The US is already teetering past the edge of bankruptcy. Launching a shuttle every 6 weeks would seal the deal in a few months, and send the country the rest of the way down the tube into the world 'third world debttor countries'.
This is one of those fallacies that the city dwelling greenies would love to make everybody believe. Moving to the city doesn't reduce your energy consumption, it just shifts it. Sure, you may walk to the grocery store, but those groceries didn't grow in that store, they were shipped in. Your energy consuption is now being done by the supply chain that feeds the city, so the energy is being consumed by proxy on your behalf.
In the grand scheme of things, you may believe that reducing a commute to work makes a big difference in the energy consumption equation, but, it's not your major source of energy consumption. When you turn the heat off, living indoors at ambient outdoor temperature (same for the air conditioning), and stop eating, then you'll make a BIG difference. As long as you eat every day, and keep the heat/airco turned on, a little bit of driving is not the big energy consumer.
It's really trendy here on/. to whine about SUV's in terms of energy consumption, but, the fuel burned by an SUV pales beside what a semi full of goods headed into the city burns. If city folk REALLY want to make a difference, it's easy. Turn the heat off, turn the airco off, turn the lights off, and stop eating. When they all do that, the world's energy problems will be solved. Until then, you are just as much a part of the problem as everybody else.
Dunno about the article, but, that summary, toss in a few more buzzwords and it'll bamboozle any manager into buying the product. Techies on the other hand, if you need a control panel to manage the server, probably shouldn't be managing it anyways, should really get somebody that knows how to run the machine for you.
If you are already sucking the funding teat by living on grants, this program is not meant to keep you working. It's for risk takers, not for folks sitting back suckling on the welfare of the grant system. If you aren't up to taking the risk, then dont worry about the prizes, you wont be winning any of them. If you dont have the resources to take the risk without screwing over your benefactors, then, you dont belong in the program. If you are willing to screw over your benefactors to get involved, then you belong in jail, it's called fraud.
I worked on the upgrades for the HST (i.e. SM4 - Service Mission Four). They were cancelled in favor of spending more $$$ on STS (Shuttle) and mostly ISS( Station). The pressure was on to finish ISS which really meant the money was going to the Russians who promptly wasted 90% of it.
500 million a pop (last report, probably much higher today)to shoot off a shuttle, and even then, you guys rarely get around to actually doing it, to busy spending money on who knows what. Then you want to accuse the Russians of _wasting_ money? Dunno if you noticed, but, they actually do send folks back and forth to the ISS, and they even manage to do it on a schedule.
Just an fyi, spending a few billion to fix a design problem, then finding out it wasn't fixed at all, that's a waste. Keeping a huge standing army of folks on staff to launch shuttles, and then not launching them, that's a waste. Spending a few bucks on Russian launches because domestic folks cant get the job done, that's not a waste, that's 'damage control'. While it may be possible the Russians dont spend that money as efficiently as you would like to see, hey, it's still a hell of a lot more efficient than tossing money into Nasa to get rides to the ISS, after all, the Russian expenditures actually result in rides to the ISS. Tossing money into Nasa in that respect, well, that's kinda like tossing it into a black hole these days, a total waste as it doesn't seem to result in rides to the ISS at all, just more excuses why it's not 'safe' to launch, and more reasons for delays.
Ok, so, they are using a radar to measure distances on the order of 800KM. Add to that they are taking measurements of a surface which has lots of irregularity, 10 foot waves are not at all unusual on that stretch of ocean. Add to the mix this little detail that the transmitter and reciever for this signal are doddling along at orbital velocity. Now toss in a few thousand corrections for things like temperature etc. When you are all said and done, draw a conclusion accurate to tenths (or even hundredths) of a millimeter.
Kinda wonder if anybody has heard of 'significant figures'. I also wonder if it's even possible to measure the altitude of a satellite accurate to hundredths of a millimeter ? Wonder what the accuracy of the math routines used to do all the corrections along the way is ?
Good story tho, probably will get them a few hundred thousand dollars in grant money to keep on playing with thier data. That is the objective is it not? Some reactionary press with shock value to keep the money flowing ?
If you want to go on and on about a space elevator, then you need to start talking about how you will use it to put snake oil for sale in orbit. Space elevator, snake oil, all the same stuff.
Space elevator fanboys never cease to amaze me. Gotta wonder if they ever stop and look at reality, or, if they live totally in that little fantasy world ?
Take a look at what's required to build a space elevator. First off, a material is required that's an order of magnitude stronger than anything we can create today. Sure, nanotubes have potential, but, they aren't there, and they are a LONG ways from practical. Next, we need a propulsion system that's an order of magnitude more efficient than anything available today, and we dont even have a clue where that's going to come from. So, in essence, we need 2 technological breakthrus, not one, two. The first is on the order of magnitude of the manhatten project, we already have theory, but, it needs an implementation that actually works. The second, is much bigger, we dont even have a functional theory yet. Take a look at history, in terms of GDP, the manhatten project was probably the most expensive undertaking every completed.
Now, assume for just a second that both of these development breakthrus have been completed, materials are ready, propulsion is ready, the next hurdle, is to stack a HUGE quantity of those materials into geo-stationary orbit. When you think about it, probably makes sense to take all those new materials, and build a vehicle out of them, then power it with the new propulsion for the monumental task of lifting all that stuff up to orbit.
Ok, so, now we've built a cost effective way to loft the elevator for constuction, ummm, wait a sec. Why do we even need an elevator anymore ?
Space elevator is the snake oil of the 21st century, and it's going to be used to fleece a lot of unsuspecting folks for a lot of money along the way. In the end, it's a totally useless concept. If you solve the problems of materials needed for the elevator, and the power needed for it, then you already have a solution to the problem it's meant to solve, and the elevator becomes redundant, a huge expensive monolith in the sky, that's going to come tumbling down the first time it gets hit by a small speck of orbital dust. Vehicles built from the same materials as the elevator, and powered by the same power source, will have all the efficiency of the elevator, without all of the disadvantages.
Space elevators may look good in scifi, but they dont pass the sniff test for reality. The reason you will never see one is not because it cant be built, it's because it would be economically pointless. Major technological breakthrus tend to come along every few centuries, and the elevator needs two of them to become a realistic possibility. In reality, if we get the propulsion breakthru, then the materials wont be required anyways. That breakthru in propulsion technology will probably happen by accident, sometime in the next 50 to 500 years. Until then, the elevator is snake oil, after then, it's redundant, not needed anymore.
Figure out the impulse required to do a 3 minute hop at the bottom of a 9.81 m/s^2 gravity well. Now figure out the impulse required to go from a stable low orbit to a soft landing in a 1.635 m/s^2 gravity well. The numbers are going to be amazingly close. For the next step, figure out your stability problem for a 3 minute hop, vertical takeoff, lateral displacement, and then soft landing with a 3 minute flight time, including silly things like wind drift and possibly some random turbulence enroute. Refigure the problem for the orbit to lunar surface in vaccuum.
Overall, not a bad deal. For 2.5 million, you get propulsion and stability that's on par with that needed for a lunar landing. Add some guidance, and you have the whole package. Of course, this doesn't really touch on the actual expensive part of the project, and that's the ride up to lunar orbit.
Will have to wait till the final rules are published, but, there's a big ticket item missing from the discussion so far, and that's the subject of mass budget. If this is going to really represent a lunar landing package, there will be an all up mass budget for the lander, and, a specific amount of that mass needs to be reserved for payload.
