I don't agree. If you RTFA, you will see the the system was penetrated by using valid UIDs and passwords, which had been previously gathered using a phishing attack. Any system is vulnerable to such an attack and you can hardly line all up all sysadmins and have them shot - despite any justification that the odd one might actually deserve it. But I am surprised by the number of techies that fell for the phishing attack in the first instance.
But that is why the Japanese and others should begin now to look at ways of solving such problems as part of their study into Internet 2. The fact that neither you nor I have an immediate answer to it does not mean that the problem cannot be solved with some research and a new specification.
Yes, but how would an American or European browser cope with the same characters? Why not spend some time developing a system that would cope? Just because you or I cannot understand a particular character why shouldn't our software cope with it? Now extend the problem to DNS servers or email addresses and I think that there is still a lot of improvement that can be made over the current system.
No, I think that you have missed my point. It can be redesigned to take into account all of the other encoding systems, safely and with no additional security risks. The risks are inherent with the existing system. There is no logical reason why a combination of Cyrillic characters or Chinese characters could not be interpreted as 'http' in addition to the western characters that are in use today. The characters 'http' mean nothing in Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Arabic or a host of other languages. Similarly, the limitation in DNS can also be overcome by redesign. That is exactly what the Japanese can 'redesign' when they look at the next internet. If you look at the example that was quoted as showing that Chinese characters can already be used you will note that the URL begins with http and ends with cn. It needn't, its just that currently that is how it works. The next internet need not have such a limitation. Why should any nation have to use characters that do not exist in its own alphabet? Would we in the West be pleased if we had to type some combination of Arabic at the start of each URL? Spoofing is a problem - why can't some effort be spent trying to find an effective and lasting solution as part of a redesign? And the language issues is only one problem that could be addressed. What about load sharing, security, SPAM elimination, etc, etc?
Not if they stick with the Internet Protocol (IP). The data will move through the existing network. But it might still not be compatible with any external network. How about if they implement the 'Son of SMTP' to make it automatically secure and SPAM resistant? That would be a worthwhile improvement but it would need some form of gateway/interface to transfer email between Japan and a network that didn't implement it.
The 'http://' and '.cn' are not Chinese characters - they are ASCII. I'm not sure how a DNS server in, say, Iceland would cope with receiving URLs written purely in Chinese, Russian, Korean and Arabic. The easy answer is that the current specification requires 'http://' and '.cn' to be written in ASCII. But to many around the world, those characters are as meaningless to them as the Chinese characters are to me. That is why there is still room for the system to be improved so that any language can be used without recourse to ASCII. Doesn't the fact that Slashdot won't even accept the URL underline this point?
You are assuming that no-one in China has already solved this problem. Perhaps they have, but they are hardly likely to start shouting about how clever they are, are they? They have some very good programmers. I suspect that they are way ahead of needing your well-intentioned but misguided support.
I think that you answered your own comment in at least 2 places.
They don't have unicode support I guess, although that's something that could [I think?] be handled just by supplying a unicode-enabled custom DNS?
And who will develop the code that does this? Who will ensure that it can interface with the rest of the internet? Japan will, for one, because nobody looking at Internet2 appears to be looking at this problem.
Personally, my main concern with a "new" internet is the climate in which it would be born
As you and other posters have pointed out, it is quite possible that Internet2 as it is currently being developed might well include DRM requirements that are wanted by US legislation, or to make wire-tapping or surveillance easier. But the rest of the world might not want that. Japan is looking at the problem from its own viewpoint, not to meet your requirements or mine, but theirs. And if they do build their own internal network it will probably interface with the rest of the internet. That might be an ideal place to stop many viruses from entering the system. Of course, we can say that it would be impossible, so much data to check etc. Which might be why they are looking at new technology to solve that specific problem.
