Re:Verizon networks - built with Google's money?
on
Is Verizon a Network Hog?
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· Score: 2, Interesting
The public subsidizes telcos by allowing them to put their wires up all over public and private lands for free. In exchange, they pretty much have a monopoly on local phone service (and DO have a monopoly on the wires.) Yes, it's a free market, but it's also unrealistic to allow 300 providers to all put up their own wires in a community.
Frankly the solution to this problem is to separate service from physical infrastructure - another anti-trust breakup. Have the local ILEC ONLY provide the wires / buildings and have third party service providers do everything else. True competition. Today, the ILEC's can charge customers less for full DSL service than other DSL providers are charged for the lines alone.
So in Verizon FIOS territory, just how many competitors do you have to choose from???? In my area, it's VOL DSL (or a VOL DSL reseller) or Cable. That's it. Cable TOTALLY blows, so DSL is the ONLY option. And it's ALL verizon.
Re:Verizon's recent purchase makes this subject mo
on
Is Verizon a Network Hog?
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· Score: 4, Interesting
I don't believe this is about the long-haul backbones, this is probably about the local POP / loop, and the POP connection to the regional backbone. If a Verizon FIOS "hub" has a total of 1G bandwidth, and verizon is taking 800M of it, then all the other internet traffic can only use 200M split over who-knows-how-many end users. Furthermore, the POP to POP links may be allocated the same way. VOL will probably end up doing some massive video on demand system that will suck down most of the total bandwidth.
This would put any video on demand service that Google may (will) have at a severe disadvantage.
Even if a gob more dark fiber is available for all these pipes, it costs serious amounts of money to light them up. Obviously if VOL can "reserve" a big portion of bandwidth on the existing links to the point where they can offer all their value-add services, they don't have an incentive to light up more fiber.
So what ever happened to "trustworthy computing"? I believe the userbase would really like to see MS redesign IE from the ground up, much like what happened to netscape / mozilla. While it's no small effort, we are talking Microsoft here - it's not a cost issue. Perpetuating a design that has NEVER emphasized security just seems like the wrong thing to do - especially when it's "an integral part of the operating system" (as MS claims.)
As someone who uses Asterisk for VoIP (I have a nice Polycom 601 SIP speakerphone on my desk) the problem with SIP is that it totally blows when it comes to NAT traversal. IAX works MUCH better, and Skype even better than IAX. Furthermore, skype is encrypted. On the downside, skype interoperability is pretty much nonexistant, although there are projects to encorporate the skype protocol into Asterisk. SIP can be helped (in regards to NAT) with the use of SIP proxies, but it's not a clean solution - requiring additional hardware and such.
IAX is coming along, and will eventually support encryption too. Being an open protocol (some hardphones also now support it) I would bet that it eventually wins out over skype. Furthermore, skype currently depends on a company and their infrastructure to work.
Our company uses skype in place of long-distance phone occasionally, but the lag / echo can be really problematic with some lag being on the order of several seconds (SIP over the same connections doesn't seem to have that problem.)
That's interesting. So can you read the manual without opening the shrinkwrapped box? Does the manual state that it can damage your ability to burn CD/DVD's? Does it mention that it installs this potentially damaging malware on the OUTSIDE of the box? Do any stores allow you to return game software after opening the box?
Ahh! You have exposed yourself, false geek! Every geek knows that there is NOTHING more important in life than running your own server! Family, girlfriends, sex, All pale to the power of the orgasm you get when your server goes live on the net...
Unless you are just hosting content for script kiddies to find, it's not up to people on the outside to figure out how to access your machine - it's up to you to figure out a way that they CAN access it, such as getting a DNS entry and opening a port on your firewall... Of course this assumes your AUP for your internet connection allows servers (not all do.)
As for FTP, yuck. Rsync is your friend - works over ssh. If you are hosting on Windows, then it's a different matter. Either you have decided that security is not important or you have a good hardware firewall in front of the box that has VPN support.
It's interesting... We use both mysql and postgres on one of our complex sites, for different things. Both are quite good, but one limitation of postgres we kept running into is getting more than 1000 connections - seems to be some kind of hardcoded limit. Mysql on the other hand happily (with tweaking) handles several thousand connections. It's forced us into some hacks like splitting postgres over multiple DB servers (lack of built-in replication is a total PITA.)
What's outrageous? The fact that MS and the feds are celebrating as if they have caught a criminal mastermind or the fact that this idiot, who has a history of criminal activity, is spending jail time for breaking the law again?
Except that SCO wasn't dealing with patent issues. They only went after companies that THEY had contracts with (partners and SCO clients.) Those contracts are what allowed SCO to demand audits and all sorts of other crazy stuff.