The problem for the Apollo program wasn't making a lunar lander, it was making a lunar lander that fit within the mass budget, and still had room left for 2 astronauts. That required compromises and risk management that wouldn't be acceptable in today's climate. If folks think a space shuttle is a 'scary contraption', then they should go take a look at the LEM used by the Apollo program. When the candles were lit for an Apollo mission, there was NOBODY trying to kid around that it was a 'safe' endeavour, and EVERYBODY understood, and accepted, the possibility of a mission ending in fatal failure. the LEM was probably the most fragile contraption ever lofted into space.
The Apollo program had a 81% success rate, with 1 of the 11 attempts resulting in a fatal outcome even before it was launched. 10 of 11 attempted launches actually went off, and one of those failed it's primary mission, but thru hard work and some ingenuity, mixed in with a lot of good luck, the astronauts actually got home alive. Compared that to the shuttles 98% success rate, the Apollo success rate was atrocious. Shuttle has had 2 failures in well over 100 launches, Apollo had 2 failures in 11 attempts, and 10 launches.
Here on/. folks like to comment 'well if we could go to the moon 50 years ago, why not today'. Frankly, 'we' didn't go to the moon 50 years ago, it was our parents and grandparent generation that did that. They were willing to accept risk as a fact of life, analyze it, deal with it, and accept the results. The society of america today could not possibly put a man back on the moon, the public doesn't have the tolerance for the cost, either financially, or in human costs. They want a system that's guaranteed to work, and guaranteed to not break on the way. Well folks, with rocket technology, it ain't gonna happen. You have to either accept the risk, or, go develop some new breakthru propulsion system that doesn't rely on strapping people on top of a huge bomb, then doing a controlled explosion to send it into orbit.
If the shuttle system is being scrapped because it's not 'safe enough', then stop looking to the moon and beyond for rockets. Shuttle is just a baby, meant to go to low orbit. The big boys that are needed to go farther can make big bangs substantially larger than a space shuttle is capable of. If you are going to strap the quantities of lox and h2 together in tanks light enough to carry on up to orbit and beyond, once in a while the whole mess is going to go boom. Accept it, deal with it, or forget it. That's what your grandparents did, and thats how they got to the moon, and they did it using slide rules and will power.
Without shuttle-based repairs, it is not expected to last more than a few more years unless it gets luckier than the Mars rovers.
Just in case you didn't realize it, 2009 is only a few years off. Actually a pretty good chance of Hubble being able to get spectacular shots for public consumption. Will they be of any scientific value, hard to say, but likely not, the correct instrumentation isn't there. Doesn't matter tho, a few color corrected visible spectrum shots for public consumption is more than adaquate to get more funding.
Heh, you've attracted a lot of replies and nobody's yet hit the right answer.
Try this for a right answer. Living here on good old mother earth, we are quite concerned about a possible 0.02% change in the CO2 concentration of the atmosphere. Apparently it's a problem, yet, by bringing all of the resources of the planet together, we dont have an engineering solution to solve this trivial little detail.
Now you guys are talking about manufacturing an atmosphere from scratch, or changing 99% of the composition of another one? And doing this millions of miles away from all of our readily available resources to build from? Shit, it takes a measureable percentage of GDP just to send a bloody camera over there. how the heck are you going to send over terraforming equipment, and who's gonna build it? Oh, and if we have the equipment to do that, why is it such a big problem to fix a trivial little thing in the atmosphere here at home?
You guys gotta give your head a shake, and learn to differentiate between sci-fi and reality. these are probes going out there, fancy digital cameras, nothing more. not gonna be any terraforming happening in your lifetime, and, it's not gonna happen during the lifetime of your great grandchildren either. by the time we have the technology figured out to do that, then fixing up mother earth will be a trivial detail, and, no more need to even go.
ITER is a big political game to see who can get how much of the research money. There is a concept, that may or may not work when implemented, and literally billions being spent on the project. Most of the expenditures are around lobby efforts to get various parts of the program located into various political pork pens. Another big chunk is spent on beurocracy to satisfy the lobby. What little is left over, may actually get spent on real research, assuming there is anything left over after all the pigs have fed at the trough.
First off, most rocket exhaust (it varies on the rocket type, of course) is steam.
If you are going to make such blanket statements, you should do you homework, and know the stuff. While it's true, most upper stage engines used for space maneuvers are LH/O2 engines, the heavy work of lifting off the ground is rarely done by those types of engines. Reality is, lets take a look at some common launch vehicles. Space Shuttle uses the Main engines to produce roughly 25% of it's launch lift, and a couple of SRB units to produce the rest. SRB stands for 'Solid Rocket Booster'. Go do a chemical anlysis of the exhaust from one of those things, it's a rather toxic mix of substances. Take a good deep breath of SRB exhaust, and even without the heat, it'll be your last. The real disgusting part, the vast majority of that exhaust gets dumped into the atmosphere well above tropopause, so it doesn't just settle down to earth, it mixes with the thin air up there, and plays a part of it's chemical makeup for a LONG time after the launch. Dumping a couple million pounds of that stuff into the upper atmosphere is NOT a trivial thing, it actually has a measureable impact on the chemical composition of the upper atmosphere.
Now lets take a peek at a soviet manned launcher. Oh, stag1, liquid oxygen and a kerosene derivative. Interesting, exhaust gasses dont look much like steam here either. Oh well, lets try a few more.
Areanne and delta, oh, lets see, they both share a common trait, kinda like the space shuttle actually, stage 1 initial lift comes mainly from solid rocket strap ons.
I'm a great proponent of launch technology and space exploration in general, but, there's political and economic hurdles to overcome. Part of the political hurdle, is the environmental hurdle. Outright lying about what comes out of the tail of launch vehicles does NOTHING to further the cause, and, making blanket statements about rocket exhaust being nothing more than steam is an outright lie. It's a fiction that many in the industry would love to propogate, because, a pure LH2/O2 engine produces only steam. Problem is, nothing uses that for initial launch today, everything uses stinky/smelly/toxic substances for the initial high lift phase of boosting out of the atmosphere, then proceeds to use clean LH2/O2 once it's out of the atmosphere, and in the vaccuum of space.
Why is this you ask, the answer is simple, cost and efficiency. The LH2/O2 engine gives the best bang for the buck in terms of the amount of deltaV you can get out of it, for pounds lifted into orbit. When it's sitting on the ground, the dirty, stinky, toxic variants of engines actually have the ability to lift more pounds for less dollars, and get it up above the atmosphere. When you factor in minor details like aerodynamic drag, etc etc, that clean LH2/O2 engine isn't even going to have the impulse needed to lift itself, and its fuel, and a payload, up into the realms of space, for that job, we resort to stuff that may not get as much bang for the pound in vaccuum, but packs a hell of a kick when stacked up properly at ground level.
Development of the space program has a LOT of economic spin off benefits, but for the most part, those benefits take 10 to 15 years to actually filter into the economy. In the interim, we have to justify cause/effect relationships all over the place, including environmental. The industry as a whole likes to shuffle environmental issues under the rug, and pretend they dont exist, often spewing forth the lie about rockets producing steam for exhaust. The problem is, the industry looses credibility when that spew is proven to be outright wrong, and in reality, the boosters in use today spew forth tons of toxic substances out of thier tailpipes.
