Going Back To The Past of the Internet 224
*no comment* writes "deadly.org currently has a story about a new grassroot network springing up. It consists of free shell access, and is trying to revitalize the olden days of the Internet. Free speech, free information are the key features, but I wonder if this is jsut another free DDoS drone as well."
Way to ruin his whole goal... (Score:5, Funny)
Thanks again,
Scott
Well, there goes that idea.
RA Way to save the whole thing (Score:4, Interesting)
The idea mentioned in the story is a noble one, but what about this:
Already 801.11a-b networks are emerging. And soon UWB networks as well. What is to keep new protocols and p2p networks, and what Crngley mentioned as ad-hoc wireless mesh networks from popping up spontaneously all over the globe, and eventually having this island wireless networks start to connect and talk with each other - and before you know it - we have a whole NEW internet, one that does not go thru the big boys, one that is anarchistic, spontaneous, unregulated and wireless.
With 802.11 being built into all future chips, such a possibility seems more and more likely. Imagine the new internet - NAN's, WAN, LANS, all over the place.
Is this where things might go, or is it also doomed to invasion from large corporate and governmental forces?
Because (Score:4, Funny)
Don't forget, it is to protect [children | innovation | freedom | life].
Re:Because (Score:4, Funny)
i think your regexp needs some work
Containing freedom to protect freedom (Score:2, Insightful)
If unregulated read: FREE mediums are allowed...
Sounds completely bass-ackwards to me.
Remember innocent before proven guilty?
Restricting our freedom to make backup copies (because of the abuse of minorities - remember, the majority don't have a clue about copy-protection) in order to protect the freedom of corporations. Restricting our freedom to create our own ISPs and share information freely - again, to protect the 'freedom' of corporations to make a profit.
I have just turned 18 and I am trying to educate myself such that when elections come around, I can change the world with my knowledge. Remember that YOUR VOTE COUNTS and EDUCATE your friends so that they know how important their freedoms are - that they take for granted - and how much power they have: voting, writing local politicians, etc.
The dance music scene in my area (central TX) was just the subject of abuse of freedom by some local politicians, and it really hit home how much I should be doing - not just being an armchair activist. I challenge you ALL to put your $ where your mouth is. If even half of us (Slashdot readers) were to fight openly and strongly for what we rant about daily, I think the difference would be monumental. I know how hard it is, but together we have a chance.
Re:Because (Score:2)
Oh wait, forgot about the effect on Nike when the molesters monopolize child exploitation.
Re:RA Way to save the whole thing (Score:2)
Re:RA Way to save the whole thing (Score:2)
Well, no. Problem #1 is that, while these networks may get large enough to span a decent sized area, they still don't do well across geographic divides.
Even assuming we get wireless NICs that can send a signal 100 miles, how many ares can you think of where that just isn't enough to bridge the divide? I can think of a dozen places near myself that are obstructed, or span more than 100 miles without any residents.
Even if the range was just good enough that it could make the jump, how good would a nation-wide network be if, e.g. traffic from the eastern half of the US was all routed through a single (or a handful of wireless) access points to get to the western half of the US.
Secondly, there's no way you would get international connections without a commerical intercontinential line. Even if the technology was good enough to connect Alaska to Russia, that's one tiny pipe for the whole of the Americas to connect to the rest of the world with.
Oh, I'm sorry, but Australia doesn't get to connect to the rest of the world...
So, wireless is good for relatively small geographic areas (while leads to a good community sense), but for a free replacement of the internet, you'd really have to lay redundant fiber-optic lines to every house in the world. Maybe getting households to pay for the lines to their nearest neightbor, and state/national governments to pay for the long-distance lines. That's not such a bad idea, but someone needs to be willing to go out on a limb and make a large inital investment.
Re:RA Way to save the whole thing (Score:2)
Re:RA Way to save the whole thing (Score:2)
Re:RA Way to save the whole thing (Score:2)
Re:Way to ruin his whole goal... (Score:4, Interesting)
At the very best, this is kinda irresponsible.
