD... safe,straightforward,useful.
As a private company with a contract with individuals they can allow and prohibit anything they want.
It seems that the key arguement towards making internet access a utility is to remove onerous clauses from the contract, similar to consumer protection laws, existing utility legislation, and tenant rights laws.
I think this is good, charge for speed or data transfer.
But what about spammers flooding and other hostile attacks?
Removing the ability for the corporation to limit user behaviour would requite the government to limit user behaviour, with the current situation (MPAA, RIAA, DMCA, and others issues of course) we may want to be careful what we wish for.
The Institute for the Promotion of the Internet Protocol Utility (IPIPU) will be a non-profit association of users of Internet connectivity [...]
How do you pronounce IPIPU? I-Pee-Poo?
</joke>
.. you sound like my grandpa
A public utility will have to be centrally regulated.
Any such regulation, will also have to regulate things that are not in the public interest, because the public utility is for the benefit of the public.
If this were to happen, how are we going do to decide what is in the public interest? We have a real hard time even with the sample of people that is slashdot deciding what is in the public interest. We could find that many things we enjoy about the internet (its anonymity, its freedom, its ability to share information) might become regulated for the public interest. We have all heard this argument before and what is happening in Australia is a perfect example
This may sound like a paranoid rant, but I think its is something people should consider, before we make this kind of decision. Many bad ideas in the world started out as good ideas....
"The large print giveth, and the small print taketh away" -Tom Waits
Be Patriotic, Smoke Amerikan grown marijuana, not treasonous imports !!!!
;-), Homer mentions to
Courtesy of About 420
Connotative Use/Meaning
420 is a phreak s (and not just a hippie s) favorite number for a
variety of reasons, or maybe for no reason at all, but colloquially
the number says pot -- let s smoke pot, or someone s smoking
pot, or gee, i really like pot, or time to smoke pot, either by
time (4:20 a.m. or p.m.), date (April 20th), or otherwise (e.g. State
Route 420). April 20th at 4:20 is marked by annual events in
Mount Tamalpais, CA (an informal gathering); Marin Conty, CA
(the 420 Hemp Fest); Ann Arbor, MI (the Hash Bash); and
Washington, D.C. (buildup towards the July 4th Smoke-In).
Original Source(s)
Conventional wisdom: The most common tale is that 420 is the
police radio code or criminal code (and therefore the police call)
in certain part(s) of California (e.g. in Los Angeles or San
Francisco) for having spotted someone consuming cannabis
publicly, i.e. pot smoking in progress; that local cannabis users
picked up on the code and began celebrating the number temporally
(esp. 4:20 a.m., 4:20 p.m., and April 20); that the number became
nationally popularized in the late 1980s and, more ferverently, in
the early- to mid-1990s; and is colloquially applied to a variety of
relaxed and/or inspired contexts, including not only pot
consumption but also a good time more generally (in contrast to
the drug war surrounding).
Conventions are legends: 420 is not police radio code for
anything, anywhere. Checks of criminal codes (including those of
the City of San Francisco, the City of Los Angeles, Los Angeles
County, the State of California, and the federal penal code) suggest
that the origin is neither Californian nor federal (the two best
guesses). For instance, California Penal Code 420 defines as a
misdemeanor the hindrance of use (obstructing entry) of public
lands, and California Family Code 420 defines what constitutes a
wedding ceremony (Marco). One state does come close: The
Illinois Department of Revenue classifies the Alcoholic Liquor Act
under Part 420, and the Cannabis and Controlled Substances Tax
Act are next, under Part 428. (RB 5/19/99)
True story?: According to Steven Hager, editor of High Times,
the term 420 originated at San Rafael High School, in 1971,
among a group of about a dozen pot-smoking wiseacres who
called themselves the Waldos. The term 420 was shorthand for the
time of day the group would meet, at the campus statue of Louis
Pasteur, to smoke pot. ``Waldo Steve, a member of the group who
now owns a business in San Francisco, says the Waldos would
salute each other in the school hallway and say ``420 Louis! The
term was one of many invented by the group, but it was the one
that caught on. ``It was just a joke, but it came to mean all kinds of
things, like `Do you have any? or `Do I look stoned? he said.
``Parents and teachers wouldn t know what we were talking about.
