As much as I usually support civil liberties for individuals against government intrusion, I am now asking myself: why did this story have to be published?
After all we already paid a heavy price: all our phonecalls now end up in the NSA's database with the ostensible reason of tracking down potential terrorists. The one and only return would have been to enable the NSA to conduct traffic analysis on this data in order to form a dragnet with which to narrow down suspicion from hundreds of millions of subscribers to (perhaps) more manageable numbers. And now this story tells any would-be terrorist precisely how the NSA might conduct its analysis and what they can do to avoid the dragnet: which is to make sure that their pattern of communication is dissimilar from the one used by their predecessors. In short, this seems to strip the whole operation of the one and only potential benefit for which it was put in place.
Was the public interest really served by releasing this story?
Although I agree with your point that crafting optimised assembly language routines is way beyond most users (and indeed a waste of time for all but an expert) there are certain "standard operations" that
(a) lend themselves extremely well to optimisation
(b) lend themselves extremely well to incorporation in subroutine libraries
(c) tend to isolate the most compute-intensive low-level operations used in scientific computation
SGEMM
If you read the article, you will find (among others) a reference to a operation called "SGEMM". This stands for Single precision General Matrix Multiplication. This is the sort of routines that make up the BLAS library (Basic Linear Algebra Subprograms) (see e.g. http://www.netlib.org/blas/). High performance computation typically starts with creating optimised implementation of the BLAS routines (if necessary handcoded at assembler level), sparse-matrix equivalents of them, Fast Fourier routines, and the LAPACK library.
ATLAS
There is a general movement away from optimised assembly language coding for the BLAS, as embodied in the ATLAS software package (Automatically Tuned Linear Algebra Software; see e.g. http://math-atlas.sourceforge.net/). The ATLAS package provides the BLAS routines but produces fairly optimal code on any machine using nothing but ordinary compilers. How? If you run a makefile for the ATLAS package, it may take about 12 hours (depending on your computer of course; this is a typical number for a PC) or so to compile. In this time the makefile will simply run through multiple switches and for the BLAS routines and run testsuites for all its routines for varying problem sizes. And then it picks the best possible combination of switches for each routine and each problem size for the machine architecture on which it's being run. In particular it takes account of the size of caches. That's why it produces much faster subroutine libraries than those produced by simply compiling e.g. the BLAS routines with an -O3 optimisation switch thrown in.
Specially tuned versus automatic?: MATLAB
The question is of course: who wins? Specially tuned code or automatic optimisation? This can be illustrated with the example of the well-known MATLAB package. Perhaps you have used MATLAB on PC's, and wondered why its matrix and vector operations are so fast? That's because for Intel and AMD processors it uses a specially (vendor-optimised) subroutine library (see http://www.mathworks.com/access/helpdesk/help/tech doc/rn/r14sp1_v7_0_1_math.html)
For SUN machines, it uses SUN's optimised subroutine library. For other processors (for which there are no optimised libraries) Matlab uses the ATLAS routines. Despite the great progress and portability that the ATLAS library provides, carefully optimised libraries can still beat it (see the Intel Math Kernel Library at http://www.intel.com/cd/software/products/asmo-na/ eng/266858.htm)
Summary
In summary:
-large tracts of Scientific computation depend on optimised subroutine libraries
-hand-crafted assembly-language optimisation can still outperform machine-optimised code.
Therefore the objections that the hand-crafted routines described in the article distort the comparison or are not representative of real-world performance are invalid.
However... it's so expensive and difficult that you only ever want to do it if you absolutely must. For scientific computation this typically means that you only consider handcrafting "inner loop primitives" such as the BLAS routines, FFT's, SPARSEPACK routines etc. for this treatment, and that you just don't attempt to do that yourself.
First off I acknowledge that your views of the conduct of ISP's are likely to be accurate.
However, the reason I spoke up about pay-per-byte schemes is because I would like to counter the argument propounded by several Telco's that in order to finance the necessary infrastructure under currently projected growth scenarios, they must be allowed to introduce the Tiered Interenet. If the Telco's were right, then it would be unreasonable and counter-productive to insist on net-neutrality. Fortunately their argument doesn't hold water because a simple metering scheme allows net-neutrality and charge-for-use to be combined.
There is a lot to be said for your proposal to meter by download rates (and it happens a lot). I agree that low enough download rates would make it impossible to stream video (but I don't know what the minimum is). Unfortunately it will not preclude people from downloading multiple gigabytes a month through their "always on" connection, even at quite moderate download rates (think bit-torrent).
If everyone were to do that (as the Telco's suggest by pointing to a projected sharp increase in video material) the base load on the Internet would increase a lot, and it would require a lot of additional capacity to guarantee reasonable transmission speeds during peak times. Which would mean that the Telco's had a legitimate point. As I see it however, this (hypothetical) increased low-bandwidth/high-volume use can easily be charged to end-users through metering, removing a potentially reasonable argument in favour of Tiered Internet.
I think that a pay-per-byte scheme is very viable, if only because some of my European friends tell me that their ISP's already implement a scheme like that.
It seems to work as follows: for your monthly fee you get a download limit of say 3 Gb. a month. If you exceed this limit occasionally and by a small amout, your ISP will feel that it costs them more to send you an extra invoice than they could charge you. Try to download 30 GB. in a month and you will find your connection suspended:
(a) for the time it takes for your average use to drop below 3 Gb. a month or
(b) until you agree to pay for an enhanced subscription or even to pay per Gb.
In this way customers can cheerfully download Windows updates, or even the occasional Linux distribution without extra charge. Try to turn your PC into a TV however by downloading streamed videos all day (which is what the Telco's seem to be worried about), and you'll be asked to pay. This sounds fair and reasonable to me. And besides, all of this can be implemented using today's technologies, and it's very (cost) efficient from the ISP's point of view.
Companies being profit maximisers they will always try to charge you the most, but that's what a market is all about. That doesn't worry me, as long as there is competition. For Verizon e.g. the subscription varies by your maximum upload and download speed. The only thing they need to to is to introduce this system of banded download limits. If the Telco's really do need the extra cash to build and maintain the net infrastructure then this is how they might do it.
I'm not against paying for the bandwidth I consume, what I am against is having Telco's create a tiered Internet and charge according to the sender, the value and/or the content rather than the amount of information people are sending across their pipes.
This is a hopeful first step, and it seems that politicians might have an eye for the value of the Internet after all.
If Telco's really need more money (as they claim) to pay for the infrastructure they are maintaining (and expanding), they can always use (non-discriminatory) a pay-per-byte billing scheme instead of pay-per-byte-value.
*sighs* What's the problem really? Rules are Rules
on
Creative Sues Apple
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· Score: 1
Creative didn't make the rules (patent legislation) they play by... they just apply them as any profit maximiser would. One might have doubts about whether the current patent system is a good match for software (I do), but until it's changed it's the law of the land. And under it you either have rights (i.e. a valid patent that's being infringed) or you don't.
In case you have, you have *cough* "Valuable Intellectual Property" and you can try to monetise that by suing the potential infringer with the deepest pockets in sight. How is that different from everyday business? Really, what's the hoopla all about?
And what venue would be more proper to decide if you have rights than a court of law? And why shouldn't you be allowed to appeal to a judge if you believe you have rights?
Please don't forget that private companies are generally required -through their statutes- to maximise shareholder value. Maximise in this context is to be taken in the Mathematical sense. As in execute any policy which is:
(a) permissible (not unlawful) and
(b) generates the highest expected pay-off.
Nobody ever mentioned ethics. Who are we to complain if a company executes a lawful policy? Those rules they play by were made in our name, and that patent they flourish was issued in our name too. Guess who's to blame?
Two points:
1) Some people might think that the few examples I put up show that a further repository is un-needed. I disagree
2) Some people might fear a monopoly position by Google. I disagree again.
Ad (1) Do we need additional etexts?
The list of e-texts on the sites shown might look impressive, but it isn't really. It's a convenient aid to a decent university library but nothing more. In addition it took me quite some time to find these sites, and it took the site builders untold hours to put their sites together. And still it's terribly sketchy.
Why do I say it looks more impressive than it is?
-the topics tend to be covered in a very incomplete way
-the only area that is covered fairly well is undergraduate (first and second year) Mathematics and basic Physics.
-to my feeling there seems to be a positive correlation (but I didn't check this) between open e-texts and subjects that are studied by people who really really _want_ to study them
All full e-texts in these sites were made available by their copyright holders or have had their copyrights expired. What Google is planning to do is to make al books searcheable (including those under copyright) and to display only such small morsels as is consonant with fair-use. That's a very different story.
I for one would pay good money to be able to do an occasional full-text search of textbooks. And I would be happy to then either lend those books from the library or to buy them outright.
Ad (2) Should we be afraid of a Google monopoly on book searches?
