Saying 'No' to an Executable Internet

Dylan Knight Rogers writes "Applications are constantly being ported for usage on the Internet - either for a viable escape from expensive software, or because it's often helpful to have an app that you can access from anywhere. Operating systems that run from the Web will be a different story."

Comments

Ah, yes

[Anonymous Coward]

That would require a

chmod a-x internet

Re:Ah, yes

[Idolatre]

mount /dev/eth0 -t internetfs -o noexec

would be safer

Re:Ah, yes

[Anonymous Coward]

kill -9 internet

errrr....

[scenestar]

Wasn't UNIX designed to run off a main frame with network terminals connected to it?

Re:errrr....

[Zeinfeld]

UNIX was first implemented seriously on the PDP-11/20, which is best classed as a minicomputer. And while the system did indeed use terminals of a sort, they were dumb terminals. It's really not any different than how the keyboard, mouse and monitor are connected to your PC now.

It would have been quite a trick to design an operating system based on the principles of the network protocols later developed on it.

That said, the dumb terminal to mainframe concept was a big part of the UNIX legacy. UNIX was designed from the start as a multi-user environment for the individual user. The kernel supported multiple users but the tasks it was designed for were single user tasks, mostly programming. UNIX was a reaction against mainframe computing of its day.

The author is completely wrong when he says that Windows did not have any security until 2000. Windows NT was designed from the outset to obtain Orange book B2 certification. It would take a huge amount of work to get Linux to meet that criteria. It is generally considered to be 'B2 equivalent' but thats like saying that being ABD is the same thing as having a Phd, the only people who say that are ABD grad students.

Likewise the author is completely wrong about Microsoft being likely to take the O/S in that direction. Unix and VMS led the minicomputer revolution. Gates led the microcomputer revolution which was even more against the central processing store model of computing. If you look at all the early microcomputers you will find that they all ran Microsoft Basic. When IBM went to Microsoft while it was building the PC it was the BASIC they wanted. They only demanded a bootstrap loader when Kildal refused to deal with them for CPM.

The company that tried to make the network the operating system was Netscape. They failed for several reasons, the most important of which was you can't hire 5000 world class engineers in a year and even if you could that you would not end up with a world class team. MarcA's policy of never hiring anyone he thought might be smarter than him didn't help either.

The company that seems to be making the attempt now is Google. They might make it, at this point it is unclear.

Re:errrr....

[Cal Paterson]

"The author is completely wrong when he says that Windows did not have any security until 2000. Windows NT was designed from the outset to obtain Orange book B2 certification. It would take a huge amount of work to get Linux to meet that criteria. It is generally considered to be 'B2 equivalent' but thats like saying that being ABD is the same thing as having a Phd, the only people who say that are ABD grad students.

Meh. The whole "certification" theory seems to not tally with practice. Why does NT seem to have more security issues than Linux, even though Linux is, by the Orange Book, a less well designed system.

Seems to me like there is something important that the Orange Book fails to take into account.

Re:errrr....

[suitepotato]

Meh. The whole "certification" theory seems to not tally with practice. Why does NT seem to have more security issues than Linux, even though Linux is, by the Orange Book, a less well designed system.

Seems to me like there is something important that the Orange Book fails to take into account.

It's not necessarily what the Orange Book is failing to take into account, it's the observer. Microsoft Windows, thanks to Microsoft Visual Studio, and Microsoft's maximum documentation overkill mindset, is childishly easy to write apps for, apps which themselves are ignorant of security and stability standards and free to traipse across the memory and hard drive under the idea that anything not forbidden is compulsory. Also following this dictum of getting away with anything the OS will let you are the Windows users who will point and click their way to infection, compromise, and instability every chance they get.

Linux users on the other hand might for instance have to know how to read well enough to make us of a text editor like Vi or Emacs and edit yum.conf and include repositories that clash to begin fouling the system up with bad code. Linux doesn't make it easy to put good code on it never mind bad code.

Just wait though. If Linux adoption ever becomes what the wet dreams of the rabid partisans would have, then it will mean easy application writing and loading will have arrived along with technical specifics ignorant user base that doesn't care how it works, but just wants it to do whatever they imagine it should. "I thought that program would show me free porn movies. I didn't know it was going to turn the registry into swiss cheese, whatever that is."

