Slashdot Mirror
Auerbach on Internet Cruft
Captain Beefheart writes "Karl Auerbach has a story on CircleID in which he declares '...Between spam, anti-spam blacklists, rogue packets, never-forgetting search engines, viruses, old machines, bad regulatory bodies, and bad implementations, I fear that the open Internet is going to die sooner than I would have expected.' The Balkanization of the 'Net appears to be upon us."
Right after Usenet, *BSD, Stephen King, etc.
I can't say that I don't give a fuck. I've just run out of fuck to give.
In case the site is slow, here is a mirror.
Martin Studio Slashdot Policy.
You're half right...
Trouble making decisions? Just flip for it.
His main argument seems to be that there's a lot of crap on the Internet, and because of this it will eventually become useless. But where's the supporting argument?
Junk mail hasn't brought the postal service to its knees. Telemarketers are a pain, but people still use phones and even find new ways to travel with them. Every communication medium lends itself to abuse, but that has never eliminated the medium itself. Only a superior, easier, more widespread technology has ever done that (telegraphs giving way to telephones, for instance).
It's just another guy claiming the end of the 'Net is nigh, people. Move along.
Slashdotted.. here's the text..
There are indications that the Internet, at least the Internet as we know it today, is dying.
I am always amazed, and appalled, when I fire up a packet monitor and watch the continuous flow of useless junk that arrives at my demarcation routers' interfaces.
That background traffic has increased to the point where it makes noticeable lines on my MRTG graphs. And I have little reason for optimism that this increase will cease. Quite the contrary, I find more reason to be pessimistic and believe that this background noise will become a Niagara-like roar that drowns the usability of the Internet.
Between viruses and spammers and just plain old bad code, the net is now subject to a heavy, and increasing level of background packet radiation. And the net has very long memory - I still get DNS queries sent to IP addresses that haven't hosted a DNS server - or even an active computer - in nearly a decade. Search engines still come around sniffing for web sites that disappeared (along with the computer that hosted them, and the IP address on which that computer was found) long ago.
Sure, most of this stuff never makes it past the filters in my demarcation routers, much less past my inner firewalls. But it does burn a lot of resources. Not only do those useless packets burn bits on my access links, but they also waste bits, routing cycles, and buffers on every hop that those useless packets traverse.
It will not take long before the cumulative weight of this garbage traffic starts to poison the net. Already it is quite common for individual IP addresses to be contaminated from prior use. I am aware of people who are continuously bombarded by file access queries because a prior user of that address shared files from that address. Entire blocks of IP addresses are also contaminated, perhaps permanently, because they once hosted spammers thus causing those address blocks to be entombed into the memories of an unknown number of anti-spam filters not merely at the end user level but also deep in the routing infrastructure of the net. And a denial-of-service virus, once out on the net, can only be quieted, not eliminated; such viruses remain virulent and ready to spring back to life.
The net does not have infinite resources - even if IPv6 is deployed the contamination of IP address space will merely be slowed, not stopped.
Better security measures, particularly on the sources of traffic, will help, but again, unless something radical happens, the contamination will merely be slowed, not stopped.
I believe that something radical will happen: We may see the rapid end to the "end-to-end" principle on the Internet.
We are already observing the balkanization of the net for political and commercial reasons. Self-defense against the rising tide of the net's background packet radiation may be another compelling reason (or excuse) for net communities to isolate themselves and permit traffic to enter (and exit) only through a few well-protected portals.
This balkanization may be given additional impetus by a desire to escape from the ill effects of poorly designed regulatory systems, such as ICANN.
So, between spam, anti-spam blacklists, rogue packets, never-forgetting search engines, viruses, old machines, bad regulatory bodies, and bad implementations, I fear that the open Internet is going to die sooner than I would have expected. In its place I expect to see a more fragmented network - one in which only "approved" end-to-end communications will be permitted.
The loss of open end-to-end communications will, in itself, be a great loss.
But of even more concern will be the fact that these portals, or gates, will require gatekeepers, which is merely a polite word for censors. Our experience with ICANN has shown us how easily it is for focused and well-financed interests to capture a gatekeeper. In the present political climate in which government powers are conferred, without a counterbalancing obligation of accountability, onto private bodies, the loss will be much greater.
My sig can beat up your sig.
You either deal with the online idiots, or abandon the internet. The pros of the internet FAR outweigh the cons, IMO.
Frankly I dont see the spams and ddos attacks and blah blah that you all get so worked up over as much of a big deal. I get little spam, on the order of a couple dozen a year. Big ddos attacks on commercial sites have never really bothered me. Whoopty do.
There are jerks at the mall, but its still the best place in town to buy a new pair of pants.
"Elitist jackass thinks we need to abandon internet because he's offended by penis-enlarging spam". Big boo-hoo deal. You run off and start your own internet then. Those of us with balls (or a reasonable equivalent) will stick around here, thanks. Because it really isnt that bad.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
Things change. There is no static "open internet" that is going to 'end' abruptly one day. All social and technological systems are in a constant state of flux. Maybe the internet looks less open now than it was 'then' and maybe it looks to be trending away from the great utopia it never was, But the system is above all of this ultimately. Maybe for most people the techno-utopia will cease, but that is because that is what most people wanted.