There are feasible, legal ways to cache... (Score:4, Interesting)
Of course, none of this will be done. Slashdot's coders once tried to innovate; then they became part of a corporation. Nothing kills real progress like hopes of profit.
Re:There are feasible, legal ways to cache... (Score:2)
Redirect / http://cache.slashdot.org/token32568
It's probably impossible to overload a site that's just doing redirects.
Another alternative would be for Slashdot to join IRCache, which is a distributed cache network, so that the sites they visit could be cached.
Re:There are feasible, legal ways to cache... (Score:2)
> could generate a unique token for each cached site
> and email it to the site admin.
To do this right, there should be
- A way for the webmaster to turn caching on via the internet (web form, email),
- A way for the webmaster to turn on caching by calling a phone number (if the slashdotting takes down their internet connection), AND
- A way for the webmaster to automatically indicate that caching should be turned on by default.
Slashdot needs to make caching off by default, because of (probably hallucinatory) legal issues. IRCache (as you describe it) thus wouldn't qualify.
Of course, this is all totally easy coding, which is what is so tragic and painful about watching these sites die with barely a chance to protest. Who was Malda's mentor at Hope College? Can we recruit him to guilt-trip his former student?
Re:There are feasible, legal ways to cache... (Score:2)
I do wonder though, whether you can sue a caching service/organization. I haven't used IRCache, but I think I'll give it a try. Maybe it can route around the Slashdot Effect by itself.
Re:There are feasible, legal ways to cache... (Score:2)
Suppose for a moment that slashdot does cache all these web articles, and that the legality of this is never questioned. Slashdot's bandwidth usage would increase perhaps tenfold (arbitrary number pulled out of the air). In effect, Malda would be slashdoting slashdot.
Like you, I wish there was some simple feasible way to reduce slashdotings, but there isn't. Let this talk die; extending its life will do no good.
The internet days of yore... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:The internet days of yore... (Score:4, Funny)
Now, instead of pr0n (which is in abundance), it is rapacious interest in geek news that brings machines down to their needs.
Is this that thing they call progress?
Re:The internet days of yore... (Score:2)
Gone are the days... (Score:3, Funny)
You can never go back (Score:4, Insightful)
You can never return to the past, instead live in the present and create the future.
Take what was good and move on.
Re:You can never go back (Score:2)
I'm attempting to create a country of yesterday as well. I'm putting together a 386 box to play old school games. Back when game developers had to push the envelope on great gaming because they were limited by mediocre technology. These days we don't say things like "Man that game was fun" to describe games, we say "Man that game had great geometric fog and lighting".
Re:You can never go back (Score:4, Interesting)
For me, the most nostalgic thing about the old 'net was the sense of net community. This was a feature imparted by the very small population and the very age/academia/gov't skewed user demographics at the time. I.e. a bunch of geeks noodling around online.
As universities started to open access to undergrads, the September Effect (cf. the Jargon File) came into play... which was still okay while the numbers were such that older netizens could impart netiquette to the newbies. Later, the online population explosion really started to ramp, perhaps marked by the Neverending September of AOL.
Today's Internet is a very different place socially, characterized more by microcommunities. These, ironically, were enabled by the very same massive population that engulfed the old 'net community.
It's all just been one big lesson in eternal change, AFAIC.
And apparently exactly what he didn't want... (Score:2, Redundant)
From the article:
Just wanted to give a thanks for posting this. I have registered in Open Directory and on other search engines but I am sure you know how long that takes. I didn't want to get slashed so I avoided that like the plague.
Thanks again,
Scott
Well done slashdot!
...how is this news? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:...how is this news? (Score:2)
the three ^^^ cells left in Your brains? I bet all Anonymous Cowards are bored english teachers looking for ways to utilize their wisdom.
Re:...how is this news? (Score:2)
Re:...how is this news? (Score:2)
Yup, atleast the following ones. Anyway, if someone is looking for a free shell account for serious use, I suggest joining a Linux/Unix users group, many of these provide with (free or almost free) shell access.
I had only these two free IMAP providers left in my bookmarks... sorry :)
- don't know about quota [full-house.net].
