In Colorado, a woman being charged with fraud has been compelled by a judge to decrypt her hard drive. The woman, in arguing against this action claimed that the Fifth Amendment protected her from self-incrimination. The judge found against the woman, stating that since she had already admitted to the existence of the electronic documents, she could be forced to produce them.
As expected, I believe that there's some room for improvement on both sides of this case. I believe the judge is incorrect in his judgement that a person can be compelled to produce any evidence, even though I understand why he could come to this conclusion based on current case law (which I believe to be flawed). I also believe the defendant is wrong on several counts. One obvious count being that she has even openly discussed the case at all [she admitted to the existence of the documents!].
The Bill of Rights are not meant to be a list of rights that are given by men to men. The Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights are linked by a core concept - a concept that we are 'endowed by [our] creator with certain unalienable rights'. The Bill of Rights embody into law that those natural rights, which we possess by our very existence, shall not be infringed by government.
In declaring independence from England, the United States of America stated that they had the right to abolish government which deprived them of these natural rights and form a new government to protect them from that deprivation. We would do well to remember this during the execution of our own government over ourselves, as we protect individual rights, we protect the rights of ourselves.
Take the First Amendment (as this lady should have). It states that we have freedom of speech (and as been held up many times - freedom of something also can mean freedom FROM something - thus the right to remain silent). This is not a right that was handed from the government to the individual. It is an ability, a natural extension of the person-hood, that the government may not take away. A person can not or should not be compelled to speak. I personally would go so far as to say that the government has no right to compel a person to act in any way, shape or form - which leads to a discussion about the right to sit-in on public by-ways.
This ability to remain silent is a very simple right to utilize - just shut your mouth. The government has certain guidelines whereby they can hold you against your will for the purpose of investigation and non-interference, but they have guidelines - and you can sit in a holding cell while they rummage through your belongings. This is definitely the tactic to take in any criminal investigation. Note that the fifth amendment also applies here, in that the government may not deprive you of 'liberty' without due process of law.
The right against self-incrimination was and is an extension of the right of freedom of speech. Reading through history, it seems to me that the point was to ensure the spoilage of evidence obtained through coercive measures.
In this particular case, where the government knows that there is evidence against the defendant, and they are attempting to 'force' her to produce access to that evidence, I think they're mistaken in what they claim can be done. To compel her to produce the necessary information, they would have to lock her up forever. At some point in that time, she will likely forcefully or absentmindedly forget the information she's been asked to produce, and there would be no route to obtain the information. She could claim immediately that she no longer remembers what the key to the information is. Depending upon password complexity and the amount of time between when she's used it last, it may even be a believable claim. How can locking someone up forever to compel them to provide detailed evidence be proper due process?
The government should utilize the woman's previous statements as evidence of the documents. A jury should be directed what assumptions they should make regarding the fact that she does not wish to produce them -- allowing negative connotations toward what they think the documents might contain. There is already case law that allows for these assumptions.
To go further than this? I think we've begun a slippery slope..
January 24, 2012
January 20, 2012
Al:
Why do you think IP isn't already protected? Why is MORE federal legislation needed to protect what Copyright law already protects (and for far TOO LONG - but that's a different argument). I don't understand what it is that makes 'the Internet' such an evil, dastardly place that it requires its own legislation to prevent what our countless other laws are already in place to prevent.
Criminalizing civil matters only costs our government more money, money that we don't have any way. Would you rather the police be chasing down a Chinese DVD pirate or chasing down street criminals in Detroit and Chicago? Spending federal dollars on making sure someone doesn't listen to an Al Jolsen record on his iPod or spending federal dollars on making sure corporate criminals on Wall Street aren't pocketing all of my 401k money?
I'd suggest you spend your efforts more wisely - while I'm not in Minnesota, and I can't vote for you - you may just lose the audience that cheers you on every time you rip Comcast a new one for lying.
Peace out
Rich Gautier
On Fri, Jan 20, 2012 at 7:34 PM, Al Franken <no-reply@alfranken.com> wrote:
Dear Rich,
As you may know, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has decided not to bring the PROTECT IP Act (the Senate’s version of SOPA) up for a vote next week. And since I’ve heard from many of you about this issue, I wanted to take a moment to share why I support copyright protection legislation – as well as why I believe holding off on this bill is the right thing to do.
As someone who has worked hard to protect net neutrality, I understand as well as anyone the importance of keeping the Internet free from undue corporate influence. There are millions of Americans who rely on a free and open Internet to learn, communicate with friends and family, and do business.
At the same time, there are millions of Americans whose livelihoods rely on strong protections for intellectual property: middle-class workers – most of them union workers – in all 50 states, thousands of them here in Minnesota, working in a variety of industries from film production to publishing to software development.
