Copy Link
Add to Bookmark
Report
Netizens-Digest Volume 1 Number 389
Netizens-Digest Friday, May 4 2001 Volume 01 : Number 389
Netizens Association Discussion List Digest
In this issue:
[netz] Re: Max spouting his damn fool head off again
Re: [netz] Re: Max spouting his damn fool head off again
[netz] Inappropriate post
[netz] New Institute created at Oxford to study social impact of Internet
Re: [netz] Government and Science Was:FC: Ftc action
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Thu, 3 May 2001 01:35:02 EDT
From: Nmherman@aol.com
Subject: [netz] Re: Max spouting his damn fool head off again
In a message dated 5/3/2001 12:14:00 AM Central Daylight Time,
dstreever@netzero.net writes:
> How can an alchoholic who can't make a single fucking friend lead the world
> to the future?
>
> I have no fucking clue.
It's alcoholic to you you Spanish son of a bitch. And keep those IRS dogs
away from me or I'll tear your reputation to shreds. I can do it you know.
And I will.
Max Herman
The Genius 2000 Hutfest
http://www.geocities.com/genius-2000/hutfestamerica2000.html
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 3 May 2001 19:40:34 +0200
From: Dan Duris <dan@netcommodities.com>
Subject: Re: [netz] Re: Max spouting his damn fool head off again
what has this to do with netizens???? except you are showing us your
mutual respect for each other.
Nac> In a message dated 5/3/2001 12:14:00 AM Central Daylight Time,
Nac> dstreever@netzero.net writes:
>> How can an alchoholic who can't make a single fucking friend lead the world
>> to the future?
>>
>> I have no fucking clue.
Nac> It's alcoholic to you you Spanish son of a bitch. And keep those IRS dogs
Nac> away from me or I'll tear your reputation to shreds. I can do it you know.
Nac> And I will.
Nac> Max Herman
Nac> The Genius 2000 Hutfest
Nac> http://www.geocities.com/genius-2000/hutfestamerica2000.html
dan
- -----------------------------
email: dan@netcommodities.com
ICQ: 17932727
*- three saints: looser & lamer & hacker -*
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 4 May 2001 13:25:11 -0400 (EDT)
From: jrh@ais.org (Jay Hauben)
Subject: [netz] Inappropriate post
Hi,
A recent post "Re: Max spouting his damn fool head off again" was
inconsistent with the purpose of this list. The poster had been asked in
two email messages to only post material appropriate to the democratic
purpose of the list. After the last post I remove his right to post here.
Subsequently I received the following message from an other subscriber:
In case you haven't read this already. I have no idea what
this feud is all about, whether it is serious or just joking and I don't
intend to get mixed up in it, much less take sides, etc. but one thing I
don't like is when someone is called by his/her race or nationality in a
demeaning way. I happen to be Spanish or Spanish descent and proud of it
and if I ever want to read racial epithets I might as well loggin the
"Skinheads" or "Aryan Nation" websites. I don't believe the remark
"Spanish son of a bitch" belongs in netizens, which I've always regarded
as a diverse, pro-democracy collective, which among other things should
stand against racism!
- --------------------------------------------------
I welcome comments and opinions about administration of this list, onlist
or off.
Jay
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 4 May 2001 14:15:54 -0400 (EDT)
From: ronda@panix.com
Subject: [netz] New Institute created at Oxford to study social impact of Internet
There's an article in The Register about a new Institute being set
up at Oxford in England to study the social impact of the Internet.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/18755.html
Ronda
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 4 May 2001 15:44:40 -0400 (EDT)
From: ronda@panix.com
Subject: Re: [netz] Government and Science Was:FC: Ftc action
Sorry it has taken a while to get to respond to this as things have
been hectic this past week, but the discussion is really important.
I wonder what the thoughts of others on the netizens list are to the
issues being raised in this discussion:
>"Howard C. Berkowitz" <hcb@clark.net> wrote on Sunday April 29 wrote:
>
Ronda Hauben <ronda@panix.com> wrote:
>>Well you may find it of interest to take a look at the May 2001 issue
>>of Wired. I don't often read it but this had an article by Larry Roberts
>>(one of the ARPANET pioneers) and he explains how he is creating
>>a new kind of intelligent router significantly change the routing done
>>on the Net so that there will be priority service for those who pay
>>more and lower class service for those who can't afford the higher
>>prices.