If you really want to gather up support for a space program, gotta start at the grass roots. Get the facts correct, dont spew forth lies. Joe average voter is NOT stupid, and will vote for a program that has 15 year benefit cycle, it's politicians
Simply because we now can. We've already landed along the equator in the 60's because we had no choice. Now we have the technology and extra "delta-v" to land anywhere.
Hmm, I'm curious, where does this technology actually exist (other than on paper and figments of engineer imaginations). The last time I checked 'we' dont have the technology to get humans reliably to/from low orbit, never mind anywhere near the moon.
So many folks seem to think that just because it was done in the 60's, it's easy, trivial, and a no brainer to go land on the moon. It's hard, expensive, and currently the technology to do it doesn't exist except on paper and in sci-fi literature. The closest thing the usa has to a manned lunar capabable piece of hardware is some rusty old Saturn V hulks sitting outside of some museums that relish 'the good old days' when america was actually a leader in the space race.
In the 60's the landing was equatorial for a lot of technical reasons. Today, moon landings are sci-fi, for a lot more technical (combined with political and financial) reasons. Politicians may talk about going to the moon, but follow the money, it's not going to the moon, it's going to wars overseas. The talk of moon landings is nothing more than political rhetoric designed to gather up votes from folks that cant see the forest for all the trees, and actually believe that such things are in the plans of the administration. If it was actually in the administration plans, the mandate would be such as it was in the 60's, to get far enough into the program that it could NOT be cancelled at the expiry of the 8 year term, to much already invested. In reality, this administration is neatly talking the talk that allows for more talk, but not actually allocating funds to make it happen, then putting on schedules such that all the talk becomes a financial responsibility for a future administration. In laymans terms, that means, not gonna happen.
This article on/. is a perfect example of the propoganda working. So many folks seriously considering where a moon landing should occur, keeps the grassroots talk happening. Reality is, talk is cheap, and if the hardware is not being designed and built at this stage of the game, there is no program that needs to survive the change of administration coming in a relatively short timeframe (next election). That's when reality will start to hit home, talk is cheap, but it takes money to buy rockets, and, there isn't going to be any money for rockets. This administration is so adamant about that, they have neatly scheduled the shuttle out of existance to happen in the early years of the next administration, and, there is nothing of substance happening on a replacement.
This administration has neatly set the stage to wash the manned space program out of existence. Big noises about safety, and shedules for shuttle retirement, virtually guarantees the shuttle will be history after 2010. Potential replacements are not yet under construction, and, the big bills to be paid for that construction are scheduled to be postponed into the next administration, where somebody else will be responsible for axing the program. The end result, no manned capability at all, and the USA will be on par with Europe for space exploration ability. The current administration is pouring just enough money into the shuttle program that it can limp along on the occaisional launch, so that they dont get the brand as the ones that axed it. At the same time, they are creating a political and financial environment where it's impossible for the program to survive, and impossible to get a replace ment program into the phases of actually doing something other than talk and paperwork. That talk and paperwork will continue until the cost of actually constructing hardware is somebody elses problem.
I'm old enough that I was able to watch the lunar landings of the 60's live on tv. As a child, I thought it was the beginning of a whole new world, and I would be able t
Worse, we're doing it on a such a massive and unbalanced scale that I worry the natural processes of evolution may not be able to save us.
But you dont 'get it' when it comes to the natural process of evolution. If we destroy the environment that supports us, and die of because of it, that IS the natural process of evolution functioning as it should....
In some ways it's productive and marks a step foward for more renewable energy created from driving..
An automobile is a wonderful thing, and modern ones even give a smooth ride. The reason we get a smooth ride is this wonderful energy absorbing system called 'suspension', which absorbs about 95% of the energy of a road bump before it actually transfers to the vehicle occupants. The reverse is also true. The suspension has a few major components, the first being the sidewall of the tire. When you hit a bump, the tire deforms, and aborbs a significant portion of the impact energy. Typically, tires are designed so they can continue absorbing such bumps long enough that the tread wears out before the sidewall fails, but, if you spend a lot of time driving on real bumpy roads, you'll know, sidewalls fail long before the tread is worn. The second portion of the suspension is the shock absorber, and like a tire, it has a life expectancy. After absorbing some finite number of impact shocks, it ceases to function. It is quite possible to calculate a 'cost per bump' based on the replacement cost of tires and shock absorbers.
So, in the overall energy transfer equation here, we start with an internal combustion engine, that takes gasoline as an input, provides torque as an output, and is approximately 35% efficient. That torque is then transferred thru the drive train to provide propulsion, a process that typically runs 95% efficiency. Now, for a vehicle in motion hitting this bump, the vehicle suspension will absorb 95% of the impact, so the transfer of energy from the car to the bump is only about 5% efficient, with the vehicle suspension absorbing most of the impact. Tally up all the efficiencies along the way, 0.35 * 0.95 * 0.05 and you get 0.0166. So, to generate 1 kw of electricity from this device, you have to burn the equivalent of 60Kw of gasoline, and then let it flow thru the inefficient transfer mechanisms. To top it all off, you are purposely introducing extra bumps into the system, ie causing mechanical wear on the vehicles, which will in the long run have a measureable cost, probably substantially higher than the value of the electricity being generated.
If this is a 'step forward' for renewable energy, I'd sure like to know how that comes to being. To me, it looks like the most wasteful mechanism I've seen yet to convert gasoline into electricity. I cant remember EVER seeing any hair brained method of generating power thats LESS efficient than this one, with the exception maybe of the cartoon method of driving a windmill with an electric fan.
I can see one, and only one application where this is potentially 'viable', and thats to power traffic lights at locations that are so far out of the way, no grid power of any kind is available. I know of a few tunnels in the remote parts of northern british columbia where that would be the case, it would mean they dont have to keep the generators running on diesel 24x7 to light them up. Then again, from a pure pollution point of view, it's probably wiser to run an efficient generator 24x7 than to consider this kind of low efficiency energy transfer device.
Then again, if i was in the business of selling tires and shock absorbers, I'd probably consider the idea of offering a subsidy to towns looking to purchase this device. One of these at every traffic light in the jurasdiction would likely do wonders for my tire business, probably give full payback in a couple of years. Then when folks do come for replacements, upselling them to good quality steel belted tires that can withstand the extra abuse would be a trivial upsell, just point at all the artificial bumps in the road, and make sure they understand, normal tires just wont survive on these roads....
Apart from creating jobs, just what have we gotten for the billions that we've spent on the ISS?
We've gained a lot of knowledge, albeit, not quite the knowledge intended to gain, gained nonetheless.
Science is a wondeful thing. You start with a set of assumptions, add either hypothesis or theory, then design experiments to validate the whole works, or, sometimes try invalidate it. In the end, knowledge is gained. sometimes, the experiments accidently invalidate the assumptions, so, altho they appear on the surface as a failure, valuable insight is still gained for future use, even tho the failure of assumptions means the hypothesis or theory never did get tested.
The iss is a platform for developing and testing long duration mission technology. The goal is to reach the point where the technology for a mars mission exists (it doesn't today), and has been tested in the harsh environment of space. Low orbit is a good starting point, because it's a place we can go to 'routinely' to do this kind of testing. The iss was designed to take the best parts of the russian space program, combined with the best parts of the american space program, and get an international program in motion that could leverage it all. The iss itself is not an initial experiment in low orbit long duration, Mir already showed us that can be done, it carried on in that role for 15 years. ISS is a platform for hosting more advanced experiments and development.
