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Growing Commercialization Threatens Net Security
dr3vil writes "The BBC is reporting that the concentration of the net's backbone in fewer hands has made it more vulnerable to attack. The report compares an attack to travel problems when traffic is disrupted at O'Hare. Hopefully someone in a position to act will pay attention."
Will die in
10..9..8..7..6..5
just wait for it
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Surely you mean increased centralization, however.
First nuts
www.bigdick.com
first penile post!
Oh, you were using O'Hare as an example? Nevermind.
If all this should have a reason, we would be the last to know.
Commercialization of the Net is a Bad Thing? STOP THE PRESSES! Next thing you'll tell me is that Linux is still hard to install, and *BSD is dying!
sulli
RTFJ.
That when Interstate freeways in the United States are destroyed, travel between large cities and states becomes difficult.
and no not Internet2, that's just faster stuff.
MIT got a grant for those DHT (distributed hash table) thingamajiggers, remember?
Project homepage here
Can someone please explain WTF does that have to do with anything? Do they just throw that kind of stuff in as an onbligatery 9/11 reference?
Join the elite! Post at score:2! Ghostwheel is online.
Why hasn't the US government taken up some of the challenge? Surely they have the ability to set up infrastructure in a decentralized manner?
When replying to this post, keep in mind that I am not addressing this issue from a free speech/privacy of individuals point of view. This is simply a question about why the government isn't interested in taking up this challenge.
I dunno... It's just the same as anything; If you put all of your eggs in one basket, and somthing happens to the basket...well, you're screwed...
-Magiluke
Earl Grey, Hot.
Finally, someone other than a corporate Paki is commenting on the health of the internet. It is no longer an internet, but rather interconnected proprietary WAN's.
If we don't fight for ourselves no one will.
Internet access and bandwidth are very vulnerable, but remember there are lots of copies of the DNS server records, and the actual content is extremely widespread and can easily be put online again given some time - in a genuine emergency situation internet access would only be a priority to those on the periphery anyway. Fine, we need more hubs and greater decentralisation, but lets not get carried away.
The Internet really isn't alone. Ads have really taken over society. Everywhere you look, from people's clothing to the garbage on the ground, to blatently all over every layer of packaging on the goods you buy at the local Safeway.
I've gotten so sick of it. The reason I switched to Linux (probably the dumbest reason in a lot of people's opinions) was to escape the fact that every program I installed had huge logos and ads plastered all over.
I remember when you were mocked and considered weird if you sold out. Now, if you don't sell out, you're considered stupid for not making money while you can.
I get the feeling this blatent lack of ethics will be part of the downfall of our economy. You can only have so many people leeching at one time before it runs out of blood.
In other news, Micro$oft just lost ALL of their source code.
Two fourth level domains will never get a security update again!
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
They do have a point here.
:-)
The fewer centralized points the traffic has to go through the higher the risk of failure. And with failure, the lack of service to millions of people.
I can't validate the correctness of the story, but my impression has always been that the backbones are designed to failover if they hit a problem and that there are several routes between multiple backbones that is serving the same strecth of net. I may be wrong on this, but at least that was the goal back in the 80's when I first started using the net.
The article needs to be taken serious, as more and more business depends on the net. If it fails one one or more backbone stretches, it will have enormous consequences for business, meaning your's and my paycheck may be endangered. Oh, and the answee is not to get rid of Microsoft in this case
If you mod me down, I *will* introduce you to my sister!
It would have ripple effects throughout the internet..."
Veni, vidi, vici.
let's see, I'm an ISP, all I want is to get connected to the internet as cheaply as possible. Thus I don't want too many links to other ISPs raising my expenses. Okay now I need to choose who to peer with, there's big company A and another, smaller network B. Who am I going to choose? A of course, because it will be more reliable and have more direct links. Thus you have a few large companies connected to a lot of ISPs and if a couple of those go down, then ISPs start routing strictly through another one, which causes it to get significantly higher traffic. Conclusion: ouch. laaaag and problems with reliability and other routers going down
The article misses the fact that the internet is designed to cope with that sort of thing. If a disaster breaks connections between two peers, you route the traffic via a different route.
If a carrier goes tits-up (we all know who they are!), you move to a different one. Most people's ISP's have enough redundancy and are clueful enough to jump ship long before problems are noticed by the end user.
Ryan T. Sammartino
"Ancora imparo"
--
Sex Gateway
Sex - Find It
Yeah right! - They'll pay attention when it breaks.
The desktop has been in the control of very few hands for years now and aren't we all better off? ;)
boldly going forward, 'cause we can't find reverse
If P2P networks hadn't been used for illegal purposes right from their creation, I wonder if maybe more the the Internet might be in a P2P form at this late stage. Certainly, you can't disagree that P2P didn't get pushed back in the technology development cycle because of all the political issues surrounding it. It wasn't "embraced"...
Chiropracters are gonna be bummed.
I'll form my OWN solar system! With blackjack! And hookers!
I saw a 'flamebait' mod next to your post.
Better remember not to complain about those profiteering sons of bitches using 9/11 for profit. Thousands of people are MURDERED, and the response is PROFITTERING by the bbc and other companies!
If I had mod points, I'd give 'em to you at the moment.
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
Think for a minute, what country has about the most centralized internet backbone? That would be China, or, The Great Firewall of China. Look at it this way, in order to Do Something Really Bad in China, they have to implement it on one set of backbones with one central authority.
Now that the backbone is mostly owned by big business in the United States, it centralizes control of the Internet toward big businesses. Which yeah, could really pretty much suck.
-- Ken Kinder ken@_nospam_kenkinder.com http://kenkinder.com/
I have bees that live in my nose.
Liberate your mind in two clicks or less.
