You need higher priority packets for VOIP. Well, you don't NEED, but if you don't get, then your audio stream tends to break up.
Higher priority traffic has to be marked as such and jumps the queue over non high priority traffic. Your payment for your IP service will include a certain amount of high priority traffic. You'll pay more for more high priority traffic.
One of the problems with VOIP is that it needs to be higher priority traffic than normal traffic- it pretty much needs guaranteed bandwidth. The problem is that we probably can't have ALL the bandwidth on the internet being high priority.
Therefore having a higher tarrif for higher priority traffic probably is the way to go.
(Some scheme like a free number of packets per month might work too...)
Still, even in the short run the amount of bandwidth we get on the internet is going to be pretty high. More than 24 hours 7 days a week free voice bandwidth isn't an unreasonable demand for us to make.
New born babies haven't grown their skulls yet, they can be used as torches - obviously bigger brains -> brighter light. It gives new meaning to the phrase 'he's a bright boy!'
Basically what they are saying is that everyone might be guilty therefore we are going to record every connection made for whatever reason. It's like having a legally mandated tail on every man woman or child in the uk that is on the internet.
Lets look at what this means:
Access a web page on drugs? Must be a drugs user. Lets raid his house! We now have prior reason! Looked up a web page on the law?? Must have broken one! Lets find out which one! Does your wife know you access porn sir?
Still there is a distinction between recording the information and having access to it. Big difference. And knowing that a connection exists isn't the same as knowing what flows down the connection. (I'm presuming they are just recording connection IDs rather than contents, for practical reasons atleast.)
Still there are ways to circumvent this law. Set up your own proxy server for one, off shore. Make one encrypted connection to that; and that's all you need. The law is unworkable for catching criminals of any intelligence. For prying into the personal lives of ordinary citizens, and possibly trying blackmailing them, its great!
Paranoid? Moi? Paranoia doesn't mean they aren't out to get you.
The horizon for GNUTELLA should be about 5000 hosts. Currently they are getting a few tens or hundreds at most. That sounds like a collapse to me.
But that ISN'T because P2P is a bad idea, it is purely the bad, partly closed source, implementation and specifications of GNUTELLA.
There's no particular reason that horizons shouldn't still be 5000+. In fact even more than that, as the GNUTELLA protocol is quite bandwidth inefficient. It may be possible to more than double the number of hosts within the horizon by being more efficient.
e.g. nearly half of the current overhead is in the TCP packet headers. Sending bigger, less frequent messages would reduce the overhead percentage greatly and give much more "useful" throughput. (If you think Britney Spears is useful;-)
To be honest, if someone's got a suitcase nuke, I'd prefer them to take out a tether than use it on the earth!
The cable wouldn't wrap around the earth- it would burn up as it re-enters. You wouldn't want to be in the few hundred miles east of the cable, but other than that its not a problem that can't be dealt with.
So the idea is that the cable would be built on an east coast and other design features would ensure cable wouldn't reach the earths surface after a catastrophic failure.
Tamperproof because it never leaves my possession and because it is designed to be secure. It may or may not be networked- not all protocols require this.
What's to stop me having multiple signatures in normal life anyway? I don't think that this is a problem- its probably an advantage.
Standard contracts aren't distributable across a network reliably; they can be modified. Standard contracts most definitely ARE prone to deletion; crytographic protocols ensure that crypto-signed contracts AREN'T changed at all after signing otherwise the signature won't verify.
I'm not saying that crypto-systems are super secure. What I am saying is that they are about the same, and if used with care, can be MORE secure than the other methods used. They are NOT magic-solve-all-your-security issue schemes. But they are useful tools.
>2. The computer is not a trusted environment.
>Well, if you dont trust your machine, then thats
>your own problem. I trust mine, because I take
>care of it remaining trusted.
Wrong. Wrong. WRONG!
Your win 98 machine is on a network. Then your machine isn't trustable. Full stop. If you think otherwise post your ip address and I'm sure someone will show you the error of your ways...;-)
Even if that wasn't the case, there's nothing to stop someone breaking into you apartment/house and circumventing any security you might have. Physical access to a machine pretty much breaks all and any computer security. Unless you live in Fort Knox and even then you have to worry about someone bribing the guards.