Re:errrr....

[aminorex]

The Windows event model intrinsically is a security nightmare, and the service configuration of a default install is all that a script kiddie could dream -- althought there are specific Linux distributions which can rival Windows in the insecurty of their default installation, they are not the norm.

It is easier to develop code for Linux than for Windows. That is why there are so many more applications for Linux than there are for Windows, and it is also why developers, on the whole, prefer to use Linux when it is suitable. There are no evident alternative explanations for these facts.

Re:errrr....

[mallardtheduck]

Likewise the author is completely wrong about Microsoft being likely to take the O/S in that direction. Unix and VMS led the minicomputer revolution. Gates led the microcomputer revolution which was even more against the central processing store model of computing. If you look at all the early microcomputers you will find that they all ran Microsoft Basic. When IBM went to Microsoft while it was building the PC it was the BASIC they wanted. They only demanded a bootstrap loader when Kildal refused to deal with them for CPM.

Sooo many misconceptions...

Microsoft BASIC was one of many. There was no clear leader.
Kildall's DRI was the "Microsoft" of the early (8-bit) micros, CP/M was the prevailant OS, mainly because Lotus 123 and many other business apps ran on it.
IBM shafted DRI, not the other way around.

Re:errrr....

[pthisis]

Windows NT was designed from the obtain to have Orange book B2 certification

This is true, but:

1. Windows NT was only certified B2 secure when not connected to a network.

2. Orange book isn't related to the type of security we're talking about; the certification says nothing about whether there are bugs in the system allowing remote attacks or even local privilege escalations. It only talks about how the system is nominally designed, and even there it's more about logging who does what on the system and forbidding things like copying and pasting between applications running at different security levels.

Re:errrr....

[mophab]

A few issues with your mostly correct posting.

One is that there is a HUGE difference between Linux and Unix and the original poster said Unix. The design of networking and Unix was an iterative process, and the first versions of Unix had only a part of what is currently called Unix. So what people currently called Unix was designed around networking.

As far as network operating systems, it was Sun that first had the motto "The Network is the Computer." And this was for their Unix system, long before Mosaic, and the first HTTP RFC.

There were several Unix implementations that achieved Orange book B2 compliance long before anything Microsoft produced did. Furthermore, Micro$oft is likely to take the OS in any direction that will make them money. They seem to like the idea that people have to pay for a network service on a time/subscription basis, whereas they usually buy an OS for a given piece of hardware once.

Re:errrr....

[Zeinfeld]

Windows is the whipping boy of choice, and has demonstrated over and over that it's not secure. As nearly as I can tell, the "B2" rating you speak of doesn't validate security *at all*; it validates 'processes' and a 'model' designated by the military to be 'necessary for base security'.

You are quite right in pointing out that B2 is not very relevant to today's security needs. But the fact remains that Windows NT was designed from the outset to meet a measurable security criteria that UNIX was not designed to meet.

Fifteen years ago we used to say exactly the same thing about UNIX. UNIX machines were always being broken into. Part of that was bad security design like the SETUID bit and the world readable password file. But the main reason for the frequency of attack was exposure to a much more risky threat environment. Very few VMS machines were on networks that were anywhere near as large.

The real security catastrophe came when millions of machines running operating systems designed for standalone use only were connected to the Internet. Windows 95 provides pretty decent security for the environment it was designed to be used in. The problem is that it is now used in a very different environment.

UNIX has done better because it has had longer exposure to the relevant risk environment. UNIX has been adapted to meet the type of security concerns that affect Internet servers. That does not mean that it meets the security needs of Internet users. So far I don't think any of the O/S out there meet that need.

, I'm still looking, but I think that SELinux might meet B2 if someone paid for it to be analyzed.

Thats a bit like saying that Woody Allen might become Pope if he became a Catholic. Nobody has ever got their system certified without having to make a lot of changes to close loopholes. A major security shortcomming of UNIX is that the original designers were never required to produce proper end user documentation or security document. There is no document called the system security guide as required by orange book. Not having to produce that book meant that the designers never had to think about all the security issues of the system as a whole.

Re:errrr....

[stuuf]

I didn't know it was going to turn the registry into swiss cheese, whatever that is.