>Unfortunately, you are dealing with popularizations of concepts that
>have been discussed extensively, for years, in quite public
>engineering forums. See, for example, the IETF Differentiated
>Services Working Group at
>http://www.ietf.org/html.charters/diffserv-charter.html
But there hasn't been public discussion on these issues. And as
these are public issues, issues in which the public needs to be
involved to understand their concerns and needs, it is a problem
that the discussion doesn't happen in a more public arena than
an IETF forum.
>What's wrong with having economically differentiated premium service,
>as long as the lower class services are affordable? The "tragedy of
>the commons" is a classical economic paradigm -- unless there are
>consequences to using shared or premium resources, some people will
>take more than their unfair share.
But what is being done is exactly what is the concern in the "tragedy
of the commons". The commons is being fenced off and the result
of common effort is being grabbed by some to limit what is available
to the public.
Originally the Net was built on a principle of the more who are
connected, the more valuable it is to all. The more who contribute,
the more valuable it is to all.
Now the opposite principle is being introduced. That there will
be those who will fence it all off and keep take the premier
aspects for the most wealthy, and others will all be second class
citizens.
Somehow this is a fundamental change in the nature of the Internet,
and once it is implemented, we will *no* longer have an Internet,
but something much less desirable.
>For health and productivity reasons, I fly business/first class on
>long flights. The availability of this premium service doesn't seem
>to empty out the economy class cabin.
Perhaps you fly business/first class. But I can't afford to.
The seats I get in the other class are smaller because a part of
the plane has been reserved for first/business class.
Often the planes I have been on have had the first/business section
of the plane empty while the section of the plane I am on filled to
the brim.
All the seats should have more space, not more space given to some, and
others having less as a result.
Somehow the Internet has functioned in a good way with all packets
being treated equally. To change that is to fundamentally change
the Internet and its operation.
>
>>The changes that are being proposed would seem to affect the lower levels
>>as well as the upper levels of the Internet.
>>
>>And what is interesting is that these changes are not being discussed
>>and debated publicly. Instead there is an effort to install them by
>>fiat on the folks in the US and around the world.
>But these are widely discussed in public engineering forums such as
>the IETF and operational forums such as IEPG, NANOG, RIPE, etc.
>Where do you think they should be discussed?
They need to be discussed in more public forums.
For example, on Usenet, on slashdot, in The Register and Telepolis.
On mailing lists like Netizens (so this is a start).
It would be good to see such discussion in the press like
the WSJ or NYT or other newspapers, but they are not willing
to raise the important public issues.
>Incidentally, the economic impact of differentiated services also
>have been discussed for years. Geoff Huston is one of the leading
>experts there; see many of his papers at http://www.isc.org/iepg/ as
>well as his book, ISP Survival Guide.
I need to take a look when I have a chance. thanks for giving a
source for some articles.
But is this a debate?
Or only one point of view?
It seems if only the ISP's viewpoint is being considered, it
is a very narrow sector of the opinion.
My opposition to commercialization of the NSFNet on Usenet was
actively opposed by folks who ran ISP's who viciously flammed
me when I tried to raise concerns. Early on others on newsgroups
where this was happening would post saying that they hadn't thought
what I had said was important but when they saw the flame from the
ISP proponent, they realized they should reread what I had written
and that it was important.
But there have been other situations where folks from the ISPs have
cut me off from having a chance to speak. There has been an active
effort to prevent the discussion, rather than to encourage it.
So it is particularly good to see your efforts to encourage this
discussion.
Also the Internet Society was a place which could have done a public
service by encouraging the discussion and debate on such issues,
but instead they have actively promoted a narrow set of views.