Sure it can. I stand next to the notary with my tamperproof palmtop. I hand him the document for perusal. He hands it back to me. I sign the document. The notary signs my signature and hands it back to me.
these buckeytubes were as strong as they potentially could be, then unfortunately the space elevator is probably economically impossible for quite some time.
Space elevators are 38 THOUSAND kilometers long. The material would have to come from the moon or asteroids, getting even a few hundred of tonnes of material from either is maybe 10 years away; never mind the 10s of thousands of tonnes needed. Then there's the factory. Then there's the fuel needed to move stuff to GEO orbit. etc. etc.
In the shorter term though, we're talking stronger bridges, skyscrapers, stronger carbon fiber materials etc. etc. Even lighter (hence better) space vehicles. Cool tech. Want some.
The point is, like the keys you probably have in your pocket; the smaller computer probably isn't networked, and probably doesn't leave her physical possession. Therefore it is difficult to attack.
If it's networked, or gets stolen, all bets are off.
It's not as easy as it seems. Is it a cross on a piece of paper? It can be, particularly if the signer is unable to write.
Is it a thumb print. Yup could be.
Is it a digital signature. Yup often is.
The point is that the law is actually more flexible and subtle than its often assumed to be.
Ok. Can written signatures be forged? Of course. Happens every day and twice on sundays.
Can digital signatures be forged? Yes, either by cracking the cryptographic system (usually very hard) or by hacking into the system that has the cryptographic system running on it (usually pretty easy, although not always).
Also with digital signatures (and with written signatures) there is a question of identity - is the John Smith that's signing the SAME John Smith that's paying? And if so, who says so?;-)
Either way a fraud can been commited. And either way the court is the place to duke it out.
Is a digital signature less secure than a written one? Right now I doubt it, although in future it may be less or more so depending on the systems used.
I personally think that Bruce Schneier is trying to drum up more business for his security company;-) (He writes great books though)
Want to bet? Bearing in mind how fast the web is growing, do you really believe this?
Actually its well established that the actual data rate travelling in the middle of the network has been doubling every NINE MONTHS for a couple of decades. Read Tanenbaum's book on networking for more info.
You mentioned the problems of increasing throughput. The current maximum achieved throughput isn't much to do with it- current installations are typically one or two orders of magnitude slower than the maximum.
The maximum achieved looks like it is reaching a limit, but the installations are years behind this and anyway doubtless new techniques will be invented to circumvent the limits we see right now.
Even then there's still an astonishing amount of bandwidth left. However it's nigh on impossible to access this bandwidth due to phase dispersion of fibers. I suspect that techniques will be developed to overcome this.
Sold! I'll take a 1000 tonnes of ice per year for the next decade to LEO. Not sure how you're going to make a profit at $1300/lb but hey that's your problem;-)
- that's expensive. That's what politicians do when they get into power, they produce symbols of their power. i.e. white elephants. They always have. You only have to look at any town hall or whatever...
For about 4 billion we could be mining the moon for ice right now. That is a reasonably good rocket propellant and allows MONEY to be made from space and would be the start of commerce in space.
We could actually open up the asteroids and reduce the cost of putting things into geosynchronous orbit by upto 6 times, things like wireless internet connections, TV satellites etc.
There's a site that talks about this stuff, the guy that wrote it is retired though, check out www.neofuel.com
> Mass is expensive in space because of the delta Vs required to get it
>where you want it,
Not really. Plenty of mass exists in low delta-v situations (asteroids, the moon, mars is pretty low). Also some of the asteroids are about 60% metal, so it's actually easier to process than on the earth where the ore is typically parts per thousand or worse.
>but it is very cheap on a planet.
It's not that cheap on a planet, the mass is rarely where you wanted it. You still have transport costs.
>you also need lots of reaction mass as fuel for generating these delta Vs
Its very likely that there is ice on the lunar poles, and asteroids at the asteroid belt are probably very high in volatiles. Fuel isn't much of a problem- it will quickly come down to dollars per tonne for transport costs. It may even be cheaper than on earth.
Incidentally radiation protection is pretty trivial you just need a few tonnes of rock; ironically Mars has very high radiation levels to contend with anyway due to its very thin atmosphere.