Is it GPL'd?
Troll Out.
from the story: Hopefully someone in a position to act will pay attention. hopefully someone in a position to act will not have to be told about potential dangers by the BBC
It gets in you!
WWW content itself is organised very well (and can be ordered by relevance very well) using a "link" structure a la Google. Maybe we can form an analogous iterative structure to internet infrastructure, with the importance of a particular section linked not only to its bandwidth but the importance of the the section its hubs link to. We can then prioritise new investment by triangulating new infrastructure in the most appropriate way. I will admit I know next to nothing about networking on this scale; please feel free to shoot me down with technical and social reasons why this will fail. Just an idea (-:
In its early days the net was as decentralised, as possible with multiple links between many of the nodes forming it. If one node disappeared, traffic could easily flow to other links and route traffic to all parts.
.edu's, .gov's and .mil's, there was no need for centralization. However, suddenly, one day everyone wanted to be on the net! And out of that chaos, logical central points developed.
I would not give this article a lot of serious thought. It describes how simulated attacks show vulnerable spots in the internet, and seeks to lay blame for it. However, comparing the current state of the Internet to it's own beginnings is obviously going to show differences (DUH!). I mean, back in the pre-web days (you remember those, folks? ah, sweet gopher. R.I.P.), if you didn't know exactly where or what you were looking for... well... none of this fancy googlin' stuff, that's all I gotta say.
If you consider the growth of the internet from that point, which was basically a loose, random interconnection of
I like to explain the internet to non-techie people as something like the Interstate highways in the United States. And using that metpahor... if you take out a central location... well, it'll be a lot slower and harder to get to where you need to go, but it's not like you've isolated an entire region for all eternity.
My point is, there are centralized locations because it was efficient to do so. Eventually, as more and more high speed wire is laid out across the world, these will slowly become less important. It's just that the growth has been too fast for the present time!
I moderate "-1, Fool"
http://www.elsevier.com/locate/tele
You'll see "View their sample issue." Click on that, then click on the link for Volume 20, Issue 1. Go there. Then you'll see "A geographic perspective on commercial Internet survivability", and you can download the PDF there.
Looks like it's meant to give you only one chance at the free issue, so I think giving the direct link would be pretty useless. Whatever; you're only three clicks away from greatness. :-)
Carousel is a lie!
Why would anyone care? Isn't it extremely intentional that the control of the internet is being consolidated into fewer and fewer hands?
Who is it exactly that would object or do something about it? Do you think the few companies who own major backbones are going to decide that it's not in everybody's best interest and sell their portion off to 10 other companies?
Sure, this is a bad thing, but it's done in order to suit the interests of the people who are doing it. The idea that somebody would wake up, decide this is absurd, and correct the error of their ways is absolutely ridiculous.
Of course, we could always hope that MS would realize their software licensing is not in the best interest of the consumer and turn it all around....but it's statistically safer to bet on being struck by lightning 12 times in succession...
-- Truth goes out the door when rumor comes innuendo. -- Groucho Marx
Obviously there were good reasons to introduce CIDR (Classless Inter Domain Routing) and concentrate the ability to route around problems to the 'core' of the internet, but this is the price you pay.
The only way real redundancy and fault-tolerance will be restored is to introduce IPV6 - or some other means to widen the availablity of routable IPV4 space, and remove the barriers currently in place for people to partipate in the 'routable' internet.
Of course with this comes lack of control for MPAA/RIAA/Governments, increased freedom for independent operators, and also increased complexity and route-table storage requirements for all.
However, if the internet is to withstand prolonged and/or distributed attack, then the ability to route effectively will have to be extended further toward the edge of the net than it currently is.
I gots ta ding a ding dang my dang a long ling long
In other news, Bin Laden has been sighted in Saudi-Arabia with 20 Al-Quada script kiddies. Latest findings of the CIA conclude that Bin Laden is trying to build a biochemical weapon throwing sludges of contaminated biomatter called a "GES BioRifle" and that Australia has mysteriously disappeared of the world map. Weapons experts disagree with these findings, claiming "Redeemeers" are much better, though the news about Australia was ethusiastically welcomed with cheers like "No more Steve Irwin or Kylie Minogue!".
However, a recent investigation in some random MS Monopoly lawsuit indicated that Bill Gates does indeed cheat, playing with several copies of the authentic Broadway and Park Drive cards, as well as a recent donation of 20 Windows XP Pro packages to Palm Tree Nr 137 in Saudi-Arabia with a note reading "BOMB FINLAND" and enough funds to construct a backbone connection to Saudi-Arabia. US officials are skeptic about the current findings, saying "Haven't we blown up Saudi-Arabia yet? Oh, that was Australia?" Several high ranked military officials were unavailable for comment, but disapproved of Bill Gates cheating at Monopoly.
Coalition forces have responded by pre-emptively bombing Iraq like they have done for the last decade. US fighter-bombers scrambled and succesfully bombed 3 hospitals, 2 schools and a Burger King in Washington DC. Brittish commandoes went in and simply cut the backbone connection with Margaret Thatcher's fake teeth. Bin Laden and the 20 script kiddies have escaped, leaving a videotaped message behind, calling for a holy war against the US and against Saudi-Arabia for disconnection power to Palm Tree Nr 137. Bin Laden was last seen hiding on the North Pole in a red suit, a sleigh, a bunch of biochemical reindeer and 20 script kiddie elves. US bombers are underway as this article is written.
Film at 11.
Hate me!
It would be interesting to see if more people started running alternate routes through friends houses and what not. A guy I work with has a p2p 802.11b link to another guy I work with's cable modem 5 miles away, despite having DSL himself. I know that when I pulled my (late) linksys router out of the box, I was surprised to see that it supported RIP.