The term took root, and flourished, and spread beyond San Rafael
with the assistance of the Grateful Dead and their dedicated cohort
of pot-smoking fans. The Waldos decided to assert their claim to
the history of the term after decades of watching it spread, mutate
and be appropriated by commercial interests. The Waldos contacted
Hager, and presented him with evidence of 420 s history, primarily
a collection of postmarked letters from the early 70s with lots of
mention of 420. They also started a Web site, waldo420.com. ``We
have proof, we were the first, Waldo Steve said. ``I mean, it s not
like we wrote a book or invented anything. We just came up with a
phrase. But it s kind of an honor that this emanated from San
Rafael. Maria Alicia Gaura for the San Francisco Chronicle,
4/20/00 p. A19; and thanks to Noah Cole for the submission
Alternate explanations
There are a variety of other explanations, all much more interesting
than police code, and many plausible. Some are more likely uses
of the 420/hemp connection rather than sources of it, such as the
score for the football game in Fast Times at Ridgement High,
42-0.
Known Myths: It isn t police code (see above). There are 315
chemicals in marijuana, not 420. And although tea time in
Amsterdam is rumored to be 4:20, it is actually 5:30 (Gerhard
den Hollander).
Sixties Songs: For instance, Bob Dylan s famous Rainy Day
Women #12 and 35 is a possible reference, or source --
12x35=420. And Stephen Stills wrote (and Crosby Stills Nash
& Young performed) a song 4+20 (first recorded 7/16/69,
released on Deja Vu 3/11/70) about an 84-year-old
poverty-stricken man who started and finished with nothing.
(Thanks to Sherry Keel 12/6/98.) Dylan aslo mentions 4 and
20 windows in The Balland of Frankie Lee and Judas Priest
(on John Wesley Harding).
Older Verse: But 420 in poetry is older than that - Greg
Keller notes the old nursery rhyme line, four and twenty
black birds baked in a pie. Revelation 5:14 (in the King
James Version of the Christian Bible) reads, And the four
beasts said A-Men. And the four and twenty elders fell down
and worshipped him that liveth for ever and ever. (Travis
Spurley 2/15/99) And in Midnight s_Children, Salman
Rushdie wrote, Inevitably, a number of these children failed
to survive. Malnutrition, disease and the misfortunes of
everyday life had accounted for no less than four hundred and
twenty of them by the time I became conscious of their
existence; although it is possible to hypothesize that these
deaths, too, had their purpose, since 420 has been, since time
immemorial, the number associated with fraud, deception and
trickery. (Comet 2/14/98) Comet s best guess is that this
refers to something in Indian mythology or numerology, since
the book is set in India and frequently involves Indian history,
culture, and religion. Given the high interest in Eastern
religion among the phish/dead community, this seems a likely
origin of 420 s current significance.
Temporal Significance: Hands on analog clock at 4:20 look
like position of doobie dangling from mouth Larry in
Tuscan and Alex Mack 5/19/99). Disruptive students are out
of detention and safetly away from school by 4:20, also
rumored to be the time that you should dose to be peaking
when the Dead went on stage Hart. The Waldos were a
group of teens back in the 70 s that lived in San Rafael, CA.
420 was the way they talked about pot in front of teachers,
non-smoking family members etc. Also it was the time of day
they could just go relax, and get baked. (PhunkCellar)
Jamaicans purportedly worked till 4 then walked home then
lit up. They would talk 420 like our parents talked about after
5. That s when partying began Larry in Tuscan). Albert (not
Abbie) Hofmann supposedly first encountered LSD at 4:20
p.m. on 4/19/1943 (Bart Coleman citing Storming Heaven by
Jay Stevens, recommended by Mickey Hart in Planet Drum).
Surrealist painter Miro was born April 20, 1893. And
www.filmspeed.com says the propoganda film Reefer
Madness has a copyright date of April 20, 1936 (i.e. 4/20).
(Patrick Woolford)
Misc: Could be that it comes from hydroponics, the practice
of cultivating plants in water often used by indoor marijuana
cultivators, since 4 is used for H on a calculator (420/H20).
(Nick Lowe 3/30/00) The number 80 (eight) is quatre vingt
(pronounced cah-truh vahn), meaning four (times} twenty.
