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NETI@Home to Examine Net's Strengths
UnresolvedExternal writes "Wired is reporting about Georgia Tech researchers who want thousands of computer users to install their program to help them monitor traffic patterns on the Internet. They plan to use the data to strengthen the Net and unblock bottlenecks."
1. pr0n
2. uninformed babbling by consipracy freaks
3. iditiotic blogs noobody cares about
Has anyone tried to compile this on Mac OS X? What were your results?
All the spammers want me to install their software to help them get around bottlenecks.
"Indicate the presence of a large DDoSing group known as 'Slashdot'. We will be looking further into this matter"
That CSS file that blocks ads
If it comes with a cool screensaver and can help find extraterrestrial intelligence, I'm in.
Gator.exe?
"Comedy's a dead art form. Now tragedy, that's funny."
Just from the story summary, this sounds like a distributed attack.
Gee, sounds like gator got into academics.
meh
Well taking spam is put at between 30-50% of email usage how about getting rid of that for a start? Of course easier said than done
Rus
Cheap UK and US VPS
Wouldn't spam be the first place to look at and lockdown? Or am i missing something?
http://efil.blogspot.com/
Folding@Home is my distributed computing effort of choice.
How is this more worthwhile than that?
and the financial resources to unblock those bottlenecks are raised with the money they make from selling those 'traffic patterns' to anyone who bids...
If you're going to run any of these kinds of distributed clients, then you should run Folding@Home instead. The fruits of this work might just help save yours or a loved one's life someday.
Maybe it can battle SETI@HOME, Kazaa, and Norton Antivirus for all of my CPU cycles, disk bandwidth and network bandwidth. It will not even leave me enough power to compose all my correspondence in notepad.
Don't just give those cycles away! Sell them!
Have you Meta Moderated t
Arggh Its every geeks worst scheduling nightmare! Do I want the aliens or the faster pr0n. Dang what a scheduling conflict.
Simpson also envisions using NETI data to produce a chart of the best and worse Internet service providers, in terms of performance and security. Look out AOL.
SETI is great and conjures images of space.
NETI delves the inner resources of your nose.
Researchers at Georgia Tech are concluding their two-year distributed analysis of network usage, concluding that most bottlenecks were, in fact, caused by NETI@Home traffic.
Internet traffic composition:
49.7% 0
49.7% 1
00.6% Other
In a joint venture with the pr0n industry Jenna creates a network dedicated to increasing the pr0n industry 10 fold.
Before reading the article I had visions of someone profiting from the data collected... Anyways, I'm glad to see I was horribly wrong. I think the idea has a bright future for making the Internet stronger.
;)
Immediately I don't see the data being creditable enough for upstream providers to use. However, in time, I see the project being an excellent model for Internet improvment!
I'd take part in this activity myself... I mean... There are always a *few* CPU cycles a day that aren't being used to stream pr0n
sounds like something as inocent as an installer for spyware. Just hope pop-ups don't start happening after I load it.
Ok Call me crazy, but somehow I see this information, crossing the boundry and making it off the reservation. One clever Hack, is probably all it would take. Better yet I see, the University as a Governmentally Funded Entity, somehow coerced by the Dept. of Homeland Security, into passing over the Data, or The program being Co-opted into some sort of Covert monitoring Utility, with a Cleverly conceled Opt-In, hidden in an Streamlined Update.
Want a good way to spot all those Heavy Bandwidth, Warzer's and P2P Traders? Also how long before the Data gets Mined for some purpose, as well. No matter how, well intentioned, and no matter what they say, about their privacy, settings, it can be Co-opted, if someone wants the information.
My cat's picked up a Hammer. HEY! Put down that Hammer. Put Down that Hamm...THUNK!
They want to figure out how to make the Internet faster and more reliable, but to do that they need to gather data from tens of thousands of personal computers around the world.
So, they want to make it faster by having people send out and receive more data.
Newsflash:
Having dial-up is a bottleneck.
Especially since I am writting little programs to automatically mirror pages slightly before they are slashdotted...
For those who want the link: @NETI
Unfortunately, it seems @NETI does not quite do real-time, but others, like netcraft do do realtime (although netcraft only measures one server.
Why doesn't someone just write a script to interpret netcraft results, using one of the many ip address locators?
and you could tell who hasnt patched their machines.