"Swiss cheese" refers to a variety of cheese, such as the Emmantel cheese from Switzerland, known for the distinctive holes that appear throughout the cheese.

Forget it

[BadDoggie]

We gave up on the idea of centralised systems a long time ago with good reason. I remember coding COBOL on 3270s which had to connect to some computer center elsewhere. Can't connect? Can't work.

Local apps give us a lot of freedom. It might be nice to be able to also have such a centralised system available, but even with access on planes, there are always times and places you'll be cut off.

woof.

Anyone RTFA?

[MyLongNickName]

Sheesh. This was more a "Microsoft Suck0rs, Linux RULZ" article. Very little in the way of actual content and analysis. How did something like this make it on Slashdot? Ooops never mind

Say "No" to Executable Internet, but

[layer3switch]

We all know "no" means "yes"... Yes... you.. dirty filth... yes... daddy like... daddy like...

Yawn, we've been doing this for 15+ years

[DrSkwid]

plan9 boots across the internet since forever, the networked file system is delightful, none of this NFS idiocy.

I was horrified when I went back to set up networking booting in Un*xville, yes, horrified. "These people are dumb, not the terminals" is about the most polite I could be about the state of "the network IS the computer".

Re:Yawn, we've been doing this for 15+ years

[killjoe]

Whatever happened to plan9 anyway. I guess it went the way of LISP and Smalltak to the "truly innovative and superior technology nobody uses" bin.

This industry is a hoot.

Re:Yawn, we've been doing this for 15+ years

[hab136]

>o how does this work out where every post I make as "anonymous coward" gets a 0 score and yet even the most basic comment (usefull or not) from any registered user gets at least a score of 2? Do all you registered /. users just use your points to vote for your own posts or what?!? ;)

ACs post at 0. Registered users post at 1. Users with high karma post at 2. The comment is then moderated higher or lower.

"Worse is better" refers to http://www.jwz.org/doc/worse-is-better.html

Huh?

[Otter]

This reads like the author took twelve completely unrelated +3 comments from Slashdot articles and stuck them together.

Basically, his point is that Lunix rulz and Microsoft is teh sux and such will continue to be the case with AJAX apps. That doesn't make sense even if you concede all the author's idiotic premises.

It's all about the service model

[AndroidCat]

No need to keep selling updates to keep the cash stream going. Just sell a service via the Internet. And you don't even have to make money directly off the people using to service if you can sell their eyes for advertising or tracking data.

Which is fine is the service doesn't disappear or go evil.

This article is one big troll.

[Vellmont]

Strangely I thought I was going to read an article about operating systems that run from the web (whatever that means). So I happily click on the article and start reading, wondering what an internet executable operating system is. Ok, history of windows, vast over-simplifications.. read read read.. but yet still no content. Turns out, there really is no content.

Taco, you should be embarrassed for posting the article. There's nothing here but a bad rant about how Windows is a terrible OS, and microsoft sucks. You may agree or disagree with that statement, but rants against Windows aren't news.

The Point?

[generic-man]

I read through that article and it just sounds like one pretentious blogger's disdain for Microsoft. Let's run through all the things that got this fast-tracked to Slashdot:

• Early mention of Steve Ballmer throwing a chair as a microcosm of Microsoft's supposed corporate culture
• Rampant grammer* and spelling errors overshadowed by a blind sense of faith in the Linux community. Example: "The Linux community will publish every vulnerability, regardless of it's criticality, but the chances that a hacker will even choose to expliot those vulnerabilities is very low, (unnecessary comma) since most of them are of low criticality and it would be stupid to do so, anyways." So people don't attack Linux because "it would be stupid to do so." Thank you.
• The actual "Executable Internet" isn't mentioned until the second-to-last paragraph: "The only reason a version of Windows that runs from the Internet would even exist would be because there is competition. Microsoft simply does not have enough fists to punch every opponent; resulting in a poorly designed operating platform and ignorant users who don't know the difference between WEP and WPA and those who are also accustomed to having Viagara advertisements greet them every time they boot their computers." Seems like this man is more upset that the hoi polloi use Linux than that Microsoft doesn't care about security.

This is pure Linux-user elitism, the sort of smug "Our Opponent Just Doesn't Get It; We Do; and We're Smarter Than You" attitude that loses political battles and makes the arguer only look like a pretentious fool in the eyes of the skeptic.