If we don’t protect our intellectual property, international criminals – as well as legitimate businesses like payment processors and ad networks – will continue to profit dishonestly from the work these Americans are doing every day. And that puts these millions of jobs at serious risk.
That’s reason enough to act. But these criminals are also putting Minnesota families in danger by flooding our nation with counterfeit products – not just bootleg movies and software, but phony medications and knockoff equipment for first responders.
We cannot simply shrug off the threat of online piracy. We cannot do nothing.
I have supported the approach Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy has taken in crafting legislation to respond to the threat of online piracy – and I appreciate his leadership on this important issue.
But I’ve also been listening carefully to the debate – and to the many Minnesotans who have told me via email, Facebook, Twitter, and good old fashioned phone calls that they are worried about what this bill would mean for the future of the Internet.
Frankly, there is a lot of misinformation floating around out there: If this bill really did some of the things people have heard it would do (like shutting down YouTube), I would never have supported it.
But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t take seriously the concerns people have shared. And if holding off on this legislation gives us an opportunity to take a step back and try to bring everybody back to the table, I think it’s the right thing to do. This is a difficult issue, and also an important one. It’s worth getting this right.
I strongly believe that we need to protect intellectual property – and protect the free and open Internet. I think most people, even those who have expressed concern about this particular bill, agree. And it’s my hope that we can now build a stronger consensus around how to accomplish these two important goals.
Thanks for reading. And for those of you who have written to me about this issue (even if it was an angry letter), thanks for being honest with me. I’ll always return the favor.
Al
January 14, 2012
Getting Sick of 'Cloud Computing' term
I [or rather, my PC] was part of the Distributed.Net 'cloud' that first cracked a DES key in under 24 hours* via brute-force. That effort involved computing power from PC desktops to a large specialized computing platform built just to contribute to the effort. Computers have come a long way since then, and with it, the term 'cloud computing' has evolved. Being in technology for 25 years, you see buzzwords come and go, and along the way, they can have a tendency to change their meaning, or get usurped by well-meaning (or profit-minded) marketeers. Unfortunately, 'cloud computing' is just one of these buzzwords with an original meaning that had so much more importance than how the word is used today.
The original references to 'cloud computing' had a lot more to do with looking at the Internet [or Intranet] as a single unified entity, where the available resources of the entire network could be shared and made available for specific use, not reliant upon the existence of a single computer, router, or data center. Like the distributed.net client, large, previously unsolvable problems, could be addressed and solved by the available resources in the cloud. Like P2P technologies such as FreeNet, documents could be kept online in distributed caches that were always available and structured so that node failure would not affect availability except in extreme cases. Idle CPU, GPU power would be used to evaluate expressions endlessly to delve into the mysteries of mankind, like the Folding@Home project or the Optimal Golomb Ruler project. Network connectivity could even be shared to provide multiple endpoints for load-testing, or geo-distributed network analysis.
Even the spammers get it -or rather, maybe they're the first and only ones to get it. Worm software today installs dispersed clients on vulnerable machines that are used to attack computers in Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks, send out SPAM email from every corner of the globe and extend the network for hackers and thieves. They use idle time on computers, provide multiple caches for malware to be distributed throughout the network, and use network dispersity to reach every corner of the globe. Criminals and their malware have already moved into the real cloud.
Meanwhile, in corporate and consumer industry circles, when someone discusses the 'cloud', they mean something different. They mean a service - what used to be called an Application Hosting Service (AHS). This isn't what cloud computing was meant to be - a third-party data center (or multiples thereof). All of the big boys have a cloud service, Microsoft, Apple, Google. There's even second-tier cloud service providers, such as SugarSync and DropBox, whose cloud offerings rely on the cloud offerings of others [DropBox relies upon S3 - the Amazon storage cloud offering].
As an idealist and a technologist, I am depressed, but not surprised, that the term 'cloud computing' has lost its way - probably because true cloud computing relies upon a concept of shared resources that our capitalist economy doesn't incentivize. There's no simple way to transfer bits of money to each and every entity that provides resources in the cloud. [Well, there's BitCoin - but cloud-money may be too late to the horizon and you can't spend it at WalMart yet...]
Well, that's my rant of the day. As usual, no solution - just randombling.
* [publicly, at least]
The original references to 'cloud computing' had a lot more to do with looking at the Internet [or Intranet] as a single unified entity, where the available resources of the entire network could be shared and made available for specific use, not reliant upon the existence of a single computer, router, or data center. Like the distributed.net client, large, previously unsolvable problems, could be addressed and solved by the available resources in the cloud. Like P2P technologies such as FreeNet, documents could be kept online in distributed caches that were always available and structured so that node failure would not affect availability except in extreme cases. Idle CPU, GPU power would be used to evaluate expressions endlessly to delve into the mysteries of mankind, like the Folding@Home project or the Optimal Golomb Ruler project. Network connectivity could even be shared to provide multiple endpoints for load-testing, or geo-distributed network analysis.