The problem with the iss program is, access to low orbit as routine turned out to be an invalid assumption, and, pretty much everybody had to step back and re-evaluate the fundamentals on which the program were built. In order to fulfill it's mission, the iss needs to be completed, but, it's slowly becoming apparent that the american space program is not up to the task of delivering into orbit the modules required. This was the 'strength' of the program that the entire iss concept was built on. As sometimes happens in science, the setup for the experiment invalidates the assumptions, now you have to step back and re-evaluate the basics before you can finish the experiment. The whole program was launched on the premise that us space shuttles would be available to lift specific modules for station assembly, and a lot of other countries bet significantly on that assumption. It's turned out to be flat wrong.
The re-evaluation process is now ongoing. The usa took a couple years, spent a few billion, and 'fixed' the shuttle problem, then launched another shuttle. Up to that point, it was just a delay. The 'fixed' shuttle turned out to be not quite so fixed, the same old problem still exists. This really does now put the entire iss program in doubt, for a lot of reasons, some political, some technical. From a political view, other partner countries are asking a simple question. What happened during the 'fix the shuttle process'? A lot of time/effort/money was expended on the problem. Is this a core competency problem within the american space program ? Can other countries afford to continue investing billions into this program if the station is not going to be completed ?
ISS partners have gained a LOT of knowledge from the program. It's just to bad most of that knowledge is in the area of politics, and engineering required to get to low orbit. Those were actually 'assumptions' at the onset of the program. The soviets were able to service Mir for many years, the ability of an american/russian partnership to service ISS was never questioned. It's turned out to be the achilles heel of the program overall. Shuttles are not flying, Russia cant afford to fly all the missions themselves, and silly laws in the us prevent american money from extending funding to soyuz launches.
The ISS is proably going to die uncompleted. The biggest lesson learned for most of the partners, dont depend on the usa when large expenditure projects are involved, projects that extend beyond the 4 year election cycle hence they become suceptible to
Sounds like some researchers taking marketing lessons. They kinda missed the concept of 'the spin' though, took it literally, in thier quest to market themselves hunting for more welfare^H^H^H^H^H^H grant cheques.
Right now, in order to get wifi in the various places I go, I'd have to have about 4 or 5 $30/mo accounts with various providers.
You are just using the wrong provider. I use the same provider all over the place, it's quite rare to not find one of thier access points, and virtually all of them are trouble free, and convenient. I suggest you stop pissing around with the wannabe attempts at global hotspot coverage (t-mobil and such), and just go with the one that's already everywhere (and free). linksys.
I dont understand the fuss about AI, or various attempts at making intelligent computers. Hell, 80% of humans still arrive into society with no intelligence, and spend the rest of thier lives in a vegetative state staring at the tube. Wouldn't the effort be better spent trying to make the real thing propogate thru the majority of the population, before getting excited about the artificial variety ?
And public IPv6 addresses provide a much greater level of obscurity than NAT possibly can, just due to the huge (unoccupied) address range.
The original poster was premised on using ipv6 for peer to peer. That basically invalidates your discovery arguement, no random probes thru address space required. Just join the p2p network, and wait for the machine to tell you where it's located. Ip discovery problem solved.
As for the overall security, you misunderstood the whole concept. Nat is not the only layer involved, it's just one of the layers, providing 'yet another obstacle' to potential intruders.
Network security in general is a concept vastly misunderstood by a lot of people, especially some of the zealots here on/. . Network security is always a compromise between security, and useability, with some form of 'cost of deployment' normally being the factor that drives the level of compromise. I was once standing beside a server with a client, and he was adamant, this server must be ABSOLUTELY secure from penetrations by external attack, and, compromise from within the company as well. I asked him if there were any other qualifications to the statement, and he said no, just that it must be absolutely secure. The solution was trivial, I reached over, and pulled the power plug out of the ups. Voila, a server that's ABSOLUTELY secure from network attack, but, it kinda fails the useability test in that mode.
The other aspect you need to consider, is the value of the data being secured, as well as the 'ability to pay' for that level of security. If you have data with a value of $100K, there's no sense spending a million dollars developing a security plan/system to protect that data. This becomes totally nonsensical when the company holding the data doesn't have a million dollars to spend on securing it. At that point, you need to develop a plan/mechanism that's proportional to the value of the data being secured, and within the budget of the folks paying the cost. Pretty much every real world scenario ends up balancing trade-offs that ultimately become driven by cost, where useability translates into implied cost.
Its also pretty easy to toss around buzzwords when talking about this stuff, especially dealing with folks that have no clue what the buzzwords really mean. SPI is a good example, lots of low end routers these days advertise 'stateful firewall'. That's all fine and dandy, but, they are basically just out of the box implementations, and, there's no real ability to actually set up stateful conditions on them, and even if there was, the vast majority of folks deploying them, dont have a clue how to go about it. But, it hits the buzzword requirements, it says 'stateful' on the box.
When designing the edge connections for a network, useability normally says we must allow _some_ data thru the edge, otherwise it serves no purpose. That precludes aboslute security, which can be gained by simply unplugging the network connection. So, the key then is to build obstacles on the incoming penetration attempts, without creating systems to cumbersome for internal users. In a large installation, firewalls with large blacklists etc, and filtering proxies may well be appropriate, and, it's going to become a full time job just keeping all those things up to date. In a small office of 4 users, all of whom are computer illiterate, its far to cumbersome of a solution, so, compromise between useability and cost needs to happen. The first step is to deploy a solution that stops the _majority_ of outside penetration attempts, yet implies almost no additional steps/cost/learning for the folks on the inside. A nat router is the obvious first step. It keeps the script kiddies out, and lets the employees do thier work without much/any hassle. In a lot of small offices, that's 'good enough' because you look at the value of the data being secured, and, there's not a lot there to even be an appealing target to a black hat with sufficient skills to get thr
Take a good look at the original posters premise, ipv6 to enable peer to peer. p2p isn't going to work very well if you are using policies to filter on addresses, basically back to the same issue, you have to administer it all on the edge box, where you have firewall/nat/whatever.
Since the ultimate use is peer to peer, your ip discovery premise is flawed, the strawman arguement. The p2p machine is BROADCASTING to the p2p network the location where it can be discovered. No random discovery necessary, just join the p2p network and wait for that machine to come and TELL YOU where it can be found.
You are confused, you view nat as a _bad_ thing, and publicly addressible computers via ipv6 as a _good_ thing. That's fine in theory, but, out here in the real world, the internet is a nasty place, and to put a windows machine into a slot where it is ip accessible from the outside, well, that's just begging for problems.
NAT came about because of a percieved shortage of ipv4 address space, it was a 'kludge' developed as an interim solution prior to wide acceptance of ipv6. The real issue since then, it professionals quickly discovered, nat is a great helper in the security aspects of managing a netowrk. A computer sitting behind a nat has a really good first wall in front of it, assuming it's been issued an ip address in the private non routeable ranges for internal use. Folks can go on and on about all the various means of locking the internet out of your internal network, but, the fastest/simplest/easiest first step, is to make sure the local network is behind a nat, and non routeable private ip is used inside the nat router.
I hear a lot of whining about ipv6 acceptance, or more appropriately, the lack thereof here on/. Most/. junkies seem to think this is some sort of plan by the 'big boys' so they dont have to upgrade major network infrastructure. The reality, most corporate it departments DONT WANT ipv6, the absolute LAST thing they want, is ip addressability on all the computers inside thier network, making them visible to the internet at large. Every time you hear about yet another vulnerability in [insert os/program name here] it's another nail in the coffin for ipv6. If I count up all my computers, test machines, and embedded platforms on the ethernet here in my house, I've got 18 boxes taking ip from the dhcp server. It's all behind a nat, and I only have to put effort into locking down ONE box to protect this network, the internet exposed nat router. I'll be damned if I'm gonna let ipv6 sneak it's way onto this network, and potentially expose all of these boxes to direct attacks from the outside.