I dislike Microsoft as much as the next Slashdot user but this article is awful: it simply slams Microsoft as the Big Corporate Machine with quotes like "Microsoft does not publish all their security vulnerabilities because other executive stockholders, whom are also ignorant would become worried and eventually begin to question the platform's security." If I wanted to hear ramblings about the willfully ignorant I'd listen to a David Cross album.

* Intentional typo used to point out how correcting grammar on Slashdot usually leads to a spelling error, or vice versa

Re:The Point?

[BuR4N]

"The spelling errors are due in part that I type at 89 wpm."

You should put that in your CV.

Re:The Point?

[Tim Browse]

I think this is the kind of attitude that people are annoyed by. Receiving criticism with "Yeah, I make mistakes, but that's because I'm so 1337z0rs that I type at 89wpm!" is not really going to cut it. Because if nothing else, if that's the case, then, hey, guess what, you can't type at 89wpm! To paraphrase Gerald Weinberg, I can type at 120wpm if I don't have to get the words right.

And they're not English instructors - some posters can just speak English and find mistakes glaring and detract from the message (see Marshall McLuhan). But go ahead with your arrogant responses. It just makes it easier for the rest of us to filter you out.

People will mostly accept honest mistakes. When the offender instead tries to make out that their mistakes aren't mistakes at all, for whatever reason, when clearly they are, this is what tries people's patience.

article summary

[homer_s]

Windows sucks
Linux rulez
and , oh.. .executable internet...something...something...

Technically *nix started out single-user

[msobkow]

The very first iteration of what eventually became Unix was a simple task switcher to allow a game to run at the same time as actual work. Technically it wasn't multi-user, because there was only a system console.

Who forgot to change the battery?

[3seas]

Damn'it my access to the internet OS comes up as Jan. 1 1980....

You need to do better than that

[BadDoggie]

Electricity, sewage and oil only work efficiently in huge, centralised systems and aren't feasible in small scale. Likewise subsistance farming (there's not enough land for each person to farm enough for himself).

There are few apps which can't run locally. They might run faster on the massive centralised hardware but if you can't connect, you're fucked. Anyone who can't afford to be fucked by the loss of a connection to any centralised system (like, say, a hospital) has a localised back-up already in place. It's not efficient but it keeps things working.

And you're also ignoring the cost. You'll pay for usage, either flat rate per time period or per-minute. Microsoft's been talking about working Office into this sort of model for more than five years now. Clearly they believe it would earn them more money.

woof.

Re:You need to do better than that

[Ex-MislTech]

Likewise subsistance farming (there's not enough land for each person to farm enough for himself).

The rest of your point was good, this part is horribly wrong .

The majority of US farm land has been idled due to the low cost of foreign food,
and the influx of huge Corporate farms like ADM(Archer Daniels Midland).

During Depression/World War II the people were told to grow a garden in there back yards
to deal with the situation .

My Grandparents still had this habit when I was growing up as a kid thru the 70's and 80's .

We had so much food we canned it, froze it, and gave it away .

The large cities of the east and left coast this is not practical, but there are large
patches of land throughout the mid west that were crushed due to Globalization and
Willy Nelson and Friends held a series of concerts called Farm Aid for all the farmers
whose families and lives were ruined by the globalization of food .

http://www.farmaid.org/site/PageServer?pagename=ab outus_history

While it is good and great that we help the poor outside our borders, it is bad
that we make our nation vulnerable to shipping embargos and eat food from countries
that do not have the same pesticide rules as we do in the US .

Soil and water pollution levels in these countires are not monitored like they are here .

The taxes on land, the equipment, and the fuel are not on equal footing either, so the
US farmer cannot compete and a large number of small farms went broke .

The cost of living is higher here, as is the cost of doing business .

Outourcing our food will be something that will come back to haunt us in the future .

I was born and raised on a farm, and I dare say you were not .

Ex-MislTech

May I suggest instead ...

[icepick72]

Just say 'No' to This Article

Thanks.

The concept isn't bad, but the application stinks

[v1]

The idea of web based applications is actually very handy, and offers access to the program from a variety of locations, which is good.