Dan Nijjar 1/27/00 (No connection yet between the number
80 and pot. A quarter pound is roughly 120 grams, rounding
quarter-ounces to 7.5.) The titanic was supposed to arrive
4/20/1912. (Thanks to RB.) Perhaps the heavy use of vt420
terminals in the Berkeley area is to blame? (BTW, 420 in
binary code is 110100100.)
Ubiquitous?
Now there s a 420 Pale Ale. One of the late-97/early-98 Got
Milk ads featured a character eating cookies without milk and
then passing a sign that reads Next Rest Area 420 miles (as Ross
Bruning). Reportedly, all of the clocks in the movie Pulp Fiction
are stuck on 4:20. Shirts with the number 420 on the red-and-blue
interstate highway shield (Interstate 420?) have show up on the
sitcom Will and Grace (Paul Risenhoover 5/14/99) and in several
videos. UPS labelling software has a 420 postal code legend for
next-day/2-day deliveries (which is how Phish tickets are sent).
(Jack Lebowitz 10/3/98) MTV s 1997 Viewer s Choice Award (for
the MTV Video Awards) was decided by calls to
1-800-420-4MTV. And by May of 1998, the number was
appearing in so many ads (eg Copenhagen 5/14/98 Rolling Stone
p54, Corvette p55 5/98 Car & Driver) that its presence is
presumed to be intentional. Many songs are around 4 minutes 20
seconds long (since many songs fall between 2:30 and 5:30),
including for example Pink Floyd s A Great Day for Freedom (on
The Division Bell, 1994), the Foo Fighters My Hero, and
Smokin from Boston s first album. There have also been some
420 references on The Simpsons. In the re-run episode aired on
April 20th, 1999 at a special time (probably in honor of those
college students staying in the holiday spirit
Flanders that Barney s birthday is April 20th. Also, the jackpot sign
in one part of the casino says $420,000. There are a couple less
concrete ones, but these two have to be legit, especially since they
decided to air THAT particular episode on 4/20/99. (Submitted by
Matt Meehan 4/21/99) And (as of Fall 99) the 60 free minutes that
Working Assets Long Distance offers, at the 7 cents per minute
rate, is $4.20 free. There s even a band named 420, and another
names . In the first fifteen pages of Karel Capek s novel War with
the Newts, a man diving under wonder stayed down for four
minutes and twenty seconds. Grant Garstka 1/6/00 At the
suggested retail price ($3.96) and Michigan (6%) sales tax, a deck
of Uno cards costs $4.20. Nic Boris 4:20 marks the first downbeat
of the drums in Led Zeppelin s epic Stairway to Heaven. (Dan
Harris) The bill authorizing force after the World Trade Center
attacks of 9/11/01 passed 420 to 1, and news reports in following
months noted many times that there are (or were then, anyway) 420
airports in the U.S. Allan Morris And don t forget that Adolf Hitler
was born on April 20, macabely celebrated (or at least
referenced) via the Columbine High School shootings.
Phish-related Occurances
Whatever the origin, the number appears frequently... For the
summer 1997 tour, TicketMaster service charges were $4.20. In
the Fall 1997 Doniac Schvice Dry Goods section, a limited edition
Pollack poster printed on 100% hemp is order number 420P. The
Great Went was 420 miles from Boston (former home of Phish).
The official logo includes 4 gills and 20 bubbles (Gringo
11/12/98). As of 6/15/97, including covers and originals, Phish
had performed a total of 420 songs (thought its 486 by 4/24/98).
(David Steinberg). Lawnboy is 420megs of memory. Patrick
Walker Phish s The Vibration of Life underlies a whirling loop
with Seven Beats per second (which makes 420 beats per minute.)
Trey has used the altered line woke up at 4:20 in Makisupa
Policeman, which also often indirectly celebrates 420ing, e.g. by
mention of goo balls. One of the funniest shirts around takes light
jabs at both the 4:20 phenomenon and the rumored evolution
(collapse?) of the Phish.Net (especially rec.music.phish) from
being Gamehendge to Flamehendge, and beyond. The first day of
the Great Went started at 4:20 (with Makisupa Policeman. (The
second day started late, at 4:37.) Noah Cole The first single from
Slip Stitch and Pass was played on WBCN 10/14/97 at 4:20 pm.