I am as suspicious of monopolies as the next person, but this is a service which genuinely doesn't exist at the moment. I firmly believe that we can expect nothing of remotely comparable quality from existing publishers. If Google makes money from building such a valuable resource, why not let them? And should there turn out to be problems, we can always address them later, once actually we have a service such as Google is planning.
As a case in point I would remind you of the situation with scientific journals. There is _no_ single system that allows me to do full-text searches in scientific journals. Most scientific publishers offer (ruinously expensive) searching services for their own journals to libraries, and mostly they let you search for abstracts, keywords, and authors only. The quality of the search engines usually ranges from barely acceptable to really poor and they simply can't hold a candle to the quality of the Google search engine. This is because publishers usually put only bitmaps of their full articles on-line (even to paying subscribers !), which effectively renders them unsearcheable.
Conclusion
The long and the short of it is that it really isn't in the publisher's interest to make their books and articles too easy to search. Publishers generally aren't about making knowledge accessible to society, they are about maximising profits by monetising copyrights (no censure intended). They (probably rightly) feel that allowing their publications to be searcheable won't help them sell more copies. Why would that be? Full-text search as proposed by Google would allow people to look a a page or a passage of their books and decide that (a) the book or article is of no use to them, or (b) that they now know enough and don't need to buy the book or article, or (c) that the book or article is a must-read. Mostly the answer will turn out to be (a) or (b). So they block it (which makes perfect sense from their point of view).
Of course this is counter to the best interest of researchers, but they usually aren't copyright holders. That might surprise some people, but researchers usually have to sign away their copyrights in order to get their work published. And they aren't in a very strong bargaining position because their jobs depend on publishing regularly in well-rated peer-reviewed journals.
I would definitely support a national library doing exactly what Google is planning. Unfo
Yes, there is category of market formations known as oligopolies, vertical monopolies or things like "market failures". So what. Political volatility and systematic errors that are standard element of basically all policies are per saldo even worse from my point of view. The cure is worse than disease.
Glad to see you agree with me on the existence of market failures at least... it's so hard to argue with someone who is religious (even about markets) that you had me worried for a moment.
Personally I wish to see the utility nature of telecommunications continued, and I don't see any reason why that would cripple us. Your claims of doom whenever government lifts a finger notwithstanding. So a continuation of the current legislation that enforces net-neutrality is fine by me.
Now a market in which every Telco will charge according to what traffic you generate and with whom... and who will put a tax on companies like Ebay, Amazon, Google, and Yahoo, now that's something I'd rather not have.
Let the profits stay with with the companies that did something innovative to generate them, not companies that just sit there on their infrastructure (already paid for by their customers), prepare to profit by removing the consumer surplus, and abuse the fact that its infrastructure presents so high a barrier to entry so that they can overcharge their clients with impunity.
Oh, and if you feel that my posts are unduly amateurish (consider this forum will you?), might I right cordially invite you to remedy this by presenting us with a short analysis of the impacts of a removal of the net-neutrality principle on current customers (both individuals and large service providers)? Your review should take account of the particularities of network-based services, with special attention to market imperfections. When including references to the literature, use the Harvard system of referencing. Please submit your paper by next week Friday. The use of profanity will be marked down.
"What is more amazing [...] is all the dumbshits here crying to congress to save them."
I thought that we wanted the status quo (net neutrality) to be maintained. In fact we very much want Congress not to do anything at all in the matter.
"Let the big companies act like asshats and the market will sort things out."
Well by that reasoning we might as well do away with any fair-competition laws. The market will sort things out, right? The problem is that there are lots of markets that are skewed towards one of the market parties. As reflected in the prices. Given that we, the public, are in last instance the ones who have to live with what the markets come up with, I submit that we have evry right and reason to set some restrictions on what type of market we wish to see. The public have a legitimate interest too, which may at times set limits to what markets are allowed to do.
"It might be a _good_ thing if incentives, _strong_ incentives developed to route around them. P2P connectivity or whathaveyou. Encrypted, proxied networks by default so the telecos don't know what you are doing."
There are a few difficulties with the course of action you propose:
- those "good strong incentives" you're talking about mean that the situation will have to get a whole lot worse before we all scramble to fix the mess and it gets any better. That sort of thing is technically known as "bang-bang control". Although I appreciate that precisely this may appeal to some, it's universally regarded as sub-optimal systems control. I'd rather not get into a mess in the first place. Why? Because telecommunication affects every individual and business ine the country. Every glitch and imperfaction in it will hurt us. And unreasonable prices will do so too.
- for communication you need a network. Even P2P needs some physical infrastructure somewhere. And that's what we're talking about. Even if you meant to string physical point to point connections, you would in effect be duplicating the existing network... just in order to get competition. Seems a gross waste of capital all around to build a network twice just to have competition. And who's to say that one of the two networks won't acquire the other and starts the whole game afresh?
- it's legally prohibited to encrypt your telephone communications (the NSA and the FBI have to have access when they demand it)
- the Telcos don't absolutely need to know the content of your traffic. They can refine their billing if they do, but even if they don't they can hold up Ebay, Amazon, and Google for the traffic they generate. The "who is talking to whom" information is part of the network routing information, and that's under the Telco's control.
'Why is it that now government is the answer to this non-existant "problem"?'
It's because network-bound markets (rail, telephone, water, electricity) are usually imperfect and flawed. That's a problem if you're dependent on the prices that this flawed market will generate. Government is the only way we've come up with to regulate markets so that even when they're flawed they aren't a nuisance.
As I understand it, the essence of your comment is as follows:
(a) commercial entities are profit maximisers
(b) commercial companies are in charge of our telecommunication networks
(c) therefore we have to sit tight and watch them charge whatever they like for the use of their telecommunication networks
More to the point: if I follow your thinking, we have no moral right whatsoever to either protest or act against any measure they come up with to charge for their services. In fact, they should be allowed to charge whatever they like to whomever they like.
Now all this sounds reasonable. After all, what are free markets for? (Well I do seem to hear strange rumblings about putative "price gouging" with gasoline. Now how can that be? Gasoline markets are free, aren't they? Charge whatever the market will bear. Surely nothing that Government should stick its nose in, right?) But here is the rub: the market in which the Telcos work isn't free, and hasn't ever been free.
Why not?
(a) all companies like water, electricity, and telecoms are network-based. You can't just sell someone water, electricity, or communication out of thin air (well... lets not drag cellular phones / WiFi into it here, we're talking fixed lines). You need to have a network in place first. And that's expensive. Very expensive. In fact... it's an entry barrier. And supposing you start offering network services, your (bigger) competitors can usually crush you by reducing their tarifs where your network overlaps their, and recoup this loss elsewhere.
(b)regulations (lots of regulations you have to comply with, not everyone can start his own phone company tomorrow
(c) telephone was a great big monopoly until the forced split of AT&T into "baby bells", but now the de facto monopolies have reappeared (Verizon and AT&T)
I think this can be summed up as saying: the market for telecommunication is not free, and should not be confused with a free market, and should therefore not be treated as one.
Further considering the fact that
- the fact that telecommunication is absolutely vital to modern society
- that the current situation is that Telcos are required by law (well by FTC) to provide neutral access to their network
- it is now technically feasible for Telcos to collect enough information from their networks to render all their users completely transparant
In summary I think we can see that
- the negotiating field between Telcos and their clients is anything but level (no competition)
- Telcos have a unilateral information information advantage over their clients
- therefore the market that we will see emerge is totally skewed
- as a result the prices we will see at market equilibrium will be sorely inflated
- therefore the question is justified whether it makes sense to lift the current neutrality requirement on todays monopolists. I personally think it isn't.
I'm not against free markets. In fact I'm in favour of them. What I'm against is people mistakenly applying free-market arguments to a market that isn't free, and on top of that to a very important market.
What will happen in the absence of enforced net-neutrality can be understood using a smidgeon of economic theory. The point is that Telecoms companies will be free to charge users for what it's _worth_ to them to have their data sent, rather than what it _costs_ the Telecos to send it.
When you think of Google, Amazon, Ebay etc.... their whole business depends on telecommunication, so that what it's worth to them to have their data sent is basically their entire profit margin, which is non-zero. So... at the moment they are enjoying a benefit which is known as "consumer surplus". Consumer surplus is the area between a demand curve and a given (fixed) price (see e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consumer_surplus).
Any marketeer knows that to get the maximum amount of money out of a market, you have to deal with each consumer individually, and price your goods to exactly what he's willing to pay. You can do that if his negotiation position is completely transparant to you, i.e. if you know his demand curve.
Now that extreme is too bothersome, so what do you do? You segment the market into sections that have approximately the same willingness to pay. For each segment you then negotiate a price close to the minimum willingness to pay for that segment. You won't get all the revenue you would have if you were able to charge each consumer the maximum price they're willing to pay, but you're getting close.