Unfortunately, a huge majority of these applications are going active-x or other proprietary format, and are limiting users' access on a more fundamental level - they expand the coverage range but limit you by your access point. Our ticket system has just gone to an active-x system. Now I cannot access it from my laptop anymore. So instead of making things more flexible for me and being able to access the system from any of the 200 machines in the building that I used to be able to use, I now can access it from less than two dozen machines, only one of which I have convenient access to.

Wonderful, just wonderful.

Worst Article EVER

[pyite]

This is the worst article ever linked to on Slashdot. I'd tell you read it and see for yourself, but I really don't want to put anyone else through that experience. Can I have my five minutes back?

suspicious Cache files too?

[FudRucker]

i have seen some shell scripts in my SeaMonkey's Cache directory, i am not sure what they did so i made a shell script to delete the cache files automatically...

it may be nothing but on the otherhand it may be an Evil shell script, next time i find one i will examine it closer...

This article misses the point.

[nesabishii]

First let me point out a few odd statements in this article:

"factors that Microsoft paid little to no attention to and still don't today would be gaming consoles..."

The X-Box and the X-Box 360? Microsoft put billions of dollars into those gaming consoles.

"As experience tells us, 'easily used' operating systems such as Windows are notorious for poor security..."

What about Apple's Unix-based OS X? That's often considered easier to use than Windows for new computer users.

"resulting in a poorly designed operating platform and ignorant users who don't know the difference between WEP and WPA..."

It seems like he's arguing that the users of an operating system determine the quality of that operating system.

Really, I think this article misses the point. Internet-based OSes will not be feasible now or in the near future, I agree; however, that has more to do with bandwidth limitations, and the enormous variety of hardware out there, than security flaws in Windows (Live?). Security will always be a big issue--especially when distributed to a network of hundreds of millions of computers--but the hardware and infrastructure issues will derail the process much earlier and more severely, IMO.

Re:It won't necessarily ruin security.

[guet]

Congratulations - your content-free post, peppered with ersatz macho bluster and spelling errors, has been rated even higher. Does this prove your theory that crap gets rated highly?

The original point the poster made warrants discussion - he actually attempted to address the question, unlike yourself; you seem to be obsessed with the Slashdot moderation system, frankly, who cares if his post gets rated high or not?

The design of such a system is important, and the people who brought you net send possibly aren't the ones you want to trust in creating a global network. Good design is important, and admitting that is the first step towards producing secure networks. Yes of course this is common sense if you've thought about the subject, but unfortunately most people haven't. Shame the original article is such a one-sided rant with very little factual information, because it could be an interesting discussion.

PS
I don't think anyone advocating BSD can be accused of getting 'sheep' to follow them - most of the people reading this page are using Windows to do so.

404 - Page not found

[limegreen]

Judging by all the negative comments, the flaming article has been pulled.

Re:404 - Page not found

[Gobelet]

Say thanks to Mirrordot: http://www.mirrordot.org/stories/7557de839a5ddfdc3 c7cc58ef2009982/index.html

Well...

[Comatose51]

Saying 'No' to an Executable Internet

Not Found

The requested URL was not found on this server. Please visit the Blogger homepage or the Blogger Knowledge Base for further assistance.

Sure told them!

Re:Wow! A post to your own blog!

[tomhudson]

http://dylanknightrogersblog.blogspot.com/2006/02/ will-executable-internet-ruin-security.html Not Found

The requested URL was not found on this server. Please visit the Blogger homepage or the Blogger Knowledge Base for further assistance.

So much for saying "No" to the Eecutable Internet. "They" must have gotten him.

Questions for the blogger...

[Rob_Warwick]

I notice that the blogger is reading this thread, so I was wondering if he'd answer a question.

Being the author of the original piece and the guy who submitted the summary, I'd expect him to have a fairly good grasp on how to summarize it. However the summary reads as if a Web based OS would be a bad thing, yet he states in the blog post:

A web based operating system would be really neat, and Jason Kottke wrote about it a while ago.

So do you think it's a good idea or a bad idea?

Also, why is the Slashdot summary focussed on the idea of a web based OS when you only mention the term once, and refer to a 'Web Windows' one time?

Re:Questions for the blogger...

[JackDW]

Additionally, what IS a web-based OS? Apart from being a buzzword, anyway.

Is this an OS that boots over a network? Is it a framework for building applications that are partly server-side and partly client-side? How is this different from present-day web applications like Google Maps?