Redesigning the internet is not the same as doing everything again. Perhaps some parts of it are good just as they are. TCP/IP is working and doesn't need changing. But, there again, perhaps there are improvements that can be made. Maybe the Japanese can implement an improved email system that is spam resistant. Oh yes, lots of people talk about how it could be done, but who is actually doing anything about it? Again, Japan has the opportunity to look at the problem and find solutions. If the US, or Europe, or anywhere else for that matter doesn't want to use their solution that's OK. Internally, they can still use it providing that can manage the interface to the rest of the internet. That might be one of the outcomes of the research. How about looking at the technology to maximize the use of the existing bandwidth so that we can have internet TV without the internet grinding to a halt? Or finding new ways of caching data in numerous locations so that each web page does not require so much data to come from a single source to update itself? Perhaps a P2P system so that the load is shared. All these problems could be solved without having to change the underlying structure but it still requires research to find the answers.
My previous post was not intended as being anti-US, but the first series of comments did nothing but criticise Japans efforts. "A duplication of effort", "Unneeded", "Its not broken". But from another country's viewpoint it might well be possible to improve it, and current studies in the US do not seem to be looking at the problem from a foreign viewpoint. And if its going to change and require, eventually, new technology and hardware, then Japan would like to be in at the ground floor rather than having to play catch-up with US companies.
The article does not suggest that everything has to change, but changes are necessary if the internet is to be as useful in 50 years hence as it is today. That is what I understand the Japanese initiative to be about.
before it gets translated to their stupid characters
And that is what is wrong at the moment - people like you don't accept that there are other nations, with other languages and alphabets, and with other desires for how the internet develops. For example, changing DNS so that it can cope with other languages would enable other countries to have meaningful names in their URLs. Many of these people cannot read English - nor should they have to. So being able to use their own words, in their own language, using a native keyboard would be a great step forward for them.
It appears to be just US records - which is frightening. The laws that people are calling for in other comments to this thread already exist here in Europe, but it is debatable how effective they have been. Certainly European companies and organisations have been fined for losing data but it doesn't necessarily stop the losses from occurring.
Yes, a similar code can be used for covert comms and is taught to some groups of the military. It works, it is quick to learn, and it can be transmitted in many ways. By touch, sight, sound (e.g. tapping) etc.
So, you think that the fact that the internet today cannot cope with anything other than the ASCII character set is a good thing? How about if someone tries to solve the problems that obviously don't affect you, but do affect many other nations on this planet. You know, like having things in a language that they can understand, using characters that appear on their keyboards. True, you might not want to access those sites, but many people who live in those countries probably will.
Why will they need a gateway? Perhaps they will be quite content with, say, the whole of Japan being able to access Japanese sites in their native language. They might not care whether you can access them. Indeed, if you insist on sticking to the ASCII character set you will be limited to lots of content that you simply cannot understand because you believe that everyone should speak the same language as yourself. The Japanese might be very pleased to capture their own market yet still be able to access your internet when it suits them. Sure, if they want site to be available internationally they will have to keep a URL based on the ASCII character set because, Internet 2, which is being developed in the US, is not addressing the problem of other alphabets. It seems in the west to be a case of sod them, they don't matter. And when someone else tries to address the problem the attempt is mocked as being a duplication of effort. It isn't. Nobody in the west is looking at the problem AFAICT.
And what is to say that their research will not identify a better way of building some part of the internet as we know it? Not all the best ideas originate in one country. Perhaps they will solve a particular problem that will benefit everyone, using whatever internet they care to use, in whatever language they choose. It might not, but that doesn't mean that it shouldn't be done. After all, going to the moon achieved nothing in and of itself, but there have been numerous spin-off benefits and inventions that resulted from going down that path.
Many countries have internet access that is far advanced from that found in many parts of the USA. Perhaps they would like to keep it that way.
I sympathise with your problem and wish your grandmother well. But try to get her to blink rather than nod her head. It is used quite frequently in cases such as this. I'm not trying to be rude, nor to sidetrack your question, but while you are doing your research it will enable limited 2 way conversation.
True, its none of my business, until some people overload Tor by using it for torrents, despite being asked not to do so. It was not my intention to offend but if you view your privacy as something more important than lots of other Tor users then perhaps you are right to be offended. I didn't realise that you were so much more important that the rest of us.
