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Speak Freely To Be Withdrawn January 15

Posted by timothy on from the you-can-still-freely-speak dept.

wrenhunt writes "The Speak Freely site has this: 'On January 15th, 2004, Speak Freely will be discontinued and removed from this Web site. Existing users may continue to use the program as long as they wish, but no further releases will be forthcoming. For details and the reasons why Speak Freely is being discontinued, please see the full end of life announcement.'" The reasons are various and interesting; it's graceful of the author to provide an explanation of why a piece of software is going away. Update: 01/11 19:22 GMT by T : As reader pi_rules points out, this story is a duplicate -- my apologies.

49 of 249 comments (clear)

  1. Dupe. by pi_rules · · Score: 4, Informative

    http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/09/20/155625 3&mode=nested&tid=126&tid=185&tid= 95

    For God's sake, search for 'speakfreely' in your own engine. It returns ONE result! The same damned article!

  2. Cheap routers.. by Aliencow · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Why isn't it easier for people to open up ports on their cheap routers ? Tell someone to "Just forward your port 4893 to your computer" and they'll look at you like you're an alien, so why not include an application to do it that goes in their start menu (in addition to the web based interface) that would detect software trying to listen, and then asking if you want these to be open ? A bit like ZoneAlarm but controlling the router...

    1. Re:Cheap routers.. by JebusIsLord · · Score: 3, Informative

      that sounds a lot like Universal Plug and Play, which IS supported by Windows XP and many routers. For example, MSN messenger needs UPnP to open and close random ports within a NAT to send and recieve files... without UPnP this function does not work. There is also a free UPnP implementation for Linux NAT boxes out there as well.

      --
      Jeremy
    2. Re:Cheap routers.. by kfg · · Score: 4, Funny

      Yeah, UPnP is pretty nifty. Just think about it. All you have to do is install a piece of software and it can give itself whatever firewall permissions it thinks it needs to do whatever deed it thinks it needs to do, and all without involving the user.

      And imagine never having to flash firmware again. The device simply keeps track of available upgrades and flashes itself.

      Why, Belkin could give us a new popup coded directly into firmware every week. That way you never have to get tired of looking at the same one over and over again.

      Sign me up.

      KFG

    3. Re:Cheap routers.. by uradu · · Score: 4, Interesting

      > He's referring to ISPs NATing off their customers, not customers being restricted by their own routers

      His rant gives no indication either way, I don't know how you draw that conclusion. Your own experience (and mine, and most others') tells you that you've never heard of ISP-level NAT, so why would he mean that? He's just bitter about NAT for whatever reasons and venting by the most dramatic means he has: EOL-ing a fairly popular piece of software. Well, I know why he hates NAT, but that's hardly NAT's fault, that's similar to getting angry at the color Yellow for being so bright. Instead of pouting, he could think about or work on some generic method to overcome NAT's inherent weaknesses.

      In fact, since--as he himself puts it--NAT will be with us for a long time, even after switching to IPv6, it might be very worthwhile for him to think about methods of addressing private computers below the transport level, but above the application level. A universal method of sub-addressing machines would be very useful, since not all machines will ever be on the public internet, whether for security or address limitation reasons. Port mapping works well enough for some things but has inherent limitations (16 bit, many apps assume fixed ranges etc.), and ports were really meant to identify applications on a single machine, not machines on a network. It's really a hack, and you don't build future technologies on hacks.

    4. Re:Cheap routers.. by kfg · · Score: 2, Funny

      Ok, I tried that. Got a nifty little samadhi out of it after awhile. Not necessarily the mantra I'd recommend, but it functions.

      Here, now you try one.

      UPnP, not RPnP. UPnP, not RPnP.

      Give it about 10 minutes before it configures the port to the Tao. Unless, of course, your firewall is configured to block the Tao's ip (as I suspect is the case), then it might take rather longer.

      KFG

    5. Re:Cheap routers.. by TheSpoom · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Then it's time for a paradigm shift, since I've obviously been misunderstanding.

      Admittedly, NAT can stop inbound connections from reaching a computer that otherwise would receive all connections had it not been behind a NAT router. But my computer is no longer a peer on the internet; my NETWORK is now a peer on the internet, with ports opened and forwarded to multiple machines as I see fit. In one way of thinking, it allows me to use the computers in my home more as I would had I been running a corporate perimeter network, with different machines running web servers, FTP servers, and the like.