And, most importantly, what is the benefit of a web-based OS?

Re:It won't necessarily ruin security.

[Cal Paterson]

I've seen you use this example over and over again: OpenBSD is secure, Windows is not. Do you ever offer any insight at all?

Everyone knows this. You are just repeating facts that you probably don't entirely understand. It's not just because they audit code, there's far more to it than that. Checking for errors doesn't help is the system is poor by design! OpenBSD have made a number of design choices as they have created their OS (some of which have been made by the projects they have forked from); for example, they have everything organised in a logical and orderly way.

Many GNU/Linux distributions do not have this (including the one I use, in fact). Generally, this is less common on the GNU sections (with the exclusion of Gnome, which breaks every rule in the book) and is very common on sections written by others. Some distributions have tried to work at this, with varying degrees of success (Debian has a very standardised set of interfaces).

On some areas, there are sections that actually specific to the kernel that do not fit with Unix in general (eg; why the hell is it "hda1"? I would make more sense to use numbers, and to start from 0; like grub now does - hd(0,0)).

Overall, GNU/Linux is my prefered OS for workstation computers, for other reasons, but as an OS, BSD is currently far more advanced than we are. We should listen to what many of the BSD projects are saying: Linux is broken, and in some areas, very badly.

Re:uh

[the argonaut]

Are you simply on the bandwagon with what everybody else is saying about my post?

Well, I can't comment much on the content of your article itself as all I get is a 404 when I click on the link. Aside from that, much of the outrage over your "opinion piece" seems to be because this looks like nothing more than whoring for publicity for your little blog. The high UID and lack of any comments in your history prior to today doesn't help either. In addition, anytime somebody validly criticizes you, you get unnecessarily defensive and start beating your chest (it really isn't unreasonable to expect an article to be spell and grammar checked before being published for the world to see. And the previous poster was correct, you do not type at 89 wpm if you can't do so accurately). So grow a thicker skin, learn to accept valid criticism, and by all means take an grammar refresher course (judging from your comments, you could use one), it will only help your future career.

IT Phone Home!

[Paraplex]

Well we all know that only assholes have opinions (which leaves only assholes to make decisions.. great) but I thought I'd throw in my two cents

Gmail updates whether I like it or not. I'm always using the latest version, so now i'm stuck with a fking IM client for a mail host.

Hamachi doesn't run online, but phones home constantly and nags you relentlessly to "update to version X.X" every time they release a minor bug fix. When you give in and click "update" the thing is riddled with new bugs the previous version didn't have.

iTunes is similar. I never wanted all the bloat the latest versions give me. Thank christ its not an online prog. I can run the version I choose.

I spent $99 on HalfLife 2 and *cannot* play it anymore because of the very poor "Phone Home" code in steam that refuses to contact the server.

I got locked out of *my own* computer once for a day after an XP update. That wasn't cheap
I'm desparately trying to swap to linux to avoid the Vista DRM hell.

I love accessing my software from this computer remotely (using hamachi at present, but this seems to be an under developed tech) & would love to use a web interface to access info & software from my home PC from any device at any time, but I would like to retain the power over what runs on *my* pc & where that info is stored.

InternetOS

[JWSmythe]

    Ummmm...

    Can't you run thin clients (of some variety) over the Internet? Like the variety that consist of a boot disk (floppy, CD, or boot ROM) and pull the rest from elsewhere?

Dumb Idea?

[Bombula]

OK, I'm not a computer guy, but here's an idea - it's probably not new, but even so it may be worth thinking about:

What about having the network augment the user's computer? I mean, there are a lot of idle CPUs out there, right? What if your apps were designed to run on your own system just fine, but could tap into free CPU time as needed, SETI@home-style?

Now even to a non-computer person like me, security is obviously an issue here, but it seems like this could work pretty well on a company's in-house network, or over a LAN in your house, or whatever. Assuming the bandwidth was there in the network connections and the software could support it, couldn't you sort of turn your desktop and laptop into a dual-CPU machine - at least partly anyway?

And what about all those idle GPUs out there? They could be put to use in the same way too.

Just a thought.

Re:Dumb Idea?

[croddy]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_cluster

Re:Dumb Idea?