The strong do what they can, while the weak suffer what they must.
just looked at their THIS AIN'T SPYWARE, RILLY! page. Well, what else is it but that? Of course it is, just for their claim to be a benevolent purpose, it's "whitehat" spying to be totally fair about it. But, we don't know if any "blackhats" will get the information over to the university, or--well, if any foreign states might have an interest in it and some of the juicer info gets transferred to some other places that might have a different idea on what to do with the information. Could be, anyone who's seen the demographics at most unis would have to agree, and tech has a lot of students that might have loyalties other than what is publically presented here. Just a note, but it's valid.
The high security setting is the one I predicteth gets used the most by people who run it, for obvious reasons.
hmm, probable bottlenecks. Whenever the latest mega worm hits you'll see which routers choke easiest. Massive constant traffic from owned and zombiefied end users home machines, that should be fairly random and even. Pockets/areas where file sharing is still big. And places with a derth of fat pipes obviously.
Interesting project, but I will have to think on it some if I want to run it. Also, maybe I am not seeing it, but it doesn't seem to have any info on how much of your machine it uses, I see the operating system requirements,installation, etc, but not the resources required. Anyone see that? My apologies if I missed it.
One of the defining characteristics of the Net seems to have been its ability to defy planning and design.
Even simply "increasing capacity" without addressing specific bottlenecks is often a waste of time. Look at the heavy investment in fibre-optics, most of which lies unused as new technology squeezes more and more out of existing cables.
Call me a cynic, but such projects sound more like fun for research grants than useful for real life.
My humble opinion of the Net is that it is a largely a self-steering phenomena that feeds on change and technology cycles. Since you can't predict change, and you can't prevent the technology cycles that cause it, it's meaningless to hope to plan this.
Ceci n'est pas une signature
College of Computing, Georgia Tech
School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Georgia Tech
George Riley's Profile
NETI@Home's official home page
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
I read the Wired article, looking for more details on how NETI@Home actually worked, or at least how much overhead it would add to the average computer and/or nrtwork connection. Of course there was no technical information at all. It's starting to look like a lot of fluff.
you're not very familiar with Wired, are you?
An army of packet sniffers from around the world. Hmmmm. Hope these super powers stay in the hands of do-gooders...
I might know what I'm talkin' about, but then again, this is Slashdot...
if you're that concerned about spyware, READ THE *SOURCE* and see what it does!
it's not like you're being asked to install a random binary and run it 24/7....
Neti sounds all well and good but has anyone tried nest a SETI inspired look at corruption online cool visualiser stats and a world map to place yourself in the chinese whispers ring. will hardly solve problems but may entertain when all else is going wrong.
Actually, I would bet that the 0's and 1's are not evenly distributed, considering how much of packet contents are unencrypted text, and that the protocol headers are bound to have bias, as are the assigned IP addresses that are most heavily used, etc...
11*43+456^2
From Wikipedia:
Strictly defined, spyware is computer software that gathers information about a computer user without the user's knowledge or informed consent, and then transmits this information to an organisation that expects to be able to profit from it in some way.
Ok, this is not spyware - strictly defined and mentioned on the NETI@home webpage in every second sentence.
There are a lot more usefull distributed computing projects out there (folding@home for example), and why is everyone starting such a project? What will the data be used for? "To make the Internet a better place"? Yeah, right, I'm so convinced.
Before I participate in such a project, I would like to have much more information about what results are expected and what the consequences will be. This sounds more like they don't want to do the research by themselves. ISPs refuse to give away their data - they already analyze their networks and would have all the data needed. They surely don't give the data away for free as in beer - it would be better if they wouldn't do so at all.
This sounds like a really shirt-sleeved way to try to improve "The Internet". From a university I would expect a more sophisticated way, say, in improving protocols, arguing about and convincing the industry to switch to IPv6 and so on...
For those who wanted to know what the 'Other' might be
IEEE 1164 std_logic
'U' Uninitialized
'X' Unknown
'0' Logic 0 (driven)
'1' Logic 1 (driven)
'Z' High impedance
'W' Weak 1
'L' Logic 0 (read)
'H' Logic 1 (read)
'-' Don't-care
I Have an exam involving this stuff (VHDL) Tomorrow... so I thought some of you might want to know... (But i'm sure most of you just '-' )
I live in Soviet Canuckistan you insensitive clod!
On Tuesday April 27, @09:00AM, rf0 said:
> > > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > > Well taking spam is put at between 30-50% of email usage
> > > > > > > > > how about getting rid of that for a start? Of course easier
> > > > > > > > > said than done
Those whose signatures threaten negative moderation will be modded down.