No, please calm down. i know that Tor has lot of valid uses - I am a frequent user of it and have been since I was employed by my government. Even though I am now retired I can still see its benefits. But using it for torrents is not a good use because it affects more than just yourself, so much so that the people who support it ask you not to do so. But feel free to ignore them - your purchase of towels or downloading of Ubuntu is much more important than that of those who might have to use it professionally, you know, such as the FBI and other federal investigative agencies. And not only American ones, at that. Gosh, what a big wide world we live in..... No offence meant, but some obviously taken.
What, exactly, is so difficult about dumping and reupping a memory state, I want to know?
It depends on how you read it. Isn't he asking the question and you have just answered it? Perhaps he is trying to learn. But still, he has a point, it's not rocket science....
And you are missing my entire point. I have no problem with there being adverts on someone's website. They can sell advertising space to raise revenue, just as you can with magazines, newspapers or TV. What they cannot do is force me to download them just as the newspapers cannot make me read the adverts. If I am not going to read the adverts, it is a complete and utter waste of bandwidth for me to download them just to ignore them, especially as I am paying for that bandwidth. Don't forget, the website has already made its money by selling the ad space. I simply do not want to pay to download it. This entire thread is about FF being blocked because its users don't contribute to the advertising income of the website. Hard luck. I suspect that many billboards are ignored, many TV adverts go unwatched and the advertising section of newspapers gets thrown into the bin unread. That is the risk taken by the advertiser and it is calculated as part of the loss of his advertising budget.
Now, rather than being an ungrateful bastard, I'm being responsible by not wasting bandwidth - the server's, the ISP's or mine. I'm sure that many people will still read the adverts, enough anyway to make it worth the while of those investing in the advertising. But blocking FF users will only lose potential customers from a site, not make the advertising more effective.
It would help if you read all of my posts rather than just responding to one comment out of context. After all, I took the time to write them, aren't you being an ungrateful bastard by not reading them?
The people who manage the Tor network specifically ask you not to use it for BitTorrent. Mind you, it confirms that you are downloading something illegal, because otherwise you would simply use Torrent as it is muchfaster than going via Tor.
Are you using BitTorrent on a dial-up connection? Sorry, I'm not American. I'm not sure if you are suggesting that only dial-up is available where you live, or that other than Comcast broadband there is only dail-up as an alternative.
I'm just not sure why you are not getting it, though.
I take it you are talking about yourself? If I can write a lot why don't you bother to read and understand it?
When I buy a newspaper it doesn't cost me any more to have advertisements in it. I can ignore them. When I encounter advertisments in the magazines to which I subscribe I can ignore them, and I often tear out pages of advertisements and throw them in the bin. They are not what I am buying the magazine for. When I watch TV it doesn't cost me anything to have the advertisements sent to me. I can ignore them. On the internet, I have to pay to receive advertisements that I do not want, because it is my bandwidth that they are using. The adverts fill the screen, they flash, they try to open other windows, they disrupt the flow of the text that I am trying to read. I cannot ignore them. Now do you understand why I have my viewpoint? I do not want to pay for the advertisements that I do not wish to see. I don't care how much TimeWarner or SBC have paid to place them on the site that I wish to access, they have not paid to send them to me, and I still do not want to see them. I will pay for what I damn well choose because advertisers (or Slashdot subscribers) do not have the right to tell me how to spend my money. And so I will block them. And if that means that some sites want to prevent me accessing them then they are the ones that will lose a potential customer.
Now perhaps you can also see that I have thought things through. Advertisers have a right to buy advertising space on any website in the hope that potential customers might be inspired to buy their product or at least to make me aware of their product. They do not have a right to use my bandwidth. AdBlock stops the computer from even trying to download their advertising material, thus saving my bandwidth and, as a bonus, it also reduces the amount of crap circulating on the internet by a very small amount - so saving bandwidth from the site that I am accessing and the path in between.
If it were being sent by email, the advert would be called SPAM. It is unwanted, unrequested and I have to pay to receive it. Why should their adverts on a web site be considered to be anything different?
Slashdot Mirror
It wasn't a troll - I was genuinely wishing to compliment the poster for having thought something through.... Ah well, must be the language barrier.