I offered to present papers at their conferences a number of times
and only had the offers ignored or rejected. In 1998 I raised some
issues about Internet governance and offered a paper, and they turned
down the paper but said I could do a poster. I went to the conference
with the poster, and when I got there my name was *not* on the list
of those who were doing posters. Fortunately I had the email that
had told me I could do the poster. I showed it to the head of the
conference and he wrote a note authorizing me to put up the poster
I had brought. But the name of the poster wasn't included in the
table of contents given out to those viewing the posters either.
And the history work I have done is *not* included at the Internet
Society web site. A friend asked me to look into why and I was
told I had to have the work approved by someone. I sent it to
that someone, and there was still no means of having the work
included.
So my experience is that there had been an active effort on the part
of some folks to prevent the public discussion of these kinds of
important public issues.
Hopefully we can break through that now.
>>Well depending on who does the funding, that will help set the priorities
>>of what the research is that gets done.
>>
>>For example I have been looking at some of the technical articles written
>>during the early development of the Internet when the research was
>>funded by government. Then the aims of the research were to create
>>a "resources sharing network" and "fairness" of treatment of all packets
>>was an objective.
>Totally equal treatment for all packets has, with experience, turned
>out to be a very bad engineering idea. The most basic concern is
>that if all packets are equal, the control and management packets
>that actually run the routers and other infrastructure components may
>be blocked by user traffic. If the control traffic is blocked, the
>Internet as a whole cannot respond to changing conditions, and can
>and has suffer massive failures.
But weren't there ways to deal with this problem early on and so
can't there be ways figured out to continue to deal with the problem?
Somehow the Internet has grown up and developed on the basis of
equal treatment for packets. And this seems a good principle, not
a bad one.
>There are reasonable differentiations among basic kinds of
>application traffic. Is it reasonable to treat an interactive
>session (e.g., web browsing, interactive games) with the same service
>quality of "freight" such as an overnight file backup?
Yes!
It is reasonable because then email gets thru and it isn't put on
as a second class citizen to video conferencing.
Somehow equal treatment means that the whole internetwork has to be
improved to have something that is better for any part. So it
is a good constraint.
The fundamental purpose of the Internet is communication and
resource sharing to making such communication possible.
Therefore every packet needs to be treated as important, not just
the packets of those who are used to being treated in a privileged
way in most other aspects of our society.
>Internet voice simply will not work if it encounters significant
>delay. It is incidentally, surprisingly tolerant to loss and errors,
>but not delay. Prioritizing voice traffic, which actually doesn't
>take much bandwidth, is a reasonable engineering compromise.
No because that puts voice at a comparative advantage to data email, or
newsgroups for example.
I thought that voice didn't lose much if some packets don't get thru
as there is redundancy in voice.
The reason the Internet has been so successful in accommodating
a wide range of networks and technologies and facilitating communication
among them is that it was created and developed as a general purpose
infrastructure.
To change this, to make changes that are good for voice, but not
email is a beginning of a step away from this general purpose infrastructure.
>Military networks always have prioritized. While it is more folklore
>than reality that the ARPANET was designed for nuclear survivability,
>there are basic features built into IP to meet military priorities.
>It's also interesting to notice that while there is a very high
>priority level for Emergency Command Precedence traffic (i.e., the
>level of nuclear weapon launch orders), network control and
>internetwork control have even higher precedence.
Actually it is the opposite. The Internet grew out of the situaiton where
the DoD didn't put operational demands on the ARPANET (which was
in its early days a research network) but instead created MILNET
for its operational needs and used the TCP/IP protocol to make
communication possible between the ARPANET (research) and MILNET
(operational).
So it wasn't that the DoD required the whole network to meet its needs,
rather it created a network to meet its immediate needs and supported
its communication with the research network that would serve other needs.
As I understand it, the whole end to end principle was that the
network which sends or receives the packets is responsible for doing
what it needs to do, not that it requires the internet to change to
serve what the individual needs of the participating networks are.
>>Now the article in Wired reports that the investment community funding
>>the research on charging more for service is eager to fund research that
>>will raise the cost for all to send packets.
>I haven't read the article, but I would disagree with the premise.
>Historically, the costs of mass electronic communications, as a
>function of personal income, have dropped dramatically. That doesn't
>preclude the existence of premium services.