If we only had the Security Flag first discussed here
You sly dog: you got me monologuing! - Syndrome
Reducing net bottlenecks would require eliminating the profit motives of the Tier-2 and Tier-3 ISP's. It is impossible to run a profitable ISP that does not over-subscribe lines AND charges what most people seem willing to pay for broadband ( Europe connections and the single large North America Australia connection. These aren't things some academics studying net usage reports are going to be able to solve, they are purely based on economics.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
00.6% Other
Only if there's robots out there having nightmares...
"1's and 0's everywhere... and I thought I saw a 2!" -- Bender, "The Honking" (Futurama season 3).
Where's YETI@HOME? How can we ever hope to find all the lost Yetis?
ahh... here it is:
www.yeti@home.com
Casual Games/Downloads
Except I'm using a Mac you insensitive clod!
I'm in the hole of the broadband donut.
Imagine if instead they were offering a little box that you plug into your wall and then into the internet. It will measure just about everything, from voltage fluctuation to how many watt hours you draw... and it'll report this back to someone who's trying to build an independant quality map of your nation's infrastructure. Is this any better/worse of an idea? Like they said, you can never have to much information.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Viruses, Spam Spreading At Unprecedented Speed! It's almost as if the've got their own right-of-ways now.
Has anyone signed up with Popular Power and if so, has anyone gotten paid by it? How do they pay you? That's not in the FAQ.
Speak truth to power.
Should I really care all that much if they're sniffing me? I mean, I assume everyone is sniffing me, which is why I encrypt most everything...
Gonzo Granzeau
"Nothing the god of biomechanics wouldn't let you into heaven for.." -Roy Batty
"With NETI, we're searching for network intelligence -- intelligence about the way the Internet works so we can make it work better,"
...
Sounds like the marketing students came up with that one, nice to see them catch the 'lets mislead the consumer' bug so early on in their career. Seems like a pretty good pr seminar too how they defend using a similar name for something totally different by making their subject sound similar to the famous one by use similar phrases.
It's pretty sick. I found foobar@home a nice name for helping researchers who can't afford computing power. But this is you being a research subject for statistical research and has nothing to do with giving a researcher a helping hand. Next I'll get called on my phone if I want to help with the project insuranceinfo@home
Then again it may be the marketing students who have asked them selves: how can we research those guys who block all our tools? I know how; we call the tool NETI@home science research, they will fall for that.
Why not do without the cloak and just call it the speed_optimize_the_internet_for_me research program.
I wouldn't have any trouble with it then. Oh, wait they are being trained to become ministers of misinformation and can't think straight.
--
Dennis
When does research data become intelligence data? If research data shows a possible criminal pattern, is NETI(Georgia Tech) responsible to report to the authorities/law enforcement? Can Georgia Tech afford not to report? In this day it is refreshing to find researcher naivete. "to make the Internet faster and more reliable" "where it will be analyzed and made available to anyone else who wants to use it for their own Internet improvement projects"
The only thing new in this world is the history that you don't know.[Harry Truman]
would be Prune Juice.
Prune Juice will set you free!
cragen
Simpson says, "I would imagine it would be quite embarrassing for a major ISP if they were found to have the worst connections."
Says I, "I imagine it would be quite interesting to see how fast major ISPs block NETI."
My mind works like lightning. One brilliant flash and it is gone.
That might make it just a bit useless, no?
If all the world's a stage, anyone who says they want better lighting spends far too much time in a dark theatre.
I emailed the NETI admin requesting (suggesting) a Mac OS X version. This is the exchange I had. Apparently his email has been slashdotted by the Mac population.
:-( If I were more geek-inclined I would download and compile the *nix version that you have listed, but I'm not confident enough of my terminal skills to do so (as are probably many non-geeky Mac-users with very powerful machines...). Slashdot.org forums are already asking about an OS X version, so if I could suggest creating and posting a Mac OS X specific installer, it would be very worth your while!
On Apr 27, 2004, at 11:38 AM, George Riley wrote:
David, I've been inundated with MacOS requests! Yep, we'll take a look at it ASAP.
George F. Riley, Assistant Professor
The School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Georgia Tech
On Tuesday, Apr 27, 2004, at 11:25 US/Eastern, David Bingham wrote:
Hola!
I am willing, interested and able lend CPU cycles to GATech's NETI project, but all I own are a number of Macs. Your software download and installation page states, "This page gives a detailed description (hopefully) of how to install and uninstall NETI@home for your favorite OS", but my favorite OS is not listed.