The trick is to identify the segments in the first place, and to gain a strong negotiating position. Identifying your customers is the basic step to figuring out their willingness to pay, and of late we have seen Cisco routers that do exactly that. So that's one hole plugged.
The second issue is to gain a strong negotiating position. That's all taken care of because the telecom companies have ensured that all electronic traffic must pass through their infrastructure.
The only remaining problem was that it wasn't legal for them to bluntly start pricing each individual customer what they would pay. Now with the removal of "net-neutrality" this is taken care of as well. Telecom companies can simply induce unacceptable delays as follows:
- (1) allocate reserved bandwidth channels on their infrastructure for customers that are prepared to pay more (got to provide superior service if we're going to charge more, right?)
- (2) route traffic in those channels with priority over existing infrastructure
- (3) watch natural traffic growth of priority traffic squeeze the performance of the non-priority traffic
- (4) politely but firmly negotiate large price increases with large customers such as Google, Ebay, Amazon who can't live with the now much reduced performance of their services
All legal, all neat. Telcos increase their profits at the expense of the (large corporate) users of telecoms facilities. Of course it won't stop there. Individual consumers and small businesses are next. Not satisfied with your Internet performance? (hehehe) Subscribe to our Deluxe service!
In an earlier post (http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=178439&cid=14 794487) I noted that Microsoft had produced reports (annex 3 and 4 at http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/legal/02-23-06R esponsetoECSO.mspx) from very reputable scientific institutions to the effect that the EU can't reasonably expect "standalone" documentation that would allow e.g. a Linux machine interoperable with MS server.
There were 2 main replies to my post:
- one stating that in all probability the protocol wasn't so much designed as "grown"
- on stating that this is the normal industry practice for evolving software: "Rather, normal industry practice is that specifications for such a system are developed and enhanced on an ongoing basis in an iterative process through interaction with engineers skilled in the relevant art and who actually use the specifications" (source: the "Broy" report, written by Prof Broy of the Technische Universität München)
This seems to point in the same direction as the parent post, namely that Microsoft honestly doesn't have a protocol specification for its client-server communication.
The next question is of course: does this get them off the hook? Is it sufficient for them to offer licenses for source-code that allows interoperability? The answer to this question can be "yes" or "no".
(1) Assume the answer is "no", it doesn't get them off the hook. Then the implication is that a software firm with a monopoly must always expect to be required to go the extra mile and produce interface specifications for its software... even if its rivals aren't required to do so. Do I sense an iniquity?
(2) Assume the answer is "yes" it does get them off the hook. Then the implication is that any software monopolist can deny others interoperability with its systems with impunity... all it has to do is to not document the API, so that the source code is the only avalable documentation. In other words... kiss goodbye to any "fair competition laws" in the software field since they can be easily circumvented.
Neither option seems attractive, but on balance I think that in this case option (1) is the lesser of the two evils. We need a functioning market (as protected by fair competition laws) more than we need the absence of iniquity for all players.
But... it seems that the EU has a healthy respect for the ability of US courts so determine matters of fact (as opposed to matters of law), which doesn't seem stupid at all.
If a US court, after about 3 years of discovery, expert witnesses taking the stand on both sides, concludes (as judge Jackson did) among other things that Microsoft:
- had a monopoly on desktop operating systems
- used this monopoly to prevent new entrants from entering the market
- lied in court when it stated that IE was needed for Windows to function (remember that video that was supposed to show Windows crashing after you removed IE? The video that was doctored to show the desired effect? Now I think that any ordinary person would have been prosecuted for perjury for pulling something like that, but apparently a company can get away with it.)
And if you further note that none of these findings were overturned on appeal... then I believe it makes sense for a body such as the EU to take heed of it. And apparently the EU thought so too. How is this bad? What exactly is your complaint?
Please note that at no point was Microsoft ever required to give out sourcecode. It was required to publish an API.
It was Microsoft itself that offered sourcecode (with licensing strings attached) just so it wouldn't have to publish the API specification. And perhaps also to confuse the issue... so that half-informed people could make snide remarks about poor Microsoft being required to hand over their precious IP.
(1) "The 24-page bill is a far-reaching medley of different proposals cobbled together. One would, for instance, create a new federal crime of just trying to commit copyright infringement. Such willful attempts at piracy, even if they fail, could be punished by up to 10 years in prison."
(2) "Jessica Litman, who teaches copyright law at Wayne State University, views the DMCA expansion as more than just a minor change. "If Sony had decided to stand on its rights and either McAfee or Norton Antivirus had tried to remove the rootkit from my hard drive, we'd all be violating this expanded definition," Litman said."
(3) "copyright holders can impound "records documenting the manufacture, sale or receipt of items involved in" infringements"
(4) "boosts criminal penalties for copyright infringement originally created by the No Electronic Theft Act of 1997 from five years to 10 years (and 10 years to 20 years for subsequent offenses). The NET Act targets noncommercial piracy including posting copyrighted photos, videos or news articles on a Web site if the value exceeds $1,000"
Well... this starts to look like the laws in good old England last century. Where paupers could be sentenced to things like banishment to the Colonies (or an extensive jail time) for something like stealing an apple.
ad (1) It does seem a bit over the top punishment-wise.
ad (2) Just what we need! Congress has surely got its ear to the ground on this one.
ad (3) Makes sense... just think of all those weblogs that ISP's are so loath to give up. Grabbing the weblogs and suing people wholesale on basis of it may yet become an important source of revenue for copyright holders.
ad (4) What are the going rates for manslaughter? And for aggravated assault? And for murder? Repeated copyright violation in excess of 1000$ is apparently the moral equivalent of murder and is rated higher than manslaughter or aggravated assault. Interesting point of view. First the War on Drugs and now this. We're going from strength to strength.
Watch the good old US of A wage War on Crime. Copyright violations are so bad for society that they merit firm jail sentences. Bad news perhaps for teenagers who use p2p software, but the good news is that this might be just what's needed to secure our lead in people jailed per 1000 (see http://www.mapsofworld.com/world-top-ten/countries -by-highest-prison-population-rates.html) which is now only threatened by Russia and a few banana republics. We lead the world inthis area (except perhaps for countries that don't release statistics such as North Korea).
Just a thought... those jails we have are awfully expensive per inmate. Wouldn't it be an idea to give offenders a choice: jail time or a tour of service in Afghanistan or Iraq? To err... atone for their misdemeanour? Just a thought.
I think that he has reason to believe that he would not face justice but the equivalent of gang-justice if he were extradited.
Guantanamo Bay was called into being to exploit a juridical loophole in order to hold people without accusation, without legal representation, and without trial for as long as the authorities need to either build a case against them or to clear them. The reason this was done was to get at people considered to be the equivalent of enemy combatants but without a state that you could hold responsible, without a "home front" which would moderate their actions, and which on balance were considered potentially far too dangerous to let walk around free. In other words: for real terrorists who threaten real lives. Not for teens who make a hobby of breaking into poorly protected computers.
What we see now is that laws are stretched a bit to mark anyone from overseas who breaks into a defense computer as a "terrorist" and hence eligible for "terrorist" treatment. Which includes e.g. a lack of legal representation and a 20 year prison sentence (if he's lucky) or a 60 year one if he's unlucky. Which in this case is of course totally out of proportion.
What worries me most is the cries of "he commited a crime and thence should not whine about the time". Nice copy, but more than a bit barbaric when you come to think of it. Punishment should be proportionate to the offense, and people's rights (e.g. to legal counsel and reasonable sentences) should not be set aside simply because the administration currently in power happens to feel like it.
If we seriously consider 20 years of prison as just punishment for the electronic equivalent of breaking and entering on federal property, then why not adopt "Islamic" laws such as cutting of hands for petty theft and stoning for adultery? Those laws were made in and for a medieval society. Don't tell me that the US of A is becoming the appropriate setting for that kind of law.
I have two points here. My first point is that the "US" here is the current administration. The same administration that made the DOJ drop its case against Microsoft. The same Microsoft that had launched an all-out lobbying offensive after it was convicted by judge Jackson, and had made substantial campaign contributions.
As far as I can see, the DOJ did not drop the case for juridical reasons, but for political ones. As in the new adminstration didn't want this case to go any further.
Why might one ask? Well... one consideration might be that on the whole it wouldn't be in the US interest at all to see its great software champion cut up into "Opsco" and "Appsco" (an Operating System division and an Application Software division). So that competition laws would have to take a backseat to National Interest (which certainly would be a legitimate point of view). I'm sure though that conspiracy theorists could come up with other, less savory, alternatives.
Therefore, err..., might the EU be justified in expressing "substantial concerns" about "US" motives for having such 'substantial concerns about the whether Microsoft is being treated fairly'?
My second point is that this whole charade began 2 years ago. In 2004. After Microsoft was found guilty of violating EU competition laws and was ordered to disclose publish the API's that allow Windows Clients to interact with Windows Servers, so as to allow others (SUN, IBM, HP, and Samba) to make their OS act as Windows Server to Windows Clients and to allow their clients to log into Windows Servers.