Even the spammers get it -or rather, maybe they're the first and only ones to get it. Worm software today installs dispersed clients on vulnerable machines that are used to attack computers in Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks, send out SPAM email from every corner of the globe and extend the network for hackers and thieves. They use idle time on computers, provide multiple caches for malware to be distributed throughout the network, and use network dispersity to reach every corner of the globe. Criminals and their malware have already moved into the real cloud.
Meanwhile, in corporate and consumer industry circles, when someone discusses the 'cloud', they mean something different. They mean a service - what used to be called an Application Hosting Service (AHS). This isn't what cloud computing was meant to be - a third-party data center (or multiples thereof). All of the big boys have a cloud service, Microsoft, Apple, Google. There's even second-tier cloud service providers, such as SugarSync and DropBox, whose cloud offerings rely on the cloud offerings of others [DropBox relies upon S3 - the Amazon storage cloud offering].
As an idealist and a technologist, I am depressed, but not surprised, that the term 'cloud computing' has lost its way - probably because true cloud computing relies upon a concept of shared resources that our capitalist economy doesn't incentivize. There's no simple way to transfer bits of money to each and every entity that provides resources in the cloud. [Well, there's BitCoin - but cloud-money may be too late to the horizon and you can't spend it at WalMart yet...]
Well, that's my rant of the day. As usual, no solution - just randombling.
* [publicly, at least]
September 28, 2011
Basic Human Decency
Most mornings, on my way into the office, I stop at a McDonald's a few steps from the metro stop in Chinatown for a McCafe Mocha Frappe'. It's cheaper than Starbucks, and as long as I tell them to blend it a little extra, it's a fine drink. The machine doesn't blend the ice well enough on the timed setting it has for the blend cycle, so if you get one, I recommend you ask for them to blend it a little extra. This morning, as I was grabbing a straw, I noticed a customer behind me in a wheelchair (one of those automated ones that look halfway between a scooter and a wheelchair - with a motor in the back like you see in stores such as Walmart, but without the shopping cart attached to the front.) A graying middle-aged man with a beard sat in the chair, a bit overweight and with a dour expression on his face; he had placed his order just after mine. As I was extracting the straw from its paper sheath, I overheard the server apologize to him for some slight, "I'm sorry, sir." With a testy voice and a loud huff, the asshole in the wheelchair exclaimed "I'm sorry - those words mean nothing!"
A rage ignited in my heart in that instance. How dare this bastard ruin the day of that minimum wage employee! For the simple error of either forgetting to include a condiment, or perhaps the dastardly mistake of not placing the customer's order close enough on the counter for him to reach it, the spirit and soul of the server was to be crushed by harsh and blackened poisonous cynicism! What cruel and callous commentary spewed forth from the dark heart of someone who was perhaps having a black life and a bad morning, etching its venomous attitude on a potential carrier of such a bad temperament. The rider drove off into the morning, and no one, not even I, rooted by the temporary paralysis of shocking revelation, stopped him to counsel him in common courtesy or given him a lesson in basic human decency.
By the time I exited the establishment, the foul-mouthed fiend had ridden off perhaps two tenths of a mile in the direction opposite from my own destination, and I chose not to pursue. However, I know that I, and others present for his display of discontent, will have been affected today by his disgusting display of dissension. I can only hope that it did not infect the server so that it could perpetuate throughout the day and bring down the spirits of others he may run into.
A rage ignited in my heart in that instance. How dare this bastard ruin the day of that minimum wage employee! For the simple error of either forgetting to include a condiment, or perhaps the dastardly mistake of not placing the customer's order close enough on the counter for him to reach it, the spirit and soul of the server was to be crushed by harsh and blackened poisonous cynicism! What cruel and callous commentary spewed forth from the dark heart of someone who was perhaps having a black life and a bad morning, etching its venomous attitude on a potential carrier of such a bad temperament. The rider drove off into the morning, and no one, not even I, rooted by the temporary paralysis of shocking revelation, stopped him to counsel him in common courtesy or given him a lesson in basic human decency.
By the time I exited the establishment, the foul-mouthed fiend had ridden off perhaps two tenths of a mile in the direction opposite from my own destination, and I chose not to pursue. However, I know that I, and others present for his display of discontent, will have been affected today by his disgusting display of dissension. I can only hope that it did not infect the server so that it could perpetuate throughout the day and bring down the spirits of others he may run into.
August 14, 2011
Returned from vacation
We've just gotten back from Orlando, where we spent a week. We visited Epcot, Magic Kingdom, Universal Studios and Islands of Adventure. We also saw The Blue Man Group and went to Wonderworks in Orlando. We have a timeshare, so we traded for the resort, and it was pretty nice with a king-sized bed and a jacuzzi (which my feet welcomed after walking through parks all day). While it was hot and rainy two of the days, there was no great downpour that prevented us from doing anything specifically. Umbrellas were probably the wisest thing we packed, both for the sun and the rain. I don't know why we always end up in Florida in the summer - probably because of the prices.