The lack of acceptance of ipv6 is not due to lethargy, or a 'dont care' attitude on the part of it sysadmins. It's a definitive choice by most of them, they specifically DO NOT WANT IT. The nat barrier at the network edge device is thier first line of defence, and they want to keep that in the network defence arsenal. After the nat comes a firewall, and after the firewall comes intrusion detection. On many 'paranoid' installations, after the ids, comes 'yet another nat', with honeypots dropped on the first segment, just to keep any penetrators distracted long enough for them to be noticed.
Altho, i must say, i like your premise of 'imagine if 50% of personal systems were ipv6 enabled'. That would give the black hats a superb target rich environment, such that, those of us that prohibit ipv6 on our networks, would become far less appealing targets, making life considerably more fun. We can sit back and read about how all the folks with ipv6 enabled are being subject to daily attacks from all over, while the black hats are ignoring those of us taking steps to make our systems harder to reach. Why bother trying to get in thru locked doors, when there's a whole slew of folks out there with wide open front doors, an absolute invite to 'come on in and join the party'.
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The US is already teetering past the edge of bankruptcy. Launching a shuttle every 6 weeks would seal the deal in a few months, and send the country the rest of the way down the tube into the world 'third world debttor countries'.
In the grand scheme of things, you may believe that reducing a commute to work makes a big difference in the energy consumption equation, but, it's not your major source of energy consumption. When you turn the heat off, living indoors at ambient outdoor temperature (same for the air conditioning), and stop eating, then you'll make a BIG difference. As long as you eat every day, and keep the heat/airco turned on, a little bit of driving is not the big energy consumer.
It's really trendy here on /. to whine about SUV's in terms of energy consumption, but, the fuel burned by an SUV pales beside what a semi full of goods headed into the city burns. If city folk REALLY want to make a difference, it's easy. Turn the heat off, turn the airco off, turn the lights off, and stop eating. When they all do that, the world's energy problems will be solved. Until then, you are just as much a part of the problem as everybody else.
Dunno about the article, but, that summary, toss in a few more buzzwords and it'll bamboozle any manager into buying the product. Techies on the other hand, if you need a control panel to manage the server, probably shouldn't be managing it anyways, should really get somebody that knows how to run the machine for you.
If you are already sucking the funding teat by living on grants, this program is not meant to keep you working. It's for risk takers, not for folks sitting back suckling on the welfare of the grant system. If you aren't up to taking the risk, then dont worry about the prizes, you wont be winning any of them. If you dont have the resources to take the risk without screwing over your benefactors, then, you dont belong in the program. If you are willing to screw over your benefactors to get involved, then you belong in jail, it's called fraud.
500 million a pop (last report, probably much higher today)to shoot off a shuttle, and even then, you guys rarely get around to actually doing it, to busy spending money on who knows what. Then you want to accuse the Russians of _wasting_ money? Dunno if you noticed, but, they actually do send folks back and forth to the ISS, and they even manage to do it on a schedule.
Just an fyi, spending a few billion to fix a design problem, then finding out it wasn't fixed at all, that's a waste. Keeping a huge standing army of folks on staff to launch shuttles, and then not launching them, that's a waste. Spending a few bucks on Russian launches because domestic folks cant get the job done, that's not a waste, that's 'damage control'. While it may be possible the Russians dont spend that money as efficiently as you would like to see, hey, it's still a hell of a lot more efficient than tossing money into Nasa to get rides to the ISS, after all, the Russian expenditures actually result in rides to the ISS. Tossing money into Nasa in that respect, well, that's kinda like tossing it into a black hole these days, a total waste as it doesn't seem to result in rides to the ISS at all, just more excuses why it's not 'safe' to launch, and more reasons for delays.
Kinda wonder if anybody has heard of 'significant figures'. I also wonder if it's even possible to measure the altitude of a satellite accurate to hundredths of a millimeter ? Wonder what the accuracy of the math routines used to do all the corrections along the way is ?
Good story tho, probably will get them a few hundred thousand dollars in grant money to keep on playing with thier data. That is the objective is it not? Some reactionary press with shock value to keep the money flowing ?
If you want to go on and on about a space elevator, then you need to start talking about how you will use it to put snake oil for sale in orbit. Space elevator, snake oil, all the same stuff.
Take a look at what's required to build a space elevator. First off, a material is required that's an order of magnitude stronger than anything we can create today. Sure, nanotubes have potential, but, they aren't there, and they are a LONG ways from practical. Next, we need a propulsion system that's an order of magnitude more efficient than anything available today, and we dont even have a clue where that's going to come from. So, in essence, we need 2 technological breakthrus, not one, two. The first is on the order of magnitude of the manhatten project, we already have theory, but, it needs an implementation that actually works. The second, is much bigger, we dont even have a functional theory yet. Take a look at history, in terms of GDP, the manhatten project was probably the most expensive undertaking every completed.
Now, assume for just a second that both of these development breakthrus have been completed, materials are ready, propulsion is ready, the next hurdle, is to stack a HUGE quantity of those materials into geo-stationary orbit. When you think about it, probably makes sense to take all those new materials, and build a vehicle out of them, then power it with the new propulsion for the monumental task of lifting all that stuff up to orbit.
Ok, so, now we've built a cost effective way to loft the elevator for constuction, ummm, wait a sec. Why do we even need an elevator anymore ?
Space elevator is the snake oil of the 21st century, and it's going to be used to fleece a lot of unsuspecting folks for a lot of money along the way. In the end, it's a totally useless concept. If you solve the problems of materials needed for the elevator, and the power needed for it, then you already have a solution to the problem it's meant to solve, and the elevator becomes redundant, a huge expensive monolith in the sky, that's going to come tumbling down the first time it gets hit by a small speck of orbital dust. Vehicles built from the same materials as the elevator, and powered by the same power source, will have all the efficiency of the elevator, without all of the disadvantages.
Space elevators may look good in scifi, but they dont pass the sniff test for reality. The reason you will never see one is not because it cant be built, it's because it would be economically pointless. Major technological breakthrus tend to come along every few centuries, and the elevator needs two of them to become a realistic possibility. In reality, if we get the propulsion breakthru, then the materials wont be required anyways. That breakthru in propulsion technology will probably happen by accident, sometime in the next 50 to 500 years. Until then, the elevator is snake oil, after then, it's redundant, not needed anymore.
Did you ever stop to think and consider maybe that's the reason you dont run a large corporation ?
Overall, not a bad deal. For 2.5 million, you get propulsion and stability that's on par with that needed for a lunar landing. Add some guidance, and you have the whole package. Of course, this doesn't really touch on the actual expensive part of the project, and that's the ride up to lunar orbit.
Will have to wait till the final rules are published, but, there's a big ticket item missing from the discussion so far, and that's the subject of mass budget. If this is going to really represent a lunar landing package, there will be an all up mass budget for the lander, and, a specific amount of that mass needs to be reserved for payload.
