Slashdot Mirror
A Look Inside the BBC's Network
the-dark-kangaroo writes "The BBC have provided the entire internet with a look inside their amazing network. It shows everyone the almighty web power they are with over 40 webservers and 12 firewalls and their 8Gbps intersite connections. All this seems to running some form of *NIX with perl underlying their powerful website delivery. Take a look at those load graphs!"
|gggggggggggggggggggg _..._
|nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn.-' .
|aaaaaaaaaaaaaa(( / . . _ .
|aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa/':. ((0))
|ggggggggggggggg/':.
|rrrrrrrrrrrrrr|': ; / \ . o/_/ .
|eeeeeeeeeeeeee/
|aaaaaaaaaa(( ; ':., . . . . o )) . ~~~~~~~~~~SHOA .
|tttttttttttt/ . .
|eeeeeeeeeee; '::. .
|rrrrrrr(C |.
|ttttttttt/ 'lol. ' ,
|eeeee(( |':::' '::' / lol , | )) lameness lol youre . |I|
|rrrrrrrr\ , '::' _.-`; dongso; )) l a m e if you think|S|
|tttttttt/`-..--;` ; | lol , | you can : , ___. stop us|C| Do you think you were going to stop us
|hhhh(( ;
|aaaaaaa; ;
|nnnn(( |; ;
|jjjjjjj| ;
|ooooooo|
|ooooooo\;.
|wwwwwww|.
|wwwww~ ; ;
|wwwww~
|.dot
|gggggg~` ~ dikky/,\ /
|nnnnn~ ~~ lolhy _,.-)") JUST ASK PI HE KNOWS
|aaaaa~ ~ . _,=~"|
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A news organization servering up news to the entire world over the internet has a powerful backend. I mean, who would have guessed?
I hope the firewalls can withstand the US Government's news censorship attacks.....
....There's More Than One Way To Do It!
Tubal-Cain smokes the white owl.
This website has been there for ages. I am surprised no one noticed before. Slashdot editors are just out of topics now, what is next .. statistics of microsoft's bug report server.
Well, according to the ever reliable Netcraft:
Solaris 8 Apache/1.3.26 (Unix)
SunOS 4 Apache/1.2.1
SunOS 4 unknown
SunOS 4 Apache/1.2.1
SunOS 4 unknown
SunOS 4 Apache/1.2.1
SunOS 4 Apache/1.2.1
SunOS 4 unknown
SunOS 4 Apache/1.2.1
SunOS 4 unknown
503 POST UNAVAILABLE
Alito: A vote for Alito is a punch in the eye to put that bitch back in her place!
What is you saying?
Now if I get the urge to hack into the BBC network, I won't have to do as much poking and prodding to get my own network map. They've done the time-consuming work for me!
I'm a big tall mofo.
... how well can all this great technology stand up to a good old-fashioned slashdotting?
As anyone who listened to the now defunct Vorbis streams of BBC radio, this has been here for many years. Nevertheless, it's still impressive.
UNIX is an American invention
PERL is an American invention
The systems they are running are using architecture invented by Americans
It shows everyone the almighty web power they are with over 40 webservers and 12 firewalls
Well, it's rather a lot, but "almighty?" What ever happened to British undertatement?
One man's -1 Flamebait is another man's +5 Funny.
Geez, having an awful time getting access to the graphs and all that fun data. So much for that 8gbps then huh?
As a network engineer for a large web hosting company, having worked for very large ISP's, etc all I can say is that I'm impressed. The 4 OC-12's alone coming out of NY sold me. =)
Since we're talking about the BBC, wouldn't something more like Bits-Bytes-and-Cockney be more appropriate?
hehehe.... cockney.
-- I'm not a pessimist, I'm a realist. It's not my fault that life sucks so much. --
We just slashdotted the shit out of these people. I think these guys do this on purpose... :/
look inside the BBC's network...slashdotted.
it's sloooooooooooooow.
i mean first post
nyeah nyeah
Curious that the map showing the geographical distribution of the network centres shows only the USA and Europe. Is this because the bulk of the audience is there?