- this one [europa.ath.cx], 5 Mb,
The Glory Days of USENET ... (Score:3, Interesting)
To give credit, I first heard this phrase coined by Steve of Secure Design Software [sdesign.com].
Re:The Glory Days of USENET ... (Score:3, Insightful)
IMHO, the spamming of USENET has been one of the great tragedies of the popularization of the Internet. There was once a time when a young 13 year old girl who had just been molested/raped by a trusted uncle or family friend could go to alt.sexual.abuse and find comfort that she was not alone. That others had suffered as she had. Find a place where she could talk with people who understood and could relate to her. She could have posted using the anonymous server in Norway (wasn't that where it was?) and felt secure that her real identity would never be uncovered. Nowdays, because of rampant spamming done on any newsgroup with the word 'sex' or 'sexual' in the title, a young rape/incest victim would go to this newsgroup and, instead of finding a supportive atmosphere, be bombarded by ads along the lines of "Cum see young teenage cum sluts who desparately crave cock!" or "Lolitas who can't get it often enough in the ass!".
I haven't perused USENET in years and I have no plans to return. The spamming is terrible.
GMD
Re:The Glory Days of USENET ... (Score:2)
Re:The Glory Days of USENET ... (Score:2, Interesting)
I guess I must not hang out in the space where the spamming occurs.
Re:The Glory Days of USENET ... (Score:2)
Wonderful times... (Score:5, Interesting)
But seriously... I loved those times... logging onto servers that you had little clue about.. seeing what was there... who was there... etc.
This seems like a good project to play around with.
Re:Wonderful times... (Score:4, Funny)
You had an 8088? Why back in the day, we didn't have no fancy 8088s! We had our fingers! And tin cans and string! And we were glad to have them, too! Sure, it took forever to get the latest pr0n, but once we found someone to go into the drugstore for us, then we had it. Of course, we had to walk fifteen miles through a raging snowstorm to get it, uphill, both ways!
You young whippersnappers have it so easy... rassum-fassum-mumble-grumble
</OLD-GEEZER-RANT>
Re:Wonderful times... (Score:2)
What's the point of getting the latest pr0n if your fingers are busy doing something else?
(Not to mention your tin cans. Sheesh!
I predict.. (Score:4, Interesting)
If/When that becomes popular, before long people'll be able to look to these informal nets when the corporate internet lets them down. Maybe I'm just fantasizing, but I do think networking has become cheap and easy enough, and I think the internet is getting regulated enough that people will have interest in doing these kinds of things.
Re:I predict.. (Score:3, Interesting)
3 miles? That's nothing [mhpcc.edu].
Re:I predict.. (Score:2)
This is on par with my experience riding around town with a 12dB yagi, pointing it like a laserbeam into hotels and high density housing areas.
Re:I predict.. (Score:2)
The internet was supposed to be decentralized, but it is not enough for my taste
I dream of everyone having fast wireless connection, so we could all have servers sitting in the corner, easilly moveable and not required to dial up/connect to any providers.
A true web, a p2p system if you want were I connect to you and you connect to the other etc etc...
I guess there is much research which need to be done, probably I'm just dreaming,
but it has been my original dream when I first began "playing" with computers.
A COMPLETLY decentralized communication medium, where I am the only responsible of my node, my identity...
Re:I predict.. (Score:2)
I dunno.. I kinda imagined it like BBS's from ages past. It wouldn't be hard to get my complex to hook up to a neighboring complex across the street. We'd have to work out a gateway server in between them, but that wouldn't require reinventing the wheel. The big problem would be connecting to another similar network across town. I don't think that the place across town would need to talk to my computer directly, but rather to the gateway server. The GW server would talk to my computer and forward the data through like a proxy.
Maybe they would set up an 802.11 cloud and I could take my laptop over to grab the data, then come back to my network and make it available. This wouldn't be a replacement to the internet.
I didn't really envision talking to another computer that was on the opposite coast. I mean, it'd be possible especially with the internet involved. But I figured it'd be more like BBS's were.
I'm not claiming to have really thoguht this through very well so don't beat me up too hard. I do see a day coming soon when we're all sharing data independent of the internet. (Or at least MOSTLY independent.) It's happening now with CD-r's.
