Anti-Technology Technologies?

shanen writes "A story from the NYTimes about metering internet traffic caught my eye. I thought the exchange of information over the Internet was supposed to be a good thing? Couldn't we use technology more constructively? For example, if there is too much network traffic for video and radio channels, why don't we offset with the increased use of P2P technologies like BitTorrent? Why don't we use wireless networks to reduce the traffic on the wired infrastructure? Such technologies often have highly desirable properties. For example, BitTorrent is excellent for rapidly increasing the availability of popular files while automatically balancing the network traffic, since the faster and closer connections will automatically wind up being favored. Instead, we have an increasing trend for anti-technology technologies and twisted narrow economic solutions such as those discussed in the NYTimes article, and attempts to restrict the disruptive communications technologies. You may remember how FM radio was delayed for years; part of the security requirements of a major company includes anti-P2P software, as well as locking down the wireless communications extremely tightly — but there are still gaps for the bad guys, while the main victims are the legitimate users of these technologies. Can you think of other examples? Do you have constructive solutions?"

Comments

Re:All right, that does it

[shanen]

I'm going to pretend that you're being humorous rather than a purely non-constructive arse with a tired wit. However, because I don't have much of sense of humor, I'm not going to waste a lot of time on you. Nor am I going to waste any time defending my geek credentials.

Much of the problem is the so-called last mile. This is precisely where wireless networks could address much of the bandwidth constraints. In conjunction with active local caching and BitTorrent or similar protocols, the entire situation can be changed and improved. Perhaps a concrete example is the best approach for your stiff head. Consider the situation where a lot of network traffic is consumed with video such as the Daily Show. Imagine that you do the initial distribution with BitTorrent, effectively caching the local copies for the relatively brief period of high interest. Most obviously, you greatly reduce long-distance network traffic from the central location, but with the local use of wireless networks, a great deal of the traffic will be completely off the wired network, since it will be distributed within dense urban hubs. They could still have their DRM (several mechanisms already exist)--and even date the files for expiration (though I believe that would be an extension into the area of BitTorrent-like protocols).

Actually, one of the new technologies we need is variable-power wireless networks (with more range than BlueTooth). By scaling down the transmission power as the node density goes up, you can effectively maintain local bandwidth as a constant. The total power consumption does increase, but that's because you have more nodes, but the main constraint on efficiency is how effectively you can cache the data. Interestingly enough, time-limited video is especially suitable for distributed caching.