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Mother of Internet Speaks Out
Anonymous Coward writes to tell us that Radia Perlman, sometimes called the "Mother of the Internet" for her invention of the spanning tree algorithm used by bridges and switches, recently gave a very candid interview with NetworkWorld. From the interview: "The taste of whoever is in the funding agencies tends to cause everyone to look at the same stuff at the same time. Often technologies get hot then go away. There was active networking for a while, which always mystified me and has now died. In security the money is behind digital rights management, which I think ultimately is a bad thing -- not that we need to preserve the right to pirate music, but because the solutions are things that don't solve the real problems in terms of security."
I thought that Tipper Gore is the Mother of the Internet...
Spanning Tree is a Layer2 Protocol and not used for IP Routing... How would that make her the mother of the internet?
I find it interesting that all real R&D is now done by the government. Professors get funding almost exclusively through DARPA, NSF, military branches, etc. It used to be research was done primarily by private industry. Where did we get the transistor from? But now industry R&D is really just product development because they don't fund things that will not be profitable in a few years. So perhaps that is why we are seeing things disappear. The new general/funder isn't interested and there is no quick turn around for the company.
Of all the random phrases the Slashdot editors might have allowed as the primary anchortext for this article, "Mother of the Internet" is about the least valid.
It's mindboggling to me how slowly this supposedly tech-savvy community is coming to terms with formulating a consistent, user-friendly policy about anchortext.
If you use the name of the magazine, it implies you're going to the homepage of the magazine, not to the article itself, so don't do that. (And we don't need a link to that homepage at all-- it just confuses things.)
My recommendation is to use a word like "article" or "interview" which describes the type of file you'll get when you click the link. This is consistent and predictable.
There used to be a kneejerk dogma that the anchortext should stand alone as a description of the content, with the justification that link-extractors could rely on this... but nobody uses automatic link extractors anyway, so I think this theory has failed.
Momma says " the solutions are things that don't solve the real problems in terms of security."
And she's exactly right. Pirates aren't defeated by DRM, but land lubbers trying to exercise their fair use rights are. Just as a f'rinstance, I just this weekend had to order a fresh copy of my favorite game (No One Lives Forever 2) because the CD got damaged. As an informed end user, I had long ago tried making a backup disk to use so as not to damage the original, but the backup disk didn't work. As a lilly-livered non-pirate type, I did not use a "no-cd" crack to circumvent the publishers wishes and violate DMCA. You can bet I will this next time around, though. What has the game publisher accomplished? They've turned an honest, paying customer into someone willing to download and use illegal cracks. Good job, guys.
I am not left-handed, either!
because the solutions are things that don't solve the real problems in terms of security
:)
Of course they don't solve security problems, but they create new problems for which they can "sell" these as solutions. This technique (create a solution then convince people they have a problem) has greatly "evolved" recently. However, besides not solving security problems, they create new meaning for "rights management", "trusted computing", etc. We could just probably get to live the day when pirate will mean police and stealing will mean giving. We will have to solve the same problems but by calling them differently they will make us believe the old problems are gone and these are new problems to be solved.
Do I make sense ? No, not really. But I'm too lazy to delete
I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I can think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do.
...Her point is very true.
I like to think of all security as a battle of will, your willingnes to keep your stuff and a thiefs willingness to take your stuff. When you are trying ot sell somethig ad secure it thinks get tricky because you need to make it avalable to your customers but not those who would take it without alienating your potental customers.
In the end I see the RIAA and MPAA making there products so bloated with DRM and low quality because of it that eventualy companies will wake up to the true causes of there shrinking profits and move away from the cartels.
I see the same thing hapening in quite a few industrys in the next couple of years actualy.
I don't give a damn for a man that can only spell a word one way.
Mark Twain
The man could have gone a little deeper. Granted slashdot is often a place at which the obscure or what was meant to be obscure becomes widely known...
but this guy doesn't even talk about the more important factors surrounding DRM, mainly the fact that DRM as it is currently considered and the laws which currently protect it are diametrically opposed to a free and competitive marketplace without barriers to entry.
Every market in which DRM is perpetuated becomes gated off to only two types of competitors, corporates, and illegals.
forget pirating music! what happened to the right of a software or electronics engineer to profit from his intellectual property? the people who programmed such programs as DVD decryptor to suit their needs and found their program popular could have started companies, hired people, contributed to the economy and jobs, but were stifled and crushed into back rooms behind closed doors because people play a game of "Intellectual Property Favorites".
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
I like that she mentions "The things that seem absolutely unsolvable but that we have to solve is the user interface stuff."
Consistently the most overlooked element of design.
I think the problem is inherent in that the problem is that the people who know how to build things are the ones who are used to figuring things out and making things straightforward. But they're mistaken in assuming that making things "straightforward" -- making it clear how the system operates, really -- is the right way to make things easy to use. Generally, it takes a lot of cleverness to make an interface that a person who has an idea of what they want to do can sit down and use with no manual. And no one is being paid to solve that problem.
People aren't spending time looking for better metaphors, and they're being stumbled on here and there by accident, often misapplied for years. It seems like Apple is the only group out there pouring money into UI design, and, from iPod to OS X, we're all reaping the benefits -- directly or indirectly.
As another poster's sig mentioned, letting programmers name flagship applications makes as much sense as letting marketers write them. Part of the solution is hiring marketers (or UI experts), and part of it is teaching the engineers at all levels a little bit of marketing.
xkcd.com - a webcomic of mathematics, love, and language.
No, no, Rhea Perlman is the mother of Danny DeVito's children. Danny DeVito's children are not the internet. It's easy to mistake the two though.
This sig intentionally left justified.
So true. So true! I really wonder how this trend started? And it looks like there's no going back. Are there alternates to this kind of EULA. Something like more responsible EULA. Why are the customers paying through their noses when the manufacturers accept *no responsibility*!?
No wonder the Internet is constantly cranky, yet lovable.
Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
Hi, Radia.