An uproar at 12/31/96 can be heard on tape during the 2001, in
response to an enormous digital clock (which was counting down
to midnight) reaching 11:55:40 and reading -4:20. (Yoda)
During the 9-12-00 2001, Trey hits the first riff right at 4:20 into
the intro jam. (Cal 2/25/01) Some mail order tickets for the 1997
New Year s run were in section 420. The first Mass Pike toll
leaving Oswego was $4.20. (Camille Heath ) And the standard
shipping for The Phish Companion through Amazon was
originally $4.20.
420 Shows: Phish performed on April 20 in 1989, 1990, 1991,
1993, and 1994. The first day of the Great Went started at 4:20,
although that was called a soundcheck by Trey after three songs.
The Jazzfest Harry Hood 4-26-96 started at about 4:20 reported by
Trevor. At Big Cypress, David Bowie was playing at 4:20 a.m.
And the one event during the hiatus (10/8/00 - ?) featuring all
four members - for Jason Colton s wedding - was 12/1/01, 420
from: http://www.phish.net/faq/n420.html:
Well apart from being a commie,
There are some services that become so called utilities,
In the UK they are/used to be
Water, electricity, gas, the telephone, mail delivery, public transport, air traffic controle, the police, fire service, hospitals, schools etc...
Most of which were sold off during the eighties, would you like Law to be controled by a market economy? if so would you accept the Law makers tieing you into there variant,
we'll shoot anyone that looks like they might be a criminal, make up new Laws when we think were getting ripped off, have an elegable EULA and driving out everyone else out
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
I forgot these links, the market is trying to control distruptive technologies that break there power hold for a little while
www.disruptivetechnologies.com
and
infoworld
This will have to get sorted out before we do increased addresses in IPv6.
Use of "a utility" is favored over "an utility" because, despite the spelling, the word begins with a consonant sound.
I agree 100% that this will occur at the local level. Three places to start (in the U.S.):
1. The many wireless initiatives around the country. Some of these are too random to engage, but in theory some have enough connection to local politics to morph to a utility model.
2. Cable offices - many cities have cable offices that regulate cable providers as monopolies. These offices typically demand concessions to grant franchises, and they typically make the big bucks on cable TV, so they might grant concessions (such as becoming IP-OK compliant) on their IP traffic.
3. Phone utilities - I think this is unlikely, due to the entrenched interests, but it's a possible avenue for some cities.
This guy seems to think that the internet is in
.. but that is
danger of fragmenting into parts controlled by
separate companies that are unable to communicate
with each other, and that the solution to this
'problem' is a single centrally controlled IP
utility. Yet he provides zero evidence that this
is actually happening!
Because there are so many ISPs and carriers, none
of them would dare to cut off connectivity to
each other. Maybe if there was some mega-ISP that
controlled 90% of the market then it would make
sense for it cut off competitors
not the case today.
So what exactly is the current real-world problem
that this 'IP utility' is supposed to solve?
There was also a lot of downsizing/carpet bagging going on( seach for tiny roland).
The sell off of north sea oil
etc.....
Other things like the TSB were deamed owned by the government and sold off, even though they were owned by trusties.
While selling off the utilities did shake them up a bit cut spending and passed the buck, the quality of service I get has gone down and I pay more taxes than ever.
So you're suggesting that we all subscribe to some new age spirtual bullshit instead of buying the things that we want in order to find happiness?
Due to excessive bad posting from this IP or Subnet, comment posting
has temporarily been disabled. If it's you, consider this a chance to
sit in the timeout corner. If it's someone else, this is a chance to
hunt them down.
If you think this is unfair, please email
jamie@slashdot.org
with your MD5'd IPID and SubnetID, which are
"00000000000000000000000000000000" and "00000000000000000000000000000".
Why not set up a universal satellite network?
It would offer universal connectivity. Ideally, it would use IPv6 as the network bases. It would be a separate network but still have built in gateways to the old internet (IPv4). That way you could preserve the function of old network while building the new network.
Everyone will simply apply for a free bank of IP#'s that follows them anywhere they go(111.222.33.44.XXX.XXX). XM radio already can transmit to terrestrial sources. Digital cell phone technology could be modified to transmit to the same celestial sources. Ideally a unique biological identifier would be used to associate your bank of IP number's with your identity.
You say things that offend me and I can deal with it. Can you?