Does that seem reasonsable? I think it does. Because if that sort of inter-operability isn't available then anyone trying to sell a competitor to Windows Server will have to convince their prospect that their (ubiquitous) Windows desktop machines will be running crippled when logging in to their proposed servers. And because anyone pushing Linux desktops will have to explain why it isn't important that they won't be able to work well with their prospect's (widely used) Windows Servers. Either way Microsoft would be using its current monopoly position as a competitive weapon, which is illegal.
Therefore requiring the API's to be published, open, and usable sounds like honest enforcement of competition laws to me. Now Microsoft had 2 whole years to come up with the required documentation.
And what did Microsoft do?
They:
published an API documentation that its own appointed expert described as useless, and an independent software auditing firm characterised as "designed to maximise pagecount while minimising the amount of useful information"
produced a load of reports from large universities stating that no-one could rightly expect anything as complicated as Windows
Client-Server communications to be adequately documented
offered source-code on conditions that were characterised as "poisoned offerings" by their (US !) competitors and whose licensing terms preclude Open Source products from ever being able to use them.
shouted loudly they had "more than complied"
tried to open the proceedings so that they could play to the gallery
Now does that sound as if they were trying to comply with a reasonable request or if they were just trying to get things done their way? I think the latter.
And now that they seem to have lost traction in the EU courts and have reached the deadline they chant that "fines are not the solution" and bring in their big brother to apply some pressure. Well... it would be a good stunt if they get can away with it, but I'm not sure if this is something we should be happy with.
It doesn't matter whether I'm "satisfied" or not. What matters is whether a better option exists. If we're past the point of no return on this global warming, then it produces 0 benefit to try to stop it.
You seem to admit that there may be a point of no return, and yet you seem to be prepared to risk overshooting it by insisting that we research precisely how far we have or haven't gone towards that point. Your motive for this to avoid the possibility that we might accidentally do something that's not strictly necessary. In doing so you allow for no safety margins of any kind as regards the potential effects. May I call that irresponsible?
To me the parent post sums up the atitude in the US. It says this:
[...]
The question is what to do about it. We can:
(1) Totally ignore it.
(2) Put our entire economy on hold.
3)Or anything in between.(my emphasis)
4)To determine what we should do requires a lot more information than we actually have. (my emphasis) [...]
Well... option 1) is what the US have been doing for the past 10 years or so. Satisfied with the results? Option 2) has been cited all along to argue that it made no sense to a) find out if there really was a danger, b) why actually doing anything about it was out of the question anyway, and c) all this talk about climate was a load of bunkum purveyed by starry eyed doo-gooders and jealous pinko's out to rob us of our economic leadership anyway.
So I'm very pleased to see that the poster actually caught on to option 3) "anything in-between", despite the traditional catch-all excuse for doing nothing voiced in the same breath under 4). Tradition is hard to shake off, I know, but it can be very misplaced. There may be lots of residual questions relating the connection between global warming and catastrophic climate change, but why would we want to wait until all the t's are crossed and all the i's are dotted? What would that gain us? At most it would tell us that some measures would be unnecessary, allowing us to save some effort and some money. Great, but is that worth the risk of missing out on a hard or soft window of opportunity w.r.t. climate change? Personally I think not, but that's just my opinion.
I put it to you that being as energy-efficient as feasible is the obvious thing to do. It may not be a total solution, but it helps. Let others (e.g. the government) worry about the large-scale issues (after all that's what they're paid for)... but make sure that they _do_ worry about it and don't pass it off as "counter to our economic interest". But being a little more energy-efficient is something that all of us can do, starting today. Both at an individual and at a national level. Not just because it would reduce CO2 emissions that would otherwise take place, and hence contribute to one of the probable causes of global warming, but also because our main energy source, mineral oil, is an increasingly scarce resource. And one which (in my personal opinion) currently is way too cheap in the US.
The only additional information you'd need is: how do I identify and implement measures that make sense from an economic, practical, and technical point of view?
On an individual level there are lots things (ranging from small to ambitious) that can be done in and about the home. Home-owners, renters, and small businesses can find detailed information on how to save energy (and money) here:
http://hes.lbl.gov/hes/vh.shtml.
There are government subsidies (see http://www.dsireusa.org/) for energy-saving measures, that can reduce the financial burden of implementing energy-saving measures for businesses and individuals.
What more information would you need to get started?
I am a total layperson as regards money laundering, policing and investigation, but one thing struck me from this http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/03/06/22 36240 discussion at Slashdot a few days ago, which reported that a prudent family came under suspicion because they paid off too much of their credit card debt in one go.
Banks and credit-card organisations define "unusual" transactions as transactions who'se size make them stand out from the usual transactions on an account. Those transactions are then checked in detail.
From this perspective it would seem that an account that has a long history of sudden fair-sized transactions (say 10,000$ or more) would be a much better (in the sense of less conspicuous) vehicle for a terrorist organisation to move money about. After all... the size of the transactions wouldn't be unusual at all, and (operationally meaningful amounts of money could just be made to disappear in the petty cash accounts. In addition, the holders of such accounts would have some expertise in moving money around, and would be quite aware of what sort of transactions would seem suspicious and which ones wouldn't.
Considering that by all accounts Al Quaeda doesn't seem to be cash-strapped, and its leader has moved in (very) wealthy circles, wouldn't it make more sense to scrutinise transactions of larger accounts than those of small ones? Wouldn't it make sense for terrorist organisations to try and recruit a few wealthy individuals or simply acquire a few businesses that can hide such money flows?
After all, we hear that illegal drug trafficking is the largest industry in the US (dollarwise), and in my view (but I'm not an expert) that amount of money simply cannot be moved in any other way than through the banking system. There's far too much of it for one thing. And all this despite the conspicuous success of our much-vaunted "War on Drugs".
Given then, that we seem to have have good reason to suppose that there are huge streams of money flowing through the banking system that are derived from illegal activities, why not focus on those? Why not scrutinise the activities of the larger accounts (this may already be happening, but I don't know).
Now I understand that flagging unusual transactions on millions of small private accounts may be much easier to automate than checking transactions of larger accounts (just flag any transaction larger than the 95% confidence interval of all transactions or 5000$, whichever is smaller). And I also understand that in this way the police can detect petty crooks, but the focus of attention does seem to be a bit skewed.
Problems facing today being the operative phrase. All the study shows is a 3 year trend. Which they extrapolated. 3 years is not a data set to base public policy OR firm geo science upon.
Considering that Earth's climate is something with a huge momentum, changing its course later on may or may not be an option. That's why ignoring even the _possibility_ of irreversable and catastrophic climate change risks missing a crucial window of opportunity, or even a less-crucial window of low-cost opportunity. Now is the time when we have a good chance of getting by with relatively painless, limited, and non-intrusive measures, provided we are prepared to make them _structural_.
And low-cost, low-tech opportunities for savings abound. Just think of home insulation, use of solar energy to reduce the energy needed for airconditioning and general climate control in buildings, use of heat pumps to lower energy requirements of climate control, and (heaven forbid) energy efficient cars etc..
But even those are often not economically viable because the price of energy is so low in the US. To be fair, why bother with complicated gizmos when you can just have this big cheap wasteful-but-effective-and-reliable thingy installed that will set you back only about 100$ a year in energy bills? Unfortunately our situation is known as a prisoners dilemma. If any business takes the time and effort to conserve energy, it can't spend that time and effort on its core business, and any resulting cost increase (or failure to drive costs down) in its products will be punished by the market.
This is why governments were invented. Tho break this deadlock of short-term interests and impose measures on _everyone at the same time_ that make the long-term needs felt. And yes, the primary instruments are often know as laws and regulations, and and the only ways of internalising external cost (as it is called) are known as taxes or levies. Nobody likes them (they hurt), but sometimes you have to have them. I personally think this is one of those occasions.
Taking the risk of missing either a "hard" window of opportunity or a "soft" one, purely for contraryness, short-term financial reasons, inertia, convenience and short-term political gain is both irresponsible and irrational.
It's telling of the American mindset that decades of energy-related research have been marginalised, downsized, cost-cut and generally ridiculed as idealistic but impractical, and certainly unneeded.
It's equally telling that the prospect of irreversible catastrophic global climate change is dismissed while the certain prospect of price hikes for gasoline (to say the levels of Europe) and *gasp* dependence on foreign powers is enough to galvanise an administration into a (fairly marginal) energy research programme.
Well... at least it got their attention now... in a way.
Well... I think it's too early to attribute nefarious motives to the EU. Besides, they aren't exactly cash-strapped, and imposing fines on an unsound basis would hurt their credibility. They know they are being watched.
The section you highlighted is indeed one of the things that puzzled me. However, as steve_l noted, perhaps the protocol doesn't _have_ any specification other than the full source-code. That surprised me. I thought that such protocols were engineered from the ground up, not cobbled together (as the case seems to be here).