The problem for the Apollo program wasn't making a lunar lander, it was making a lunar lander that fit within the mass budget, and still had room left for 2 astronauts. That required compromises and risk management that wouldn't be acceptable in today's climate. If folks think a space shuttle is a 'scary contraption', then they should go take a look at the LEM used by the Apollo program. When the candles were lit for an Apollo mission, there was NOBODY trying to kid around that it was a 'safe' endeavour, and EVERYBODY understood, and accepted, the possibility of a mission ending in fatal failure. the LEM was probably the most fragile contraption ever lofted into space.
The Apollo program had a 81% success rate, with 1 of the 11 attempts resulting in a fatal outcome even before it was launched. 10 of 11 attempted launches actually went off, and one of those failed it's primary mission, but thru hard work and some ingenuity, mixed in with a lot of good luck, the astronauts actually got home alive. Compared that to the shuttles 98% success rate, the Apollo success rate was atrocious. Shuttle has had 2 failures in well over 100 launches, Apollo had 2 failures in 11 attempts, and 10 launches.
Here on /. folks like to comment 'well if we could go to the moon 50 years ago, why not today'. Frankly, 'we' didn't go to the moon 50 years ago, it was our parents and grandparent generation that did that. They were willing to accept risk as a fact of life, analyze it, deal with it, and accept the results. The society of america today could not possibly put a man back on the moon, the public doesn't have the tolerance for the cost, either financially, or in human costs. They want a system that's guaranteed to work, and guaranteed to not break on the way. Well folks, with rocket technology, it ain't gonna happen. You have to either accept the risk, or, go develop some new breakthru propulsion system that doesn't rely on strapping people on top of a huge bomb, then doing a controlled explosion to send it into orbit.
If the shuttle system is being scrapped because it's not 'safe enough', then stop looking to the moon and beyond for rockets. Shuttle is just a baby, meant to go to low orbit. The big boys that are needed to go farther can make big bangs substantially larger than a space shuttle is capable of. If you are going to strap the quantities of lox and h2 together in tanks light enough to carry on up to orbit and beyond, once in a while the whole mess is going to go boom. Accept it, deal with it, or forget it. That's what your grandparents did, and thats how they got to the moon, and they did it using slide rules and will power.
No problem, torrents are higher quality anyways, and dont have those brain dead commercials...
Just in case you didn't realize it, 2009 is only a few years off. Actually a pretty good chance of Hubble being able to get spectacular shots for public consumption. Will they be of any scientific value, hard to say, but likely not, the correct instrumentation isn't there. Doesn't matter tho, a few color corrected visible spectrum shots for public consumption is more than adaquate to get more funding.
Try this for a right answer. Living here on good old mother earth, we are quite concerned about a possible 0.02% change in the CO2 concentration of the atmosphere. Apparently it's a problem, yet, by bringing all of the resources of the planet together, we dont have an engineering solution to solve this trivial little detail.
Now you guys are talking about manufacturing an atmosphere from scratch, or changing 99% of the composition of another one? And doing this millions of miles away from all of our readily available resources to build from? Shit, it takes a measureable percentage of GDP just to send a bloody camera over there. how the heck are you going to send over terraforming equipment, and who's gonna build it? Oh, and if we have the equipment to do that, why is it such a big problem to fix a trivial little thing in the atmosphere here at home?
You guys gotta give your head a shake, and learn to differentiate between sci-fi and reality. these are probes going out there, fancy digital cameras, nothing more. not gonna be any terraforming happening in your lifetime, and, it's not gonna happen during the lifetime of your great grandchildren either. by the time we have the technology figured out to do that, then fixing up mother earth will be a trivial detail, and, no more need to even go.
ITER is a big political game to see who can get how much of the research money. There is a concept, that may or may not work when implemented, and literally billions being spent on the project. Most of the expenditures are around lobby efforts to get various parts of the program located into various political pork pens. Another big chunk is spent on beurocracy to satisfy the lobby. What little is left over, may actually get spent on real research, assuming there is anything left over after all the pigs have fed at the trough.
If you are going to make such blanket statements, you should do you homework, and know the stuff. While it's true, most upper stage engines used for space maneuvers are LH/O2 engines, the heavy work of lifting off the ground is rarely done by those types of engines. Reality is, lets take a look at some common launch vehicles. Space Shuttle uses the Main engines to produce roughly 25% of it's launch lift, and a couple of SRB units to produce the rest. SRB stands for 'Solid Rocket Booster'. Go do a chemical anlysis of the exhaust from one of those things, it's a rather toxic mix of substances. Take a good deep breath of SRB exhaust, and even without the heat, it'll be your last. The real disgusting part, the vast majority of that exhaust gets dumped into the atmosphere well above tropopause, so it doesn't just settle down to earth, it mixes with the thin air up there, and plays a part of it's chemical makeup for a LONG time after the launch. Dumping a couple million pounds of that stuff into the upper atmosphere is NOT a trivial thing, it actually has a measureable impact on the chemical composition of the upper atmosphere.
Now lets take a peek at a soviet manned launcher. Oh, stag1, liquid oxygen and a kerosene derivative. Interesting, exhaust gasses dont look much like steam here either. Oh well, lets try a few more.
Areanne and delta, oh, lets see, they both share a common trait, kinda like the space shuttle actually, stage 1 initial lift comes mainly from solid rocket strap ons.
I'm a great proponent of launch technology and space exploration in general, but, there's political and economic hurdles to overcome. Part of the political hurdle, is the environmental hurdle. Outright lying about what comes out of the tail of launch vehicles does NOTHING to further the cause, and, making blanket statements about rocket exhaust being nothing more than steam is an outright lie. It's a fiction that many in the industry would love to propogate, because, a pure LH2/O2 engine produces only steam. Problem is, nothing uses that for initial launch today, everything uses stinky/smelly/toxic substances for the initial high lift phase of boosting out of the atmosphere, then proceeds to use clean LH2/O2 once it's out of the atmosphere, and in the vaccuum of space.
Why is this you ask, the answer is simple, cost and efficiency. The LH2/O2 engine gives the best bang for the buck in terms of the amount of deltaV you can get out of it, for pounds lifted into orbit. When it's sitting on the ground, the dirty, stinky, toxic variants of engines actually have the ability to lift more pounds for less dollars, and get it up above the atmosphere. When you factor in minor details like aerodynamic drag, etc etc, that clean LH2/O2 engine isn't even going to have the impulse needed to lift itself, and its fuel, and a payload, up into the realms of space, for that job, we resort to stuff that may not get as much bang for the pound in vaccuum, but packs a hell of a kick when stacked up properly at ground level.
Development of the space program has a LOT of economic spin off benefits, but for the most part, those benefits take 10 to 15 years to actually filter into the economy. In the interim, we have to justify cause/effect relationships all over the place, including environmental. The industry as a whole likes to shuffle environmental issues under the rug, and pretend they dont exist, often spewing forth the lie about rockets producing steam for exhaust. The problem is, the industry looses credibility when that spew is proven to be outright wrong, and in reality, the boosters in use today spew forth tons of toxic substances out of thier tailpipes.
If you really want to gather up support for a space program, gotta start at the grass roots. Get the facts correct, dont spew forth lies. Joe average voter is NOT stupid, and will vote for a program that has 15 year benefit cycle, it's politicians
Hmm, I'm curious, where does this technology actually exist (other than on paper and figments of engineer imaginations). The last time I checked 'we' dont have the technology to get humans reliably to/from low orbit, never mind anywhere near the moon.