Some advice for anyone going to the area. Avoid the ticket booths on the side of the road. Even those that say they have official tickets. A) You're lucky if they have any tickets and B) They won't tell you the caveats until they've already run your credit card. A quick rebate and a wasted hour and a half and we just went to the parks. All told, I may have saved $50, but I would have had to rework my schedule and deal with people I'd rather not. And who knows if the tickets would even have gotten me in the gates. Anyhow, lesson learned - My time is worth more than a 15% discount.
Took some pictures - once the house painters are out, I'll be able to download and catalog them. For right now, I'm stuck at a library computer for Internet access (or my iPad). Vacation was good and got me to relax quite a bit, but now that I'm back, things are as frazzled as ever. House painters have moved all of my furniture to the middle of the rooms to paint, and we've disconnected everything in the house. My dog is stressed out with all of the activity, but at least we're back to soothe his nerves.
Some advice for anyone going to the area. Avoid the ticket booths on the side of the road. Even those that say they have official tickets. A) You're lucky if they have any tickets and B) They won't tell you the caveats until they've already run your credit card. A quick rebate and a wasted hour and a half and we just went to the parks. All told, I may have saved $50, but I would have had to rework my schedule and deal with people I'd rather not. And who knows if the tickets would even have gotten me in the gates. Anyhow, lesson learned - My time is worth more than a 15% discount.
Took some pictures - once the house painters are out, I'll be able to download and catalog them. For right now, I'm stuck at a library computer for Internet access (or my iPad). Vacation was good and got me to relax quite a bit, but now that I'm back, things are as frazzled as ever. House painters have moved all of my furniture to the middle of the rooms to paint, and we've disconnected everything in the house. My dog is stressed out with all of the activity, but at least we're back to soothe his nerves.
August 03, 2011
House Wanted
We're currently in the market for a house in the Northern Virginia area, and we've been looking for quite a while. We have some criteria that, at first blush, might not seem so difficult to meet, but, when taken in aggregate, seem to be impossible. The majority of homes in the area are Colonial in style, with 4 bedrooms, formal living and dining rooms and little room between the home and the neighbor. All of these things are negatives that we have to work against as we look at houses.
As you drive up to the house, you should see a stone or bright-colored brick front home, with a 2 car garage that you enter to the side of the home. The driveway should continue on in a circle around in front of the home. A courtyard driveway to the front of the house (side loaded) is also desirable.
When you walk in, there should be a foyer with a presentable staircase (winding would be best) and upstairs wood railing to look down onto the foyer. A large chandelier should hang in the arched window above the front door.
The hallway to the kitchen and family room should be wide and open. The home should never feel claustrophobic.
We would like a home that has a huge master bedroom with a sitting area between the hallway and the bedroom. A large walk-in closet should also be present, with room enough for a sitting bench or dresser table in the middle of the closet. The bathroom needs to have a large enough shower for a grown man to be able to towel off in (dual-opposing-shower heads preferred).
There should be a library/study off of the family room, with room for a minimum of a desk and 5 bookcases, with room to walk around.
Update: We've found the home - this was a draft rant that I never published..and my thoughts here are incomplete. The rant was to continue on to discuss the lack of need for formal living and dining areas and how the flow of life has changed from the 1800s to today and how modern architecture seems unable to keep up with our changing lifestyles. Of course, now that the passion has worn off - less important to rant on about it all.
As you drive up to the house, you should see a stone or bright-colored brick front home, with a 2 car garage that you enter to the side of the home. The driveway should continue on in a circle around in front of the home. A courtyard driveway to the front of the house (side loaded) is also desirable.
When you walk in, there should be a foyer with a presentable staircase (winding would be best) and upstairs wood railing to look down onto the foyer. A large chandelier should hang in the arched window above the front door.
The hallway to the kitchen and family room should be wide and open. The home should never feel claustrophobic.
We would like a home that has a huge master bedroom with a sitting area between the hallway and the bedroom. A large walk-in closet should also be present, with room enough for a sitting bench or dresser table in the middle of the closet. The bathroom needs to have a large enough shower for a grown man to be able to towel off in (dual-opposing-shower heads preferred).
There should be a library/study off of the family room, with room for a minimum of a desk and 5 bookcases, with room to walk around.
Update: We've found the home - this was a draft rant that I never published..and my thoughts here are incomplete. The rant was to continue on to discuss the lack of need for formal living and dining areas and how the flow of life has changed from the 1800s to today and how modern architecture seems unable to keep up with our changing lifestyles. Of course, now that the passion has worn off - less important to rant on about it all.