Has anyone dug through the data and found country usage statistics?, now that I would find interesting.
Facts are history now plebs have politics for religion on social media.
Nah, they're already slashdotted. Watch those load graphs.. as they rise like they've never risen before!
Man holding teacup: "Nigel, what's that sudden whirring noise?"
You can't talk about Wikipedia's flaws on Wikipedia
almighty web power they are
dunno... the link seems slashdotted to me...
its loading VERY slowly...
IT is Dead. The industry is Shot Join Others Who Feel Your Pain http://www.internalstrife.com/
You are one smart american
and they are still slashdotted.
Official US government news is a minor thing (pbs, npr, VOA). It is not like the UK where the official government news outlet (BBC) is the biggest thing.
Their almighty network just got slashdotted.
(insert rolling eyes smiley here)
"...and all this is possible thanks to the unique way the BBC is funded..."
no really it is.
I seem to recall that a link to that page was present in each highly-modded comment in each story regarding "Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy part 3 on BBC radio 4" we had back in... September 2004?
So, old news!
Indeed, how is this "news" at all?
(I may need to "get out more" - whatever that phrase means.)
Apparently the servers to serve up the server load graph couldn't handle the load.
Step 1: Build webfarm
Step 2: Tout its mightyness on Slashdot
Step 3: Review logs after free stress test
Step 4: Fix issues
Step 5: See Step 1
IT is Dead. The industry is Shot Join Others Who Feel Your Pain http://www.internalstrife.com/
Hell, the BBC Micro was good enough for teletext. It should be good enough for this intarnet thing.
It does not take an american to know that the C in BBC stands for company. One company. The singular applies. ("the singular apply" for those who cannot get it correct).
It's been Slashdotted before the first 10 replies!
Looking at their Internet Network Overview I noticed they like to use names like Kingswood and Maidenhead a little too much. That and that Palo Alto and Frankfurt are much closer than I thought.
hey, looks like you guys slashdoted the page. where's the mirror?
Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony.
you're taking this whole news from the mysterious future thing a little too seriously then....
Yeah, BBC, you *did* have excellent servers and bandwidth...
Kaa
Kaa's Law: In any sufficiently large group of people most are idiots.
Doing a search of their site reveals no occurance of "Perl".
Seastead this.
But it takes someone with some intelligence to realise that the 'C' in 'BBC' stands for corporation.
Only an American would think that, any Brit would know it stands for "Corporation".
its slashdotting like a man.
I got the page load in ~8 seconds when comment counter said 30...thats about when most sites have smoke coming out of the servers.
SLASHDOT: news for people who can't concentrate on work or have no life at all and got tired of yelling back at the TV.
Google cache:
: su pport.bbc.co.uk/support/+site:support.bbc.co.uk+in url:support&hl=en
http://66.102.9.104/search?q=cache:KiH513c0cEcJ
...of this technological terror you've constructed. The ability to serve the internet is insignificant compared to the power of a slashdotting.
I suppose a look inside Google's network would be much more interesting...
All those moaning it's slashdotted must be missing the fact that the rest of the BBC pages are still loading pretty damned fast. Browsing BBC News isn't a problem for me. Try a bit harder if you want to Slashdot the BBC.
Truely amazing! Slashdotted in less than 10 minutes...
Who is John Galt?
congratulatioms!
awesome, can't get to the site. maybe the "support.bbc.co.uk" server isn't part of the wonderful setup that the article refers to
The overview diagram points to a directory, so it can be virtually hosted anywhere, further distributing the load.
Maybe they'd be kind enough to measure the /. effect and post a separate graph showing traffic with referrals from slashdot? Now that would be neato...
Cheers, guys! Steady on!
/.'d within 3minutes. Guess they can't use this page for monitoring anymore.
You have to feel sorry for Declan. The duty team roster has him doing a 24 hour shift today.
--
Linux VPS Hosting with 24x7 support, so we know how he feels.
We killed a major (and in a Major sense, this is no silly CBC stuff) broadcaster.
Good teamwork, soldiers!
company?