Oy. (Score:3, Funny)
pretty neat idea (Score:3, Interesting)
If you are looking for something cool to be involved in and has a sense of community i'd advise checking out the 6bone (www.6bone.org), the IPV6 testbed. Everyone there is very helpful and friendly and there is a sense of some greater good. Hehe its kind of cool because not everything works in IPV6 so people are working on porting old taken for granted apps like different MTA's and other servers. I wonder if the way the 6bone folks work togather is similar to the old days of the Internet.
Re:pretty neat idea (Score:2)
Here's the link. (Score:2)
Re:Here's the link. - Really (Score:2)
http://shells.open-network.net [open-ntewok.net]
Re:Here's the link. - Really (Score:2)
Try this one dumb Ass (Score:3, Informative)
internet before the web (Score:2, Interesting)
The amount of machines was small and there were no such thing as a web browser.
Personally I found it to be a great source of lyrics and guitar tabs in ascii format. Could find a tab for every song I wanted to play.
The signal to noise level was good since it was free for spam, ads. etc.
It had little use for my daily work, a few computer companies(like HP) had servers up where you could ftp latest patches, but mostly I had to rely on my CompuServe account to get the latest drivers and patches.
The problem I remeber with my CompuServe account was that there were no dial in lines in my country, it came later on though.
I remeber that hardly any of my friends or co-workers found it interesting, I got the account from by boss who had ordered but didn't really find any use for it.
I have always been hooked on computers my primary drive for working with them is that I like the concept of making them work for me, and when I got this fancy new internet console, it was interesting simply by the fact that could access a computer on the other side of the world. Normally one would dial a BBS locally and sometimes when one could afford the 2$ pr min. for a call to the US, I would try it with one eye on my watch.
When the place I worked at later on, got the first internet connection with the fancy new blazing fast ISDN standard(still to expensive for private users), the new mosaic browser came to my attention and we had to open up for port 80 since no one was using the connection for browsing.
I also remember something about we couldn't access all parts of the internet. There was some US backbone parts that were closed, that only got open to us because we were a goverment owned research institution so we could get access to the same lines as the US univ.
Then we started running dual IDSN and my friends had begun showing interest into that internet thing and their envy were hard to hide for them. I woked in a place where I could download with 14 kilobytes pr second!!!. Then we got our 256kb line and I had my friends visiting me at work, just to see this line where I could download with over 20 Kilobytes pr second.
Ah, and these days, no one is amazed by my 2048 Kbit ADSL line with 512Kbit upstream that I have at home....
Going Back To The Past of the Internet... (Score:5, Insightful)
1. People on IRC who talked about things other than mod chips/xbox/playstation isos/porn/divx/mp3s...
2. Usenet newsgroups without spam, and the occasional flame war.
3. No Private message forums, only Usenet (sorry Slashdot)
4. Email without spam.
5. Shell accounts used for ppp emulators (no thanks!)
6. More than one tcp/ip stack choice.
7. Any web browser could display a website.
8. FTP search engines that worked.
9. No paying to download files (ala like Fileplanet)
10. The age of unencrypted innocence.
11. No pop ups ads.
12. No mass free-email accounts.
13. Letting the Internet regulate itself, no Government interference.
-
[baltimorechronicle.com]
Read at your own risk - Open Letter to America from a Canadian
Re:Going Back To The Past of the Internet... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Going Back To The Past of the Internet... (Score:2)
grumble...
Re:Going Back To The Past of the Internet... (Score:2)
I believe thats known as the exception that proves the rule
Re:Going Back To The Past of the Internet... (Score:2)
(For the record, I agree with most of it.)
Re:Going Back To The Past of the Internet... (Score:2)
Re:Going Back To The Past of the Internet... (Score:2)
Re:Going Back To The Past of the Internet... (Score:2)
Re:Going Back To The Past of the Internet... (Score:2)
Dialing in with UUCP every 4 hours on a cron job to transfer any mail you may have.
having your news server sync with the downstream server during the session to cache the 3-4 popular newsgroups that you need to serve to the next guy.