The truth is that it is really not that hard to run multiple routes out of your bedroom. If you use *nix for your router (like I do since I burned up my linksys), it's as easy as dropping in another NIC (wireless, or ethernet, or modem, or whatever) and configing the new interface.
There's also the growing trend in community nets (particularly wireless community nets)... these could link themselves together fairly cheaply by setting up additional wireless links with directional antennae pointed at other peer community nets.
Anyway, I'd be curious to see how many new routes start springing up between these 2nd-class (and no-class) networks. The beauty of Internet Protocol is that this really works.
:Wq
Not an editor command: Wq
#
# Network services, Internet style
#
# Note that it is presently the policy of IANA to assign a single well-known
# port number for both TCP and UDP; hence, most entries here have two entries
# even if the protocol doesn't support UDP operations.
# Updated from RFC 1340, ``Assigned Numbers'' (July 1992). Not all ports
# are included, only the more common ones.
#
# from: @(#)services 5.8 (Berkeley) 5/9/91
# $Id: services,v 1.9 1993/11/08 19:49:15 cgd Exp $
#
tcpmux 1/tcp # TCP port service multiplexer
echo 7/tcp
echo 7/udp
discard 9/tcp sink null
discard 9/udp sink null
systat 11/tcp users
daytime 13/tcp
daytime 13/udp
netstat 15/tcp
qotd 17/tcp quote
msp 18/tcp # message send protocol
msp 18/udp # message send protocol
chargen 19/tcp ttytst source
chargen 19/udp ttytst source
ftp-data 20/tcp # File Transfer [Default Data]
ftp-data 20/udp # File Transfer [Default Data]
ftp 21/tcp # File Transfer [Control]
ftp 21/udp # File Transfer [Control]
ssh 22/tcp # Secure Shell Login
ssh 22/udp # Secure Shell Login
telnet 23/tcp
telnet 23/udp
# 24 - private
smtp 25/tcp mail
# 26 - unassigned
time 37/tcp timserver
time 37/udp timserver
rlp 39/udp resource # resource location
nameserver 42/tcp name # IEN 116
whois 43/tcp nicname
domain 53/tcp nameserver # name-domain server
domain 53/udp nameserver
mtp 57/tcp # deprecated
bootps 67/tcp # BOOTP server
bootps 67/udp
bootpc 68/tcp # BOOTP client
bootpc 68/udp
tftp 69/udp
gopher 70/tcp # Internet Gopher
gopher 70/udp
rje 77/tcp netrjs
finger 79/tcp
www 80/tcp http # WorldWideWeb HTTP
www 80/udp # HyperText Transfer Protocol
link 87/tcp ttylink
kerberos 88/tcp krb5 # Kerberos v5
kerberos 88/udp
supdup 95/tcp
# 100 - reserved
hostnames 101/tcp hostname # usually from sri-nic
iso-tsap 102/tcp tsap # part of ISODE.
csnet-ns 105/tcp cso-ns # also used by CSO name server
csnet-ns 105/udp cso-ns
rtelnet 107/tcp # Remote Telnet
rtelnet 107/udp
pop2 109/tcp postoffice # POP version 2
pop2 109/udp
pop3 110/tcp # POP version 3
pop3 110/udp
sunrpc 111/tcp
sunrpc 111/udp
auth 113/tcp tap ident authentication
sftp 115/tcp
uucp-path 117/tcp
nntp 119/tcp readnews untp # USENET News Transfer Protocol
ntp 123/tcp
ntp 123/udp # Network Time Protocol
netbios-ns 137/tcp # NETBIOS Name Service
netbios-ns 137/udp
netbios-dgm 138/tcp # NETBIOS Datagram Service
netbios-dgm 138/udp
netbios-ssn 139/tcp # NETBIOS session service
netbios-ssn 139/udp
imap2 143/tcp # Interim Mail Access Proto v2
imap2 143/udp
snmp 161/udp # Simple Net Mgmt Proto
snmp-trap 162/udp snmptrap # Traps for SNMP
cmip-man 163/tcp # ISO mgmt over IP (CMOT)
cmip-man 163/udp
cmip-agent 164/tcp
cmip-agent 164/udp
xdmcp 177/tcp # X Display Mgr. Control Proto
xdmcp 177/udp
nextstep 178/tcp NeXTStep NextStep # NeXTStep window
nextstep 178/udp NeXTStep NextStep # server
bgp 179/tcp # Border Gateway Proto.
bgp 179/udp
prospero 191/tcp # Cliff Neuman's Prospero
prospero 191/udp
irc 194/tcp # Internet Relay Chat
irc 194/udp
smux 199/tcp # SNMP Unix Multiplexer
smux 199/udp
at-rtmp 201/tcp # AppleTalk routing
at-rtmp 201/udp
at-nbp 202/tcp # AppleTalk name binding
at-nbp 202/udp
at-echo 204/tcp # AppleTalk echo
at-echo 204/udp
at-zis 206/tcp # AppleTalk zone information
at-zis 206/udp
z3950 210/tcp wais # NISO Z39.50 database
z3950 210/udp wais
ipx 213/tcp # IPX
ipx 213/udp
imap3 220/tcp # Interactive Mail Access
imap3 220/udp # Protocol v3
ulistserv 372/tcp # UNIX Listserv
ulistserv 372/udp
#
# UNIX specific services
#
exec 512/tcp
biff 512/udp comsat
login 513/tcp
who 513/udp whod
shell 514/tcp cmd # no passwords used
syslog 514/udp
printer 515/tcp spooler # line printer spooler
talk 517/udp
ntalk 518/udp
route 520/udp router routed # RIP
timed 525/udp timeserver
tempo 526/tcp newdate
courier 530/tcp rpc
conference 531/tcp chat
netnews 532/tcp readnews
netwall 533/udp # -for emergency broadcasts
uucp 540/tcp uucpd # uucp daemon
remotefs 556/tcp rfs_server rfs # Brunhoff remote filesystem
klogin 543/tcp # Kerberized `rlogin' (v5)
kshell 544/tcp # Kerberized `rsh' (v5)
kerberos-adm 749/tcp # Kerberos `kadmin' (v5)
#
webster 765/tcp # Network dictionary
webster 765/udp
swat 901/tcp
#
# From ``Assigned Numbers'':
#
#> The Registered Ports are not controlled by the IANA and on most systems
#> can be used by ordinary user processes or programs executed by ordinary
#> users.