But the whole point of those created differentiated and priority service
will be to make it more expensive and to exclude some from what is
available to others.
Somehow all this is in opposition to the general purpose nature of
the Internet and the effort to have all have access.
>>Its interesting also that Wired hypes what Roberts is doing, rather
>>than offering any critical or social perspective of it.
>Wired is a profit-making magazine. Are they required to give
>perspective? Who determines how much perspective is sufficient?
This is irresponsible reporting. It may be what its advertisers want,
but it fails to serve any public purpose. Journalism is protected
in the US because it is expected to serve some public purpose.
Unfortunately there is little in the offline media that does serve
any public purpose by raising the important issues regarding Internet
development. Instead they hype the commericalization and e-commerce
and fail to provide the public with any education about the nature
of the Internet or the social impact of its development.
>>The social goals mean extending the resource sharing capability
>>of the Internet and making very low cost access available to all.
>I have to disagree. Not all users of all resources can or should be
>equal. One of the major social goods possible with IP networking is
>improved delivery of healthcare, including such things as
>telepresence surgery. Are you saying that the surgical blade can be
>delayed by the traffic of some kids playing Doom? Or are you saying
>that there must be so much network capacity that no matter what
>traffic is put onto the network, it will never be delayed?
Improved delivery of healthcare doesn't mean changing the entire
Internet to accomplish this particular purpose. There needs to be
the research done that is necessary to figure out how to
have this improved delivery without deteriorating the delivery to
other uses of the Internet.
>
>>The aim being promoted by Wired is end the Internet, create a new
>>network that will cost everyone more and will provide those who
>>can pay access to the best service, and everyone else will be second
>>or third class netizens.
>So? As long as there are seats in coach, does that mean it's evil for
>me to fly in first? Is it wrong for me to send one package by
>Federal Express for 8:30 next day delivery, and send a routine bill
>by postal mail?
We do disagree. On airplanes all the seats should have more space,
not cause all in tourist class to be cramped so those in first class
can have more room at their expense.
With regard to mail, that seems a different situation. I didn't think
that regular mail was slowed down to accommodate Federal Express.
Have different networks that provide the different services and have
them communicate via the Internet. But don't deteriorate the service
on the whole Internet to accommodate some particular service.
>>>Ronda, I consider myself a legitimate researcher in the scaling of
>>>the Internet. I still have to make sure my feline research associate,
>>>Clifford, gets cat food.
>>Are you saying that you can't get a job where the funding is public
>>and so researchers like you have a problem?
>The reality is I can't get a job with public funding which is
>remotely comparable to my private sector compensation. Years ago, I
>worked in government. The salaries weren't close even twenty years
>ago.
It is bad that this is the case. It would be desirable from not only
your own point of view, but from a public point of view, to have
good researchers supported by public funds so their research could
be done for the public purposes that need resarch.
What about the academic world? Is there any way good researchers
can get positions there and still be able to continue their research?
>>There is engineering research that is what I am referring to as
>>scientific research. I was just reading such a paper yesterday.
>>
>>The paper is what I am referring to as a scientific paper and what
>>you are probably referring to as an engineering paper. It is part
>>of a wonderful volume about Internet research "Proceedings of the IEEE,
>>vol 66, No. 11, November 1978) The paper is "Modeling and Measurement
>>Techniques in Packet Communication Networks"
>>
>>It describes the process of designing networks and designing ways
>>to test the protocols.
>>
>>This is what I am referring to as science :-)
>Then you'd probably be much happier calling the IETF the Internet
>Science Task Force. True, it does have a small research arm, and
>there are more theoretical forums such as SIGCOMM. But the same
>people typically participate in both.
Yes if the work done in the IETF is of the high quality that I have
seen in the technical papers I am reading, it would be good to
recognize that this is scientific work as well as engineering work.
I went to a SIGCOMM meeting in 1998. Unfortunately the papers didn't
seem of the quality as the papers I am reading from 1978. It does
seem as if for the most part the quality at that conference at least,
had deteriorated.