Perhaps the EU made an easy to make mistake in thinking that a company such as Microsoft would set up their network protocol according to strict and clean software engineering principles. Just look at the abrupt changes made by Jim Allchin in subjecting Windows development to mainstream software engineering practices and formal specifications. That development effort seems to be a rather undisciplined hack if I read the background information right, which also seems to indicate that Microsoft's development standards in general are a bit informal.
If this is the case, then would it be reasonable from the EU's point of view to let Microsoft prevent interoperability with e.g. Open Source code by creating a protocol that cannot be adequately documented short of providing the source code, on which Mircosoft then imposes terms that exclude Open Source? I think that the EU could be justified in asking for an Open Source compatible way of achieving interoperability. An interface specification would be just that.
Perhaps the EU should take a step back and say "Ok, we don't care how you do it, but you're going to make it possible for _both_ proprietary and Open Source competitors to be interoperable. If not, we'll either allow people, in this special case, to reverse-engineer your software as far as needed to achieve interoperability, or we demand that the code you submit carries an Open Source compatible license."
Microsoft had published among others a few reports (annex 3 and 4 at http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/legal/02-23-06R esponsetoECSO.mspx) from very reputable scientific institutions that all claim that the EU can't reasonably expect "standalone" documentation that would allow e.g. a Linux machine interoperable with MS server.
I'm puzzled by this, but I don't know enough about servers and their protocols to be able to form an opinion about the reports. Could someone please read them and tell us if they exonerate Microsoft?
Purely from a formal point of view... if the EU demands openness in the sense of interoperability, and Microsoft created an architecture that cannot be opened without copying the whole server. In that case things may look as bleak for Microsoft as it would if it turned out that it simply refused to comply.
Slashdot Mirror
After all we already paid a heavy price: all our phonecalls now end up in the NSA's database with the ostensible reason of tracking down potential terrorists. The one and only return would have been to enable the NSA to conduct traffic analysis on this data in order to form a dragnet with which to narrow down suspicion from hundreds of millions of subscribers to (perhaps) more manageable numbers. And now this story tells any would-be terrorist precisely how the NSA might conduct its analysis and what they can do to avoid the dragnet: which is to make sure that their pattern of communication is dissimilar from the one used by their predecessors. In short, this seems to strip the whole operation of the one and only potential benefit for which it was put in place.
Was the public interest really served by releasing this story?
(a) lend themselves extremely well to optimisation
(b) lend themselves extremely well to incorporation in subroutine libraries
(c) tend to isolate the most compute-intensive low-level operations used in scientific computation
SGEMM
If you read the article, you will find (among others) a reference to a operation called "SGEMM". This stands for Single precision General Matrix Multiplication. This is the sort of routines that make up the BLAS library (Basic Linear Algebra Subprograms) (see e.g. http://www.netlib.org/blas/). High performance computation typically starts with creating optimised implementation of the BLAS routines (if necessary handcoded at assembler level), sparse-matrix equivalents of them, Fast Fourier routines, and the LAPACK library.
ATLAS
There is a general movement away from optimised assembly language coding for the BLAS, as embodied in the ATLAS software package (Automatically Tuned Linear Algebra Software; see e.g. http://math-atlas.sourceforge.net/). The ATLAS package provides the BLAS routines but produces fairly optimal code on any machine using nothing but ordinary compilers. How? If you run a makefile for the ATLAS package, it may take about 12 hours (depending on your computer of course; this is a typical number for a PC) or so to compile. In this time the makefile will simply run through multiple switches and for the BLAS routines and run testsuites for all its routines for varying problem sizes. And then it picks the best possible combination of switches for each routine and each problem size for the machine architecture on which it's being run. In particular it takes account of the size of caches. That's why it produces much faster subroutine libraries than those produced by simply compiling e.g. the BLAS routines with an -O3 optimisation switch thrown in.
Specially tuned versus automatic?: MATLAB
The question is of course: who wins? Specially tuned code or automatic optimisation? This can be illustrated with the example of the well-known MATLAB package. Perhaps you have used MATLAB on PC's, and wondered why its matrix and vector operations are so fast? That's because for Intel and AMD processors it uses a specially (vendor-optimised) subroutine library (see http://www.mathworks.com/access/helpdesk/help/tech doc/rn/r14sp1_v7_0_1_math.html) For SUN machines, it uses SUN's optimised subroutine library. For other processors (for which there are no optimised libraries) Matlab uses the ATLAS routines. Despite the great progress and portability that the ATLAS library provides, carefully optimised libraries can still beat it (see the Intel Math Kernel Library at http://www.intel.com/cd/software/products/asmo-na/ eng/266858.htm)
Summary
In summary:
-large tracts of Scientific computation depend on optimised subroutine libraries
-hand-crafted assembly-language optimisation can still outperform machine-optimised code.
Therefore the objections that the hand-crafted routines described in the article distort the comparison or are not representative of real-world performance are invalid.
However ... it's so expensive and difficult that you only ever want to do it if you absolutely must. For scientific computation this typically means that you only consider handcrafting "inner loop primitives" such as the BLAS routines, FFT's, SPARSEPACK routines etc. for this treatment, and that you just don't attempt to do that yourself.
However, the reason I spoke up about pay-per-byte schemes is because I would like to counter the argument propounded by several Telco's that in order to finance the necessary infrastructure under currently projected growth scenarios, they must be allowed to introduce the Tiered Interenet. If the Telco's were right, then it would be unreasonable and counter-productive to insist on net-neutrality. Fortunately their argument doesn't hold water because a simple metering scheme allows net-neutrality and charge-for-use to be combined.
There is a lot to be said for your proposal to meter by download rates (and it happens a lot). I agree that low enough download rates would make it impossible to stream video (but I don't know what the minimum is). Unfortunately it will not preclude people from downloading multiple gigabytes a month through their "always on" connection, even at quite moderate download rates (think bit-torrent).
If everyone were to do that (as the Telco's suggest by pointing to a projected sharp increase in video material) the base load on the Internet would increase a lot, and it would require a lot of additional capacity to guarantee reasonable transmission speeds during peak times. Which would mean that the Telco's had a legitimate point. As I see it however, this (hypothetical) increased low-bandwidth/high-volume use can easily be charged to end-users through metering, removing a potentially reasonable argument in favour of Tiered Internet.
It seems to work as follows: for your monthly fee you get a download limit of say 3 Gb. a month. If you exceed this limit occasionally and by a small amout, your ISP will feel that it costs them more to send you an extra invoice than they could charge you. Try to download 30 GB. in a month and you will find your connection suspended:
(a) for the time it takes for your average use to drop below 3 Gb. a month or
(b) until you agree to pay for an enhanced subscription or even to pay per Gb.
In this way customers can cheerfully download Windows updates, or even the occasional Linux distribution without extra charge. Try to turn your PC into a TV however by downloading streamed videos all day (which is what the Telco's seem to be worried about), and you'll be asked to pay. This sounds fair and reasonable to me. And besides, all of this can be implemented using today's technologies, and it's very (cost) efficient from the ISP's point of view.
Companies being profit maximisers they will always try to charge you the most, but that's what a market is all about. That doesn't worry me, as long as there is competition. For Verizon e.g. the subscription varies by your maximum upload and download speed. The only thing they need to to is to introduce this system of banded download limits. If the Telco's really do need the extra cash to build and maintain the net infrastructure then this is how they might do it.
I'm not against paying for the bandwidth I consume, what I am against is having Telco's create a tiered Internet and charge according to the sender, the value and/or the content rather than the amount of information people are sending across their pipes.
If Telco's really need more money (as they claim) to pay for the infrastructure they are maintaining (and expanding), they can always use (non-discriminatory) a pay-per-byte billing scheme instead of pay-per-byte-value.
In case you have, you have *cough* "Valuable Intellectual Property" and you can try to monetise that by suing the potential infringer with the deepest pockets in sight. How is that different from everyday business? Really, what's the hoopla all about?
And what venue would be more proper to decide if you have rights than a court of law? And why shouldn't you be allowed to appeal to a judge if you believe you have rights?
Please don't forget that private companies are generally required -through their statutes- to maximise shareholder value. Maximise in this context is to be taken in the Mathematical sense. As in execute any policy which is:
(a) permissible (not unlawful) and
(b) generates the highest expected pay-off.
Nobody ever mentioned ethics. Who are we to complain if a company executes a lawful policy? Those rules they play by were made in our name, and that patent they flourish was issued in our name too. Guess who's to blame?
Ad (1) Do we need additional etexts?
The list of e-texts on the sites shown might look impressive, but it isn't really. It's a convenient aid to a decent university library but nothing more. In addition it took me quite some time to find these sites, and it took the site builders untold hours to put their sites together. And still it's terribly sketchy.
Why do I say it looks more impressive than it is?