Web browser.... WHAT web browser?
WE had set up a large number of boxes at dialing boundries to avoid any long distance.. we had about 5 of them down the michigan shoreline to get a dial-in to U of Chicago so that we could offload the mail and usenet that was collected and start the reverse track. It was great, gopher and ftp via email... when you found a file you wanted you usually had it within 24-48 hours.
1989 was an AWESOME time for the internet. in 1990 we finally got a internet node available in Grand Rapids so the UUCP jumps went from 5 to 1!! that made a huge difference in latency! mand we were drooling over the speed (as with upgrading to the fancy new 9600BPS modems.. we bought the university 2 of them!) I ran the Evil SCO Xenix back then. (It was all that was available for a 286 and free from the college.... I loved the days when you could check-out software from the library!) Eventually we upgraded to the mind blowing 14.4 modems and decided to have a full-time 14.4 connection using that ppp stuff. (It was great) now everyone that UUCP 'd into my box was getting less latency!
THEM were the days of the internet.. when you HAD to have Unix ot a Unix clone to get on it... otherwise you had to use a terminal program and use someone's box with their shell account.
golden days (Score:2)
Re:golden days (Score:2)
I'll spare everyone the AIDS/internet commercialism analogy.
A copy of his page. (Score:4, Informative)
Search The Open Directory Project - Note: Not this site.
dmoz.org
Just so everyone knows, accounts will generally be added in the evenings as I do have a day job. Just be patient, you're not paying for it anyway.
Damn, Not SLASHDOT!!!!!
Visit the message board
What is this place?
This is the very simple home of shells.open-network.net.
What is shells.open-network.net?
A free shell server. No strings attached, the box isn't the fastest and neither is the connection but if you desire a shell account, let me know.
What will I have access to on this machine?
All normal shell tools available on OpenBSD, Apache, MySQL, PHP, Perl, BitchX, and most other things you ask me to install.
What is an open-network?
By the book:
The overall design of a communication carrier's basic network facilities and services to permit all users of the basic network to interconnect to specific basic network functions and interfaces on an unbundled, equal-access basis.
My Definition:
A set of computers, networks, software apps which allow users to have access not for money or prestige, just for the knowledge gained by running the network. Users should have seemless access to all machines on the network and should not be hindered by the all to familiar "Out-bound connections disabled". Passwords will be shared among all machines on the network thereby allowing users to have a single login on machines belonging to multiple people. The administrators of individual machines wil be responsible for overall system security or choosing a network power-user to assist in administration.
Some Rules:
If you screw up, I will kill your account. No questions, no debating, this is my machine, not yours!
No Hacking (My box or others box from my box) See rule #1.
No DOS-ing to or from my box. See rule #1.
If you find a vulnerability on my machine, let me know, don't ever post the problem on the internet. See rule #1
If you think you are doing anything questionable, See rule #1
Will you host my domain blah.blah.com?
Sure, don't expect miracle from this machine though. The internet connection is 384K/1500K and the machine is not the latest and greatest.
Do not try to make any money in anyway from my box, if you do, you obviously don't know what an open-network is and you need to See rule #1.
Can I get a forward zone from open-network.net?
Of course, it wouldn't be open if you couldn't. Be aware, the final decision is mine.
Why are you doing this?
If you know me, you know my answer, if you don't know me, the answer is "Because I can!"
What other sites do you run?
http://www.open-network.net
http://www.moon-bear.com
and myself and one other administrator run the show at http://www.tissueinformatics.com
Have fun and if you want an account, drop me a line at scotth@open-network.net
This box is powered by:
SPARC
OpenBSD
Apache
PHP
Perl
And a bunch of BASH
00779 hits since August 22, 2002
Why does it have to be so primitive? (Score:4, Insightful)
It was because dumbass politicians and greedy politicians hadn't touched it. They've spent the better part of a decade proving to us, that it wasn't because they couldn't.
But what if we could build a network that was extremely difficult for them to mess with?