>>>The paradigm of the Internet was to have a way to interconnect
>>>dissimilar networks. It seems that that has gotten changed to
> >>having a backbone that some company(s) create.
>Again, I'm confused. There are lots of competing backbones. When I
>design a large network, I have a choice of backbones. That's good
>both for price and for avoiding a single point of failure.
Perhaps. I would need to know more about this situation to be able
to comment. Early on with the phone companies, however, in the US,
there were competing phone companies and one had to take service
from each of the companies to be able to talk with the people on that
companies' phone system.
It seems that competing backbones means duplication of resources
and therefore higher prices. And it means potentially the lack of
the needed long term research to upgrade backbone technology.
That was how the US telephone company became a world class telephone
company. It was able to plan in advance 10 or 20 years and support
reseachers at Bell Labs who were working on the technology and science
needed for the future.
>
>>>Unless it is a government funded utility, what is the alternative?
>>>And how are international backbones funded?
>
>>This is a problem to be explored. I think in Austria the backbone
>>was built by the government to connect the universities and then
>>the public schools, and the private networks were connected to
>>it and offered service to the private sector. So there was a mixed
>>infrastructure.
>
>>In the Netherlands there was a debate whether funding should go
>>into extending the train system so it crossed the whole country
>>or building a backbone for the Internet. Eventually I thought they
>>did something like build the national train system and use system somehow
>>to build the backbone for the Internet infrastructure on or connected
>>to it rather than as something separate.
>
>The two are more related than you might think. It's very convenient
>to run optical fiber over the sorts of rights of way that trains,
>electrical power, etc., utilities need. SPRINT historically is an
>acronym for, as I remember, Southern Pacific Railroad Internal
>Network Telecommunications, and was spun off from the railroad.
>
Interesting. But this is why public discussion of these issues
is so important. Then one can explore the problems and the public
purpose and find a way that both solves the problem and supports
the public purpose.
>
>>By having a public discussion of the issues and the different points
>>of view new alternatives become possible, and ones that will be
>>more in providing for the needed public purpose.\
>Again: in what forum?
Well in the Netherlands I think it was in newspapers, books etc.
How do we get that to happen in the US and elsewhere with regard
to the current issues of scaling the Internet?
This is an important question to explore.
However, the NewArch project to create a new architecture for the
Internet means that there is the need for this public discussion.
Perhaps it will be possible to write some articles about this
and get them into newspapers or do something that will bring
public attention to the questions.
Perhaps this is a good question to bring up for broader discussion on
the Netizens mailing list and on Usenet or slashdot etc.
>
>
>>>>The original Internet architecture was designed so that it could
>>>>interconnect dissimilar networks under dissimilar forms of administrative
>>>or political control.
>
>>>I'm puzzled why you don't seem to think this remains the case.
>
When I saw Vint Cerf at the 1998 ISOC meeting, he said something like that the
research or education Internet was a security hole in the commercial
Internet.
He seemed to be proposing that the whole of the Internet had to be
modified to meet the needs of one sector of the traffic, the commercial
sector.
The US government White paper on E-commerce and Green paper suggesting
ICANN all make the same assumptions it seems. That the whole Internet
must be changed to make it safe for e-commerce.
This is fundamentally opposed to the history and development and
basic nature of the Internet. This nature is that what is to
be developed is a general purpose system and those who have
particular needs will have to engineer them into their services
not make the whole change for them.
>>There didn't seem to be any effort with the creation of ICANN
>>to recognize the need to continue to support the diverse
>>administrative and political units and networks.
>I'm the last person to argue that ICANN was a good solution.
>Nevertheless, there were political and time pressures to do SOMETHING
>at the time.
But the something could have and should have been different from ICANN.
ICANN is only making the whole problem worse, rather than helping to
solve it.
>ICANN does have significant influence on the DNS, but its influence
>on addressing and routing is more theoretical than real.
But the addressing groups are under ICANN's umbrella and subordinate to
it as well as the naming groups. And as the IETF is as well.
Ronda
ronda@panix.com
------------------------------
End of Netizens-Digest V1 #389
******************************