Internet Access as a Commodity
There are a couple of points of disagreements between consumers and Internet Service Providers, and some of these issues are easily resolved, while others become contentious due to their interrelation to the other issues. The big three are:
1. Bandwidth metering - lack of available consumer tools to measure bandwidth used (even while bandwidth is being measured by the ISP, this information is not available to the end-user.) Metering is an important aspect for any utility. Just look at water, electric and natural gas which are also piped in to our homes. Connectivity should be treated as a commodity, just as these physical commodities are metered, so should our digital service.
2. Bandwidth caps - As the world has moved from point-to-point communications paths to packet-switched communications, the congestion caused by overselling of downstream connectivity causes a battle between the consumer and the service provider. This is similar to infrastructure engineering in other industries, such as water and electrical companies, where the available resources are not there to provide 100% service to all customers at the same time. If every person in New York City decided to flush their toilets at exactly the same time, the load on the city's water and sewage infrastructures could cause some serious issues. The same problem exists in the digital world. The pipes that come into our homes today are capable of incredible speeds, but the expectation of usage of that digital pipe is a fraction of its capacity during normal usage. The up-channel piping also isn't big enough to carry the load.
However, there is an important difference when it comes to Internet service. In a physical commodity space, the physical infrastructure will break if it overflows. Pipes can burst, mountings can come undone, electrical conduits can heat up or blow up and gas pressure can cause serious damage to the system. On the Internet, the excess traffic can merely be dumped on the floor. That's something you just can't do with raw sewage, but in a digital world, the network traffic will disappear. In fact, the Internet infrastructure is DESIGNED with this flexibility in mind. From the routers (and QOS settings in the packets) to the protocols themselves (TCP retries when traffic gets lost, ICMP messages, and so on), the Internet is designed for overflow and failure. The service providers have the capability and should have the know how to be able to control bandwidth in such a way that everyone gets their fair share of it, even when the overflow is occurring.
Example: Clients A and B both have a 10Mb/s pipe and ISP has a 15Mb/s uplink. Client A uses his connection all of the time, while Client B only uses it on occasion. The ISP has the capability to begin marking Client A's traffic once he has reached some set limit of traffic, perhaps 100GB for the month. Now, Client A and Client B both attempt to transfer a movie at the end of the month. Because Client A's traffic is marked, when the uplink needs to determine whose traffic has a priority, Client B's traffic has a better chance of getting through. The pipe still services both Clients, but Client A finds more of his traffic being dumped on the ground due to his usage for the month having marked him as a hog. At full capacity, Client A is still going to receive 5Mb/s service. The speed downgrade will only be as long as Client B is using his full pipe.
In summary, bandwidth caps are a tool, and should not be absolutes for customers. ISPs don't have to pay extra for each bit they transmit to the central routers. They pay for certain uplink speeds, whether they fill their pipes or not. The tools exist to ensure that each client gets a fair shot at that bandwidth, and with competition, the free market should ensure that they don't undersubscribe too greatly. Bandwidth caps to consumers should be expressed as the point where their service may be downgraded as necessary. Users should be taught to understand the limitations of the Internet and uplink oversubscription and this is a good tool for that education. Coupled with bandwidth metering, they can monitor the level of service they receive and understand why it gracefully downgrades with overuse.
3. Net Neutrality - Inexorably linked to issue #2 is the result of engineering choices when it comes to managing the oversale of network bandwidth. The ISPs have, in the past, decided that because the consumers who are most likely to use the most resources are using them for nefarious purposes that they can control oversold bandwidth by cutting out anything they think is nefarious. Unfortunately, this captures the innocent in their nets. As an example, P2P mechanisms are used by pirates to transfer and share files on the Internet. Those same protocols are in use by game companies to distribute patches to their millions of users. It is near impossible for the ISPs to constantly be aware of which P2P connections are being used for lawful vs. unlawful purpose. In attempts to control the unlawful behavior, it is too easy for them to cut off harmless transmissions and degrade the very service they are trying to enhance.
Making decisions on what traffic to pass and what traffic not to pass gets the ISP into the liability game. Should they put a restriction on traffic you're using to drive a heart monitor, for example, when it looks like you're hacking into a medical center, would be a potentially disastrous action. ISP's should be able to avoid liability altogether by ignoring the flavor of the traffic that they provide. Each and every packet delivered from and to their customers should be treated equally, provided the user is behaving in agreement with their Terms of Service.
There is one exception to this filtering that I believe to be important. IP Protocols have a source and destination address. I believe there to be both a need and a responsibility to the community that source addresses be verified as coming from a subscribed connection (i.e. If I am an IP provider, I should be checking to ensure that the source address of IP traffic coming from your connection is actually advertising as being sourced by the address I have assigned to you). I would love to hear argument or commentary that argues against this, but IMHO ingress filtering is a long overdue and necessary component to keeping the Internet safe from the 'bad guys'.
