URLs: Ontologically Speaking

I was reading David Weinberger's reports on how the New York Times is planning on tackling its "link rot" problem where articles slip behind the pay-wall. Part of their solution appears to be to replace articles with their summaries. As usual, this got me thinking about telephony. Why don't phone calls and callers have URIs or URLs? ...Let's take addressing the endpoints first. Obviously, ENUM is one way of "Internetising" the phone number address space. more»

It's About Connectivity Not The Internet!

I've been trying to avoid writing about the Internet as such. With as "At the Edge" I'm looking at larger issues but can't escape writing more directly about the Internet. It seems as if everyone wants a say in Internet policy without distinguishing between technical and social issues. Today the term "The Internet" or, for many simply "Internet" is more of brand than a term for a specific technology and its implications. It has become too easy to talk about the Internet in lieu of understanding. We also see the converse -- a failure to recognize "Internet" issues. more»

Lights Going Out on the Internet? Not Just Yet

In his article titled, "End of Life Announcement", John Walker (author of the Speak Freely application) makes a few arguments about Network Address Translation (NAT) that are simply not true: "There are powerful forces, including government, large media organisations, and music publishers who think this situation is just fine. In essence, every time a user--they love the word "consumer"--goes behind a NAT box, a site which was formerly a peer to their own sites goes dark, no longer accessible to others on the Internet, while their privileged sites remain. The lights are going out all over the Internet. ...It is irresponsible to encourage people to buy into a technology which will soon cease to work." more»

Why NAT Isn't As Bad As You Thought

Please do sit down. Should the shock cause you to suddenly lose consciousness, I hereby disclaim all responsibility for any subsequent loss or injury. I'm about to defend the anthrax of the Internet: NAT. Network Address Translation is a hack to enable private IP addresses on one side of a router (inside your network) to talk to public IP addresses on the other side (on the Internet, outside your network). It really doesn't matter how it works. The consequence is that unless the router is specifically configured, outsiders can't get in uninvited. So those on the inside can't, by default, act as servers of any service to the outside world. more»

What is WSIS Getting At?

Attacks on ICANN are coming from several different directions, and the list of concerns includes "cybercrime and protection of intellectual property rights."... First, it's not apparent to me that any government can "control" the internet -- and it's even less likely that that control can happen through the DNS. The most that governments will do will be to build walls between nations, requiring their ISPs to point only to approved sites. (China is well on its way to doing this already.) That's not controlling the Internet, that's creating different, national Internets. more»

Major ISPs to Roll Out P4P Over the Next Two Months

Some of the largest ISPs in US, including phone and cable companies, plan on updating their networks over the next two months with a new technology that promises to accelerate P2P distribution. According to reports, recent trials have demonstrated 59% increase in download delivery speeds on average -- and up to 150% for the fastest class of users. more»

New DPI Technology Allows ISPs to Inspect Every File, Image, and Movie Transmitted by Users

MSNBC reports that an Australian company, Brilliant Digital Entertainment Ltd., is marketing a new controversial deep packet inspection technology called CopyRouter in the U.S. cable of allowing ISPs to check every file passing through their network. More specifically, this technology can check "every image, every movie, every document attached to an email or found in a Web search," to see if it matches a list of illegal images from a law enforcement agency. more»

Comcast Discloses Network Management Practices

Comcast has provided U.S. regulators details of how it plans to change the way it manages Web traffic over its high speed Internet network without blocking any applications or content. The move comes after the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) voted last month to uphold a complaint that Comcast had violated the regulator's open-Internet principles by hindering peer-to-peer traffic from applications such as BitTorrent. Comcast said on Friday that under the plan designed to give all users their "fair share" of bandwidth it would focus on managing the traffic of customers who are using most bandwidth when the network is congested. more»

Comcast Sues FCC, Says Net Neutrality Order Legally Inappropriate

Comcast has filed suit against the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) today in order to block the agency's decision to sanction Comcast for blocking certain Internet traffic. Comcast has released the following statement attributed to David L. Cohen, Executive Vice President of Comcast Corporation... more»

New gTLDs String Theory for Bidders

The following is most of the generic Top-Level Domain (gTLD) strings applied for in the 2000 and 2003 applications. Some are two, and even one character ASCII strings. Some have since been approved, or disapproved (which of course means nothing in the 2008 round). It is a universe of 180 strings. Enjoy. more»

P4P Aims to Solve Bandwidth Challenges

Two professors from the University of Washington and Yale University, presenting at a conference in Seattle today, describe a new and faster data transfer technology across the Internet. Professors Arvind Krishnamurthy and Richard Yang believe their technology offers a better solution to current challenges facing broadband providers. Their algorithm, called P4P or "local file-sharing," finds the shortest path across the Internet by tracking users' locations -- improving both, download speeds by about 20% as well as bandwidth requirements. more»

Comcast Given 30 Days to Disclose Network Management Practices, Says FCC Order

In follow up to August 1st ruling against Comcast, Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in a 67 page order released today has given Comcast 30 days "to disclose the details of their unreasonable network management practices, submit a compliance plan describing how it intends to stop these unreasonable management practices by the end of the year, and disclose to both the Commission and the public the details of the network management practices that it intends to deploy following termination of its current practices." more»

Thousands of File Sharers Facing Lawsuits in UK

Last month a government-backed deal was struck between Britain's six biggest Internet service providers and the entertainment industry in order to send warning letters to file-sharers. Today it has been reported that thousands of people suspected of sharing music, films and games over the Internet are going to be facing legal action in UK for damages. One law firm, according to Reuters, is going to the High Court to force ISPs to release names and addresses of 7,000 suspected file-sharers and that they have already begun proceedings against several people in Britain. One British woman has been ordered to pay 16,000 pounds for downloading pinball game for free through a file-sharing site. more»

Six Largest ISPs in UK Agree to Send Warning Letters to Illegal Music, Movie Downloaders

The music and film industries have launched a fight back against online piracy today, persuading Britain's six biggest Internet providers, BT, Virgin Media, Orange, Tiscali, BSkyB and Carphone Warehouse, to send warning letters to those suspected of illegal file-sharing. The plan is aimed at an estimated 6.5 million Britons who have downloaded files illegally over the past year. ISPs had previously argued they were mere conduits and not responsible for content. But they agreed to the deal after the government said it would impose legislation if they did not work to curb illegal file-sharing. more»

European Researchers Introduce Live BitTorrent Streaming, Aim to Replace Traditional Broadcasting

European researchers have launched a beta version of a peer-to-peer streaming video service that is intended to eventually replace traditional broadcasts. This is the latest development from the P2P-Next project which has announced its trial program for streaming live video in true 4th generation P2P system using a zero-server approach. more»