>I'd hardly call the moldy Mir free of pests. WWII Japanese submarines, infamous for rats and roaches,
>are another artificial environment that could change your perceptions of such things. Yummmy, a fart in a space suit.
>Hell, there are some buildings I don't like being in and fresh air is right outside.
Fresh air like in Los Angeles?
In world war II that might have been true, but current nuclear powered submarines don't have any of these issues.
>Some mirco meteor is not going to ruin your day with body piercing and sucking out that atmosphere.
Last time they signed an OS deal they didn't do so well;-)
Of course the open source nature of Linux should solve most problems, but it may not matter if they're completely stupid with the terms of the contract...
Something like:
'We IBM, hereby promise to buy our Linux from Red Hat only, for ever and ever and ever...'
I mean any company that can miss out on that never ever going to be a success the 'PC' may manage to mess up with Linux also...
I mean there's nothing more endangered than the woolly mammoth is there?
Incidentally I assume you know that there is a scientist somewhere or other who is trying to do just that. Occasionally in the old USSR they found frozen woolly mammoths. Obviously the sperm and eggs are dead. But the DNA should still be largely intact...
They had a plan to take woolly mammoth 'dead' sperm implant it into elephant egg and then implant into an elephant. Turns out that usually works with dead sperm. After several generations the elemammoth should become more and more mammoth.
This was the plan before cloning was developed. They're probably hoping to do something fancier now... All they need is that mammoth popsicle. I mean there's never one around when you need one is there...
That would be a good explanation for why IBM aren't doing what they ARE doing.
So why ARE they doing it?
I would imagine that IBM look at Linux because it allows them access to the upgrade market from small-medium systems. At the moment they tend to be locked out of it, because of OS incompatibility. If they implement Linux on their hardware they can capture some of the top end hardware market for Linux, and can continue to sell the older O/S as well; those users are locked in. (IBM market share would therefore go up.)
Web server too slow? Get a Linux Big Iron.
IBM probably, kinda like Apple, see themselves as a hardware company. They have a niche Big Iron product to sell; and Big Iron is Big Bucks. Their strategy aligns with that thinking. Probably will work too. It's very clever really.
>Unfortunately, WolfWithoutAClause, argues from
>the perspective of "current" technology but
>proposes actions that require "future"
>technology to be done cost effectively.
No. The basic, current technology, is good enough. The problem and solution is simple economics. Because the price is too high nobody much goes. Nobody much goes so the price is too high. The answer is to increase volume and hence cut costs. The price comes down- more people go, the price comes down... even more go.
The cost of putting something into LEO is about $1300/lb. If the rate of launch was increased by an order of magnitude, the cost of launch is likely to decrease by about an order of magnitude. The reason is that the cost of a rocket is almost independent of the cost of fuel (its a lot less than 1% fuel costs).
Its believed that the true cost of getting to orbit is about the same as the cost of concorde across the atlantic. Do a web search and you should soon find that out. Certainly the fuel usage is comparable.
If you check out the neofuels link they suggest mining the moon for water. That technology is quite within our grasp. Together with the reduced launch costs it would open up the earth, moon and the asteroids. Once we are there; the solar system is ours.
>So the answer, as it is with most things, is we
>need molecular nanotechnology and
>self-replicating engineering systems.
Ok, first the Near Earth Asteroids are bad if they are heading for earth, but they aren't the worst, because they are mostly predictable. The worst are the extrasolar asteroids/comets that come barrelling in from outside the solar system, from the Oort cloud or beyond.
You might only get a few months warning on those at best (they mostly shine within the orbit of mars), and at worst, they come at you from the sunward direction where our telescopes can't see them. You wake up one day wondering what that wall of fire is. Or maybe we don't wake up at all.
There probably is no reasonable defense against such asteroids. Moving them- there probably is no way that can be done in that short time scale.
Its not particularly likely to happen soon, but it will happen eventually. Even long period comets that come round once a millenia or so. So this time they line with the earth for the first time and...
There is one way for humans to survive however. We need to build space habitats as soon as we possibly can.
Slashdot Mirror
You need higher priority packets for VOIP. Well, you don't NEED, but if you don't get, then your audio stream tends to break up.
Higher priority traffic has to be marked as such and jumps the queue over non high priority traffic. Your payment for your IP service will include a certain amount of high priority traffic. You'll pay more for more high priority traffic.