1. Bandwidth metering - lack of available consumer tools to measure bandwidth used (even while bandwidth is being measured by the ISP, this information is not available to the end-user.) Metering is an important aspect for any utility. Just look at water, electric and natural gas which are also piped in to our homes. Connectivity should be treated as a commodity, just as these physical commodities are metered, so should our digital service.
2. Bandwidth caps - As the world has moved from point-to-point communications paths to packet-switched communications, the congestion caused by overselling of downstream connectivity causes a battle between the consumer and the service provider. This is similar to infrastructure engineering in other industries, such as water and electrical companies, where the available resources are not there to provide 100% service to all customers at the same time. If every person in New York City decided to flush their toilets at exactly the same time, the load on the city's water and sewage infrastructures could cause some serious issues. The same problem exists in the digital world. The pipes that come into our homes today are capable of incredible speeds, but the expectation of usage of that digital pipe is a fraction of its capacity during normal usage. The up-channel piping also isn't big enough to carry the load.
However, there is an important difference when it comes to Internet service. In a physical commodity space, the physical infrastructure will break if it overflows. Pipes can burst, mountings can come undone, electrical conduits can heat up or blow up and gas pressure can cause serious damage to the system. On the Internet, the excess traffic can merely be dumped on the floor. That's something you just can't do with raw sewage, but in a digital world, the network traffic will disappear. In fact, the Internet infrastructure is DESIGNED with this flexibility in mind. From the routers (and QOS settings in the packets) to the protocols themselves (TCP retries when traffic gets lost, ICMP messages, and so on), the Internet is designed for overflow and failure. The service providers have the capability and should have the know how to be able to control bandwidth in such a way that everyone gets their fair share of it, even when the overflow is occurring.
Example: Clients A and B both have a 10Mb/s pipe and ISP has a 15Mb/s uplink. Client A uses his connection all of the time, while Client B only uses it on occasion. The ISP has the capability to begin marking Client A's traffic once he has reached some set limit of traffic, perhaps 100GB for the month. Now, Client A and Client B both attempt to transfer a movie at the end of the month. Because Client A's traffic is marked, when the uplink needs to determine whose traffic has a priority, Client B's traffic has a better chance of getting through. The pipe still services both Clients, but Client A finds more of his traffic being dumped on the ground due to his usage for the month having marked him as a hog. At full capacity, Client A is still going to receive 5Mb/s service. The speed downgrade will only be as long as Client B is using his full pipe.
In summary, bandwidth caps are a tool, and should not be absolutes for customers. ISPs don't have to pay extra for each bit they transmit to the central routers. They pay for certain uplink speeds, whether they fill their pipes or not. The tools exist to ensure that each client gets a fair shot at that bandwidth, and with competition, the free market should ensure that they don't undersubscribe too greatly. Bandwidth caps to consumers should be expressed as the point where their service may be downgraded as necessary. Users should be taught to understand the limitations of the Internet and uplink oversubscription and this is a good tool for that education. Coupled with bandwidth metering, they can monitor the level of service they receive and understand why it gracefully downgrades with overuse.
3. Net Neutrality - Inexorably linked to issue #2 is the result of engineering choices when it comes to managing the oversale of network bandwidth. The ISPs have, in the past, decided that because the consumers who are most likely to use the most resources are using them for nefarious purposes that they can control oversold bandwidth by cutting out anything they think is nefarious. Unfortunately, this captures the innocent in their nets. As an example, P2P mechanisms are used by pirates to transfer and share files on the Internet. Those same protocols are in use by game companies to distribute patches to their millions of users. It is near impossible for the ISPs to constantly be aware of which P2P connections are being used for lawful vs. unlawful purpose. In attempts to control the unlawful behavior, it is too easy for them to cut off harmless transmissions and degrade the very service they are trying to enhance.
Making decisions on what traffic to pass and what traffic not to pass gets the ISP into the liability game. Should they put a restriction on traffic you're using to drive a heart monitor, for example, when it looks like you're hacking into a medical center, would be a potentially disastrous action. ISP's should be able to avoid liability altogether by ignoring the flavor of the traffic that they provide. Each and every packet delivered from and to their customers should be treated equally, provided the user is behaving in agreement with their Terms of Service.
There is one exception to this filtering that I believe to be important. IP Protocols have a source and destination address. I believe there to be both a need and a responsibility to the community that source addresses be verified as coming from a subscribed connection (i.e. If I am an IP provider, I should be checking to ensure that the source address of IP traffic coming from your connection is actually advertising as being sourced by the address I have assigned to you). I would love to hear argument or commentary that argues against this, but IMHO ingress filtering is a long overdue and necessary component to keeping the Internet safe from the 'bad guys'.