This is the whole problem addressed by the concept of "The Social Contract"
Problem being, people have gotten so used to the system that they treat it like a video game, trying to get as many trinkets out of the system as possible, instead of working together for the greater community. Thus we have things like the preamble of the US Constitution:
- We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America
This is an attempt at a social contract. This was hot and radical political thought at the time it was written.These days people some people might not relate to this. but the issues are very relevant.
Just take a look at your question.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
"incapable of delivering an utility IP network" Should be "incapable of delivering *a* utility IP network". "An" is used before vowel *sounds*, not before any vowel. For example, if you were playing Wheel of Fortune, you would say to Vanna, "Is there an L?". Not "Is there a L?". Anyway, standard "Slashdot editors have embarrassingly bad English skills" rant.
Latency.
You don't notice it on your XM radio, because it's all one way. The various satellite IP systems I've seen have played rather scary games with the network stack in order to get some semblance of performance (and even then, not nearly as good as cable or DSL).
--
E_NOSIG
"Connectivity is the fundamental service of the Internet, yet it is connectivity that suffers first when network providers compete for users and services."
/computers/ they're /people/. So long as you can run multiple services' clients simultaneously (or better yet, Trillian), you have meaningful connectivity.
Anyone else see something grievously wrong with that? The way to compete for users is to deny them the product/service they're seeking? Preposterous. No one, not DSLcos, cable companies, other ISPs, is going to abridge your connectivity and get away with it. Not in the long run, and not without the aid of the force of law.
So Roadrunner has decided to block Kazaa. Any of their customers that really care about it are going to jump ship. But the real culprit there is not business but government, since if there were no potential legal trouble looming (trouble which is brought on by bad law, not bad business), there would be no incentive to block Kazaa or any other service. Some will point to the "IM wars" as an example of broken connectivity. Bogus. In IM, the nodes connecting aren't
Other than that, I can't think of a single example of connectivity-breaking. On the most basic level, the more a service provider limits the usefulness of the internet, the less value they provide their customers, giving their customers an incentive to switch to a competitor or do without.
This guy failed Econ 101.
Microsoft has threatened to break connectivity. In fact, given some of their botches one might conclude they already have in some respects.
"flamebait" on the parent post. yeah. i see it... they said something bad about capitalism... or was it socialism?
-ac
If we could get the electric company to deliver last mile solutions (i.e. from the distribution station to your house/business), a small shack could have routing equipement and ISPs would vie for specific WWNs on the local net. And it makes sense to have the electric companies host the last mile. After all, how long does your Internet connection stay up, be it Cable, DSL, satelline, ISDN, or 56k without the electric company? Power outage? The always-on connection is not on now, is it? You would get your connection by an alteration to the electric meter. The meters could go digital and would just be another WWN to read data from, thereby reducing the monthly manpower costs to read all of them. Live a long way away? The electric company still gets you your 125v.
capitalism is private ownership
socialism is more government ownership(on behalf of the people)
comunism(the comunist manifecto) is ownership by everyone.
state-capitalism is private ownership but the government get there hands dirty to, and somtimes impose more soliaist rules possibly the rare comunist one
Well, here's the crux.
Most people don't know what is in there best interest.
Mr A reads John Smith and decides to do things that are good for 'HIM'
Mr B reads John Nash and decides to do things that are good for every one.
Mr C reads John Nash and John Smith and decides what is good for everyone is good for him and dies in a paradox of madness selfishly helping everyone to a better world (am I really helping 'everyone' or am I just helping my self )
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
How does one get to be an "editor" if one is illiterate and/or too lazy/arrogant to use a spell checker?
But the technologies don't start that way - they pretty much all start as money-making products sold to a market that's willing to pay for them.
At least now we have some ways to fight spammers. With the "public" nature of snail-mail, the spammers (junk mailers) rule the roost. Do we want that in the electronic world? Don't we want to be able to block access to those who abuse their access?
Or does Slashdot itself care to be a defendant in a lawsuit over their "timeout" blocking because that infringes upon someone's "rights" to access a "public place"?
Where do I sign up for the new AOL utility?
Do they do broadband? or just 56K dialup?
When will they make an AOL for OSS?
This is a bad idea, we don't need an industry panel of AOL/Time Warner, Microsoft, IBM, and
Hewlett Packard setting up a "service" for us funded by our own tax monies.