COMPANY??!!!
oh baby, it's on!
It apparently can't handle the /. effect.
I did have a chance to browse a few of the usage graphs and the infrastructure layout. It is very well laid out. I am most impressed with the beeb on this one, it appears my hard earned money I spend for BBCA to see BBC4 shows is going for much more than BBC4 quality programming.
I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
Uh, is it just me, or is this not exactly impressive? 40 webservers and 12 firewalls? Don't most largish companies out there have networks that large? I'm sure there's tons of small companies with larger networks.
Any true Briton with a knowledge of history would know that the British Broadcasting Company, founded in 1922, became the Corporation at the start of 1927.
The network infrastructure throughout the BBC, certainly in News, is so microsoft centric it's unheard of. The network has recently been sold, along with the staff, to Siemens. It's based around Active Directory, all file servers are Windows, all DNS and DHCP is maintined by windows, with only a smattering of *nix boxes (DHCP at one london office, unix for parts of the BBC-Wide Imaging system "elvis" and "Jupiter"). The desktop is 2K/XP, and so locked down we cant even run the BBC News Ticker on it! (For what it's worth, everyone in my office ignores such policies as we need things like Putty and VNC to work)
...it's possible to use tax funding to do some really intensely cool stuff. The BBC has a much better grasp of production (technical as well as aesthetic) in all forms of media than any of the pay services here in the U.S. Too bad we have the sadly underfunded NPR and PBS here. It could be so much better. NPR needs a lot more dramatic and comedy programming. PBS needs more popular entertainment that they haven't snagged from the BBC. But without the funding, we're stuck with the crap on HBO and Showtime. There is a definite lack of quality in US production. The same goes for HBO and Showtime's web presence. They have nothing on the BBC.
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
guest and never get 8ay be hurting
Over 40 high performance webservers : $
12 firewalls : $$
8Gbps network to connect them : $$$
Not able to handle the Slashdot effect : Priceless.
It is always accurate to call a forced payment to the government a "tax".
' Nor is it controlled by a government board. The day to day running is controlled by the Director general '
Then you go on to describe exactly how this board is controlled by the government! Sorry, isn't a board controlled by the government = "government board" ?
' The only other contact that the government has with it is the Royal charter '
Which is more detail about how it is a division of the government.
' but the government doesn't actually control them at any direct level. '
Yet, you detailed this control earlier.
In what way is the Beeb providing a public service (as it should according to its original mandate) by offering Net based information that a private agency, be it Sky, Reuters or some blogger could just as easily offer? All this equipment may be very pretty to look at, but where is the value for money and why should I be made to subsidize the costs incurred in providing BBC information to those users who are accessing it from outside of the UK? [/rant]
' The BBC has a charter to say what it can and can't do '
This charter is written up and enforced by.... guess what? the government.
They've now closed the support website down and added authorization. I was able to access until a few minutes ago (mind you slowly), and then the authorization was turned on.
Authorization Required This server could not verify that you are authorized to access the document requested. Either you supplied the wrong credentials (e.g., bad password), or your browser doesn't understand how to supply the credentials required. So what is the password?
They've gone and setup HTTP Auth on their internal support pages now, so unless someone got their the login to their 'Ops Pages' then we're all done enjoying thier little peep show :(
When I clicked on the link just now, it was asking for a username and password. Seems like they're out to get us poor innocent Slashdotters...