#
#> Ports are used in the TCP [45,106] to name the ends of logical
#> connections which carry long term conversations. For the purpose of
#> providing services to unknown callers, a service contact port is
#> defined. This list specifies the port used by the server process as its
#> contact port. While the IANA can not control uses of these ports it
#> does register or list uses of these ports as a convienence to the
#> community.
#
ingreslock 1524/tcp
ingreslock 1524/udp
prospero-np 1525/tcp # Prospero non-privileged
prospero-np 1525/udp
rfe 5002/tcp # Radio Free Ethernet
rfe 5002/udp # Actually uses UDP only
#
#
# Kerberos (Project Athena/MIT) services
# Note that these are for Kerberos v4, and are unofficial. Sites running
# v4 should uncomment these and comment out the v5 entries above.
#
#kerberos 750/udp kdc # Kerberos (server) udp
#kerberos 750/tcp kdc # Kerberos (server) tcp
krbupdate 760/tcp kreg # Kerberos registration
kpasswd 761/tcp kpwd # Kerberos "passwd"
#klogin 543/tcp # Kerberos rlogin
eklogin 2105/tcp # Kerberos encrypted rlogin
#kshell 544/tcp krcmd # Kerberos remote shell
#
# Unofficial but necessary (for NetBSD) services
#
supfilesrv 871/tcp # SUP server
supfiledbg 1127/tcp # SUP debugging
cvspserver 2401/tcp # CVS!
with a 3 14.4 kbps dialup modems (arpanet, i mean?) i have one, i know another guy with one. if the internet was in *real* jeapordy, couldn't the universities, and induviduals just 'start fresh'...i mean the rfcs' appear to give a pretty much bleuprint method of how to move..right? what is really stopping us from building supercomputers...etc...? especially with modern tech, we could just buy a regular computer, get a whole load of modems...and go back to TTY ! why not?
of course, i'm concerned about the internet as anyone, but i'm connecting currently through stolen bandwidth anyways - the 'net is too expensive for most people it seems to me...decentralization could probably help that, though...but keep in mind...no matter how bad it gets, we can always start anew, so long as we have those 3 14.4kbps...
GENERATION 26: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation.
I don't see why centralization would come up though, regardless of who owns the fiber, it's still in the same place. The routers are also still in the same place most likely, which basically means what's getting centralized are the servers, and we already know that. Imagine how many fewer webservers there would be if San Jose were to lose connectivity, or New York for that matter. It's also possible that with fewer providers we have fewer routers which means there are fewer places BGP is routing with. This decreases fault tolerance, of course, and to some degree performance. It's like how when you're in Iowa you see most of your traffic going through Kansas City, even if it's going to Chicago.
*shrug*
If there is a God, you are an authorized representative. - Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
Cowboy Kneel
So the internet is more vulnerable now than In The Olden Days, when the backbone was carried entirely by MCI? It must be that new math.
I can hear it now.. image, a secret room, discreet location, watercooler:
'alright guys, alright guys, I got it this time- we bring up the fact that we've allowed the majors telecoms to fuse backbones, issue a warning about our fear for immediate danger to the backbone of the (DARPA project, via al gore) Internet, and we can set ourselves up to distribute disaster relief funds to the corporations.. wait wait.. we'll make it IMPOSSIBLE for people to get money from insurance companys.. and we'll give the corps relief funds, and the insurance companies can give us big lobby checks'..
oh wait.. softmoney isn't a factor anymore, right?
lol
pm
** "It's not my job to stand between the people talking to me, and the ones listening to me." -- Pego the Jerk
Is THAT the way it's going to go down? Holy crap, now I'm worried.
...for all those local wireless nets, such as NY wireless, to start connecting to other wireless nets. And if the various wireless clubs eventually start connecting a bit, then it will BE the internet, or a major part thereof. (Perhaps it can be named Pringlenet?)
The baby's fine -- please stop sending business cards.
... governments controlling major POP's? How do you think that you get broadband in your bedroom? Big companies. If not for those big companies, the Net wouldn't exist. Everything costs money. You can't have your cake & eat it too.
Yes, Virginia, the health of the Internet *does* depend on decentralized technologies such as multiple backbones, gegraphically distributed root name servers, and standards committees not answerable to any single political entity or product vendor.
It's no different from a business monopoly, (or cartel, or oligopoly) which tends to create artificially high prices, poor quality of goods and services, and in the case of computing and networks a fertile breeding ground for viruses, worms and other nasty exploits.
And the analogue these worlds share with real live ecosystems is uncanny: Plant an entire state in one strain of corn for a few seasons in a row and watch the fun.
Didn't we already learn this crap? Why do the FCC, FTC, SEC and other god-forsaken, nutless bend-over wastes of acronyms keep rubber-stamping all the mergers?
In other news, astrophysicists have announced that they now know what all that dark matter is: it's stupidity.