The ahref=http://asteriskpbx.org/rel=url2html-25774htt p://asteriskpbx.org/> project has this, and requires a signed document before they will accept any patches / code. They also dual-license and have a proprietry version of Asterisk. There has been numerous discussions about this on the mailing list and many developers will not release code for inclusion with Asterisk because of this.
With more competitors (sangoma) getting into the hardware business, I am a little concerned about the long-term viability of the company behind it (they make a good portion of their money from hardware.)
Re:Games Have Always Been Social
on
35% Of Parents Game
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· Score: 2, Informative
True, but with everything there are limits.
I know a family where the dad (50) and 2 sons (10 and 16) play to the extreme. Dad and the boys play ALL the time (dad is out of work, and too friggin lazy to get a real job.) The 10 year old usually stays up until midnight playing with dad and older bro.
Both kids do not do well in school and are anti-social.
I know another family where the 8 year old games all the time, alone, with seriously violent MA games. He has serious social issues too.
So anyway, sure, game with your kids, but set reasonable time limits. Do other things too - don't let gaming be one ot the only activities you do together. And make sure the games are appropriate for the age of the child.
easily managed via the server administration tools Apple provides
You miss my point. GUI's are not (easily) scriptable. It's very normal to need to make bulk changes. Gui's are just fine for one-off changes, but it gets to the point where is just as fast to do the random odd change via command line as well as bulk changes with the command line when you are used to the command line.
Don't be scared of the command line. It is your friend.
As for open directory, apple did some funky stuff there too such as storing XML structures inside of text fields rather than developing a schema for the items in the structure. Bad apple! No biscuit.
I know they are trying to make unix easy, but sometimes what is easier to deal with from a "coding a GUI tool" point of view makes things a LOT harder when you don't (or can't) use a GUI.
No, it's not hard to grok, but it's awkward. GUI administration tools suck for a professional unix admin. Ones that can't be run remotely suck even more.
Worse, there are a lot of properties that seem to be saved C++ objects as binary elements inside an XML file for example. The only way to work with them is via the GUI tools, or some unreasonably complex and awkward command line tool (if at all.) Apple has also decided to do away with standard UNIX locations for things for no damn reason.
Try administering a headless xserve in a colo. Talk about pain. Things get really fun when ARD stops responding and the authentication service pukes, so you can't login at all.
No thanks. Xserves are fine when you have onsite staff that can easily touch them, and login at the local console. No way will I ever touch one in a remote headless situation ever again. Apple could learn a lot from HP's ILO system, which would address a lot of my concerns.
To get this back on topic, I'd have to say that an xserve running Linux is a LOT easier to run remotely than one running OS X.
I know the writers of the new Dr. Who series have been secretly coming into my bedroom at night and using a memory scanner device to record my dreams and steal my ideas. I'm fully within my rights to download future episodes off the internet to use in potential future litigation.
Damn tinfoil hats don't work - need to get a lead-lined titanium hat.
Hmm. Thinking about this more, they did not make ONE copy, they made SEVERAL. Under any kind of fair use type laws and rulings, this is not allowed. This probably has nothing to do with the DMCA (probably not encrypted,) and all to do with regular copyright law.
But the bottom line is that the time and cost of taking the MPAA to court (probably multiple appeals) isn't worth it unless your pockets are VERY deep.
Think of it as photocopying a book and passing it around for all to read. Clear violation.
... But the MPAA's opinion is that there is no such thing as "Fair Use". They don't even allow you to make a backup copy of your DVD's (which, especially if you have children, is important.)
There used to be a company called "321 Studios" that sold backup software. Guess what happened to them?
When talking about copying data against the data owners permission... If it's corporate data, such as peoples social security or credit card info from corporate records, it's theft. When copying music, it's copyright infringment - not theft.
Maybe it's because we (including myself) view the RIAA / MPAA as thugs and therefore not deserving of the same protections.
Of course there is also a difference of published versus unpublished information, so it's not quite the same, but still...
Just making an observation (devil's advocate style).
This is wrong. The nvidia driver, as an example, is universal across all distributions. It just doesn't use the distribution's package manager. But it's still trivial to install.
the solution is to get manufacturers to release the source to their drivers.
No. The solution is for the manufacturers to release the documentation to their hardware and let the community write and maintain the drivers. Then it costs them NOTHING.
In the "old" days, everyone released detailed documents that told you how to work with their hardware. Now they just claim that the info is a proprietary trade secret. Sorry, but there is NOTHING about a wireless card, modem, printer, video card, scanner, etc. that competitors don't already know, or that would give them an advantage.
Yes - I for one support our MagLev overloards. I'm going to petition building management to be the first test site. It should be a wonderfully smooth ride for my backup tapes... Doh!