-the topics tend to be covered in a very incomplete way
-the only area that is covered fairly well is undergraduate (first and second year) Mathematics and basic Physics.
-to my feeling there seems to be a positive correlation (but I didn't check this) between open e-texts and subjects that are studied by people who really really _want_ to study them
All full e-texts in these sites were made available by their copyright holders or have had their copyrights expired. What Google is planning to do is to make al books searcheable (including those under copyright) and to display only such small morsels as is consonant with fair-use. That's a very different story.
I for one would pay good money to be able to do an occasional full-text search of textbooks. And I would be happy to then either lend those books from the library or to buy them outright.
Ad (2) Should we be afraid of a Google monopoly on book searches?
I am as suspicious of monopolies as the next person, but this is a service which genuinely doesn't exist at the moment. I firmly believe that we can expect nothing of remotely comparable quality from existing publishers. If Google makes money from building such a valuable resource, why not let them? And should there turn out to be problems, we can always address them later, once actually we have a service such as Google is planning.
As a case in point I would remind you of the situation with scientific journals. There is _no_ single system that allows me to do full-text searches in scientific journals. Most scientific publishers offer (ruinously expensive) searching services for their own journals to libraries, and mostly they let you search for abstracts, keywords, and authors only. The quality of the search engines usually ranges from barely acceptable to really poor and they simply can't hold a candle to the quality of the Google search engine. This is because publishers usually put only bitmaps of their full articles on-line (even to paying subscribers !), which effectively renders them unsearcheable.
Conclusion
The long and the short of it is that it really isn't in the publisher's interest to make their books and articles too easy to search. Publishers generally aren't about making knowledge accessible to society, they are about maximising profits by monetising copyrights (no censure intended). They (probably rightly) feel that allowing their publications to be searcheable won't help them sell more copies. Why would that be? Full-text search as proposed by Google would allow people to look a a page or a passage of their books and decide that (a) the book or article is of no use to them, or (b) that they now know enough and don't need to buy the book or article, or (c) that the book or article is a must-read. Mostly the answer will turn out to be (a) or (b). So they block it (which makes perfect sense from their point of view).
Of course this is counter to the best interest of researchers, but they usually aren't copyright holders. That might surprise some people, but researchers usually have to sign away their copyrights in order to get their work published. And they aren't in a very strong bargaining position because their jobs depend on publishing regularly in well-rated peer-reviewed journals.
I would definitely support a national library doing exactly what Google is planning. Unfo
-MIT's Open Courseware at: http://ocw.mit.edu/index.html
-Textbook revolution at http://textbookrevolution.org/
-Physiscs texts at: http://www.phys.uu.nl/~thooft/theorist.html#langua ges
-The assayer at http://www.theassayer.org/
-Open content at http://www.hewlett.org/Programs/Education/Technolo gy/OpenContent/opencontent.htm
I also know a number of econometric and statistics texts that are also available as free Ebooks, but they are of interest only to specialists.
Personally I wish to see the utility nature of telecommunications continued, and I don't see any reason why that would cripple us. Your claims of doom whenever government lifts a finger notwithstanding. So a continuation of the current legislation that enforces net-neutrality is fine by me.
Now a market in which every Telco will charge according to what traffic you generate and with whom ... and who will put a tax on companies like Ebay, Amazon, Google, and Yahoo, now that's something I'd rather not have.
Let the profits stay with with the companies that did something innovative to generate them, not companies that just sit there on their infrastructure (already paid for by their customers), prepare to profit by removing the consumer surplus, and abuse the fact that its infrastructure presents so high a barrier to entry so that they can overcharge their clients with impunity.
Oh, and if you feel that my posts are unduly amateurish (consider this forum will you?), might I right cordially invite you to remedy this by presenting us with a short analysis of the impacts of a removal of the net-neutrality principle on current customers (both individuals and large service providers)? Your review should take account of the particularities of network-based services, with special attention to market imperfections. When including references to the literature, use the Harvard system of referencing. Please submit your paper by next week Friday. The use of profanity will be marked down.
- those "good strong incentives" you're talking about mean that the situation will have to get a whole lot worse before we all scramble to fix the mess and it gets any better. That sort of thing is technically known as "bang-bang control". Although I appreciate that precisely this may appeal to some, it's universally regarded as sub-optimal systems control. I'd rather not get into a mess in the first place. Why? Because telecommunication affects every individual and business ine the country. Every glitch and imperfaction in it will hurt us. And unreasonable prices will do so too.
- for communication you need a network. Even P2P needs some physical infrastructure somewhere. And that's what we're talking about. Even if you meant to string physical point to point connections, you would in effect be duplicating the existing network ... just in order to get competition. Seems a gross waste of capital all around to build a network twice just to have competition. And who's to say that one of the two networks won't acquire the other and starts the whole game afresh?
- it's legally prohibited to encrypt your telephone communications (the NSA and the FBI have to have access when they demand it)
- the Telcos don't absolutely need to know the content of your traffic. They can refine their billing if they do, but even if they don't they can hold up Ebay, Amazon, and Google for the traffic they generate. The "who is talking to whom" information is part of the network routing information, and that's under the Telco's control.
It's because network-bound markets (rail, telephone, water, electricity) are usually imperfect and flawed. That's a problem if you're dependent on the prices that this flawed market will generate. Government is the only way we've come up with to regulate markets so that even when they're flawed they aren't a nuisance.(a) commercial entities are profit maximisers
(b) commercial companies are in charge of our telecommunication networks
(c) therefore we have to sit tight and watch them charge whatever they like for the use of their telecommunication networks
More to the point: if I follow your thinking, we have no moral right whatsoever to either protest or act against any measure they come up with to charge for their services. In fact, they should be allowed to charge whatever they like to whomever they like.
Now all this sounds reasonable. After all, what are free markets for? (Well I do seem to hear strange rumblings about putative "price gouging" with gasoline. Now how can that be? Gasoline markets are free, aren't they? Charge whatever the market will bear. Surely nothing that Government should stick its nose in, right?) But here is the rub: the market in which the Telcos work isn't free, and hasn't ever been free.
Why not?
(a) all companies like water, electricity, and telecoms are network-based. You can't just sell someone water, electricity, or communication out of thin air (well ... lets not drag cellular phones / WiFi into it here, we're talking fixed lines). You need to have a network in place first. And that's expensive. Very expensive. In fact ... it's an entry barrier. And supposing you start offering network services, your (bigger) competitors can usually crush you by reducing their tarifs where your network overlaps their, and recoup this loss elsewhere.
(b)regulations (lots of regulations you have to comply with, not everyone can start his own phone company tomorrow
(c) telephone was a great big monopoly until the forced split of AT&T into "baby bells", but now the de facto monopolies have reappeared (Verizon and AT&T)
I think this can be summed up as saying: the market for telecommunication is not free, and should not be confused with a free market, and should therefore not be treated as one.
Further considering the fact that
- the fact that telecommunication is absolutely vital to modern society
- that the current situation is that Telcos are required by law (well by FTC) to provide neutral access to their network
- it is now technically feasible for Telcos to collect enough information from their networks to render all their users completely transparant
In summary I think we can see that
- the negotiating field between Telcos and their clients is anything but level (no competition)
- Telcos have a unilateral information information advantage over their clients
- therefore the market that we will see emerge is totally skewed
- as a result the prices we will see at market equilibrium will be sorely inflated
- therefore the question is justified whether it makes sense to lift the current neutrality requirement on todays monopolists. I personally think it isn't.
I'm not against free markets. In fact I'm in favour of them. What I'm against is people mistakenly applying free-market arguments to a market that isn't free, and on top of that to a very important market.
When you think of Google, Amazon, Ebay etc. ... their whole business depends on telecommunication, so that what it's worth to them to have their data sent is basically their entire profit margin, which is non-zero. So ... at the moment they are enjoying a benefit which is known as "consumer surplus". Consumer surplus is the area between a demand curve and a given (fixed) price (see e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consumer_surplus).
Any marketeer knows that to get the maximum amount of money out of a market, you have to deal with each consumer individually, and price your goods to exactly what he's willing to pay. You can do that if his negotiation position is completely transparant to you, i.e. if you know his demand curve.
Now that extreme is too bothersome, so what do you do? You segment the market into sections that have approximately the same willingness to pay. For each segment you then negotiate a price close to the minimum willingness to pay for that segment. You won't get all the revenue you would have if you were able to charge each consumer the maximum price they're willing to pay, but you're getting close.
The trick is to identify the segments in the first place, and to gain a strong negotiating position. Identifying your customers is the basic step to figuring out their willingness to pay, and of late we have seen Cisco routers that do exactly that. So that's one hole plugged.
The second issue is to gain a strong negotiating position. That's all taken care of because the telecom companies have ensured that all electronic traffic must pass through their infrastructure.