      Admittedly, Joe Sixpack has no idea why his computer won't allow inbound connections anymore after he's put a router on his network, but here's the thing: Joe Sixpack has no idea what an inbound connection is, nor, likely, does he even know SpeakFreely even exists. If Joe Sixpack doesn't want the feds snooping on his conversations, he'll find a way to forward his ports, like all decent home-level routers allow. If John Walker wanted to combat this NAT-related inability to use his software, why didn't he just post some documentation or links showing how users can forward the correct ports? The moment Joe Sixpack wants to use SpeakFreely, he could go to the site and see "hey, I have a Linksys router, and this link that says 'IF YOU HAVE A ROUTER CLICK HERE' shows me how to get around it!"

      IMHO this whole end of life thing seems a bit much if it's based entirely around home-level routers, as this issue is largely avoidable.

      --
      It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
      - E. Debs
    6. Re:Cheap routers.. by uradu · · Score: 2, Informative

      > the purpose of nat [...] is to make computers unaddressable.

      No, the purpose of NAT is to allow multiple computers to share one single public IP address. The firewalling is just a convenient side effect. You can still deny incoming packets even if they're addressed to a very specific machine, so just because internal machines are addressable doesn't mean you can't still have effective firewalling. It will just rely on other mechanisms.

  3. You lost me by radoni · · Score: 3, Funny

    ...at "Start Menu"

    --
    SIGERR: laziness exceeds quota
  4. And we will call it... by DAldredge · · Score: 4, Informative

    And we will call it, i don't know, Universal Plug and Play?

    HINT. Do a Google search on Universal Plug and Play. It does what you are asking. I do not use it, but the latest beta firmware for my WAP supports it.

  5. Too bad -- design was obsolete by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Any protocol that isn't designed to accomdate NAT is incompatible with the modern Internet and is obsolete by design.

    Yes, in the stone ages, the Internet was "end-to-end". It's not anymore. Sorry for your loss.

    1. Re:Too bad -- design was obsolete by Albanach · · Score: 4, Informative
      Then almost all voip and h323 software is "obsolete". Alternatively, perhaps you jsut don't know much about the protocols and why they're difficult to route over NAT. Don't you think is you could easily design coip to run through NAT everyone would be doing it? Even skype needs a non NAT box to work - if neither client can be used it'll use someone else in the middle.

      As has been pointed out, what we really need are easier solutions such as port forwarding - you could turn the port into an extention number. So your voip could be slashdot.org:5 and then a bit like VNC have traffic routed to slashdot.org port xxxx + 5. For that to work we'd need cooperation from router manufacturers.

      The other alternative is IPv6. VoIP might just be the driving force needed to see IPv6 deployed in the real world.

    2. Re:Too bad -- design was obsolete by pla · · Score: 2, Interesting

      The other alternative is IPv6. VoIP might just be the driving force needed to see IPv6 deployed in the real world.

      I don't see that as a solution, for one basic reason... Why do most of us NAT/MASQ our connections in the first place?

      Yeah, some do it for the sake of firewalling, but most of us do it because our ISPs will only give us a single address, and at best will let us pay more for an extra two or three addresses.

      Using IPv6 won't change that. It would technically mean we have an abundance of addresses, but our ISPs would still pull the same BS, expecting us to pay more for the same level of service.

      And even then, most broadband ISPs have rules against running "servers", a concept so vague that an out-of-the-box Windows box technically violates it (although ironically enough, while they piss and moan over having an open telnet port, they'll overlook a wide open SMB share). So what use would we have for an abundance of IP addresses? If my ISP limits me to acting as a pure client, I can do that just as well behind a masquerading gateway as I can with each machine directly on the net.


      As has been pointed out, what we really need are easier solutions such as port forwarding

      I kinda missed his point with that one... Port forwarding works pretty well, assuming your ISP doesn't spank you for having an open port. I tell my masq box to send port X to an internal machine, and it works. No hassle beyond a single firewall rule. So why doesn't port forwarding provide a sufficient means of getting around the NAT-to-NAT connection problem?

    3. Re:Too bad -- design was obsolete by Bookwyrm · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Bluntly speaking, yes, all VoIP and H323 software is obsolete for these reasons.

      People are confusing "end to end" applications with "end to end" mechanisms.