Common Sense - 2011 [Historical Perspective]
It is expected that people who enter into political discourse have at least a working knowledge of the political history of this nation. Unfortunately, failure to have this adequate understanding can lead to false assumptions and blatant misunderstandings. I would like to make an attempt to right this wrong by attempting to bring some common sense ideas back into the domain of political discourse. In order to do this, it is necessary to begin with a historical perspective. After discussing and MODIFYING this historical perspective based upon inputs and suggestions from others [I am no history teacher!], this perspective will be used as the basis for a common sense discussion of modern political ideas. Your contribution/comments are expressly requested.
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The ideas upon which our great country were founded are simple; so simple as to be summed and expressed in the ideas inscribed upon a few pieces of parchment. The first of these was delivered to the oppressive government of England.
In the Declaration of Independence, the rebels and founders of our nation declared that governments are meant to serve the needs of the people, not the reverse. As all people are equal and all people are granted natural rights by virtue of their birth, when the governments (although these people may have designed them) usurp the safety and security of those whom they govern it is the right and responsibility of those same people to throw off that government and create a new governance. This paper then goes on to list the oppressive behavior of the government of the time and its behavior found abhorrent to the people of the colonies. At the end of this long list, they declare that they are exercising that right and responsibility to throw off the current governance in order to create their own.
Important Concepts here:
And then, my friends, was established the government that America forgot. Well, most of America. You see, George Washington was not the first President of the United States. He was the first President of the nation that was created under the Constitution, a restructuring of our government that took place in 1787, 11 years after we had shrugged off the bonds of English rule. John Hanson, unanimously elected to the role of President under the Articles of Confederation, was our first President in 1781. The Articles were proposed in 1776, but was not ratified until 5 years hence (and you thought the debt ceiling debate took too long...). You see, the Articles of Confederation created a government that didn't work for the United States. Too much power was granted to the states, and there wasn't enough unity to hold the country together. Modern America seems to forget that the creation of a perfect government is impossible, and that it is necessary to upset the apple cart to pick a new crop every now and again.
Important Concepts here:
For the past 225 years, the Constitution of the United States has served us well. The structure of this document allows for a flexibility that has enabled us to keep up with modern philosophical thought and to extend the government to encapsulate our spiritual and intellectual knowledge. 'All men' has grown to mean 'all adults' of all races and creed and the practice of slavery was abolished. Voting rights were extended to the entire populace rather than the wealthy land-owners, and we had a grand experiment and failure in trying to impose a restriction on alcohol. These are amendments that we all remember, but there are more that we do not keep in mind. Indeed, the very Constitution itself has some very exciting clauses that are also lost to time. For example, while many people understand that interstate commerce is not taxable, they may not realize that this is a constitutional construct (Article I, Section 10). Also lost to time is that the state legislatures may request amendment of the Constitution, without the need for involvement of the Congress itself (Article V).
Important Concepts here:
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The ideas upon which our great country were founded are simple; so simple as to be summed and expressed in the ideas inscribed upon a few pieces of parchment. The first of these was delivered to the oppressive government of England.
In the Declaration of Independence, the rebels and founders of our nation declared that governments are meant to serve the needs of the people, not the reverse. As all people are equal and all people are granted natural rights by virtue of their birth, when the governments (although these people may have designed them) usurp the safety and security of those whom they govern it is the right and responsibility of those same people to throw off that government and create a new governance. This paper then goes on to list the oppressive behavior of the government of the time and its behavior found abhorrent to the people of the colonies. At the end of this long list, they declare that they are exercising that right and responsibility to throw off the current governance in order to create their own.
Important Concepts here:
- People have natural rights by virtue of their existence.
- People create the government to ensure their own safety and security.
- People have the right to change their government when they're not happy with it.
- The United States was FOUNDED upon these principles and is key to what our nation is.
And then, my friends, was established the government that America forgot. Well, most of America. You see, George Washington was not the first President of the United States. He was the first President of the nation that was created under the Constitution, a restructuring of our government that took place in 1787, 11 years after we had shrugged off the bonds of English rule. John Hanson, unanimously elected to the role of President under the Articles of Confederation, was our first President in 1781. The Articles were proposed in 1776, but was not ratified until 5 years hence (and you thought the debt ceiling debate took too long...). You see, the Articles of Confederation created a government that didn't work for the United States. Too much power was granted to the states, and there wasn't enough unity to hold the country together. Modern America seems to forget that the creation of a perfect government is impossible, and that it is necessary to upset the apple cart to pick a new crop every now and again.
Important Concepts here:
- There is much more to the historical perspective of our government than most people realize or remember.
- The United States began with a government that didn't work, and it was discarded.
- The United States exercised the same right to rediscovery on its OWN government soon after its creation.