[merreborn]

I proposed the same idea to my father when I was in highschool. The thing is internet latency is very, very high compared to the latency involved in hitting your own processor/memory. This ends up severely limiting the type of applications you can run in this sort of setting.

Botnets are an interesting example of this sort of computing, though. In fact, botnets are the closest thing we have to this sort of idea being implemented right now.

Anyway, the point is that real time applications such as gaming wouldn't really see much benefit from this. By the time someone else could execute part of your processing, and send the result back to you, you character is already a foot from where you were when you requested the work, and the old work is now completely irrelevant. Even more, I can't think of a single use for GPUs that *isn't* realtime -- distributed GPU use over the net is almost certainly 100% impractical. It's not uncommon for gamers to play at and above 100 FPS -- that leaves your system 10 milliseconds to render every frame; you can hardly ping someone a block away in that time -- severely limiting the number of computers available to your 'cluster'. Also latency is NOT garanteed on the net, much less successful, in order delivery.

It works for apps like SETI@home because seti just sends you a chunk of work every few minutes or hours, and doesn't particularly care if and when you finish it. There's no 10 ms deadline on SETI -- the project will finish when it finishes.

Internet wide cluster computing is most suitable for applications that are primarily about converting a very large input (years of SETI data, protein folding data, massive mailing lists for bot nets) into very large output (analyzed data, folded proteins, spam) over a long, unpredictable period of time.

Re:Dumb Idea?

[BobPaul]

What about having the network augment the user's computer? I mean, there are a lot of idle CPUs out there, right? What if your apps were designed to run on your own system just fine, but could tap into free CPU time as needed, SETI@home-style?

As my assembly language instructor once said, "The time difference between loading something out of the local cache and access the computer's RAM is like the difference between taking a paper off the top of your desk and looking at it, and finding a paper in a filling cabinent, and then looking at it. Accessing the hard disk is like calling your friend in the Philippians and asking him to mail something to you."
Now, if the HardDrive, which is in your comptuer, is like recieving post from the Philippians, accessing something off a network share must be collecting something from the moon.

The only applications that would benifit from your suggestion are things like encoding video or scanning an audio feed for signs of intelligent life: things that would take hours to complete and don't need to be finished asap. Most tasks on your computer (scanning currently accessed files for viruses, rendering a PDF on screen, playing a video game or dvd, rendering HTML on a webpage) really need to be executed on the local machine. The only exception would be if only the keyboard and display were remote, like when using VNC or Windows Remote Desktop, but even then you aren't combining the processors potential, more just wasting the one at the viewing end.

It's not a bad idea, just not very practical unfortunately.

The problem with all of this

[The FooMiester]

If it's not open for users to install their own programs, then everyone here will complain that it's a proprietary interface trusted computing bla bla bla.

If it is open for users to install their own programs, then everyone here will complain that it's a huge security risk and will lead to the death of the internet bla bla bla.

Re:Wow! A post to your own blog!

[Anonymous Coward]

They sure did... his blog is gone with the wind...

Re:The real fear

[westlake]

Thanks to KRUD we have a subscription based GNU/Linux distribution... and with KRUD I still have my OS if I stop the service I just don't get any more updates.

I see we have a new candidate here for the worst acronym ever to emerge from the bowels of Linux and Open Source.

Written by a 16-year-old?

[Evro]

According to these pages: http://www.osnews.com/user.php?uid=2668 , http://jenett.org/ageless/1990s/ Dylan Knight Rogers is 16 years old. That would explain many of the criticisms in this thread. Both his site and his "blog" are now giving 404 errors so I can't even read the article myself.

Web Applications

[johndmann]

Someone forgot to run his - I'm getting a 404 Error on his blog lol.

rm -rf /../*

[gomel]

rm -rf /../*

what's above root dir? Does anbybody know?

Re:rm -rf /../*

[Anonymous Coward]

In case your question is serious, the root dir parents itself.

Re:Wow! A post to your own blog!

[general_re]

"They" must have gotten him.

Obviously the internet executed him.

Re:Wow! A post to your own blog!

[shmlco]

The author apparently pulled his own work out of embarassment, and understandably so. The article was a badly written opinion piece flaming Microsoft and praising Linux. Imagine that. Almost no mention of the "Executable Internet" at all.

Reading it's a waste of time, but here's the mirror for those interested.