Before we jump onto some kind of legislative solution, I think all efforts of everyone in a position to make a difference (and that is everyone) should spread the word about meshnetworks.
Assuming we can de-regulate sufficient spectrum, wireless ad-hoc networks will completely solve the problem of network vunerability, centralization and commercialization. Meshnetworks have the potention to dentralize benadwith distribution in the same p2p decentralized content distribution.
Planet P - Liberation with Technology.
www.enthea.org
...I think there needs to be someone watching out for internet-related matters. There are more computer nerds who have more untapped money and power out there than anyone can imagine. What if we all combined our voices and demanded attention to these matters? The "Hacker Community" seems to be gradually moving in that direction already.
/., it was moderated +5 Funny. Perhaps we don't need a political party so much as a lobbying group. Someone to seize the reins of government back from the hands of business and put them in the hands of computer nerds. Someone who actually knows what they're talking about when they talk about the internet. The country might not get any better, but it would certainly get better for nerds.
If it weren't so far-fetched, I'd suggest a political party. But the last time it was suggested on
And maybe we can elect CowboyNeal as our chairman.
ARE BELONG TO ME!
What does commercialization have to do with the Internet backbone being in fewer hands, shouldn't the title be "Growing Backbone Consolidation threatens Net Security. The last thing we need is G.W. thinking that their are comunists on slashdot. We will all be branded as terrorists.
Accidental submit, Why does the submit button need to be next to the preview button? It should be after the drop down list or have forced preview.
Much of global Internet traffic on the intercontinental level is routed through the USA, even though the origin or destination may be totally outside the USA. For instance, traffic between Asia-Europe, or South America-Australia will almost always pass through the US, because most of those "hubs" are, as the article mentions, in the USA.
I believe more work should also be done on interconteninental links that do not go through the USA as well.
I have nothing againt the USA, but the Internet is critical to more than just the USA now, and were the unthinkable to happen again in the USA, there should be redundancy. Also, it would be much more efficent in terms of latency (eg, Europe-Asia instead of Europe-USA-Asia).
-- Samir Gupta, Ph. D. Head, New Technology Research Group, Nintendo Co. Ltd., Kyoto, Japan.
GOATSEEEEE!
No troll here, and not flamebait - but think about it. What does it really matter? Really? I've been doing this for 20 years and I gotta say that I think too many people are taking this stuff way too seriously. Come on, folks. These are just machines. It's just a big, fucking network - no magic. And we all could live without it. Shitfire, the bloody thing didn't *exist* for most of us 20 years ago. Yah, it's cool to do what we do, but anyone that *relies* on this shit, I mean really, really relies on that circuit to be there every day from now on is living in a dot-bomb dream world. Any business model that is 100% Internet-reliant is (IMO) something to run away from as fast as you can. I like what I do, but if it went away tomorrow I'd survive.
Anyway, just my opinion and a different perspective than I've been reading here.
ah.clem
"Life is not magic." Dr. Ron Weiss - "If we don't play God, who will?" Dr. James Watson
It seems to me that the commercialization of the
Internet has brought so much new capacity online
that it is more reliable than the old days, due
to the existance of competing long-haul cables
operated by different companies.
For example, back in the early 90's Australia was
served by a single 10mbps trans-pacific Internet
connection. If it went down (as frequently
happened), the whole continent was cut off!
Today there are several links to the rest of the
world, and outages of that kind are unknown.
Guess who paid for those links? That's right,
for-profit commerical corporations.
Do I even need to say anymore
Notice that the article says "hopefully someone in a position to act will pay attention."
/.
I totally agree that fewer backbone operators == greater "single points of failure".
However, there is no doubt in my mind that the "people in a position to act" are probably not hanging out at
But then again, they would already be aware of this too, if only for business reasons.
Unfortunately *very* few people are influential or wealthy enough to influence backbone operation -- does this make these people another "single point of failure"? (honest question, not flamebait)
C|N>K
commercialization != centralization
For great justice.
death of the net predicted!
film at 11!
nobody
parturiunt montes, nascetur ridiculus mus
One of the biggest problems in the backbone is that attempting to support arbitrary routing policies driven by a myriad of different customers overconstrains the problem of global internet routing. This leads to configurations in which either many solutions exist or no solutions exist to the routing problem and causes routing instability. Couple this with the fact that router configuration is a black art that is extremely error-prone and you get WorldCom-like outages. Such problems will actually IMPROVE with more consolidation. If you're interested, check this paper out.
In the late nineties... when the Information Super Highway was so cool and modern and fantastic, I read that the Government was working on an "Internet II" that wouldn't be popularised and wouldn't become cool and modern and fantastic. This sounds useless and it was probably bullshit but I don't know... anyone care to enlighten me and everyone else that couldn't be bothered to ask?
What makes a man want to be a mouse? (Python's Flying Circus)
HOW TO SUCK COCK
Written by unknown
Sucking a man's cock is one of the pure pleasures in life. It's sad to think that many men don't appreciate just how much fun it can be. The reason for this is they don't know how to do it correctly and so it doesn't end up being much fun.
Because if you mess up, you don't get your reward. The cock doesn't get hard, the man doesn't have a good time and the man feels like a failure.
But here's the good news: It's easy to learn how to be a terrific cock sucker. And I'm going to tell you exactly how. It doesn't matter what setting you choose, you can be home in bed or parked on Sunset Boulevard, but seek whatever level of privacy you need to feel relaxed and sexy. For the purpose of this book, let's say you're on a couch. You're with a man you like and you know he'd love to have a good blow job about now. Slip down on the floor between his legs and open his fly. Reach in and touch his prick.