The only remaining problem was that it wasn't legal for them to bluntly start pricing each individual customer what they would pay. Now with the removal of "net-neutrality" this is taken care of as well. Telecom companies can simply induce unacceptable delays as follows:
- (1) allocate reserved bandwidth channels on their infrastructure for customers that are prepared to pay more (got to provide superior service if we're going to charge more, right?)
- (2) route traffic in those channels with priority over existing infrastructure
- (3) watch natural traffic growth of priority traffic squeeze the performance of the non-priority traffic
- (4) politely but firmly negotiate large price increases with large customers such as Google, Ebay, Amazon who can't live with the now much reduced performance of their services
All legal, all neat. Telcos increase their profits at the expense of the (large corporate) users of telecoms facilities. Of course it won't stop there. Individual consumers and small businesses are next. Not satisfied with your Internet performance? (hehehe) Subscribe to our Deluxe service!
If you think I'm making any of this up, then see Cisco's pitch of its routers that can identify traffic here http://www.corecom.com/ftpdir/pub/corecom/iprev-bi lling.ppt. as powerpoint and here as html: http://66.249.93.104/search?q=cache:dt-ljUr4k5QJ:w ww.corecom.com/ftpdir/pub/corecom/iprev-billing.pp t+cisco+routers+identify+traffic+tiered+charge&hl= en&gl=uk&ct=clnk&cd=8
The only cloud in the sky is the fact that the Telecoms companies don't create value in this way. They simply take away consumer surplus. Gi
There were 2 main replies to my post:
- one stating that in all probability the protocol wasn't so much designed as "grown"
- on stating that this is the normal industry practice for evolving software: "Rather, normal industry practice is that specifications for such a system are developed and enhanced on an ongoing basis in an iterative process through interaction with engineers skilled in the relevant art and who actually use the specifications" (source: the "Broy" report, written by Prof Broy of the Technische Universität München)
This seems to point in the same direction as the parent post, namely that Microsoft honestly doesn't have a protocol specification for its client-server communication.
The next question is of course: does this get them off the hook? Is it sufficient for them to offer licenses for source-code that allows interoperability? The answer to this question can be "yes" or "no".
(1) Assume the answer is "no", it doesn't get them off the hook. Then the implication is that a software firm with a monopoly must always expect to be required to go the extra mile and produce interface specifications for its software ... even if its rivals aren't required to do so. Do I sense an iniquity?
(2) Assume the answer is "yes" it does get them off the hook. Then the implication is that any software monopolist can deny others interoperability with its systems with impunity ... all it has to do is to not document the API, so that the source code is the only avalable documentation. In other words ... kiss goodbye to any "fair competition laws" in the software field since they can be easily circumvented.
Neither option seems attractive, but on balance I think that in this case option (1) is the lesser of the two evils. We need a functioning market (as protected by fair competition laws) more than we need the absence of iniquity for all players.
But ... it seems that the EU has a healthy respect for the ability of US courts so determine matters of fact (as opposed to matters of law), which doesn't seem stupid at all.
If a US court, after about 3 years of discovery, expert witnesses taking the stand on both sides, concludes (as judge Jackson did) among other things that Microsoft:
- had a monopoly on desktop operating systems
- used this monopoly to prevent new entrants from entering the market
- lied in court when it stated that IE was needed for Windows to function (remember that video that was supposed to show Windows crashing after you removed IE? The video that was doctored to show the desired effect? Now I think that any ordinary person would have been prosecuted for perjury for pulling something like that, but apparently a company can get away with it.)
And if you further note that none of these findings were overturned on appeal ... then I believe it makes sense for a body such as the EU to take heed of it. And apparently the EU thought so too. How is this bad? What exactly is your complaint?
Please note that at no point was Microsoft ever required to give out sourcecode. It was required to publish an API.
It was Microsoft itself that offered sourcecode (with licensing strings attached) just so it wouldn't have to publish the API specification. And perhaps also to confuse the issue ... so that half-informed people could make snide remarks about poor Microsoft being required to hand over their precious IP.
(1) "The 24-page bill is a far-reaching medley of different proposals cobbled together. One would, for instance, create a new federal crime of just trying to commit copyright infringement. Such willful attempts at piracy, even if they fail, could be punished by up to 10 years in prison."
(2) "Jessica Litman, who teaches copyright law at Wayne State University, views the DMCA expansion as more than just a minor change. "If Sony had decided to stand on its rights and either McAfee or Norton Antivirus had tried to remove the rootkit from my hard drive, we'd all be violating this expanded definition," Litman said."
(3) "copyright holders can impound "records documenting the manufacture, sale or receipt of items involved in" infringements"
(4) "boosts criminal penalties for copyright infringement originally created by the No Electronic Theft Act of 1997 from five years to 10 years (and 10 years to 20 years for subsequent offenses). The NET Act targets noncommercial piracy including posting copyrighted photos, videos or news articles on a Web site if the value exceeds $1,000"
Well ... this starts to look like the laws in good old England last century. Where paupers could be sentenced to things like banishment to the Colonies (or an extensive jail time) for something like stealing an apple.
ad (1) It does seem a bit over the top punishment-wise.
ad (2) Just what we need! Congress has surely got its ear to the ground on this one.
ad (3) Makes sense ... just think of all those weblogs that ISP's are so loath to give up. Grabbing the weblogs and suing people wholesale on basis of it may yet become an important source of revenue for copyright holders.
ad (4) What are the going rates for manslaughter? And for aggravated assault? And for murder? Repeated copyright violation in excess of 1000$ is apparently the moral equivalent of murder and is rated higher than manslaughter or aggravated assault. Interesting point of view. First the War on Drugs and now this. We're going from strength to strength.
Watch the good old US of A wage War on Crime. Copyright violations are so bad for society that they merit firm jail sentences. Bad news perhaps for teenagers who use p2p software, but the good news is that this might be just what's needed to secure our lead in people jailed per 1000 (see http://www.mapsofworld.com/world-top-ten/countries -by-highest-prison-population-rates.html) which is now only threatened by Russia and a few banana republics. We lead the world inthis area (except perhaps for countries that don't release statistics such as North Korea).
Just a thought ... those jails we have are awfully expensive per inmate. Wouldn't it be an idea to give offenders a choice: jail time or a tour of service in Afghanistan or Iraq? To err ... atone for their misdemeanour? Just a thought.
Guantanamo Bay was called into being to exploit a juridical loophole in order to hold people without accusation, without legal representation, and without trial for as long as the authorities need to either build a case against them or to clear them. The reason this was done was to get at people considered to be the equivalent of enemy combatants but without a state that you could hold responsible, without a "home front" which would moderate their actions, and which on balance were considered potentially far too dangerous to let walk around free. In other words: for real terrorists who threaten real lives. Not for teens who make a hobby of breaking into poorly protected computers.
What we see now is that laws are stretched a bit to mark anyone from overseas who breaks into a defense computer as a "terrorist" and hence eligible for "terrorist" treatment. Which includes e.g. a lack of legal representation and a 20 year prison sentence (if he's lucky) or a 60 year one if he's unlucky. Which in this case is of course totally out of proportion.
What worries me most is the cries of "he commited a crime and thence should not whine about the time". Nice copy, but more than a bit barbaric when you come to think of it. Punishment should be proportionate to the offense, and people's rights (e.g. to legal counsel and reasonable sentences) should not be set aside simply because the administration currently in power happens to feel like it.
If we seriously consider 20 years of prison as just punishment for the electronic equivalent of breaking and entering on federal property, then why not adopt "Islamic" laws such as cutting of hands for petty theft and stoning for adultery? Those laws were made in and for a medieval society. Don't tell me that the US of A is becoming the appropriate setting for that kind of law.
As far as I can see, the DOJ did not drop the case for juridical reasons, but for political ones. As in the new adminstration didn't want this case to go any further.
Why might one ask? Well ... one consideration might be that on the whole it wouldn't be in the US interest at all to see its great software champion cut up into "Opsco" and "Appsco" (an Operating System division and an Application Software division). So that competition laws would have to take a backseat to National Interest (which certainly would be a legitimate point of view). I'm sure though that conspiracy theorists could come up with other, less savory, alternatives.
Therefore, err ..., might the EU be justified in expressing "substantial concerns" about "US" motives for having such 'substantial concerns about the whether Microsoft is being treated fairly'?
My second point is that this whole charade began 2 years ago. In 2004. After Microsoft was found guilty of violating EU competition laws and was ordered to disclose publish the API's that allow Windows Clients to interact with Windows Servers, so as to allow others (SUN, IBM, HP, and Samba) to make their OS act as Windows Server to Windows Clients and to allow their clients to log into Windows Servers.
Does that seem reasonsable? I think it does. Because if that sort of inter-operability isn't available then anyone trying to sell a competitor to Windows Server will have to convince their prospect that their (ubiquitous) Windows desktop machines will be running crippled when logging in to their proposed servers. And because anyone pushing Linux desktops will have to explain why it isn't important that they won't be able to work well with their prospect's (widely used) Windows Servers. Either way Microsoft would be using its current monopoly position as a competitive weapon, which is illegal.