I don't agree. If you RTFA, you will see the the system was penetrated by using valid UIDs and passwords, which had been previously gathered using a phishing attack. Any system is vulnerable to such an attack and you can hardly line all up all sysadmins and have them shot - despite any justification that the odd one might actually deserve it. But I am surprised by the number of techies that fell for the phishing attack in the first instance.
But that is why the Japanese and others should begin now to look at ways of solving such problems as part of their study into Internet 2. The fact that neither you nor I have an immediate answer to it does not mean that the problem cannot be solved with some research and a new specification.
Yes, but how would an American or European browser cope with the same characters? Why not spend some time developing a system that would cope? Just because you or I cannot understand a particular character why shouldn't our software cope with it? Now extend the problem to DNS servers or email addresses and I think that there is still a lot of improvement that can be made over the current system.
No, I think that you have missed my point. It can be redesigned to take into account all of the other encoding systems, safely and with no additional security risks. The risks are inherent with the existing system. There is no logical reason why a combination of Cyrillic characters or Chinese characters could not be interpreted as 'http' in addition to the western characters that are in use today. The characters 'http' mean nothing in Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Arabic or a host of other languages. Similarly, the limitation in DNS can also be overcome by redesign. That is exactly what the Japanese can 'redesign' when they look at the next internet. If you look at the example that was quoted as showing that Chinese characters can already be used you will note that the URL begins with http and ends with cn. It needn't, its just that currently that is how it works. The next internet need not have such a limitation. Why should any nation have to use characters that do not exist in its own alphabet? Would we in the West be pleased if we had to type some combination of Arabic at the start of each URL? Spoofing is a problem - why can't some effort be spent trying to find an effective and lasting solution as part of a redesign? And the language issues is only one problem that could be addressed. What about load sharing, security, SPAM elimination, etc, etc?
Not if they stick with the Internet Protocol (IP). The data will move through the existing network. But it might still not be compatible with any external network. How about if they implement the 'Son of SMTP' to make it automatically secure and SPAM resistant? That would be a worthwhile improvement but it would need some form of gateway/interface to transfer email between Japan and a network that didn't implement it.
The 'http://' and '.cn' are not Chinese characters - they are ASCII. I'm not sure how a DNS server in, say, Iceland would cope with receiving URLs written purely in Chinese, Russian, Korean and Arabic. The easy answer is that the current specification requires 'http://' and '.cn' to be written in ASCII. But to many around the world, those characters are as meaningless to them as the Chinese characters are to me. That is why there is still room for the system to be improved so that any language can be used without recourse to ASCII. Doesn't the fact that Slashdot won't even accept the URL underline this point?
You are assuming that no-one in China has already solved this problem. Perhaps they have, but they are hardly likely to start shouting about how clever they are, are they? They have some very good programmers. I suspect that they are way ahead of needing your well-intentioned but misguided support.
I think that you answered your own comment in at least 2 places.
They don't have unicode support I guess, although that's something that could [I think?] be handled just by supplying a unicode-enabled custom DNS?And who will develop the code that does this? Who will ensure that it can interface with the rest of the internet? Japan will, for one, because nobody looking at Internet2 appears to be looking at this problem.
Personally, my main concern with a "new" internet is the climate in which it would be bornAs you and other posters have pointed out, it is quite possible that Internet2 as it is currently being developed might well include DRM requirements that are wanted by US legislation, or to make wire-tapping or surveillance easier. But the rest of the world might not want that. Japan is looking at the problem from its own viewpoint, not to meet your requirements or mine, but theirs. And if they do build their own internal network it will probably interface with the rest of the internet. That might be an ideal place to stop many viruses from entering the system. Of course, we can say that it would be impossible, so much data to check etc. Which might be why they are looking at new technology to solve that specific problem.