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
_ _ _ _ _ _ __ _..._ ALL YOU FUCKING SLASHDOT USERS .-' . . '-. THIS FUCKING PENISBIRD SHITS ._ . ._\ DOWN YOUR NECK INTO YOUR STOMACH /. . .(o) ./__) WHERE THE SHIT BURNS FOR THE REST OF /. . .,_ . .| '| YOUR SHORT AND PATHETIC LIFE ./ .\ . /_/ /. . .`"`" . .} IT THEN GRIPS ONTO YOUR COCK WITH ALL ITS MIGHT /. . . . . . . { AND INJECTS VARIOUS MUTAGENS INTO YOUR BLOODSTREAM THROUGH /. . . . . . . .} ITS RAZOR-SHARP CLAWS WHERE IT REACTS WITH YOUR /. . . . .\/\ /\ { VAST RESERVES OF FAT AND BLUBBER .;``"``\ /. . . . . . / ; ; ;| NOBODY IS SAFE FROM THE PENISBIRD, AND IT ._.-`|; ; ; ;| /`-..--`` a a| ; ; ; | YOU ARE NEXT, YOU FUCKING FAT, FILTHY PIG ;| /_ _ _ _ ,--........,, FUCKING POST, YOU FUCKING ; _ _ _ .' . . . . . -='. BASTARD ASCII.. I CAN'T BELIEVE / _ _ _ _\ . . . . . . . : THIS FUCKING STUPID LAMENESS .\ . . . . . . .' FILTER, WHAT AN ARSEFUCKING COCKLORD .'. _ ,._'\.\~" o //` .\. . . . . .' ./,\.` .\. . . _.' WHAT KIND OF SHIT NAME ,-''\..--' IS LAMENESS FILTER ANYWAY .| | | |. . _="` /_="` WHAT THE FUCK? MORE LIKE TROLL FILTER ./,\ / /_,)") FUCKING CMDRTACO, YOU FUCKING FAT BASTARD ._,.-)") .;| Penisbird/. 1.3 .| ===============
_ _ _ _ _ _
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_ _ _ _ |. .
_ _ _ _
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_ _ _
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_ |. . . . . . / ; ; ; | FUCKING HATES ALL SLASHDOT USERS
_ \ . . .
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ppp_ |/' \| LETS GET IT ON, MOTHERFUCKERS.
Trollkore
"I hate you, I hate your country, and I hate your face!"
Important Stuff # Please try to keep posts on topic. # Try to reply to other people's comments instead of starting new threads. # Read other people's messages before posting your own to avoid simply duplicating what has already been said. # Use a clear subject that describes what your message is about. # Offtopic, Inflammatory, Inappropriate, Illegal, or Offensive comments might be moderated. (You can read everything, even moderated posts, by adjusting your threshold on the User Preferences Page) Important Stuff # Please try to keep posts on topic. # Try to reply to other people's comments instead of starting new threads. # Read other people's messages before posting your own to avoid simply duplicating what has already been said. # Use a clear subject that describes what your message is about. # Offtopic, Inflammatory, Inappropriate, Illegal, or Offensive comments might be moderated. (You can read everything, even moderated posts, by adjusting your threshold on the User Preferences Page)
In Soviet Korea, only old petrified Natalie Portmans pour hot grits on YOU!
It's been there since at least Oct 1999.
"John, could you put down your tea and come here for a moment."
"Yes?"
"It seems our load monitoring application is overloaded. I can't monitor the system."
"Hmm, try tapping on the dials."
"Uhm, there aren't dials John. This is a computer program."
"Don't you mean, 'programme'?"
"Yes, sorry. So, what do I do now?"
"Let me check the manual... let's see.. squirrels chewing through fibre-optic.. alien invasian.. tea shortage.. politcal unrest.. ahh, here we go, inaccessible monitoring.. it says simply, 'Panic'."
"Panic? What does that mean?"
"I think it means we should run about the room screaming or some such."
"Like this? WOOWOWOWOWO"
"No, that's more celebration. Try more anguish, like this: Aahhhhhhhhhrg!!!"
"Ahhwoooooooo!"
"No, try and keep from letting your mouth go round like that. Here, watch me: Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahrg!"
"Aaaaaaaaaaaahrg??"
"That's good. Aaaaaaaahrg!!! And flail your arms about like this: Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaahrg!!!"
"I think I've got it! Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahrg!"
I do not understand why the big corporation uses MRTG which does nothing apart of bunch of graphs which can hardly be used for pro-active monitoring.
Come on, BBC! Use Zabbix or Nagios to get real monitoring software!