Therefore requiring the API's to be published, open, and usable sounds like honest enforcement of competition laws to me. Now Microsoft had 2 whole years to come up with the required documentation.
And what did Microsoft do? They:
Now does that sound as if they were trying to comply with a reasonable request or if they were just trying to get things done their way? I think the latter.
And now that they seem to have lost traction in the EU courts and have reached the deadline they chant that "fines are not the solution" and bring in their big brother to apply some pressure. Well ... it would be a good stunt if they get can away with it, but I'm not sure if this is something we should be happy with.
You seem to admit that there may be a point of no return, and yet you seem to be prepared to risk overshooting it by insisting that we research precisely how far we have or haven't gone towards that point. Your motive for this to avoid the possibility that we might accidentally do something that's not strictly necessary. In doing so you allow for no safety margins of any kind as regards the potential effects. May I call that irresponsible?
[...] The question is what to do about it. We can: (1) Totally ignore it. (2) Put our entire economy on hold.
3)Or anything in between.(my emphasis)
4)To determine what we should do requires a lot more information than we actually have. (my emphasis) [...]
Well ... option 1) is what the US have been doing for the past 10 years or so. Satisfied with the results? Option 2) has been cited all along to argue that it made no sense to a) find out if there really was a danger, b) why actually doing anything about it was out of the question anyway, and c) all this talk about climate was a load of bunkum purveyed by starry eyed doo-gooders and jealous pinko's out to rob us of our economic leadership anyway.
So I'm very pleased to see that the poster actually caught on to option 3) "anything in-between", despite the traditional catch-all excuse for doing nothing voiced in the same breath under 4). Tradition is hard to shake off, I know, but it can be very misplaced. There may be lots of residual questions relating the connection between global warming and catastrophic climate change, but why would we want to wait until all the t's are crossed and all the i's are dotted? What would that gain us? At most it would tell us that some measures would be unnecessary, allowing us to save some effort and some money. Great, but is that worth the risk of missing out on a hard or soft window of opportunity w.r.t. climate change? Personally I think not, but that's just my opinion.
I put it to you that being as energy-efficient as feasible is the obvious thing to do. It may not be a total solution, but it helps. Let others (e.g. the government) worry about the large-scale issues (after all that's what they're paid for) ... but make sure that they _do_ worry about it and don't pass it off as "counter to our economic interest". But being a little more energy-efficient is something that all of us can do, starting today. Both at an individual and at a national level. Not just because it would reduce CO2 emissions that would otherwise take place, and hence contribute to one of the probable causes of global warming, but also because our main energy source, mineral oil, is an increasingly scarce resource. And one which (in my personal opinion) currently is way too cheap in the US.
The only additional information you'd need is: how do I identify and implement measures that make sense from an economic, practical, and technical point of view?
On an individual level there are lots things (ranging from small to ambitious) that can be done in and about the home. Home-owners, renters, and small businesses can find detailed information on how to save energy (and money) here: http://hes.lbl.gov/hes/vh.shtml.
There are government subsidies (see http://www.dsireusa.org/) for energy-saving measures, that can reduce the financial burden of implementing energy-saving measures for businesses and individuals.
What more information would you need to get started?
Fortunately a level-headed and informative review of the case (which puts a different light on it) is available here http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=200603110 7414764
Recommended!
Banks and credit-card organisations define "unusual" transactions as transactions who'se size make them stand out from the usual transactions on an account. Those transactions are then checked in detail.
From this perspective it would seem that an account that has a long history of sudden fair-sized transactions (say 10,000$ or more) would be a much better (in the sense of less conspicuous) vehicle for a terrorist organisation to move money about. After all ... the size of the transactions wouldn't be unusual at all, and (operationally meaningful amounts of money could just be made to disappear in the petty cash accounts. In addition, the holders of such accounts would have some expertise in moving money around, and would be quite aware of what sort of transactions would seem suspicious and which ones wouldn't.
Considering that by all accounts Al Quaeda doesn't seem to be cash-strapped, and its leader has moved in (very) wealthy circles, wouldn't it make more sense to scrutinise transactions of larger accounts than those of small ones? Wouldn't it make sense for terrorist organisations to try and recruit a few wealthy individuals or simply acquire a few businesses that can hide such money flows?
After all, we hear that illegal drug trafficking is the largest industry in the US (dollarwise), and in my view (but I'm not an expert) that amount of money simply cannot be moved in any other way than through the banking system. There's far too much of it for one thing. And all this despite the conspicuous success of our much-vaunted "War on Drugs".
Given then, that we seem to have have good reason to suppose that there are huge streams of money flowing through the banking system that are derived from illegal activities, why not focus on those? Why not scrutinise the activities of the larger accounts (this may already be happening, but I don't know).
Now I understand that flagging unusual transactions on millions of small private accounts may be much easier to automate than checking transactions of larger accounts (just flag any transaction larger than the 95% confidence interval of all transactions or 5000$, whichever is smaller). And I also understand that in this way the police can detect petty crooks, but the focus of attention does seem to be a bit skewed.
What do you think?
Considering that Earth's climate is something with a huge momentum, changing its course later on may or may not be an option. That's why ignoring even the _possibility_ of irreversable and catastrophic climate change risks missing a crucial window of opportunity, or even a less-crucial window of low-cost opportunity. Now is the time when we have a good chance of getting by with relatively painless, limited, and non-intrusive measures, provided we are prepared to make them _structural_.
And low-cost, low-tech opportunities for savings abound. Just think of home insulation, use of solar energy to reduce the energy needed for airconditioning and general climate control in buildings, use of heat pumps to lower energy requirements of climate control, and (heaven forbid) energy efficient cars etc..
But even those are often not economically viable because the price of energy is so low in the US. To be fair, why bother with complicated gizmos when you can just have this big cheap wasteful-but-effective-and-reliable thingy installed that will set you back only about 100$ a year in energy bills? Unfortunately our situation is known as a prisoners dilemma. If any business takes the time and effort to conserve energy, it can't spend that time and effort on its core business, and any resulting cost increase (or failure to drive costs down) in its products will be punished by the market.
This is why governments were invented. Tho break this deadlock of short-term interests and impose measures on _everyone at the same time_ that make the long-term needs felt. And yes, the primary instruments are often know as laws and regulations, and and the only ways of internalising external cost (as it is called) are known as taxes or levies. Nobody likes them (they hurt), but sometimes you have to have them. I personally think this is one of those occasions.
Taking the risk of missing either a "hard" window of opportunity or a "soft" one, purely for contraryness, short-term financial reasons, inertia, convenience and short-term political gain is both irresponsible and irrational.
It's telling of the American mindset that decades of energy-related research have been marginalised, downsized, cost-cut and generally ridiculed as idealistic but impractical, and certainly unneeded.
It's equally telling that the prospect of irreversible catastrophic global climate change is dismissed while the certain prospect of price hikes for gasoline (to say the levels of Europe) and *gasp* dependence on foreign powers is enough to galvanise an administration into a (fairly marginal) energy research programme.
Well ... at least it got their attention now ... in a way.
The section you highlighted is indeed one of the things that puzzled me. However, as steve_l noted, perhaps the protocol doesn't _have_ any specification other than the full source-code. That surprised me. I thought that such protocols were engineered from the ground up, not cobbled together (as the case seems to be here).
Perhaps the EU made an easy to make mistake in thinking that a company such as Microsoft would set up their network protocol according to strict and clean software engineering principles. Just look at the abrupt changes made by Jim Allchin in subjecting Windows development to mainstream software engineering practices and formal specifications. That development effort seems to be a rather undisciplined hack if I read the background information right, which also seems to indicate that Microsoft's development standards in general are a bit informal.
If this is the case, then would it be reasonable from the EU's point of view to let Microsoft prevent interoperability with e.g. Open Source code by creating a protocol that cannot be adequately documented short of providing the source code, on which Mircosoft then imposes terms that exclude Open Source? I think that the EU could be justified in asking for an Open Source compatible way of achieving interoperability. An interface specification would be just that.
Perhaps the EU should take a step back and say "Ok, we don't care how you do it, but you're going to make it possible for _both_ proprietary and Open Source competitors to be interoperable. If not, we'll either allow people, in this special case, to reverse-engineer your software as far as needed to achieve interoperability, or we demand that the code you submit carries an Open Source compatible license."
I'm puzzled by this, but I don't know enough about servers and their protocols to be able to form an opinion about the reports. Could someone please read them and tell us if they exonerate Microsoft?
Purely from a formal point of view ... if the EU demands openness in the sense of interoperability, and Microsoft created an architecture that cannot be opened without copying the whole server. In that case things may look as bleak for Microsoft as it would if it turned out that it simply refused to comply.