If he's hot for you, it will already be hard. If he's nervous, it may still be bent up inside his shorts. Grab hold of his cock and lean up to his face and kiss him. See if you can feel a response down below. Any movement is a good sign. Now pull his cock out and see how it stands. If it's straight up, you're doing great, otherwise, here's what to do: Pull his balls out. If the pants are too tight, pull them down. Now hold his balls in your left hand and his cock in your right. Squeeze it gently down toward the bottom of the shaft and get ready to suck. Run your tongue over your lips to get them good and wet and look into your man's face. He wants to watch you suck him off.
Men love to watch. Now open your mouth just slightly to tease and excite your man and come very close to his cock. Breathe on him, blow on him with your hot breath. Stick your tongue out again and reach for him, tease him.
Making sure your tongue is dripping wet, begin at the bottom of his shaft and lick upwards, slowly. Turn your head sideways and pretend to take a bite of him, gently setting your teeth into his flesh. Wet him again with your tongue and use your hand to spread the liquid around if necessary. A wet cock looks and sounds a lot sexier than a dry one. Your left had meanwhile is massaging those balls, perhaps scratching them lightly with your fingernails. You may also want to reach behind and underneath the balls to get to that ever-so-sensitive area just before the anus, or even to run your fingers over his asshole very lightly. Since the muscle that cause erection originates back there, this will produce a reaction in his cock. After you've licked his shaft lots of times and it's all wet and hard, your man is going to start squirming with frustration if you don't start getting serious. A quick look up at his face will let you know when you're taking things too far. Teasing is great...to a point.
A little experience in cock-sucking will educate you as to just when that point has been reached.
On one of your upward swings with your tongue, from the base of his shaft to the rim of his knob, don't stop. Continue your long, wet lick over the top of his cock, lingering at the hole in the center. Stick your tongue into it, if you can, but don't suck the head yet. Now run your tongue around the rim of his knob, all the way around, making frequent passes on the tender skin directly facing you. This is where most men are the most sensitive.
But not all men! That's one thing a good cock sucker has to learn to do, as soon as you're comfortable, that is. Ask questions. Each man is unique and so is his cock. Squeeze the shaft and see if some clear liquid pops up. If it does, dip your tongue into it and pull away. It will stretch with you and look fantastically erotic to your partner. Now, make like you love the stuff. Close in on that cockhead like it was chocolate ice-cream and take the whole knob into your hot mouth. Hold it there. Listen to him moan.
Now down quickly and take as much of his cock as you can get into your mouth.
Don't worry, you won't choke. If you bend your neck in just the right way, you can take it clear into your throat. Stay there, with the cock down your mouth, for just a moment. Feel it inside of you. This can be almost as luscious as having one in your pussy.It grows on you. At this point you can do several things. This is one of them: Slide back up to the tip of the cock and flick your tongue against it. Your man will be getting antsy now, wanting you to deep-throat him some more. But don't let him bully you. If he had his way, it'd be over in two minutes and what fun is that? Moving as fast as he can handle it (don't let him come yet), slide up and down on his cock as if you're fucking him. If he gets too close to coming, stop, or at least slow down. If you can't get all the way down to the bottom of his prick, you can cheat a little by using that right hand of yours to complete the sensation of deep throating him. It still looks as if you've got the whole thing in your mouth and still feels like it. You can also slide your fingers, made in an O-shape around the shaft, up and down with the rhythm of your sucking.
That's another thing. Besides just mouthing the cock, you can suck it which is quite different. There are deep-sucks and little ones and both feel damned great. Your man may have a preference, however, so watchhis reactions. Taking just the knob in your mouth, suck it as if it were a nipple or a straw. This feels so good tot the man, it makes my pussy hot just thinking about it. The other suck is a long, sweeping one, where you take the whole cock and suck it all the way up like you would a popsicle and then go back and do it again, sucking on the way down as well.
Here is an important thing to know: Any of these moves will feel great the first few times or more, but after a while, it's as if the cock gets immune to feeling. When you sense this, it's time to move onto your next play. You don't want the cock to go to sleep. You want it constantly stimulated, almost, but not quite, to the point of orgasm. Which is just about where we are now. You've got a raging hard-on in your right hand and some tight balls in your left. Lean back and take a look at it. It's beautiful, isn't it?
Move your right hand all the way to the base of the cock and squeeze it there. This will cause the shaft to fill and thicken, and by now the knob, will be shining and smooth. Continue to take the prick into your mouth and suck and try out all your various moves until you know the man can't stand anymore and he's going to blast off.
What you do now is between you and your lover.
Personally, I like to watch it shoot. It gives me visual images for my wet dreams and besides, it's a thrill to see the spurting cum. It's amazing how much of that stuff comes out and how far it shoots. If you want to watch, you'll feel it coming with your right hand and know when to back off. You can even try to catch some on your tongue if you're fast. You might want to swallow it, some girls do, and lots of guys like to have it swallowed. Be careful to back up a little when it goes off though or you'll gag on it and that's not too romantic. Take it into your mouth and hold it there and then swallow it.
Another solution, and this is a nice one too, unless you're making love where you can't make a mess, is to let the warm, wonderful juices gush into your mouth and then slide around the already wet
cock. It make it so slippery and delightful to touch! You'll want to run your hands through it, feeling that hard cock all the way up, smoothing the glisten ing cum over the knob. This makes a great sensual image too, for you and for your man.
Now you've given your man a blow job that he'll not forget. Believe me, if you follow my instructions, this guy will want to see a lot more of you.
I've heard from men that one woman in fifty knows how to give good head. The rest act like it's a big favor. Which is another point i should make. If you don't like to give head and you've tried to learn to like it and it still doesn't work, don't give up. Maybe you'll like it more as you grow older. Men say older men are much better at giving head. But I should warn you, there are a lot of out here who love to give head and we're going to be stiff competition for you shy ones. I know men who can even have orgasms sucking cock.