All societies, including the 'internet society' are emergent phenomena. One thinks the 'network' is dying because they idealized it in another form, not in a 'better' form or a 'worse' form just their form. Simply put it is a case of the "good old days" syndrome, people constantly complain about society pointing out how great it once was, and they will continue to do so. If we let the internet die it is because collectively we didn't care to have it live. Sure there will always be complainers with valid points because it is very easy in hindsight to pick out what was better than you have now, while glossing over what was worse.
Sure I'd like to see Usenet and IRC be as good as I remember them, and I'd like everyone to pretned Flash was never invented and stop using it, but am I willing to give up on all the things (graphics, non-console interfaces, high-speed, mass access, etc) that both killed Usenet and brought about Flash? NO.
Is is perfect, seamless, elegant, etc? Maybe not. But it will remain "open."
Which, I think is precisely the problem. We don't get an uncensored Net, we only get to choose the censors. In the U.S., the Net isn't censored by the government simply because allowing people to visit "questionable" sites gives the government the ability to compile a list of terrorism suspects.
Really, the problem is much more insidious than that - how many people know that AOL filters their content? When it comes down to it, while we decry other countries for their draconian censorship, we ourselves have merely moved the censorship from the government (who are 'accountable' to the public at large) to American corporations (who are accountable to no one, as Enron has shown). I fear the latter more than the former, because unlike governmental oppression, corporate suppression of free speech is not covered by the constitution!
Really, the Net is no longer a geek's toy. It is now the Net of the masses, and we can expect that things will get worse. The average person has no use for Linux kernals or for distributing free software, so you can expect these to go first. Indeed, as the SCO case has shown, Corporate America can effectively outlaw the distribution of anything that infringes on their income model by doing little more than filing a lawsuit.
Yeah, it's changing. The Internet is only as free as its users, and slaves are signing up in droves.
My goodness, is he saying there's useless crap flying around the internet! My goodness what ever will we do !?
In all seriousness, the internet, like all things, will reach a balance. To give and exapmple, if everyone's email is to full of spam, people will stop using email, the spammers won't reach anyone, and it will no longer be profitable to send spam. People will utilize a new form of comunication, similar to email but more controled.
We, esspeicaly Americans, are so used to balances being forced on us, though government regulation, that we're not willing to wait for natural processes to work.
The internet is the internet and will always be the internet. That what people want. The protocols may change but the idea will stay the same.
(yes, I can't spell, get over it)
"Failure is not an option, it's part of the standard package"
I think you've missed some of the point. He's not referring to the web, or email, or any other particular part of the internet, but about junk traffic in general.
Regardless of the cause, junk traffic might at some point push administrators to restrict traffic more than they currently do. Sort of a white list for all traffic, not just of one type.
Now, that said, this certainly could be more "chicken little" than anything else, but I think his point is valid that more crap traffic could lead to splitting off parts of the internet.
This would be something like having your border router drop all traffic from chinese or russian networks, on the theory that more crap comes from there.
The physical internet is not dying, of course. That's just silly. But some internet services--especially email and the web--have been abused to the point where the benefits are cloudy.
Imagine a random person who buys a computer and gets connected to the internet. Within a few months she gets more spam and virus emails than regular mail. Some of them contain pornographic images, many appear to be from people she knows, because their PCs are infected. Some are just plain misleading, such as a message from someone who says he has the information she requested. One is a message that appears to be from eBay, asking to confirm her userid and password. Sometimes she emails friends, but they are incorrectly deleted because her friends get so much spam too. She clicks on the wrong link in a Google search and gets a site that opens 20+ full screen windows and has to kill the browser to get rid of them. Sites contain misleading popups and ads about security vulnerabilities and potential viruses and system updates. Instant messaging windows with ads pop up every fifteen minutes or so. Clicking on the wrong button is a dialog--or misunderstanding what is being asked--results in some spyware being installed that pops up messages even when off-line.
You can fix all of these things. You can learn what to avoid. You can become horribly paranoid about everything. But most people don't want to be a system administrator that has to keep up with all of this nonsense.
My kneejerk reaction was, "yeah right." But after doing a teensy weensy bit of skimming at his site, he has a very good point. As major points of access are bought by large corporations, control becomes easier and easier. Perhaps in ways that savvy users can circumvent, but one would bet that for example, most Chinese internet users don't have any idea how to circumvent the great firewall.
Also, spam really does prevent email from getting through. I know that nearly anyone actually trying to email me at nutate at hotmail isn't going to get through to me unless I know them already... (and in which case they wouldn't be using that email address to contact me.)
The man's been looking at the internet since 1974, so he seen what's happened firsthand. But here's an analogy (of sorts) that just popped into my head. Last week I saw the documentary film Catching Out and the filmmaker did a Q&A about it afterward. One of the audience members asked her whether she thought that freight train hopping (the centerpiece to the film) was dying. She said that there are two schools of thought. One is from the old folks, who say "It's just too hard these days. Security's too tight, so I quit" But the young kids, she said, who'd grown up with this higher security think it's still a thriving enterprise.
Personally, I'm young enough to think the internet is going to be used and free for me for as long as I can concieve of. But for those who don't care to fight the restrictions (or don't notice them), they'll be, for lack of a better word, stuck (w/ msnbc as their homepage?...).