What if it offered the same services as the regular net, fully routed static IP, DNS, and no restrictions. No one coming after you for posting files, building a website, or registering a domain name that some corps find offensive.
And as a side bonus, it might be just as complicated to get connected to it, as the internet originally was...
Read my unfinished webpage [24.125.76.224] about it.
Re:Why does it have to be so primitive? (Score:2)
Some links:
GNUNet [ovmj.org]
This is aimed at a being an anonymous backbone, of sorts, but is currently being developed more towards the P2P file sharing aspect. That said, the papers on their website are fascinating.
Freenet [freenetproject.org]
This is more of an anonymous content publishing network. A partial solution.
Please reply to tell me if these are what you're looking for.
Re:Why does it have to be so primitive? (Score:2)
Why do we have to give up the global IP network part, to get our freedom back?
Let me summarize my idea. We do a large VPN over our existing internet connections, hub and spoke model, full routing. Probably using the 10.x.x.x address space at first, with a simple planned upgrade to ipv6, when it's ready for primetime.
Those with multi-homed nodes only connect to other routing nodes in other countries, across international borders. This should prevent, or at least slow law enforcement from node hopping. Being a fully routed network, you can only snitch on the nodes that connect directly to you, the system is designed so you don't have to know anything else. And what good is it to them, if you can snitch on others, if they can't serve warrants because its out of their jurisdiction. There will still be damage, but in this way it can be contained.
I'm also thinking about a new "emergency broadcast system" service. Multicast so that all users/nodes see a message within minutes, some sort of authentication so that transmit is offlimits except to admins. You HAVE to run the client, or you get disconnected. If we can coordinate, without knowing much about each other, we can still move faster than those that would shut it down.
The thing that gets me, is what sort of social policy should there be? There are risks associated with inviting just anyone, and if we have a good idea how to go about doing that, we might be able to avoid some of it.
But in the end, I expect there to at least be complete web services, unmonitored/able IRC, spam-free email (rebuilding the system from scratch will let us be able to fix that), and anything else that you can do with IP.
And please, if you want to criticize do so, this is a bare outline of an idea, not a carefully crafted thing. Point out the flaws, and offer solutions, if they occur to you.
Re:Why does it have to be so primitive? (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course. That said, here's my take on it.
Your system looks very strong, and very robust. It lacks deniability, and decentralization is difficult, but otherwise, it works. I'm a bit tired right now, so I'll probably think of things later, and add them to my system, and tell you of them, assuming this conversation is still going.
Routing is an incredibly delicate process. Routing without a central authority is damn near impossible. The Internet uses ARPA to distribute IP addresses, and thusly, they can track down each IP to its owner.
With the VPN system you propose, you still need a central authority to allocate IPs. A central authority is a single point of failure, if you haven't gotten that yet. It's a single point of accountability. If you can get away from that single point, then you open yourself up to spoofing, spamming, authority hijacking, and all sorts of bad things. (This is a point of weakness, fill it in, and you'll have a much stronger system.)
The current method of anonymous routing is P2P flooding. This, obviously, doesn't scale well. I haven't figured out anything better. Freenet has a significantly optimized flooding algo, but it still relies on flooding to some extent. O(log n) compared to O(n) or something along those lines. IP is much closer to O(1), although you could make an argument for it being O(n/c) with a very large c. (That would mean that the IP wouldn't scale well for values that are orders of magnitude higher than c.) No rigorous proofs here, so keep that grain of salt handy.
The thing that gets me, is what sort of social policy should there be?
This relates strongly to a project I'm thinking on right now. It (obviously) isn't anywhere near complete. But you may be able to cull some interesting ideas from it. I hope you find it helpful.
Assuming an anonymous network, create "virtual countries" with laws of their own. You create an anonymous virtual identity. That virtual identity can be a citizen of a virtual country. By being a citizen, you gain access to the resources of the county. (Bandwidth, access controls, distributed content, etc.) This makes virtual citizenship more of a choice matter, than a "That's where I happen to live" matter.