1. Karma Whore
2. Goto step 1.
So if they have all those UNIX servers, why aren't we getting ogg vorbis streams of their content? All they offer is that damn RealAudio, for which there is no good Windows software. The BBC has tried ogg as an experiment, and it sounded great but I don't know why they ditched that. It was a couple years ago they briefly offered ogg vorbis radio streams.
Interestingly, the BBC streaming exclusively in Real Audio has been one of the main reasons I find myself booting Linux daily instead of Windows, since there is a fantastic clean real audio player for UNIX variants.
looks like the bbc have gotten wise to the slashdot effect and are now looking for admin and password details... shame would of liked a look at their system.
In the charter if the BBC wants to provide services outside the UK they must be self-funding. If you want to see BBCAmerica you need to pay. I'm not sure whether the video news feeds work outside the UK or not.
Because Sky (That's FOX to you American lot) is a pile of crap and has no poltitcal integrity whatsoever, unlike an accountable public service such as the Beeb. Also it's a complete rip off, the BBC is far cheaper. Just take a look at the costs of Sky subscription and you have to put up with ads as well, despite already paying through the nose. Oh but wait, the BBC is state funded so it must be evil.
In what way is the Beeb providing a public service (as it should according to its original mandate) by offering Net based information that a private agency, be it Sky, Reuters or some blogger could just as easily offer?
Any public serivce could theoretically be provided by a private contractor instead, you idiot. This in itself is not an argument against providing a particular public service.
All this equipment may be very pretty to look at, but where is the value for money and why should I be made to subsidize the costs incurred in providing BBC information to those users who are accessing it from outside of the UK?
It would probably cost more money to restrict access to within the UK in some cases. I presume the general reason for the BBC providing services to outside the UK is good will. You know, the same reason we give aid to foreign countries, or hold receptions for foreign dignataries, etc.
Freedom is not increased by mere diminuation of government. Anarchy is freedom for the strong and slavery for the weak.
Now it wants a password. Bah!
"Where quality is like a dead stinking rat - you just can't miss it."
Technically, this network is now owned and managed by Siemens Business Services. BBC Technology, which grew out of a few different parts of the BBC Engineers and IT depts, was sold to Siemens in October last year, to form part of Siemens Business Services, specifically the 'Media' part. SBS run the network both internally and out, as a managed service. This creates some interesting issues with network boundaries, and "who owns what", but it keeps us on our toes!
Of couse, most of the same staff are there, so little has changed on that front. The lads and ladies in Maidenhead do a very good job of running a VERY complicated network. The BBC is the top content (not search) site in the UK, if not the world (don't quote me on that). The internal network is also pretty damn reliable, with a dual fibre ring running round most of the London buildings.
Seems they felt the slashdot effect :-P
I'm still trying to figure out what people mean by 'social skills' here.
Doesn't the C in BBC stand for CBBC?
Does anyone else get asked for a login/password when they click the link?
I tried for 5 years to come up with a clever sig...only to realize that I am not clever.
I guess somebody realized that obscurity might add some security. But if you scroll up somebody has the google cache url...
Did anyone mirror this? I'm interested in their topology.
It apears as if they have implimented some authentication. (maybe a deterent to /. effect??)
The site is seemingly experienced the slashdot effect, but for those who see outside the box: http://support.bbc.co.uk.nyud.net:8090/support/ - most of the links, graph and stats work.
Murphy's Law of Research: Enough research will tend to support your theory.
Remember kids - technically corporations are psychopaths.
Take a look at those load graphs!
Take a look at this slashdotting!
Looks like they've removed the password protection again - maybe they've moved it to a bigger server? I took a look at the rota page and Declan is no longer there? Have we slashdotted an engineer?
> Just remember, security by obscurity is bad! ;)
All security is by obscurity, that is a fundamental truth of any system whose state can be altered. You have to know how to get its state to change and if you know how then you can change its state.
The issue is how much knowledge do you need to be able to change the state of a part of the system, and how much effort do you have to put in to get that information. Also how likely are you to be caught attempting to learn how, and how much of the system can you break into with that information before you have to learn more information (essentially the value of that information).