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The public subsidizes telcos by allowing them to put their wires up all over public and private lands for free. In exchange, they pretty much have a monopoly on local phone service (and DO have a monopoly on the wires.) Yes, it's a free market, but it's also unrealistic to allow 300 providers to all put up their own wires in a community.
Frankly the solution to this problem is to separate service from physical infrastructure - another anti-trust breakup. Have the local ILEC ONLY provide the wires / buildings and have third party service providers do everything else. True competition. Today, the ILEC's can charge customers less for full DSL service than other DSL providers are charged for the lines alone.
So in Verizon FIOS territory, just how many competitors do you have to choose from???? In my area, it's VOL DSL (or a VOL DSL reseller) or Cable. That's it. Cable TOTALLY blows, so DSL is the ONLY option. And it's ALL verizon.
I don't believe this is about the long-haul backbones, this is probably about the local POP / loop, and the POP connection to the regional backbone. If a Verizon FIOS "hub" has a total of 1G bandwidth, and verizon is taking 800M of it, then all the other internet traffic can only use 200M split over who-knows-how-many end users. Furthermore, the POP to POP links may be allocated the same way. VOL will probably end up doing some massive video on demand system that will suck down most of the total bandwidth.
This would put any video on demand service that Google may (will) have at a severe disadvantage.
Even if a gob more dark fiber is available for all these pipes, it costs serious amounts of money to light them up. Obviously if VOL can "reserve" a big portion of bandwidth on the existing links to the point where they can offer all their value-add services, they don't have an incentive to light up more fiber.
So what ever happened to "trustworthy computing"? I believe the userbase would really like to see MS redesign IE from the ground up, much like what happened to netscape / mozilla. While it's no small effort, we are talking Microsoft here - it's not a cost issue. Perpetuating a design that has NEVER emphasized security just seems like the wrong thing to do - especially when it's "an integral part of the operating system" (as MS claims.)
As someone who uses Asterisk for VoIP (I have a nice Polycom 601 SIP speakerphone on my desk) the problem with SIP is that it totally blows when it comes to NAT traversal. IAX works MUCH better, and Skype even better than IAX. Furthermore, skype is encrypted. On the downside, skype interoperability is pretty much nonexistant, although there are projects to encorporate the skype protocol into Asterisk. SIP can be helped (in regards to NAT) with the use of SIP proxies, but it's not a clean solution - requiring additional hardware and such.
IAX is coming along, and will eventually support encryption too. Being an open protocol (some hardphones also now support it) I would bet that it eventually wins out over skype. Furthermore, skype currently depends on a company and their infrastructure to work.
Our company uses skype in place of long-distance phone occasionally, but the lag / echo can be really problematic with some lag being on the order of several seconds (SIP over the same connections doesn't seem to have that problem.)
That's interesting. So can you read the manual without opening the shrinkwrapped box? Does the manual state that it can damage your ability to burn CD/DVD's? Does it mention that it installs this potentially damaging malware on the OUTSIDE of the box? Do any stores allow you to return game software after opening the box?
Questions questions...
Ahh! You have exposed yourself, false geek! Every geek knows that there is NOTHING more important in life than running your own server! Family, girlfriends, sex, All pale to the power of the orgasm you get when your server goes live on the net...
:-)
Note for the humor imparied:
Unless you are just hosting content for script kiddies to find, it's not up to people on the outside to figure out how to access your machine - it's up to you to figure out a way that they CAN access it, such as getting a DNS entry and opening a port on your firewall... Of course this assumes your AUP for your internet connection allows servers (not all do.)
As for FTP, yuck. Rsync is your friend - works over ssh. If you are hosting on Windows, then it's a different matter. Either you have decided that security is not important or you have a good hardware firewall in front of the box that has VPN support.
It's interesting... We use both mysql and postgres on one of our complex sites, for different things. Both are quite good, but one limitation of postgres we kept running into is getting more than 1000 connections - seems to be some kind of hardcoded limit. Mysql on the other hand happily (with tweaking) handles several thousand connections. It's forced us into some hacks like splitting postgres over multiple DB servers (lack of built-in replication is a total PITA.)
What's outrageous? The fact that MS and the feds are celebrating as if they have caught a criminal mastermind or the fact that this idiot, who has a history of criminal activity, is spending jail time for breaking the law again?
Except that SCO wasn't dealing with patent issues. They only went after companies that THEY had contracts with (partners and SCO clients.) Those contracts are what allowed SCO to demand audits and all sorts of other crazy stuff.
Furthermore, when the next security hole is discovered, you don't have the ability to patch it. Ever.
Nah, the best solution is to hedge your bets by migrating to a platform that can never be shut down. Open source, baby!