So many folks seem to think that just because it was done in the 60's, it's easy, trivial, and a no brainer to go land on the moon. It's hard, expensive, and currently the technology to do it doesn't exist except on paper and in sci-fi literature. The closest thing the usa has to a manned lunar capabable piece of hardware is some rusty old Saturn V hulks sitting outside of some museums that relish 'the good old days' when america was actually a leader in the space race.
In the 60's the landing was equatorial for a lot of technical reasons. Today, moon landings are sci-fi, for a lot more technical (combined with political and financial) reasons. Politicians may talk about going to the moon, but follow the money, it's not going to the moon, it's going to wars overseas. The talk of moon landings is nothing more than political rhetoric designed to gather up votes from folks that cant see the forest for all the trees, and actually believe that such things are in the plans of the administration. If it was actually in the administration plans, the mandate would be such as it was in the 60's, to get far enough into the program that it could NOT be cancelled at the expiry of the 8 year term, to much already invested. In reality, this administration is neatly talking the talk that allows for more talk, but not actually allocating funds to make it happen, then putting on schedules such that all the talk becomes a financial responsibility for a future administration. In laymans terms, that means, not gonna happen.
This article on /. is a perfect example of the propoganda working. So many folks seriously considering where a moon landing should occur, keeps the grassroots talk happening. Reality is, talk is cheap, and if the hardware is not being designed and built at this stage of the game, there is no program that needs to survive the change of administration coming in a relatively short timeframe (next election). That's when reality will start to hit home, talk is cheap, but it takes money to buy rockets, and, there isn't going to be any money for rockets. This administration is so adamant about that, they have neatly scheduled the shuttle out of existance to happen in the early years of the next administration, and, there is nothing of substance happening on a replacement.
This administration has neatly set the stage to wash the manned space program out of existence. Big noises about safety, and shedules for shuttle retirement, virtually guarantees the shuttle will be history after 2010. Potential replacements are not yet under construction, and, the big bills to be paid for that construction are scheduled to be postponed into the next administration, where somebody else will be responsible for axing the program. The end result, no manned capability at all, and the USA will be on par with Europe for space exploration ability. The current administration is pouring just enough money into the shuttle program that it can limp along on the occaisional launch, so that they dont get the brand as the ones that axed it. At the same time, they are creating a political and financial environment where it's impossible for the program to survive, and impossible to get a replace ment program into the phases of actually doing something other than talk and paperwork. That talk and paperwork will continue until the cost of actually constructing hardware is somebody elses problem.
I'm old enough that I was able to watch the lunar landings of the 60's live on tv. As a child, I thought it was the beginning of a whole new world, and I would be able t
But you dont 'get it' when it comes to the natural process of evolution. If we destroy the environment that supports us, and die of because of it, that IS the natural process of evolution functioning as it should....
An automobile is a wonderful thing, and modern ones even give a smooth ride. The reason we get a smooth ride is this wonderful energy absorbing system called 'suspension', which absorbs about 95% of the energy of a road bump before it actually transfers to the vehicle occupants. The reverse is also true. The suspension has a few major components, the first being the sidewall of the tire. When you hit a bump, the tire deforms, and aborbs a significant portion of the impact energy. Typically, tires are designed so they can continue absorbing such bumps long enough that the tread wears out before the sidewall fails, but, if you spend a lot of time driving on real bumpy roads, you'll know, sidewalls fail long before the tread is worn. The second portion of the suspension is the shock absorber, and like a tire, it has a life expectancy. After absorbing some finite number of impact shocks, it ceases to function. It is quite possible to calculate a 'cost per bump' based on the replacement cost of tires and shock absorbers.
So, in the overall energy transfer equation here, we start with an internal combustion engine, that takes gasoline as an input, provides torque as an output, and is approximately 35% efficient. That torque is then transferred thru the drive train to provide propulsion, a process that typically runs 95% efficiency. Now, for a vehicle in motion hitting this bump, the vehicle suspension will absorb 95% of the impact, so the transfer of energy from the car to the bump is only about 5% efficient, with the vehicle suspension absorbing most of the impact. Tally up all the efficiencies along the way, 0.35 * 0.95 * 0.05 and you get 0.0166. So, to generate 1 kw of electricity from this device, you have to burn the equivalent of 60Kw of gasoline, and then let it flow thru the inefficient transfer mechanisms. To top it all off, you are purposely introducing extra bumps into the system, ie causing mechanical wear on the vehicles, which will in the long run have a measureable cost, probably substantially higher than the value of the electricity being generated.
If this is a 'step forward' for renewable energy, I'd sure like to know how that comes to being. To me, it looks like the most wasteful mechanism I've seen yet to convert gasoline into electricity. I cant remember EVER seeing any hair brained method of generating power thats LESS efficient than this one, with the exception maybe of the cartoon method of driving a windmill with an electric fan.
I can see one, and only one application where this is potentially 'viable', and thats to power traffic lights at locations that are so far out of the way, no grid power of any kind is available. I know of a few tunnels in the remote parts of northern british columbia where that would be the case, it would mean they dont have to keep the generators running on diesel 24x7 to light them up. Then again, from a pure pollution point of view, it's probably wiser to run an efficient generator 24x7 than to consider this kind of low efficiency energy transfer device.
Then again, if i was in the business of selling tires and shock absorbers, I'd probably consider the idea of offering a subsidy to towns looking to purchase this device. One of these at every traffic light in the jurasdiction would likely do wonders for my tire business, probably give full payback in a couple of years. Then when folks do come for replacements, upselling them to good quality steel belted tires that can withstand the extra abuse would be a trivial upsell, just point at all the artificial bumps in the road, and make sure they understand, normal tires just wont survive on these roads....
We've gained a lot of knowledge, albeit, not quite the knowledge intended to gain, gained nonetheless.
Science is a wondeful thing. You start with a set of assumptions, add either hypothesis or theory, then design experiments to validate the whole works, or, sometimes try invalidate it. In the end, knowledge is gained. sometimes, the experiments accidently invalidate the assumptions, so, altho they appear on the surface as a failure, valuable insight is still gained for future use, even tho the failure of assumptions means the hypothesis or theory never did get tested.
The iss is a platform for developing and testing long duration mission technology. The goal is to reach the point where the technology for a mars mission exists (it doesn't today), and has been tested in the harsh environment of space. Low orbit is a good starting point, because it's a place we can go to 'routinely' to do this kind of testing. The iss was designed to take the best parts of the russian space program, combined with the best parts of the american space program, and get an international program in motion that could leverage it all. The iss itself is not an initial experiment in low orbit long duration, Mir already showed us that can be done, it carried on in that role for 15 years. ISS is a platform for hosting more advanced experiments and development.
The problem with the iss program is, access to low orbit as routine turned out to be an invalid assumption, and, pretty much everybody had to step back and re-evaluate the fundamentals on which the program were built. In order to fulfill it's mission, the iss needs to be completed, but, it's slowly becoming apparent that the american space program is not up to the task of delivering into orbit the modules required. This was the 'strength' of the program that the entire iss concept was built on. As sometimes happens in science, the setup for the experiment invalidates the assumptions, now you have to step back and re-evaluate the basics before you can finish the experiment. The whole program was launched on the premise that us space shuttles would be available to lift specific modules for station assembly, and a lot of other countries bet significantly on that assumption. It's turned out to be flat wrong.