I don't want to pay anymore than the next guy.
One of the problems with VOIP is that it needs to be higher priority traffic than normal traffic- it pretty much needs guaranteed bandwidth. The problem is that we probably can't have ALL the bandwidth on the internet being high priority.
Therefore having a higher tarrif for higher priority traffic probably is the way to go.
(Some scheme like a free number of packets per month might work too...)
Still, even in the short run the amount of bandwidth we get on the internet is going to be pretty high. More than 24 hours 7 days a week free voice bandwidth isn't an unreasonable demand for us to make.
New born babies haven't grown their skulls yet, they can be used as torches - obviously bigger brains -> brighter light. It gives new meaning to the phrase 'he's a bright boy!'
Basically what they are saying is that everyone might be guilty therefore we are going to record every connection made for whatever reason. It's like having a legally mandated tail on every man woman or child in the uk that is on the internet.
Lets look at what this means:
Access a web page on drugs? Must be a drugs user. Lets raid his house! We now have prior reason! Looked up a web page on the law?? Must have broken one! Lets find out which one! Does your wife know you access porn sir?
Still there is a distinction between recording the information and having access to it. Big difference. And knowing that a connection exists isn't the same as knowing what flows down the connection. (I'm presuming they are just recording connection IDs rather than contents, for practical reasons atleast.)
Still there are ways to circumvent this law. Set up your own proxy server for one, off shore. Make one encrypted connection to that; and that's all you need. The law is unworkable for catching criminals of any intelligence. For prying into the personal lives of ordinary citizens, and possibly trying blackmailing them, its great!
Paranoid? Moi? Paranoia doesn't mean they aren't out to get you.
The horizon for GNUTELLA should be about 5000 hosts. Currently they are getting a few tens or hundreds at most. That sounds like a collapse to me.
;-)
But that ISN'T because P2P is a bad idea, it is purely the bad, partly closed source, implementation and specifications of GNUTELLA.
There's no particular reason that horizons shouldn't still be 5000+. In fact even more than that, as the GNUTELLA protocol is quite bandwidth inefficient. It may be possible to more than double the number of hosts within the horizon by being more efficient.
e.g. nearly half of the current overhead is in the TCP packet headers. Sending bigger, less frequent messages would reduce the overhead percentage greatly and give much more "useful" throughput. (If you think Britney Spears is useful
To be honest, if someone's got a suitcase nuke, I'd prefer them to take out a tether than use it on the earth!
The cable wouldn't wrap around the earth- it would burn up as it re-enters. You wouldn't want to be in the few hundred miles east of the cable, but other than that its not a problem that can't be dealt with.
So the idea is that the cable would be built on an east coast and other design features would ensure cable wouldn't reach the earths surface after a catastrophic failure.
Tamperproof because it never leaves my possession and because it is designed to be secure. It may or may not be networked- not all protocols require this.
What's to stop me having multiple signatures in normal life anyway? I don't think that this is a problem- its probably an advantage.
Standard contracts aren't distributable across a network reliably; they can be modified. Standard contracts most definitely ARE prone to deletion; crytographic protocols ensure that crypto-signed contracts AREN'T changed at all after signing otherwise the signature won't verify.
I'm not saying that crypto-systems are super secure. What I am saying is that they are about the same, and if used with care, can be MORE secure than the other methods used. They are NOT magic-solve-all-your-security issue schemes. But they are useful tools.
>2. The computer is not a trusted environment.
;-)
>Well, if you dont trust your machine, then thats
>your own problem. I trust mine, because I take
>care of it remaining trusted.
Wrong. Wrong. WRONG!
Your win 98 machine is on a network. Then your machine isn't trustable. Full stop. If you think otherwise post your ip address and I'm sure someone will show you the error of your ways...
Even if that wasn't the case, there's nothing to stop someone breaking into you apartment/house and circumventing any security you might have. Physical access to a machine pretty much breaks all and any computer security. Unless you live in Fort Knox and even then you have to worry about someone bribing the guards.
Sure it can. I stand next to the notary with my tamperproof palmtop. I hand him the document for perusal. He hands it back to me. I sign the document. The notary signs my signature and hands it back to me.
these buckeytubes were as strong as they potentially could be, then unfortunately the space elevator is probably economically impossible for quite some time.