Redesigning the internet is not the same as doing everything again. Perhaps some parts of it are good just as they are. TCP/IP is working and doesn't need changing. But, there again, perhaps there are improvements that can be made. Maybe the Japanese can implement an improved email system that is spam resistant. Oh yes, lots of people talk about how it could be done, but who is actually doing anything about it? Again, Japan has the opportunity to look at the problem and find solutions. If the US, or Europe, or anywhere else for that matter doesn't want to use their solution that's OK. Internally, they can still use it providing that can manage the interface to the rest of the internet. That might be one of the outcomes of the research. How about looking at the technology to maximize the use of the existing bandwidth so that we can have internet TV without the internet grinding to a halt? Or finding new ways of caching data in numerous locations so that each web page does not require so much data to come from a single source to update itself? Perhaps a P2P system so that the load is shared. All these problems could be solved without having to change the underlying structure but it still requires research to find the answers.
My previous post was not intended as being anti-US, but the first series of comments did nothing but criticise Japans efforts. "A duplication of effort", "Unneeded", "Its not broken". But from another country's viewpoint it might well be possible to improve it, and current studies in the US do not seem to be looking at the problem from a foreign viewpoint. And if its going to change and require, eventually, new technology and hardware, then Japan would like to be in at the ground floor rather than having to play catch-up with US companies.
The article does not suggest that everything has to change, but changes are necessary if the internet is to be as useful in 50 years hence as it is today. That is what I understand the Japanese initiative to be about.
And that is what is wrong at the moment - people like you don't accept that there are other nations, with other languages and alphabets, and with other desires for how the internet develops. For example, changing DNS so that it can cope with other languages would enable other countries to have meaningful names in their URLs. Many of these people cannot read English - nor should they have to. So being able to use their own words, in their own language, using a native keyboard would be a great step forward for them.
It appears to be just US records - which is frightening. The laws that people are calling for in other comments to this thread already exist here in Europe, but it is debatable how effective they have been. Certainly European companies and organisations have been fined for losing data but it doesn't necessarily stop the losses from occurring.
Yes, a similar code can be used for covert comms and is taught to some groups of the military. It works, it is quick to learn, and it can be transmitted in many ways. By touch, sight, sound (e.g. tapping) etc.
So, you think that the fact that the internet today cannot cope with anything other than the ASCII character set is a good thing? How about if someone tries to solve the problems that obviously don't affect you, but do affect many other nations on this planet. You know, like having things in a language that they can understand, using characters that appear on their keyboards. True, you might not want to access those sites, but many people who live in those countries probably will.
Why will they need a gateway? Perhaps they will be quite content with, say, the whole of Japan being able to access Japanese sites in their native language. They might not care whether you can access them. Indeed, if you insist on sticking to the ASCII character set you will be limited to lots of content that you simply cannot understand because you believe that everyone should speak the same language as yourself. The Japanese might be very pleased to capture their own market yet still be able to access your internet when it suits them. Sure, if they want site to be available internationally they will have to keep a URL based on the ASCII character set because, Internet 2, which is being developed in the US, is not addressing the problem of other alphabets. It seems in the west to be a case of sod them, they don't matter. And when someone else tries to address the problem the attempt is mocked as being a duplication of effort. It isn't. Nobody in the west is looking at the problem AFAICT.
And what is to say that their research will not identify a better way of building some part of the internet as we know it? Not all the best ideas originate in one country. Perhaps they will solve a particular problem that will benefit everyone, using whatever internet they care to use, in whatever language they choose. It might not, but that doesn't mean that it shouldn't be done. After all, going to the moon achieved nothing in and of itself, but there have been numerous spin-off benefits and inventions that resulted from going down that path.
Many countries have internet access that is far advanced from that found in many parts of the USA. Perhaps they would like to keep it that way.
I sympathise with your problem and wish your grandmother well. But try to get her to blink rather than nod her head. It is used quite frequently in cases such as this. I'm not trying to be rude, nor to sidetrack your question, but while you are doing your research it will enable limited 2 way conversation.
And that's the most intelligent reply that I have seen for quite a few hours now. Thank you for restoring my faith in humanity!
True, its none of my business, until some people overload Tor by using it for torrents, despite being asked not to do so. It was not my intention to offend but if you view your privacy as something more important than lots of other Tor users then perhaps you are right to be offended. I didn't realise that you were so much more important that the rest of us.