The ahref=http://asteriskpbx.org/rel=url2html-25774htt p://asteriskpbx.org/> project has this, and requires a signed document before they will accept any patches / code. They also dual-license and have a proprietry version of Asterisk. There has been numerous discussions about this on the mailing list and many developers will not release code for inclusion with Asterisk because of this.
With more competitors (sangoma) getting into the hardware business, I am a little concerned about the long-term viability of the company behind it (they make a good portion of their money from hardware.)
True, but with everything there are limits.
I know a family where the dad (50) and 2 sons (10 and 16) play to the extreme. Dad and the boys play ALL the time (dad is out of work, and too friggin lazy to get a real job.) The 10 year old usually stays up until midnight playing with dad and older bro.
Both kids do not do well in school and are anti-social.
I know another family where the 8 year old games all the time, alone, with seriously violent MA games. He has serious social issues too.
So anyway, sure, game with your kids, but set reasonable time limits. Do other things too - don't let gaming be one ot the only activities you do together. And make sure the games are appropriate for the age of the child.
easily managed via the server administration tools Apple provides
You miss my point. GUI's are not (easily) scriptable. It's very normal to need to make bulk changes. Gui's are just fine for one-off changes, but it gets to the point where is just as fast to do the random odd change via command line as well as bulk changes with the command line when you are used to the command line.
Don't be scared of the command line. It is your friend.
As for open directory, apple did some funky stuff there too such as storing XML structures inside of text fields rather than developing a schema for the items in the structure. Bad apple! No biscuit.
I know they are trying to make unix easy, but sometimes what is easier to deal with from a "coding a GUI tool" point of view makes things a LOT harder when you don't (or can't) use a GUI.
No, it's not hard to grok, but it's awkward. GUI administration tools suck for a professional unix admin. Ones that can't be run remotely suck even more.
Worse, there are a lot of properties that seem to be saved C++ objects as binary elements inside an XML file for example. The only way to work with them is via the GUI tools, or some unreasonably complex and awkward command line tool (if at all.) Apple has also decided to do away with standard UNIX locations for things for no damn reason.
Try administering a headless xserve in a colo. Talk about pain. Things get really fun when ARD stops responding and the authentication service pukes, so you can't login at all.
No thanks. Xserves are fine when you have onsite staff that can easily touch them, and login at the local console. No way will I ever touch one in a remote headless situation ever again. Apple could learn a lot from HP's ILO system, which would address a lot of my concerns.
To get this back on topic, I'd have to say that an xserve running Linux is a LOT easier to run remotely than one running OS X.
You would still be in violation of the photographers copyright. Sorry.
For all our more or less good natured attorney bashing that goes on here, believe it or not I have met a few honest human beings
:-)
Nah, you just met the sleazier variety that is good at faking it...
I know the writers of the new Dr. Who series have been secretly coming into my bedroom at night and using a memory scanner device to record my dreams and steal my ideas. I'm fully within my rights to download future episodes off the internet to use in potential future litigation.
Damn tinfoil hats don't work - need to get a lead-lined titanium hat.
Hmm. Thinking about this more, they did not make ONE copy, they made SEVERAL. Under any kind of fair use type laws and rulings, this is not allowed. This probably has nothing to do with the DMCA (probably not encrypted,) and all to do with regular copyright law.
But the bottom line is that the time and cost of taking the MPAA to court (probably multiple appeals) isn't worth it unless your pockets are VERY deep.
Think of it as photocopying a book and passing it around for all to read. Clear violation.
... But the MPAA's opinion is that there is no such thing as "Fair Use". They don't even allow you to make a backup copy of your DVD's (which, especially if you have children, is important.)
There used to be a company called "321 Studios" that sold backup software. Guess what happened to them?
When talking about copying data against the data owners permission... If it's corporate data, such as peoples social security or credit card info from corporate records, it's theft. When copying music, it's copyright infringment - not theft.
Maybe it's because we (including myself) view the RIAA / MPAA as thugs and therefore not deserving of the same protections.
Of course there is also a difference of published versus unpublished information, so it's not quite the same, but still...
Just making an observation (devil's advocate style).
This is wrong. The nvidia driver, as an example, is universal across all distributions. It just doesn't use the distribution's package manager. But it's still trivial to install.
the solution is to get manufacturers to release the source to their drivers.
No. The solution is for the manufacturers to release the documentation to their hardware and let the community write and maintain the drivers. Then it costs them NOTHING.
In the "old" days, everyone released detailed documents that told you how to work with their hardware. Now they just claim that the info is a proprietary trade secret. Sorry, but there is NOTHING about a wireless card, modem, printer, video card, scanner, etc. that competitors don't already know, or that would give them an advantage.
Yes - I for one support our MagLev overloards. I'm going to petition building management to be the first test site. It should be a wonderfully smooth ride for my backup tapes... Doh!