      When the telegraph was the latest technology, the 'application' and the 'mechanism' were practically identical -- pulses of electricity sent over a wire. Same with the initial voice and phone system. Over time, though, people started separating the 'application' (voice/information transmission) from the 'mechanism' (eletrical patterns on the wire.) Separating the two layers, now we have the ability to place phone calls that are digitized, sent over wires, over fiber, over radio waves, and coverted back to voice. The application (voice) is still end to end, but the mechanism isn't.

      Many protocols today are obsolete because people have and still confuse the 'application' (voice, web access, email) with the 'mechanism' (associated protocols bound to IPv4). We want the application to run end-to-end, because that is what make the application useful -- but folks have confused this with requiring the mechanism to be identical from end to end -- IPv4 without NAT, all the way! That is like saying we should only over end to end copper, with no fiber in between.

      End-to-end IPv4 (no NAT) used to be the application -- like in the days of the telegraph, the mechanism and the application were synonymous. That is an obsolete model, though. Our needs and demands have gotten more varied and complex from the point of view of the applications -- the mechanism (IPv4) needs to be separated out from the applications.

      Imagine if you could not translate digital information from electronic pulses to optical ones. In order to replace a copper network with a fiber one, you'd have to replace the entire thing at once -- regardless of whether or not that made sense. Fortunately, because we can translate and manipulate the mechanisms, we can use a mix of technologies and capacities and do gradual upgrades and best-fit uses of technology without breaking anything. If people wrote their network protocols and applications *properly*, in a non-obsolete fashion, then the transition to IPv6 would be fairly painless and quick. However, the insistance on end-to-end mechanisms is locking us into IPv4 and makes the upgrade to IPv6 very painful.

      Geeze. Isn't it obvious that *mandatory* end-to-end anything is a disaster waiting to happen? If end-to-end lock-in is a good model, why the complaints when companies like Microsoft or such try to make people use nothing but Microsoft products 'end-to-end'? Whenever that happens, people start shouting about open interfaces and needing interoperability between different vendors and products. Yet when it comes down to IPv4, people fall down on their knees and worship the way things have been (badly) designed to *require* end-to-end IPv4. (That is, end-to-end conformity is not a bad thing in and of itself, but the requiring of it is a lock-in that inhibits change and growth, as well as competition.) Modularity, anyone? What next, going to propose that electricty only be made and transmitted as 120V AC end to end, and you can't transform it into DC current or anything else because it breaks the end to end model?

      Think a bit more, folks. End-to-end uniformity, conformity, blandness is all well and good, but much of the advancement in technology and industry comes from having standardized *interfaces* and *translations* that allow us to interconnect different mechanisms together to make more interesting things. (No IPv4 is not a standardized *interface* when it is coupled with the requirement to be end-to-end. A good interface should hide the implementation details both sides. The end-to-end requirement violates the hiding principle.)

    4. Re:Too bad -- design was obsolete by uradu · · Score: 3, Interesting

      > As has been pointed out, what we really need are easier solutions such as port forwarding

      What we really need is a generic method of sub-addressing machines. The public/private network paradigm is here to stay for various reasons, so we should shape our protocols to cope with that. We need another protocol between IP and TCP/UDP: IP addresses a point-of-presence on the internet, TCP/UDP a POP on a machine (i.e. an app), we need something that addresses a POP on an internal network. In fact, it could be a nestable protocol that replaces IP and allows for unlimited levels of private subdivision. That way a large company could have multiple internal NAT setups and you could still address a specific machine several levels down the hierarchy. I guess one could modify IP to be nestable, and IP stacks inside routers to be aware of it. Then you would address a private machine as a.b.c.d/e.f.g.h where a.b.c.d is the public IP address, and e.f.g.h the private one. The public NAT router would examine the next nested IP header (in this case e.f.g.h) and pass the packet to the correct internal machine (which could be another NAT box, ad infinitum).

      The downside of course is that we're then back to the old UUCP days where you had to explicitly specify the route to the destination machine, making the network more fragile. Still, given that for the vast majority of setups it would be just a two-tiered setup (public internet and internal LAN), it should be workable.