Institute for the Promotion of the Internet Protocol Utility.
Um, the IPIPU? Personally, I'd never let myself be associated with an organization pronounced "eye pee eye poo."
been out for 5 years, time to comment again...
Are you ethiopian?
"An" preceeds a word that begins with a consonant.
"A" preceeds a word beginning with a vowel.
"A utility network" is what you should have said.
I work for a next generation netwroks telecommunications firm. Qos is implemented just about every VoIP setup we produce. VoIP is extremely difficult without QoS. Currently there are several "Super" utility very close to deployment, and he failed to mention any of them. VoIP with cable internet and DSL runs flawlessly, as long as QoS is implemented along the border routers. You can get your cable TV, telephone service, and high speed internet all over one line. And it will work, because the next generation of switches either will or does already implement QoS, CoS, or ToS on one layer or another. And, the emerging VoIP market knows that they MUST be compatible with other carriers in the market or they will have NO chance of remote success. VoIP also works with DSL, but does not work with satellite (obviously 250ms latency is WAY over the 150ms standard set by the FCC for voice) THe one wire solution IS a real solution, the only barriers being your ILECS and their lack of capital and unwillingness to provide you with a true one wire solution. This solution uses IPv4, which will last until the nextgen network requires, adn the masses will use, an address for every electronic device they own my 2 cents
The author makes the assumption that the service that cable modem and other broadband providers should be selling is interconnection of networks. In that case, he is right that "basic" service consists of (a) giving the subscriber a network address and netmask, and (b) routing their packets. Presumably it would be up to the subscriber to handle domain hosting, mail service, etc.
In practice, there are relatively few people out there who want to buy this type of service. As a result, current broadband service focuses on operating a subnet to which subscribers connect individual hosts. Even in those few situations where the cable operator allows multiple devices, the model is almost always one with multiple independent hosts, not a true subnet.
If the market eventually demands (and is willing to pay for) network connectivity instead of simple host support, the broadband operators will undoubtedly offer it as an option.
But a distributed, telco-free SuperFidoNet would be cool.
From http://www.infoworld.com/articles/op/xml/02/05/20/ 020520opnoise.xml
May 17, 2002 01:01 PM PST
Why we still like Ike in the digital era
Michael Vizard
BACK IN THE 1950s with a Republican president named Dwight D. Eisenhower guiding the policies of the nation, the U.S. government took on the task of building out the U.S. highway infrastructure. At the time, the argument made was that an interstate transportation system was vital to national defense. Of course, the United States has yet to be invaded by a foreign government, but the investment in the highway system has paid for itself 100 times over because it boosted interstate commerce.
Now if we flash forward some 50 years, we are looking at the same scenario all over again. In this age of modern warfare, communications is the vital piece of infrastructure required to win. But in the digital age of warfare, communication needs to be ubiquitous and instantaneous.
In a discussion with Norman Lorentz, recently appointed CTO for the Office of Management and Budget under the Executive Office of the President, it's clear the Bush administration gets this point. Lorentz understands the impact such an infrastructure will have on the economy. As a result, Lorentz says he supports the concept of making broadband more accessible across the United States, while pushing for the federal government to give local communities the incentive to deploy 802.11 networks. Imagine a world where every school building served as a public 802.11 wireless hub for accessing the Internet.
Like all things in the body politic today, this will be tightly coupled to national defense and the war on terrorism. But the real value will come from the economic stimulus to the gross national product.
Now within Washington, there are vested interests lobbying for their own agendas. Telecommunication carriers are not happy about the prospect of people communicating freely over the Internet. And then there are content providers that increasingly see the Internet as a means to disenfranchise them. No doubt there are real issues here, but trying to retard the deployment of new communications technologies in order to maximize short-term profits around obsolete business models is not only foolhardy, it's also patently harmful to national defense.
The real question that needs to be addressed is how companies that are going to be affected by the deployment of these technologies will find incentives to change their business models. The key to that answer is to look at the total value of ubiquitous communication and subsidize companies that help the country attain that goal.
So at the end of the day we wind up with a national information technology policy that not only serves national defense, but also drives real economic growth. The funny thing is, some 50 years later, we still like Ike.
Michael Vizard is editor in chief of InfoWorld and InfoWorld.com. Contact him at michael_vizard@infoworld.com.