The re-evaluation process is now ongoing. The usa took a couple years, spent a few billion, and 'fixed' the shuttle problem, then launched another shuttle. Up to that point, it was just a delay. The 'fixed' shuttle turned out to be not quite so fixed, the same old problem still exists. This really does now put the entire iss program in doubt, for a lot of reasons, some political, some technical. From a political view, other partner countries are asking a simple question. What happened during the 'fix the shuttle process'? A lot of time/effort/money was expended on the problem. Is this a core competency problem within the american space program ? Can other countries afford to continue investing billions into this program if the station is not going to be completed ?
ISS partners have gained a LOT of knowledge from the program. It's just to bad most of that knowledge is in the area of politics, and engineering required to get to low orbit. Those were actually 'assumptions' at the onset of the program. The soviets were able to service Mir for many years, the ability of an american/russian partnership to service ISS was never questioned. It's turned out to be the achilles heel of the program overall. Shuttles are not flying, Russia cant afford to fly all the missions themselves, and silly laws in the us prevent american money from extending funding to soyuz launches.
The ISS is proably going to die uncompleted. The biggest lesson learned for most of the partners, dont depend on the usa when large expenditure projects are involved, projects that extend beyond the 4 year election cycle hence they become suceptible to
Sounds like some researchers taking marketing lessons. They kinda missed the concept of 'the spin' though, took it literally, in thier quest to market themselves hunting for more welfare^H^H^H^H^H^H grant cheques.
You are just using the wrong provider. I use the same provider all over the place, it's quite rare to not find one of thier access points, and virtually all of them are trouble free, and convenient. I suggest you stop pissing around with the wannabe attempts at global hotspot coverage (t-mobil and such), and just go with the one that's already everywhere (and free). linksys.
I dont understand the fuss about AI, or various attempts at making intelligent computers. Hell, 80% of humans still arrive into society with no intelligence, and spend the rest of thier lives in a vegetative state staring at the tube. Wouldn't the effort be better spent trying to make the real thing propogate thru the majority of the population, before getting excited about the artificial variety ?
The original poster was premised on using ipv6 for peer to peer. That basically invalidates your discovery arguement, no random probes thru address space required. Just join the p2p network, and wait for the machine to tell you where it's located. Ip discovery problem solved.
As for the overall security, you misunderstood the whole concept. Nat is not the only layer involved, it's just one of the layers, providing 'yet another obstacle' to potential intruders.
Network security in general is a concept vastly misunderstood by a lot of people, especially some of the zealots here on /. . Network security is always a compromise between security, and useability, with some form of 'cost of deployment' normally being the factor that drives the level of compromise. I was once standing beside a server with a client, and he was adamant, this server must be ABSOLUTELY secure from penetrations by external attack, and, compromise from within the company as well. I asked him if there were any other qualifications to the statement, and he said no, just that it must be absolutely secure. The solution was trivial, I reached over, and pulled the power plug out of the ups. Voila, a server that's ABSOLUTELY secure from network attack, but, it kinda fails the useability test in that mode.
The other aspect you need to consider, is the value of the data being secured, as well as the 'ability to pay' for that level of security. If you have data with a value of $100K, there's no sense spending a million dollars developing a security plan/system to protect that data. This becomes totally nonsensical when the company holding the data doesn't have a million dollars to spend on securing it. At that point, you need to develop a plan/mechanism that's proportional to the value of the data being secured, and within the budget of the folks paying the cost. Pretty much every real world scenario ends up balancing trade-offs that ultimately become driven by cost, where useability translates into implied cost.
Its also pretty easy to toss around buzzwords when talking about this stuff, especially dealing with folks that have no clue what the buzzwords really mean. SPI is a good example, lots of low end routers these days advertise 'stateful firewall'. That's all fine and dandy, but, they are basically just out of the box implementations, and, there's no real ability to actually set up stateful conditions on them, and even if there was, the vast majority of folks deploying them, dont have a clue how to go about it. But, it hits the buzzword requirements, it says 'stateful' on the box.
When designing the edge connections for a network, useability normally says we must allow _some_ data thru the edge, otherwise it serves no purpose. That precludes aboslute security, which can be gained by simply unplugging the network connection. So, the key then is to build obstacles on the incoming penetration attempts, without creating systems to cumbersome for internal users. In a large installation, firewalls with large blacklists etc, and filtering proxies may well be appropriate, and, it's going to become a full time job just keeping all those things up to date. In a small office of 4 users, all of whom are computer illiterate, its far to cumbersome of a solution, so, compromise between useability and cost needs to happen. The first step is to deploy a solution that stops the _majority_ of outside penetration attempts, yet implies almost no additional steps/cost/learning for the folks on the inside. A nat router is the obvious first step. It keeps the script kiddies out, and lets the employees do thier work without much/any hassle. In a lot of small offices, that's 'good enough' because you look at the value of the data being secured, and, there's not a lot there to even be an appealing target to a black hat with sufficient skills to get thr
Since the ultimate use is peer to peer, your ip discovery premise is flawed, the strawman arguement. The p2p machine is BROADCASTING to the p2p network the location where it can be discovered. No random discovery necessary, just join the p2p network and wait for that machine to come and TELL YOU where it can be found.
NAT came about because of a percieved shortage of ipv4 address space, it was a 'kludge' developed as an interim solution prior to wide acceptance of ipv6. The real issue since then, it professionals quickly discovered, nat is a great helper in the security aspects of managing a netowrk. A computer sitting behind a nat has a really good first wall in front of it, assuming it's been issued an ip address in the private non routeable ranges for internal use. Folks can go on and on about all the various means of locking the internet out of your internal network, but, the fastest/simplest/easiest first step, is to make sure the local network is behind a nat, and non routeable private ip is used inside the nat router.
I hear a lot of whining about ipv6 acceptance, or more appropriately, the lack thereof here on /. Most /. junkies seem to think this is some sort of plan by the 'big boys' so they dont have to upgrade major network infrastructure. The reality, most corporate it departments DONT WANT ipv6, the absolute LAST thing they want, is ip addressability on all the computers inside thier network, making them visible to the internet at large. Every time you hear about yet another vulnerability in [insert os/program name here] it's another nail in the coffin for ipv6. If I count up all my computers, test machines, and embedded platforms on the ethernet here in my house, I've got 18 boxes taking ip from the dhcp server. It's all behind a nat, and I only have to put effort into locking down ONE box to protect this network, the internet exposed nat router. I'll be damned if I'm gonna let ipv6 sneak it's way onto this network, and potentially expose all of these boxes to direct attacks from the outside.
The lack of acceptance of ipv6 is not due to lethargy, or a 'dont care' attitude on the part of it sysadmins. It's a definitive choice by most of them, they specifically DO NOT WANT IT. The nat barrier at the network edge device is thier first line of defence, and they want to keep that in the network defence arsenal. After the nat comes a firewall, and after the firewall comes intrusion detection. On many 'paranoid' installations, after the ids, comes 'yet another nat', with honeypots dropped on the first segment, just to keep any penetrators distracted long enough for them to be noticed.
Altho, i must say, i like your premise of 'imagine if 50% of personal systems were ipv6 enabled'. That would give the black hats a superb target rich environment, such that, those of us that prohibit ipv6 on our networks, would become far less appealing targets, making life considerably more fun. We can sit back and read about how all the folks with ipv6 enabled are being subject to daily attacks from all over, while the black hats are ignoring those of us taking steps to make our systems harder to reach. Why bother trying to get in thru locked doors, when there's a whole slew of folks out there with wide open front doors, an absolute invite to 'come on in and join the party'.