    5. Re:Too bad -- design was obsolete by graf0z · · Score: 2, Informative
      Any protocol that isn't designed to accomdate NAT is incompatible with the modern Internet and is obsolete by design

      Wrong. You mix up different problems. There are 'evil' protocols like ftp or ipsec or sun/rpc or ... which are not compatible with single NAT (client NATed, server not). ie. they negotiate a random second port for a data channel like ftp does. These protocols are 'bad by design'. Some of them can be NATed if the nat box tracks the negotiation ("ftp helper module").

      But mr. Walker is speaking about the double NAT problem: if client (the peer that initiates a connection) and the server (the peer that receives that initial packet) are located behind NAT boxes you are lost. NO protocol is compatible to that situation.

      Many propose "oh just configure portforwarding on your NAT box", but that does not scale. Imagine a bunch of workstations configured via dhcp behind NAT (typical setup in mid-range companies). How do you set up that? What are you doing as netadmin if everyday another P2P protocol pops up?

      Mr. Walker's rant is sad but true. The only solutions i see are

      • wait for ipv6 and hope it's potential will be used (instead of re-apply NAT to it)
      • (will never happen) create a generic protocol for NAT-box communication for anvertising internal services. Each p2p-protocol could use it. NAT box vendors had to implement it.
      • (the way IM services work) install huge proxies which route all p2p-traffic
      • (the way filesharing networks work) classify peers: 'good' peers are not NATed and act as proxies for the others. As gratification they get more bandwidth within the fs-network
      • forget p2p

      I am sure that we all would use VoIP now if there were no NAT.

      /graf0z.

    6. Re:Too bad -- design was obsolete by mysticalreaper · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Wow. I *completely* disagree with what you've just stated here. Allow me to explain why.

      First off, the internet was BUILT as an end-to-end network. You cannot just sweep this fact aside by saying it's "outdated". This principle is what MADE the internet successful. Without end-to-end, the internet would have gone nowhere. Really.

      We want the application to run end-to-end, because that is what make the application useful -- but folks have confused this with requiring the mechanism to be identical from end to end

      But now, in the new system, it requires that the network be AWARE of the application, and configured EXPLICITLY to allow this certain type of data to be transferred. Now you have to ask permission from the people who control the network to run your application. Now you have to make configuration changes in the network itself before you can run any new application. Gone is the open development environment of the internet. Gone are new applications that pop up that anyone can use immediately. (This is how the web started. Your NAT support would have made the web so difficult that it wouldn't have gone anywhere. Imagine the millions who would have had to configure their NAT to work with a new system of doubious worth.)

      You say that the network should be SEPERATE from the application, and then go on to promote the application being DEPENDANT on the specific configuration of the network.

      "like in the days of the telegraph, the mechanism and the application were synonymous. That is an obsolete model, though. Our needs and demands have gotten more varied and complex from the point of view of the applications -- the mechanism (IPv4) needs to be separated out from the applications."

      AND IT IS! That's the POINT, Bookwyrm. Currently, in the 'obsolete' model, the network is TRANSPARENT to the application. No specific configuration of the network is requried. The network is seperate from the application. However, NAT makes the application depend on the network, and thus makes the network and the application once again joined, like the telegraph, phone and cable TV networks of the past. That's a step BACKWARDS.

      Even now, because of NAT, we can observe the harmful effects of new development. VoIP doesn't work properly. File sharing applications are suffering massively because people can't share, even when they want to. Running a server of any kind, (a game server for you and your budies to play on) requires additional configuration, making it harder. People in certain situations, like in university, for example, have no ability to influence the functionality of the NAT, and are stuck being internet consumers. And don't forget that it's even MORE arduous to have multiple computers doing the same thing, like being a webserver, behind the NAT. Now you have to specify to the CLIENTS to use different ports for different servers behind the NAT. It begins to get so ugly that people give up.

      Your goals are noble, Bookwyrm, but your thoughts on the matter are misguided. This site might help shed some additional light on the situtation.

      And finally, the people who invented the internet for real though that end-to-end addressing was the best idea, and from their efforts, we have the most advanced communcation system humans have ever seen. To say that they are utterly wrong requires some guts, and also a LOT of backing up. In other words, the proof is in the pudding. Where is YOUR all NAT internet?

    7. Re:Too bad -- design was obsolete by Bookwyrm · · Score: 2, Interesting

      First off, the internet was BUILT as an end-to-end network. You cannot just sweep this fact aside by saying it's "outdated". This principle is what MADE the internet successful. Without end-to-end, the internet would have gone nowhere. Really.