Strong cryptographic authentication uses a mathematical formula to produce a *different* method of access for each key, and the key is a description of the method. Thus, cracking one key gives you access only to the systems that use the method that that key describes. For a weak cypher, it is relatively easy to determine the correct method to access a system.
Similarly for *all* communication with a computer. If you know what software is used, and you know how to get it to respond, then you have access. So, since you are *always* relying on attackers not knowing the method to access your systems, you must ensure there is a different method for each system to limit damage when the method is no longer obscure.
"Security Through Obscurity" refers to the technique where many system use the same method and depend on none of the other systems being cracked. This is risky: ie, chances of cracking are small, but cost of cracking is extremely expensive as all systems become vulnerable. Though chances are not so small as one may think as the value of the knowledge needed to access the systems is extremely high, and thus more effort tends to be dedicated to its discovery.
This is why open source software will tend to become more secure over time (provided that there is a sufficient interest in its security - ie popularity). While it is less costly to discover the information necessary to crack a system, it is also less costly for the organisations that use it to discover that information, thus the systems tend to be fixed. That also devalues the knowledge from the perspective of the cracker. How many organisations will send their disks to MS for analysis vs how many can do the analysis with reference to the source code.
All those little factors cause the initial risk of open source software to be much higher, but the risk of a mature and popular system to be lower. Compare with closed source, which for new and unpopular software the risk is low, and for mature and popular software, the risk is high.
The best opportunity (as the world begins to realise the value of security) for closed source producers is to be cheap to market, quick to help mature an open source competitor, and quick to help your customers migrate to the open source alternative, siphoning a lucrative support and development contract as you move onto new product as restart the cycle.
They should make people log on using the serial number of thier TV licence, that would keep those forien moochers out.
What if Tetris was invented by Nazis?
Oh, if only it were that easy - I've been pushing for that for what, at least 5 years, but the problem is there isn't an easily accessible database of license ids.
Looking at the excellent diagram. Wondering where original data originates. Stupid me or what?
Try bbc bbc
AJ
BBC World is the commercial arm of the BBC - responsible for selling (and making money from!) BBC-produced content outside of the UK:
www.bbcworld.com
(although the website is more about one specific channel)
Let me guess - you're a student, right? Or unemployed? Because everyone in the UK that actually earns any money whatsever, realises that the cost of the BBC license fee is miniscule compared to the benefit it serves not only the UK, but the rest of the world - BBC online included. Think of it like this - Americans can be proud for exporting 'freedom' to the rest of the planet, us Brits can be proud for exporting the best News agency to the rest of the planet. Or would you just prefer to think how Fox TV wants you to think?
/. is good for you.
Wake me up when they have 4 OC-192's coming out of NY.
Strongly disagree: the BBC license is highly overpriced; the BBC has a strong bias against pro-freedom and pro-tradition, and for pro-egality ideologies; I absolutely refuse to pay my license to the organization, and shall go to prison, if necessary, to make my point.
then to prison you shall go. well done.
"In the charter if the BBC wants to provide services outside the UK they must be self-funding."
That's very interesting. Is that self-funding requirement limited in any way? I ask because the BBC World Service, a spectacularly good news radio service, heard in parts of the world many people have never heard of, actually pays local carriers to provide their service.
I know this because a tiny little (i.e. 5W briefcase transmitter) community FM station on the island of Tanna in Vanuatu plans to use the money the BBC gives them to buy a stronger transmitter.
The BBC has been at the forefront of information technology since before the term 'IT' existed. It comes as no surprise to me that they are the most effective and successful content carrier on the Web.
Crumb's Corollary: Never bring a knife to a bun fight.
The BBC have provided the entire internet
Wow, the entire internet? What an amazing feat! BTW, shouldn't that be "has"? ( = third person singular present tense)
Private agencies are out to make profits. BBC has no adverts. It has no reason to support any partners (due to a lack of them) and hence lack of bias.
Why not close all of BBC's TV channels? We've got UK Gold haven't we?
The World Service is funded directly by the UK foreign office, not the license fee. It's based in Bush House, and news in TVC have more to do with ABC then World. Outside SCAR and occasional shared guests I'm not aware of any contact between them.