For the past 225 years, the Constitution of the United States has served us well. The structure of this document allows for a flexibility that has enabled us to keep up with modern philosophical thought and to extend the government to encapsulate our spiritual and intellectual knowledge. 'All men' has grown to mean 'all adults' of all races and creed and the practice of slavery was abolished. Voting rights were extended to the entire populace rather than the wealthy land-owners, and we had a grand experiment and failure in trying to impose a restriction on alcohol. These are amendments that we all remember, but there are more that we do not keep in mind. Indeed, the very Constitution itself has some very exciting clauses that are also lost to time. For example, while many people understand that interstate commerce is not taxable, they may not realize that this is a constitutional construct (Article I, Section 10). Also lost to time is that the state legislatures may request amendment of the Constitution, without the need for involvement of the Congress itself (Article V).
Important Concepts here:
- The structure of the Constitution is such that it permits and welcomes change.
- The writers of the Constitution included language that allow for the collective state governments to change it.
- The realization that governmental change is needed is core to the formation of this government and is KEY to its survival over the years, as demonstrated through the change we've undergone.
- The state governments have a say in how the federal government is constructed and run.
In addition to understanding the historical perspective and role of the overall federal government, it is also important that those involved in the discourse of Common Sense actually share in some 'common sense' beliefs. In my next post, "Common Sense - 2011 [Spiritual and Intellectual Requirements]" I hope to examine a common ground upon which most centrist thinkers should be able to stand.
July 14, 2011
Format matters
Just a thought. The format that you present something in really matters. This occurred to me as I was thinking about the Seth and Amy skit "Really?" that they performed on Saturday Night Live as part of the News skit. This is a joke that's funny for about a second. Unfortunately, they perform it for longer, and it's just [really!] annoying.
Maybe that's supposed to be the joke - if so - just call me old cuz I don't 'get' it.
Maybe that's supposed to be the joke - if so - just call me old cuz I don't 'get' it.
June 28, 2011
Life is too short and so are 24-hour days.
I have looked into modified sleep schedules, purportedly used by DaVinci and other historical greats, with the desire to make more of my awaken time by making more of it. Modified sleep schedules supposedly allow the practitioner to get by on 3-4 total hours of sleep per day, by modifying the sleep cycles into multiple small power naps throughout the day. Of course, this plays havoc with anyone with a regular job, since scheduling meetings and other activities have to be taken into account, and with less sleep, more rigor is needed to ensure you get it.
I have yet to find any compelling evidence that suggests that any of these sleep schedules can be adhered to or that they increase productivity. I do know that by the time I am done for the day about 10PM, I am usually DONE for the day. My thought processes are mush, and I actually fall asleep at the keyboard while trying to get in just a few more emails or online posts. This could be due to a number of factors, including being slightly overweight and my age, but I can't help wondering just how productive I would be with even MORE sleep debt than I already carry. I'm getting about 6.5 hours a night now during the week. The modified schedules are supposed to help by allowing the body to deal with the sleep deprivation more often, though.
There's just not enough hours in the day to deal with all of the things I've taken on, but there's even more things I'd like to do. I can't remember the last time I had an hour to devote to piano practice, for example. Cutting down on my hobbies is something I have battled my whole life. It's part of why I'm halfway good at a good many things, rather than expert at any one thing. Whether it's an inability to focus, or just the absence of a desire to do so, is a question I should likely be asking a psychologist to evaluate.
As you get older, though, your responsibilities weigh on you as more pile on over time, and they seem heavier, even though you're the one who's changed. We keep thinking that financial independence is the key to relieving the pressure, but even my retired mother has yet to actually stop working, so that doesn't seem to be the answer.
Well, if you've got the answer, let me know..I'll be here, trying a few dozen new things before I fall asleep at my desk...
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
I have yet to find any compelling evidence that suggests that any of these sleep schedules can be adhered to or that they increase productivity. I do know that by the time I am done for the day about 10PM, I am usually DONE for the day. My thought processes are mush, and I actually fall asleep at the keyboard while trying to get in just a few more emails or online posts. This could be due to a number of factors, including being slightly overweight and my age, but I can't help wondering just how productive I would be with even MORE sleep debt than I already carry. I'm getting about 6.5 hours a night now during the week. The modified schedules are supposed to help by allowing the body to deal with the sleep deprivation more often, though.
There's just not enough hours in the day to deal with all of the things I've taken on, but there's even more things I'd like to do. I can't remember the last time I had an hour to devote to piano practice, for example. Cutting down on my hobbies is something I have battled my whole life. It's part of why I'm halfway good at a good many things, rather than expert at any one thing. Whether it's an inability to focus, or just the absence of a desire to do so, is a question I should likely be asking a psychologist to evaluate.
As you get older, though, your responsibilities weigh on you as more pile on over time, and they seem heavier, even though you're the one who's changed. We keep thinking that financial independence is the key to relieving the pressure, but even my retired mother has yet to actually stop working, so that doesn't seem to be the answer.
Well, if you've got the answer, let me know..I'll be here, trying a few dozen new things before I fall asleep at my desk...
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
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