      Rebuttal: First off, the initial gun powder weapons were BUILT as muzzle loading, single shot weapons. I can certainly sweep this fact aside as "outdated". This does not say that the black powder weapons were NOT successful in their time, but now, they would not go anywhere. Really.

      But now, in the new system, it requires that the network be AWARE of the application, and configured EXPLICITLY to allow this certain type of data to be transferred.

      Well, duh. What else do you call a firewall?

      Now you have to ask permission from the people who control the network to run your application.

      Well, duh. Ever looked at your Terms of Service agreement? Look closely at the your own statement! "Ask permission from people who CONTROL the network" -- they control it, it isn't YOUR network.

      So far, you seem to be building a spammers haven -- no filtering, and no one who can tell a spammer not to run their spamming applications.

      Now you have to make configuration changes in the network itself before you can run any new application. Gone is the open development environment of the internet. Gone are new applications that pop up that anyone can use immediately. (This is how the web started. Your NAT support would have made the web so difficult that it wouldn't have gone anywhere. Imagine the millions who would have had to configure their NAT to work with a new system of doubious worth.)

      Great. Tell me how to access an IPv6 server from an IPv4 application. Wow! Looks like we need NAT before we can have all these new applications.

      AND IT IS! That's the POINT, Bookwyrm. Currently, in the 'obsolete' model, the network is TRANSPARENT to the application. No specific configuration of the network is requried. The network is seperate from the application.

      Bull. The application is aware of IPv4 addresses, therefore it is not separate from the network layer.

      However, NAT makes the application depend on the network, and thus makes the network and the application once again joined, like the telegraph, phone and cable TV networks of the past. That's a step BACKWARDS.

      NAT does NOT make the application dependent on the network. The application was ALREADY dependent on the network. If it wasn't dependent on the network, changing the network would not break the application.

      Silly.

      IP addresses have no place in the application layer. You can't say that the network is transparent to the application, because if the network was transparent to the application, the application would not break because of NAT! NAT breaks the applications because the applications are dependent on the configuration of the network.

      If the applications were not dependent on the network configuration, then I should be able to run the same application across a Bluetooth conneciton, ethernet, GSM, and ATM, without changing one aspect of the application. Instead, all these applications *NEED* IPv4, they are *DEPENDENT* on IPv4 being configured without NAT. They require knowledge of IPv4 address space -- they break with IPv6 addresses.

      This is NOT transparency. This is dependency, addiction.

      End-to-end addressing the best idea? Great! Let's use MAC addresses instead of IP addresses! Heaven forbid we translate or map IP addresses to MAC address on ethernet! Goodness, those folks who developed ethernet much have been a bunch of idiots then, right, to require another level of translation and mapping? Even if it does allow for people to use IPv4 and IPv6 over top the same med

    8. Re:Too bad -- design was obsolete by dubl-u · · Score: 2, Informative

      If you're doing your job right, you're probably doing your best to make sure it is blocked at the firewall. It's a workplace, not the users personal playground. Not every application should be allowed to run inside your network. It's the companies' network, not the user's.

      That depends on what kind of company you're at. If workers are treated as machiery, that's probably true. For example, running a big call center, you might be able to argue that things should be locked down.

      But there are other kinds of companies out there. Any software development shop, for example, that locks things down excessively will lose good developers at an astonishing rate. In fact, pretty much any company where you have people needing to do creative work, there's benefit to locking things down as little as possible.

      If there's a legitmate reason to allow an application access to the network, then you can configure the network to allow it. Otherwise, the network's firewall should be blocking it by default. That's what a good netadmin does. Duh.

      If a network is of the size and resources to afford a good netadmin who isn't overworked, then that makes sense. I'd guess that covers, say, 5% of the computers out there. For the bulk of the population, we need better solutions.

  6. Last chance to see by Scrameustache · · Score: 4, Funny

    For God's sake, search for 'speakfreely' in your own engine. It returns ONE result! The same damned article!

    You're not thinking like a /. editor, to them this is their last chance to slashdot that server to oblivion!

    --

    You can't take the sky from me...

    1. Re:Last chance to see by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Why do you call them "Editors"

      They do not edit... Fuck, most of 'em can't even spell.

      They accept postings and link them to the front page. Remember, they provide no original content here, just relinking...

      it's a "Dynamic Bookmark" website for most of us.