Thanks,
--David Bingham
You have to install three seperate programs and jump through hoops in order to install this NETI, software which is essentially just voluntary spyware in the first place. Even if someone were so inclined to help out, what makes these people think they'd be willing to go through so much BS for something that really doesn't benefit them at all? You can always tell when techies put out a software package by themselves; it'll technically work and perform it's function quite well, but the user's experience always takes a back seat. Hmm... sounds like a certain OS that will go unnamed.
They do not conflict.
A SETI and NETI@home clients do not interfere in each other, as they do not consume the same resources.
SETI just wants to eat all your idle CPU time, and little bandwith exchanging data and result.
NETI is light on resources (at least they say so), should consume minimal (near 0%) cpu and very small bandwidth to report the data collected.
If its monitoring network traffic and such maybe the data collected could be analyzed to identify open relays within minutes so that they are blacklisted and everyone will tarpit them, which means more bandwidth for pr0n!!
When I checked up on Neti@home, the site said they use NatGeo for their location data. When I followed the link to NatGeo, I found a message at the top of the home page stating that the site had not been maintained for several years (emphisis thiers) and that the data might be wildly inaccurate. It seems that might undermine at least some of the goals of the project.
-All that is gold does not glitter - Tolkien
www.ra
"If we start noticing that many NETI@home users are receiving anomalous traffic, that could be an indication of the spread of an Internet worm, or some other sort of attack," Simpson said. "If the clients were distributed enough, one could even see which parts of the world are attacked first and then possibly use the data to track where the worm seems to have originated from."
But I am behind a firewall. My computer will never see this type of traffic. The firewall does not pass it (heck, it does not pass ANY un-solicited traffic).
What they really need to do is get the firewall to report stats. That would be more realistic.
- - - - - - - - - - -
I am a programmer. I am paid to produce syntax not grammar. Deal with it.
...an Internet tracking program. Honest! It works! How many viruses are going to pop up after something like this launches proclaiming to be the real thing?
100% of computers on the internet send packets to NETI@Home. Researchers are astonished.
Hands in my pocket
"These members, representing a cross section of the Internet population, give comScore explicit permission to confidentially monitor their online activities in return for valuable benefits such as server-based virus protection, improved Internet performance, sweepstakes prizes, and the opportunity to help shape the future of the Internet.
comScore technology is downloaded to any browser in a matter of seconds and unobtrusively routes each participant's Internet connection through comScore's server network, without requiring any further action on the part of the individual.
The technology allows comScore to capture the complete details of communication to and from each individual's computer - on a site-specific, individual-specific basis. This includes every site visited, page viewed, ad seen, promotion used, product or service bought, and price paid." (emphasis added)
I'd be interested in talking to a view of these "members" to see if they know what they've gotten themselves into.
Helevius
I hate to tell you, but U,X,W et al are virtual simulator states - they only exist when you simulate your VHDL code. Once you synthesize them into hardware, it's either a 1, 0, or indeterminant (in rare when you measure it as it is crossing the threshold). Good luck on your exam ;)
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
I'm doing research into the traffic patterns of large hairy animals named Bigfoot. I'm calling it YETI@home.
My hypothesis is that Yeti is really CowboyNeal.
NAME
neti - a network statistics gatherer
DESCRIPTION
neti is a network statistics gatherer, blah, blah, blah.
This is the next paragraph.
Re-assuring...
- Nick Busey
www.pedalbmx.com
www.nickbusey.com
The Hulkster
If they really want to help end bottlenecks on the net, then make a smaller download!
First SETI@Home,
now NETI@Home,
next I predict YETI@Home, the abominable cpu-eater.
Sounds like a good idea, if only there was a daemon based distribition for OSX. That would allow the program to run automaticially in the background with no action on the user's part other than the installation itself. Once this comes out for OSX I will use it.
411 Y0UR 8453 4R3 8310NG 70 U5!! -NSA
I am all in favor of a project that attempts to find intelligent life on the Internet.
That's "Mr. Soulless Automaton" to you, Bub.
I whipped up a quick ebuild for Gentoo if anybody feels like running this on their computer. Just grab the files and drop them in a portage overlay via the usual methods. (You can find good documentation on using the overlay on gentoo's site)
The ebuild submission can be found here: http://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=49220
-Llarian
This is all strangely familiar.
;)
Wired is reporting about Georgia Tech researchers who want thousands of computer users to install their program to help them monitor traffic patterns on the Internet.
...isn't that the foundation for spyware?
Which is exactly why the phrase RTFA was created.
"RTFA" is an acronym, not a phrase.
It stands for "Read the f*cking article.", which is a sentence, not a phrase.
* = 'u' or 's', depending on circumstance.