Space elevators are 38 THOUSAND kilometers long. The material would have to come from the moon or asteroids, getting even a few hundred of tonnes of material from either is maybe 10 years away; never mind the 10s of thousands of tonnes needed. Then there's the factory. Then there's the fuel needed to move stuff to GEO orbit. etc. etc.
In the shorter term though, we're talking stronger bridges, skyscrapers, stronger carbon fiber materials etc. etc. Even lighter (hence better) space vehicles. Cool tech. Want some.
The point is, like the keys you probably have in your pocket; the smaller computer probably isn't networked, and probably doesn't leave her physical possession. Therefore it is difficult to attack.
If it's networked, or gets stolen, all bets are off.
First. What legally speaking is a signature?
;-)
;-) (He writes great books though)
It's not as easy as it seems. Is it a cross on a piece of paper? It can be, particularly if the signer is unable to write.
Is it a thumb print. Yup could be.
Is it a digital signature. Yup often is.
The point is that the law is actually more flexible and subtle than its often assumed to be.
Ok. Can written signatures be forged? Of course. Happens every day and twice on sundays.
Can digital signatures be forged? Yes, either by cracking the cryptographic system (usually very hard) or by hacking into the system that has the cryptographic system running on it (usually pretty easy, although not always).
Also with digital signatures (and with written signatures) there is a question of identity - is the John Smith that's signing the SAME John Smith that's paying? And if so, who says so?
Either way a fraud can been commited. And either way the court is the place to duke it out.
Is a digital signature less secure than a written one? Right now I doubt it, although in future it may be less or more so depending on the systems used.
I personally think that Bruce Schneier is trying to drum up more business for his security company
...was included with windows to give you something to favourably compare the 'bomb' rate to.
Comparisons:
Minesweeper:
- often explodes on the first click
- randomly explodes later on
- game is over quite quickly
- you have to press the reset button to restart
Windows:
- often explodes on the first click
- randomly explodes later on
- game is over quite quickly
- you have to press the reset button to restart
Its the same program!
Therefore- the Stability of Windows is NP complete! QED!
Want to bet? Bearing in mind how fast the web is growing, do you really believe this?
Actually its well established that the actual data rate travelling in the middle of the network has been doubling every NINE MONTHS for a couple of decades. Read Tanenbaum's book on networking for more info.
You mentioned the problems of increasing throughput. The current maximum achieved throughput isn't much to do with it- current installations are typically one or two orders of magnitude slower than the maximum.
The maximum achieved looks like it is reaching a limit, but the installations are years behind this and anyway doubtless new techniques will be invented to circumvent the limits we see right now.
Even then there's still an astonishing amount of bandwidth left. However it's nigh on impossible to access this bandwidth due to phase dispersion of fibers. I suspect that techniques will be developed to overcome this.
Sold! I'll take a 1000 tonnes of ice per year for the next decade to LEO. Not sure how you're going to make a profit at $1300/lb but hey that's your problem ;-)
For about 4 billion we could be mining the moon for ice right now. That is a reasonably good rocket propellant and allows MONEY to be made from space and would be the start of commerce in space. We could actually open up the asteroids and reduce the cost of putting things into geosynchronous orbit by upto 6 times, things like wireless internet connections, TV satellites etc.
There's a site that talks about this stuff, the guy that wrote it is retired though, check out www.neofuel.com
> Mass is expensive in space because of the delta Vs required to get it
>where you want it,
Not really. Plenty of mass exists in low delta-v situations (asteroids, the moon, mars is pretty low). Also some of the asteroids are about 60% metal, so it's actually easier to process than on the earth where the ore is typically parts per thousand or worse.
>but it is very cheap on a planet.
It's not that cheap on a planet, the mass is rarely where you wanted it. You still have transport costs.
>you also need lots of reaction mass as fuel for generating these delta Vs
Its very likely that there is ice on the lunar poles, and asteroids at the asteroid belt are probably very high in volatiles. Fuel isn't much of a problem- it will quickly come down to dollars per tonne for transport costs. It may even be cheaper than on earth.
Incidentally radiation protection is pretty trivial you just need a few tonnes of rock; ironically Mars has very high radiation levels to contend with anyway due to its very thin atmosphere.