  7. Re:Open-source it? by TheSpoom · · Score: 3, Informative

    It is open source :^)

    --
    It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
    - E. Debs
  8. Re:Open-source it? by TheSpoom · · Score: 3, Informative

    And yeah, I use Windows for the most part, the Unix version is here.

    --
    It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
    - E. Debs
  9. Speak Freely does hard encryption by MichaelCrawford · · Score: 5, Insightful
    I can understand why development is stopping, but it's important to understand that Speak Freely is still a valuable resource to the community.

    Why? Because speak freely does voice over IP with hard encryption. I don't know of any other VoIP product that does that.

    So if you care about your privacy, and have the time and skill, get the source code while you still can, and make a new generation VoIP product that addresses the problems in Speak Freely while continuing to provide hard encryption.

    If you wonder why you should bother, read Why You Should Use Encryption.

    Thank you for your attention.

    --
    Request your free CD of my piano music.
    1. Re:Speak Freely does hard encryption by gnu-generation-one · · Score: 3, Informative

      "Because speak freely does voice over IP with hard encryption. I don't know of any other VoIP product that does that".

      You do now!

  10. One method... by topham · · Score: 4, Insightful


    One method which works on some NAT routers is pretty simple:

    Output a packet via UDP to a particular IP address and port number. The NAT setups I've used will log that, and subsequently allow incoming UDP packets from that IP address and port number. If both machines negotiate via a third party and then trade such packets blind they can then start communicating. Note: some of the UDP packets will be lost at the start of the process... doesn't matter, not a problem.

    1. Re:One method... by danknight · · Score: 2, Informative

      Yea.. But he is not talking about your NAT box, he is talking about the trend of ISP's using NAT and giving users non Routable IP addresses. Sort of like AOL. I Suppose you could just call your ISP Customer service and ask them nicely to open up Port XXXX on thier NAT for your 192.168.X.X IP that they assigned you :)

      --
      wanted: one clever sig,apply within
  11. This could happen to any OSS software. by perotbot · · Score: 4, Insightful

    If Linus said "I've got my family to raise, and a life to lead without being called Messiah by everyone jumping on the bandwagon,and this isn't fun anymore. you know what? I'm done. " We (/. and others) would be doing two things, one mourning the lost of our "leader" and secondly, trying to find a way to keep development going without said leader. SpeekFreely is the work of one person, if someone else thinks they can fix the problems identified (NAT issues. major code rewrite), then by all means grab the CVS code and fork another project away from the original, that's the point of OSS, you can STOP and if someone thinks it's worthwhile, they'll continue it.

    --
    ~corporate tool, but employed~
  12. sorry I missed it by timothy · · Score: 4, Informative

    unfortunately for me, the program's author spells it as "Speak Freely" rather than "speakfreely," and as a result the search engine doesn't actually find that article when searching on the name.

    timothy

    --
    jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
    1. Re:sorry I missed it by Overly+Critical+Guy · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Hey, this is off-topic, but I just wanted to say it's great that you replied, admitted the mistake and apologized. Seems like a little thing, but most of the time it feels like the editors don't listen to us, and direct interaction with us even in a little post like this is nice.

      --
      "Sufferin' succotash."
  13. Posting this now is VERY appropriate by Ungrounded+Lightning · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Dupe. ... For God's sake, search for 'speakfreely' in your own engine. It returns ONE result! The same damned article!

    That posting was last September.

    John is taking the archive down next Thursday. (Possibly Wed night - he's in Switzerland.)

    A reminder post now, when we still have a few days to grab the archive, is VERY appropriate.

    (Thanks, Timothy!)

    --
    Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
  14. Do not despair, gentle readers by aardvarko · · Score: 5, Funny

    Your right to speak FREELY has been revoked. Your right to speak in DUPLICATE, however, is still flourishing wildly!

    1. Re:Do not despair, gentle readers by Limburgher · · Score: 5, Funny

      Your right to speak FREELY has been revoked. Your right to speak in DUPLICATE, however, is still flourishing wildly!

      --

      You are not the customer.

  15. IPV6 and NAT by LinuxInDallas · · Score: 2, Interesting

    He mentions that with IPv6, NAT will not be required because the address pace will be so much bigger. Does anyone know if the costs in obtaining your own static IP would then drop dramatically? I mean, will it be financially feasible for most of us to get a static IP when IPv6 is in full use? Most of us would need at least several.