BBC World (TV) is funded by adverts which affiliates sell. There is some (Sky orientated) controversy over sharing of resources between World and normal BBC News - they are linked a lot closer then World Service Radio/News, simulcasts, shared Newsreaders, shared reporters, shared floor crews, shared techies (Adam and Ed cover N8 and N9 equally). Hell, the studio equipment's stored in the same room!
Well, maybe "self-funding" was the wrong term, but you try making sense of the bloody charter:
(c) Subject to the prior approval of Our Secretary of State, to provide (whether alone or together with any other person firm or corporation) sound and television broadcasting services and communication services (whether by analogue or digital means) and to provide sound and television programmes of information, education and entertainment funded by advertisements, subscription, sponsorship, pay-per-view system, or any other means of finance whether for reception by the general public free of charge or available on individual demand or encrypted or not in Our United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man and the territorial waters thereof and elsewhere in the world (such services being hereinafter referred to as "the Commercial Services")
(g) determine the strategy for and oversee the provision of the Commercial Services in such a way as to ensure that they are funded, operated and accounted for separately from the Public Services;
As far as i can make out, that basically says that it can broadcast outside of the UK/Commonwealth provided that it charges/obtains revenue.
For the BBC World Service, that's counted under the "Public Services", which is funded by the BBC/Licence Fee. I presume it's a "gift to the world" or something. However, the cost of the World Service is probably tiny compared to everything else.
See the BBC Royal Charter (PDF) for more details. Reading that reminds me of Sir. Humphrey Appleby's longwinded speeches...
I'm pretty sure the BBC run apple's webobjects on Solaris for their online news service...
Erm, SunOS is Solaris.
No, it isn't. SunOS =5 is SVR4 and always distributed in bundle called "Solaris". Sun did distribute a late release of SunOS 4.x with Openwindows and called it Solaris 1.0 but most people confine the term "Solaris" to versions 2 and higher.
The version reported in SunOS 4. That means that, at best, they running on 9 year old hardware. I don't beleive that.
You work for Sky TV don't you?
It became a Greater Undead, merging with its daemonic side to become... a Back Reaver. And it's not gonna stop, 'till it gets that server list back...
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Funded by the license fee, plus a few million direct from the Foreign Office for BBC World Service.
And adverts on BBC World, and subs from BBC America... but the license fee is the essence of course, which is why Rupert Murdoch would like it abolished, even tho his Sky operation extracts more cash from the public than the BBC does already...
I'm sure there's a nice graph in the annual report somewhere.
and whats to stop somebody telling somebody else their license number? You could even add it to the bugmenot mozilla plugin :)
Funny doesn't get you any karma.
Where does BBC News 24 (the cable/satellite/digital TV channel) come in? Is the overseas version produced separately from the UK version? Or does the BBC collect subscription fees from all non-UK transmissions of it?
http://support.bbc.co.uk/cgi-bin/support/history?d ate=20050111&group=bbc.stats
Their stats dump server appears to be on the blink.
Tried to get "General Server Stats", got this instead:
/support/mrtg/servers.html.
Proxy Error
The proxy server received an invalid response from an upstream server.
The proxy server could not handle the request GET
Reason: Could not connect to remote machine: Connection refused
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
So, slashdot is now stooping to linking to server monitor pages?
.... seem to be agreeing there:
"....fallacy about them being tax funded. They're....."
Which leaves us with precious little to mock about you in regards to what you are trying to say.
How inconsiderate!
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
I'm not aware of the "overseas version", you may be refering to BBC World (which is paid for by affiliates), which is produced seperately. Occasionally you get a simulcast of World and N24, and N24 always has one feed available with the World DOG (ISO4 FYI).
The normal Nwes24 that you get in the UK (glass at the back with a bunch of monitors and plasmas behind the glass, galary visiable in some shots stage-right) is funded by the license fee.
BBC: Prepare to be pwn3d!!!!11!!!1!!
Sincerely,
Scrip T. Kiddie
Too bad that link wasn't published with the /. story.
Seastead this.