>I'd hardly call the moldy Mir free of pests. WWII Japanese submarines, infamous for rats and roaches,
>are another artificial environment that could change your perceptions of such things. Yummmy, a fart in a space suit.
>Hell, there are some buildings I don't like being in and fresh air is right outside.
Fresh air like in Los Angeles?
In world war II that might have been true, but current nuclear powered submarines don't have any of these issues.
>Some mirco meteor is not going to ruin your day with body piercing and sucking out that atmosphere.
One word: Dinosaurs.
Last time they signed an OS deal they didn't do so well ;-)
Of course the open source nature of Linux should solve most problems, but it may not matter if they're completely stupid with the terms of the contract...
Something like:
'We IBM, hereby promise to buy our Linux from Red Hat only, for ever and ever and ever...'
I mean any company that can miss out on that never ever going to be a success the 'PC' may manage to mess up with Linux also...
I mean there's nothing more endangered than the woolly mammoth is there?
Incidentally I assume you know that there is a scientist somewhere or other who is trying to do just that. Occasionally in the old USSR they found frozen woolly mammoths. Obviously the sperm and eggs are dead. But the DNA should still be largely intact...
They had a plan to take woolly mammoth 'dead' sperm implant it into elephant egg and then implant into an elephant. Turns out that usually works with dead sperm. After several generations the elemammoth should become more and more mammoth.
This was the plan before cloning was developed. They're probably hoping to do something fancier now... All they need is that mammoth popsicle. I mean there's never one around when you need one is there...
That would be a good explanation for why IBM aren't doing what they ARE doing.
So why ARE they doing it?
I would imagine that IBM look at Linux because it allows them access to the upgrade market from small-medium systems. At the moment they tend to be locked out of it, because of OS incompatibility. If they implement Linux on their hardware they can capture some of the top end hardware market for Linux, and can continue to sell the older O/S as well; those users are locked in. (IBM market share would therefore go up.)
Web server too slow? Get a Linux Big Iron.
IBM probably, kinda like Apple, see themselves as a hardware company. They have a niche Big Iron product to sell; and Big Iron is Big Bucks. Their strategy aligns with that thinking. Probably will work too. It's very clever really.
And it does Linux no harm whatsoever...
>Unfortunately, WolfWithoutAClause, argues from
>the perspective of "current" technology but
>proposes actions that require "future"
>technology to be done cost effectively.
No. The basic, current technology, is good enough. The problem and solution is simple economics. Because the price is too high nobody much goes. Nobody much goes so the price is too high. The answer is to increase volume and hence cut costs. The price comes down- more people go, the price comes down... even more go.
The cost of putting something into LEO is about $1300/lb. If the rate of launch was increased by an order of magnitude, the cost of launch is likely to decrease by about an order of magnitude. The reason is that the cost of a rocket is almost independent of the cost of fuel (its a lot less than 1% fuel costs).
Its believed that the true cost of getting to orbit is about the same as the cost of concorde across the atlantic. Do a web search and you should soon find that out. Certainly the fuel usage is comparable.
If you check out the neofuels link they suggest mining the moon for water. That technology is quite within our grasp. Together with the reduced launch costs it would open up the earth, moon and the asteroids. Once we are there; the solar system is ours.
>So the answer, as it is with most things, is we
>need molecular nanotechnology and
>self-replicating engineering systems.
Solution to all known problems.
Besides if I turn off my monitor I can't see my screensavers.
That's what the dinosaurs said! (The fact that there have been near misses should give you considerable pause for thought.)
You might only get a few months warning on those at best (they mostly shine within the orbit of mars), and at worst, they come at you from the sunward direction where our telescopes can't see them. You wake up one day wondering what that wall of fire is. Or maybe we don't wake up at all.
There probably is no reasonable defense against such asteroids. Moving them- there probably is no way that can be done in that short time scale.
Think about it. This is a planet busting disaster and there is no way to save the earth.
Its not particularly likely to happen soon, but it will happen eventually. Even long period comets that come round once a millenia or so. So this time they line with the earth for the first time and...
There is one way for humans to survive however. We need to build space habitats as soon as we possibly can.
Check out:
Artemis
Neofuels
Permanent
Sleep well, don't have nightmares!