    1. Re:IPV6 and NAT by YellowSubRoutine · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I currently have a /64 of ipv6 space, totally free. I probably could give every bit of ram in my home a private ipv6 address. (that's an obligatory remark)

      Of course it's trough some tunnel broker (thanks sixxs!), but it works.

      I think if ipv6 penetrates the enduser-market in native mode (won't happen 'till cisco and MS say so), most isp's will give in.

      After all, they're currently denying you a static ip (if they are) because they're short of them themselves, and a pool of dynamic ip's can serve more users (since not everyone is online at the same time)...

  16. 1996 will be a very exciting year for the WWW. by Doc+Ruby · · Score: 3, Interesting

    How about a Slashdot search engine that accepts boolean operators and phrases? Or searching on a phrase plus other fields in the comment/story's DB record, like author, date, topic/section? A better search engine would use less server resources when searching, and members could search their own post history to link a new comment to an old, but still relevant, point. Slashdot's server seems to use something like the ancient "swish" freeware. This post is practically a quote of a similar email I sent to a customer back in 1995! These features are coded by Slashdot users every day. Who will help me add it to the Slashcode? Who at Slashdot is interested in rolling it out at Slashdot? I'd rather code than complain.

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  17. That's too bad by Do+not+eat · · Score: 4, Insightful

    SF is a great program. It's not graphical bloatware, it supports many compressions, it's somewhat modular ... I've spent countless hours getting a stable 2-way voice comm over a 33.6 dialup link, back in the days, and it actually worked at some point (the rest of the time it didn't, which prompted me to change from AOL to an Internet provider. Thanks SpeakFreely!)

    When I discovered I could have a voice converstaions with anybody in the world, I was so excited I picked up my phone to tell my friend!

  18. Re:XP would have saved it by __past__ · · Score: 2, Funny

    This is slashdot. Pairing with yourself is not something unusual for most people here.

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    Programming can be fun again. Film at 11.
  19. Wake Up, folks!! by luck-is-for-rabbits · · Score: 5, Insightful
    John Walker, the creator and for years the principle maintainer of Speak Freely, posted the EOL message months ago, and since then the Speak Freely community has been organizing ways to continue the project and extend the lifetime of the software.

    As a long-time user (since 1997) of Speak Freely, I can attest to the care, overall quality and highly useful nature of this package. It has not merely saved large amounts of money, but changed the very nature of the way I conduct communications with friends and collaborators around the world. I am sure it has done so for a great many others as well. New mailing lists have been established to replace the old, and at least one online forum has been offered as another place to carry on discussion about Speak Freely.

    Overall, news of the demise of this package is greatly exxagerated. While the founder is leaving, it has already found new homes, with three projects on sourceforge, and developers working on other efforts as well.

    This is a natural development in many OSS projects, the orginator sees less utility in the project than others do, and they are free to pick it up. Rather than mourn the loss of this excellent software or wring my hands over the end of OSS, I believe this is in general a healthy develpment, and I'm looking forward to more years of using this package.

  20. DNS vs. NAT-castaways by Doc+Ruby · · Score: 2, Insightful

    John Walker' jeremiad for the Internet claims that pure peer-to-peer archtecture (not client/server) of the Internet is being pushed to extinction by NATs. Behind NAT routers, hosts have private "IP" addresses, which are not routed (or visible) to the Internet. That makes John say, in effect, that it's not the "Internet", which is true by definition: a network of networks, with all hosts visible.

    But that's just a definition - finite, by definition (forgive my recursive pun ;). I remember "bang paths" for mail routing on (D)Arpanet (forgive the cryptic pun ;). The Net is now more defined by names than by numbers, which shows the humanization of the tech into a medium for people, rather than a device for machines. The DNS space is unified. Perhaps IPv6 might have forestalled the rise of NATs, with its larger/flexible address space and security. But NAT gives me the freedom to treat my entire network as one multiprocessing host. And its nobody's business, from my broadband ISP, to the person calling me, to the FCC, what I'm running in my closet. NAT+DNS preserves the open Internet, while giving me control of my appearance on it. SpeakFreely's code, by John's own admission, is not translating well through time and revisions. It's not adaptable enough to evolve. But the Internet is. And hopefully the features of SpeakFreely will move through the Net at least as memes, if not as code, in terms people can perpetuate.