Since AT&T has had competition from MCI, Sprint, Verizon, etc., the price for a long distance call has dropped dramatically. And yet, despite which carrier I choose, I can call anyone I know with normal phone service, no matter which carriers they've chosen. I believe a similar system for the internet is the best way to lower costs, improve efficiency, etc. The govt. on the other hand doesn't have the same incentive if the internet were made a utility. Therefore, in this case, you get whatever they feel like giving you, at whatever price they decide to set. The govt. has no motivation to make it cheaper or better.
Vote for Pedro
For years internet architects have built a house of cards that is not nearly as robust as it's outer appearance. In fact, there are some aspects that point to a fragile infrastructure just waiting for the final earthquake. The ATM backbone that Tom's previous company helped produce, is largely responsible for creating the packet lost instabilities in the network over the last 5 years. Under Vint Cerf's leadership at MCI/WorldCom/UUNet (Will WorldCom's Woes Engulf UUNet?) switched ATM networks created several years of heavy packetloss at key peering points, that can only cascade into total collapse if UUNet goes dark. This fragility might be the only thing that actually saves WorldCom/UUNet - the fear of what can happen without it.
... in fact there is a huge head in the sand approach to just continue providing excess bandwidth and applications to saturate it even more quickly.
With UUNet dark, the remaining network lacks the switching capacity to handle all of today's traffic (it barely can handle today's traffic without packet loss monitored here), much less short term growth as the world economy recovers from the dire recession. The resulting high packet loss would take us back 5 years where many DNS lookups timed out and simply failed due to high packet loss, and the network loading is dominated by 100% to 300% retries cascading into congestive failure (RFC896 Congestion Control in IP/TCP Internetworks. J. Nagle. January 1984).
There have been many people explore this issue, some very excellent papers (Quality of Service in the Internet: Fact, Fiction, or Compromise? by Paul Ferguson and Geoff Huston) - but largely missed are very basic architectural issues like NTP time syncronization network wide for packet loss retransmission that CREATES well synchronized additional packet loss. This happens because the retranmissions are all timed to arrive at the same time in overloaded switches just to be dropped again due to servers having their scheduling clocks syncronized at a very low rate of 50/60/100/1K Hertz.
A study I did in 1997 of peering point packet loss showed that 90% of packet loss observed correlated to retransmit clock boundries. Changes in traffic flow from primarily mail and ftp in the early 90's, to web traffic where browsers launch 4-20 concurrent small file lookups changed the nature and ability for Slow Start to be effective in throttling loads causing packet loss (web browser designers flood requests to mask packet loss timeouts) and the short files which are often only a couple packets in length do not throttle with TCP window size controls.
Nothing in the next generation design of the internet (IPv6, VoIP, Streaming UDP MP3's, FPS games which flood packets, or any other new protocol) addresses these critical failings
Tom's suggestions largely miss the boat, for all the wrong reasons - but the end conclusion is correct - the biggest problems tomarrow are not going to be solved by the solutions being offered.
Imagine you had 3 radio formats with different percentages for listener base:
Pop - 50%
News - 30%
Country - 20%
With only one radio station the best choice is obvious run pop and grab the 50% market share.
With two radio stations the best choice is more difficult: they can both go after the pop market and get 25% each or one can agree to do news while the other does pop. This allows them to collectively do better. That isn't a huge problem yet, since the guy dropping half of pop (25%) to news (30%) is still gaining market share.
With three stations the situation becomes even more interesting. The first two get pop and news. However the third station still does better getting half of pop (25%) then running country music (20%). Only via. some sort of cooperative agreement can the three maximize their common profits. That is cooperative agreements can outperform individual maximization.
"But the technologies don't start that way"
At least 80% of utilities could have been recognised as Utilities within a few years of startup (or less).
Utilities usually place a levi on Businesses to reduce the cost the the consumer, an example could be a 1% tax on revinue earned from pesonal data, going more-or-less directly to network infrastructor providers.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
The Virgin Mother appeared to me today. She was holding two baked potatoes with sour cream and chives. "They're delicious," she said, and she smiled, emanating a great white light. I took one from her. It was warm and inviting. I cut into it with my plastic fork and plastic knife and I took a bite. It was, as usual, very dry. She held out the other potato to me. "You try it," I said, "it's dry as fuck."
DTABN