Now go out and get 'em!
Your comment hit on another maybe off topic point. The adoption of IPv6 is taking way too long. IPv6 will fix a lot of problems we are facing currently and I'm talking about more then just address space. Things like QOS features are built in to IPv6 and will allow Internet telephony and video confrencing to live up to the hype.
I can hear the ATM crowd screaming in the background but it's just too expensive... sorry.
I came to the datacenter drunk with a fake ID, don't you want to be just like me?
I agree - the centralisation of communication channels, while somewhat necessary for administration and maintainence will lead to its ultimate failure.Part of the reason for this is because the system has worked for so long, and the user base is so big, that when some heavily used 'trusted' resource suddenly fails (device failure, terrorist attack, hackers, aliens..) the remaining infrastructure crumbles under the load
By taking out the right key routers between certain countries, an attacker could cause the remaining relevant routers to be hammered by referred traffic and hence fail (making the problem even worse). This applies to the DNS root servers as well, which have suffered attacks of late
And if the Internet 'stops working' (gasp!) what will we turn to to communicate? The phone system, which has a limited number of lines, and similar problems with regards to network saturation.
And then what will we do?
I seem to remember a rogue DNS network that was set up (in the process giving the finger to ICANN) but I cant remember its name....
Do not meddle in the affairs of SysAdmins, for they are subtle and quick to anger.
Karma: Anything remotely associated with Boy George I have no interest in.
YOU FAIL IT!
Lets see... the internet is the bane of anyone whose business is controlling information.
The major service providers are slowly being aquired by media companies.
The service providers are pursuing a course of action that exposes the fabric of the internet to risk.
Media companies are successfully lobbying to outlaw devices that do not contain DRM technology, and they own the key infrastructure that allows existing devices to operate.
How many more pieces need to fall into place before a convenient "accident" can wipe out the network as we know it, leaving a vast network of fat pipes just waiting to be re-purposed?
A few more laws, a bunch of replacement devices on store shelves, and a few "terrorists" with EMPs and bang, no more internet.
Nah... they wouldn't pull a stunt like that...
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
The design of TCP/IP allows for redundancy and survivability, however most if not all of the research backbones that evolved into the commercialized Internet never had a great deal of redundancy. Granted, later incarnations like the NSFNET T3 network were better, but most had single points of failure which could be felt across large parts of the Internet when those points had problems...
--zawada
In Soviet Russia, the Beowulf cluster imagines you!
I work for one of the oldest ISP's in the southeastern US, and we are still fighting to get our own IP addresses from ARIN. In addition to the bandit rates they charge ($2,500 to fill-out a form!), they refuse to give-out addresses except to large providers. When we finally got enough web customers to meet their arbitrary rules, they arbitrarily decided that web sites aren't important enough to deserve an IP address. Because we can't get our own IP addresses, it is very difficult for us to scale our small backbone. We exchange traffic with about two dozen (used to be many more before Hell$outh got into the market) ISP's. As an additional benefit (to get them to do it in the first place), we provide free transit to/from the other providers. Since we don't have enough traffic to justify the use of a T1 between any single other provider, exchanging traffic between the providers is an almost free lunch. If we could get PI (provider independent) space, we'd have a much easier time. As it stands now, each time we have to change upstreams, we have to get each of the providers we exchange traffic with to change their configuration. Recently, WorldScam, err Com, decided to stop selling the package we've been buying from them. They basically tripled the price and demanded a three year contract. Now we're moving to Sprint. We've spent over a week driving between seven cities making changes to routers (insert hateful message to manager who got rid of our POTS lines that were connected to modems on the console ports of our ciscos). We're also having to help our customers with the changes. Some of the connections are going to be down for nearly two weeks. How are we going to grow our service when ARIN forces these types of things on us? We can't. That's why the big guys keep getting bigger. Either the little players go out of business or they get bought-out for pennies on the dollar. Sorry for the rant, but when ISP's that have been in business for nearly eight years can't get IP addresses, you know something's wrong with the system.
Three others have beat me to this, but I had to respond. The Internet (defined as "a worldwide internetwork of hosts using IP protocols or something like them") was designed by the US Government as a decentralized information exchange medium.
The US DoD wanted an Internet because they didn't want MIT and AT&T having total control of the computing power in the US. And, like many government projects that aren't part of a particular politician's pet initiatives, this one seems to have worked pretty well.
All's true that is mistrusted
We're talking about some computers being trashed and then the network slows down or crashes for - what? A few days? A week?
Ice storms do that to the phone system - nobody says the system is "going away" and "I'll survive without my phone"...
Get serious... This is Y2K thinking...
Yes, there are vulnerabilities and somebody should fix them. In other news, the sun rises in the east...
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
If you look at network diagrams of the Bell System, when AT&T still ran everything, you will see a system that was designed to cope with disasters and excessive loads. It provided a great deal of flexibility in how calls were routed through the network. Each central office had multiple links to peer central offices and parent central offices. A call could be routed in many different ways. If a link to a peer central office was out, the call could be "kicked upstairs" to a parent central office, which would route it over a different link to the destination central office. The only single points of failure were the local central office and the wires in between the local central office and the subscriber.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
This is far better than the pre-1993 days when there was a single backbone, operating on non-redundant private lines.
I guess this guy wanted some publicity. He got it.
I'm amazed to see comments like yours on a tech forum. Civilization has put its eggs in the internet basket. Basically, because it's cheaper.
Most data traffic having to do with operating the supply chain that gets those grapes to your grocery store in terms of wine and that cattle rancher's product to your store in terms of steak goes through the Internet. Even in the cases where this isn't so, you can bet that at least a few critical links in the supply chain are via Internet.