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  21. Skype shows the way. by Futurepower(R) · · Score: 2, Insightful


    Skype Shows the way to upgrade Speak Freely. I've been using Skype behind a hardware firewall and NAT that is locked down tight. When Skype found that its preferred port was not open, it simply used Port 80.

    The sound quality is better than telephone. I talked to a friend in France for 2 hours yesterday.

    But... It would be much better if there were an open source alternative, that could connect directly to the other person's IP, like dialpad.com did. This is a huge need, and I hope someone will accept the challenge. Otherwise the U.S. government's surveillance departments may one day control all communication: Feds Want to Tap VoIP.

  22. Re:Al Gore. by willtsmith · · Score: 2, Insightful

    It's a joke that perpetuates a stereotype that was meticulously crafted by rightwing think-tanks then peddled on the corporate controlled media.

    So everytime I hear the lie, I point out that it isn't true. You watch what they do to Howard Dean. They've already started the effort painting him in a Dan Quayle style. The big difference is that Dan Quayle really is a moronic ideologue.

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    -------- -------- Support Wesley Clark for president!!!
  23. Massively overestimating bandwidth requirements by harlows_monkeys · · Score: 2, Interesting
    Hmmm...the author of the page cited in the story seems to allow two NAT users to communicate would require that the entire communication take place through a server, and that would use more bandwidth than he's got.

    However, that's not correct. A server is only needed to tell each user the other's IP address. Once each side knows the other's IP address, there is a simply workaround for NAT.

    Each sends a sacrificial UDP packet to the other. This serves to open up the sender's NAT to receiving UDP packets from the other side.

    At that point, they can do peer to peer UDP.

    Note that the server is only involved at the start, to tell each side the other's IP address.

    1. Re:Massively overestimating bandwidth requirements by Wesley+Felter · · Score: 2, Interesting

      That only works for cone NATs, not restricted NATs. Also, putting N different kinds of NAT traversal code in every application is a lot to ask of developers.

  24. I see. by Effugas · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Isn't there some clever way to work around these limitations?

    There will be.

  25. Speak Freely SHOULD be discontinued by Wesley+Felter · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Speak Freely was great when it first came out, but now we have a standard protocol for VoIP (SIP), and SF doesn't support it. Rather than keep SF alive, why not work on adding crypto to SIP clients?

  26. Re:NATing Off Customers by StenD · · Score: 2, Informative
    AOL-TimeWarner is the parent company of CNN. They are a mega-media company. They are controlled by millionaires. They want agressive expansion and the ability to buy up more media outlets.
    And they primarily support Democrats. According to opensecrets.org, two thirds of Time Warner contributions in the 2000 election cycle went to Democrats. And that wasn't an abberation - looking at the combined AOL Time Warner donor profile (the merger was in 2001), the lowest percentage of contributions going to Democrats was 53% in 1996, and the total since 1990 went 66% to Democrats.
    So yes, they are part of the right-wing media because they kiss Bush's ass. How could a "left-wing" company spend so much time wailing on Clinton???
    Because it didn't. CNN didn't get the nickname "Clinton News Network" because it was amongst the first to report Clinton scandals, but because it was amongst the last. It was to the Clinton administration what Fox News is to the Bush administration.
  27. Speex + NAT support recently added by ooloogi · · Score: 3, Informative

    John Walker is playing it on the safe side, and just warning users that he can no longer guarantee support as he will not be providing it himself. It is fairly mature software though, and doesn't need much updating with time, so that's why there hasn't been much development over the past few years.

    Since John has withdrawn from development though, developers have been working on the NAT issue, and have a solution for many circumstances. Also the Speex codec has been added, so the quality/bitrate is now back in the league of the alternatives. So basically, it doesn't need much to keep it up to date.

    http://www.fourmilab.ch/wb/speak-freely.pl?read=50 1

    http://www.fourmilab.ch/wb/speak-freely.pl?read=50 9

  28. Working alternatives? by ooloogi · · Score: 2, Insightful

    The thing is that Speakfreely does Linux--Windows with crypto, an efficient codec (speex), and some NAT traversal right now. I don't know of an working alternative. Do you know any other combination that will even do linuix-windows over a 33k connection now? I can only think of the huuuge open-h323, and my experience is that it doesn't perfom anywhere near as well with less-than-ideal connections.