I've got to agree with you there.....but it shouldn't be so.
No, please calm down. i know that Tor has lot of valid uses - I am a frequent user of it and have been since I was employed by my government. Even though I am now retired I can still see its benefits. But using it for torrents is not a good use because it affects more than just yourself, so much so that the people who support it ask you not to do so. But feel free to ignore them - your purchase of towels or downloading of Ubuntu is much more important than that of those who might have to use it professionally, you know, such as the FBI and other federal investigative agencies. And not only American ones, at that. Gosh, what a big wide world we live in..... No offence meant, but some obviously taken.
It depends on how you read it. Isn't he asking the question and you have just answered it? Perhaps he is trying to learn. But still, he has a point, it's not rocket science....
And you are missing my entire point. I have no problem with there being adverts on someone's website. They can sell advertising space to raise revenue, just as you can with magazines, newspapers or TV. What they cannot do is force me to download them just as the newspapers cannot make me read the adverts. If I am not going to read the adverts, it is a complete and utter waste of bandwidth for me to download them just to ignore them, especially as I am paying for that bandwidth. Don't forget, the website has already made its money by selling the ad space. I simply do not want to pay to download it. This entire thread is about FF being blocked because its users don't contribute to the advertising income of the website. Hard luck. I suspect that many billboards are ignored, many TV adverts go unwatched and the advertising section of newspapers gets thrown into the bin unread. That is the risk taken by the advertiser and it is calculated as part of the loss of his advertising budget.
Now, rather than being an ungrateful bastard, I'm being responsible by not wasting bandwidth - the server's, the ISP's or mine. I'm sure that many people will still read the adverts, enough anyway to make it worth the while of those investing in the advertising. But blocking FF users will only lose potential customers from a site, not make the advertising more effective.
It would help if you read all of my posts rather than just responding to one comment out of context. After all, I took the time to write them, aren't you being an ungrateful bastard by not reading them?
I stand corrected, and my apologies for casting a slur on your browsing habits......
The people who manage the Tor network specifically ask you not to use it for BitTorrent. Mind you, it confirms that you are downloading something illegal, because otherwise you would simply use Torrent as it is muchfaster than going via Tor.
Are you using BitTorrent on a dial-up connection? Sorry, I'm not American. I'm not sure if you are suggesting that only dial-up is available where you live, or that other than Comcast broadband there is only dail-up as an alternative.
I take it you are talking about yourself? If I can write a lot why don't you bother to read and understand it?
When I buy a newspaper it doesn't cost me any more to have advertisements in it. I can ignore them. When I encounter advertisments in the magazines to which I subscribe I can ignore them, and I often tear out pages of advertisements and throw them in the bin. They are not what I am buying the magazine for. When I watch TV it doesn't cost me anything to have the advertisements sent to me. I can ignore them. On the internet, I have to pay to receive advertisements that I do not want, because it is my bandwidth that they are using. The adverts fill the screen, they flash, they try to open other windows, they disrupt the flow of the text that I am trying to read. I cannot ignore them. Now do you understand why I have my viewpoint? I do not want to pay for the advertisements that I do not wish to see. I don't care how much TimeWarner or SBC have paid to place them on the site that I wish to access, they have not paid to send them to me, and I still do not want to see them. I will pay for what I damn well choose because advertisers (or Slashdot subscribers) do not have the right to tell me how to spend my money. And so I will block them. And if that means that some sites want to prevent me accessing them then they are the ones that will lose a potential customer.
Now perhaps you can also see that I have thought things through. Advertisers have a right to buy advertising space on any website in the hope that potential customers might be inspired to buy their product or at least to make me aware of their product. They do not have a right to use my bandwidth. AdBlock stops the computer from even trying to download their advertising material, thus saving my bandwidth and, as a bonus, it also reduces the amount of crap circulating on the internet by a very small amount - so saving bandwidth from the site that I am accessing and the path in between.
If it were being sent by email, the advert would be called SPAM. It is unwanted, unrequested and I have to pay to receive it. Why should their adverts on a web site be considered to be anything different?