Could workarounds be found? For the short term, maybe. However, perhaps you'd notice if the price of milk in your grocery store went up 50% or average prices at WalMart went up 100%.
The only people who wouldn't notice the effects of a long-term loss of the Net are so remote from civilization that the international market economy doesn't touch them much, and that doesn't even describe most of the Third World. They might not know why they suddenly can't make a living or the price of anything imported doubled or worse, but they would notice.
Tech Public Policy stuff
I live in the USA, but I have to agree with you here.. I for one not only see that the Internet started out USA-based, but I also know that on both sides, transcontinental latency is horrible, even today.
As long as everything stays OPEN to anybody who wants to access it, it makes me wonder why nobody is working on this one right now (or are they?). Is it the cost of laying out fiber over such great distances still too costly for some countries to afford?
It is not USA centricity per se, it is more a result of economy of scale. If a lot of people are connected to a hub, one gets connectivity to all those people by connecting to that hub.
I live less than 1 mile from a rather large exchange and more than 100 miles from a larger exchange, but when electricity in Amsterdam failed, my connection dropped to a crawl, even though the nearby exchange still had lots of capacity.
Redundancy costs much more money than a few extra diesel generators in Amsterdam.
I believe more work should also be done on interconteninental links that do not go through the USA as well.
A 10 Gbps link from Europe to Asia went life more than 5 years ago, but traceroutes from me (the Netherlands) to India still (almost?) always go through the USA. If the bandwidth isn't used, no one will invest in more bandwidth.
The earth is a globe, but the Internet has mostly a star topology.
does anyone think that dooing a 4 page storIE about the "recompiling" of stevIE billmirror, is a 'little'
sure, steve's a long time eyecon of the IT hostage ransom scam rackets (see also: hired goons), but 4 hole pages to tale about that FraUD? commershillization? MiSleading coNTeNT?
we don't trust steve, or bill, or george for that matter, so you can only imagine how surprised/thrilled we are? at being listed as one of the "Top 10 Companies of 2002"(tm)
just goes to show you, although the gnus do not have the ability to force the nyt to write a nice 4 page story about them (yet), the good gnus is still getting out.
You can say that again. If our "mainstream" media weren't so contrived/subject to sponsor's ?pr? drivel, & felonious FraUD coverups, J. Public would feel a LOT more secure about his/her IT decisions. mod me DOWn robbIE.
... not with these problems, at least!
One of the main reasons for introducing CIDR was to keep down the size of the core routing table. Prior to CIDR, each new network was allocated IP address space that was unrelated to its ISP. This meant that, for your ISP to know how to reach my network, your ISP would have to have an entry in its routing table for my network, and so every ISP had to have an entry in their routing table for every customer of every ISP. Ouch!
With CIDR, my ISP has a chunk of address space (e.g. 192.168.0.0/16, obviously not a real example!), and I get allocated a part of that. Your ISP has a single route in its routing table that tells it how to get to my ISP, and then my ISP handles getting the packets to me. Your ISP doesn't need to care about how many customers my ISP has - a big win!
Introducing IPv6 doesn't affect this (other than making the routing tables much bigger with its longer addresses!) because the same problem will still exist.
Fortunately, it's also true that CIDR doesn't prevent routing around failures - it can restrict it in some circumstances, but it's not nearly as much to blame as the other, more commercial factors discussed in this thread.
(And though IPv6 may have fields in its headers for QoS facilities, the same problems as in IPv4 still have to be solved to get the guaranteed bandwidth, latency etc - upgrading everyone to v6 won't fix that either!)
Need to type accents and special characters in Windows? Use FrKeys
The "invisible hand" of market forces does not always outperform a regulated piece of social infrastructure. It's high time we started the dialogue between the lassais faire capitalist/libertarian crowd and the socialists.
You see, a free market cannot exist without the social infrastructure of a legal system and a police state to enforce it, and the critical consensus to support good social infrastructure cannot exist without the freedom to violate the social norms and critically compare actual alternatives. We live in a mixed economy, both social infrastructure and free-market aspects are necessary. Some things should be given: free (peer-to-peer) telecommunications for all! Otherwise you have a "closed" free market with limited internal market forces to regulate it.
We should socialize the Internet as a free (as in beer ALSO as in freedom) resource to STIMULATE the free market part of society by providing more pressures from everyone. You have to look at what is going on and ask yourself: "could it be better? Should it be more cooperative or competitive? Where is the balance? Why?"
--- Nothing clever here: move along now...
...and that is why private company are inappropriate to have control over infrastructure that is shared by the community. This is why we do not have private companies running the police or fire department for profit. The same for utilities...and the Internet backbone is a utility for the whole world. It needs to be under control of the U.N.
You mean if one of those critical backbones goes down we couldn't get all that porn and spam ?? Ye flippin Gods !!!! What are we gonna do ?
The countdown hasn't resulted in anything. I hope that this one will. ;)
Slashdot community, please notice: I am looking for a girlfriend.
Nave H. Weiss
The two I know of are OpenNIC and AlterNIC, but there are probably many more.
i'll supply the source. i think it's in an early rfc, but i'll find it again. it wasnt' *that* kind of a 14.4 no doubt, but it was 3, 14.4 modems.
GENERATION 26: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation.
It's there allready! It's called the Global Technology Policy Institute and is headed by Bruce Perens.
Employee of Inrupt, Project Release Manager and Community Manager for Solid
'evil old' governments just arent what they used to be, though
GENERATION 26: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation.
It's simply unbelievable how much energy and creativity people have
invested into creating contradictory, bogus and stupid licenses...
--- Sven Rudolph about licences in debian/non-free.
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