Assuming some kind of enforcement mechanism for the laws, and access treaties, you can develop a nice system. Virtual Country A has laws against spam. Virtual Country A agrees to exchange traffic with Virtual Country B, as long as Virtual Country B doesn't send any spam to Virtual Country A. You've got a nice trust system. A Virtual Country is responsible for the actions of its citizens, and thusly has a collective bargaining strength.
You also can create Virtual Countries with strong Intellectial Property laws, and enforce that with treaties. If a country wants to ignore IP, then they lose access to the websites of that country that enforces IP with treaties.
And you'd be able to enforce things like your "emergency broadcast system" service. inside a specific virtual country (and, again, by treaties, if necessary.)
I haven't gotten into the punishment for breaking laws yet. All I can think of is rescinding citizenship. This, obviously, doesn't provide enough granularity. And creating a new identity is also a rather difficult problem.
Re:Why does it have to be so primitive? (Score:2)
When you say there are problems, you mean with the actual allocation though (new node gets 10.45.67.x). Can't we make it more or less "whichever subnet is unused, you get" ? We'd have to somehow avoid a goldrush, but since everyone obviously couldn't be trusted off the bat to run a routing node, maybe that's the avenue you'd take.
Another point, while I think of it. We'll have to allocate subnets randomly from the IP range, or else risk giving people an idea how big it has grown. For instance, if the feds happen to snoop on 10.0.3.x by chance, I don't want them to be able to know they're really close to the first subnet (to the central authority, too) just by how low it is.
As for social policy, what I meant somewhat overlaps your thinking... but I'd hesitate to recreate the entire concept of "nation" in a virtual space. It's yet another thing, that maybe we should leave behind, if we can. Or, a slightly different perspective would say that the entire network is a single nation, as it should be in meatspace.
I enjoy hearing your thoughts though. Makes me feel good to think that even if I weren't successful with this on my own, someone else may recreate the idea on their own. I'm a bit scared we may all need such a network before too long...
Re:Why does it have to be so primitive? (Score:2)
As there is no way that everyone will agree as to what social controls are necessary, some may say none. Some may say IP protection. Some may say strong copyrights, but no patents. Some may say no spam and no hate speech. Some - no bulk email, but completely free speech otherwise. etc.
People disagree. And rather than have them try to enforce their views on the whole of the network, they should have options. We don't need to support them. We don't need to share our bandwidth or disk space or data with them. But we should at least give them freedom to try it on their own. And rather than fragmenting into a dozen incompatible, disconnected networks, we should have some social agreements as to who we share our (data|bandwidth|disk space) with.
I think that sums up that point pretty well, and I'm not sure what more can be said.
On to the technical side.
Please excuse the rough edges, this is fresh off the brain.
If we allow anyone to register an IP or subnet or whatever, (let's call it a routing token), then we need some method of preventing people from registering a routing token that is already taken. Central authorities are great at this. Central authorities are also a single point of failure. Routing without a CA is a bit like the dining philosophers problem.
Also, in order to make sure that each hop crosses national borders, we need some kind of way of checking national location. It's a good idea, but seems difficult to implement without leaking information to someone. With a CA, it's trivial to implement, but also trivial to bypass. Find the CA, and get a court order breaking the privacy of the CA.
Without a CA, assume an initiating node, and a receiving node. The initiating node is the client, the other the server. (It's not exactly perfect use of the words, but they fit well enough.) We'll have to have standardized ways of expressing countries. That's an implementation detail.
Anyway, both the client and the server have a secret (again, the country). They want to check if the secrets match. Neither the client nor the server can trust the other one. The client can probably trust the server a bit more than the server can trust the client, as the client initiated the connection. Given how easy it would be to brute-force guess the country, we'll have a hard time coming up with a secure algo here.
Example attack to demonstrate my point: Assume that there are 500 different countries. Assume the attacker has 500 clients. Attacker makes 500 attempts (over time) to connect to the server, each time inputting a new country of origin.
Very hard to protect against, but not impossible. We just need to create a very stable network. One where the attacker doesn't get a chance to make 500 connection attempts.
Discovery also presents a problem. How do we discover a routing node to connect to? Assuming we broadcast a packet that states our country and that we're looking for a routing node. oops, now everyone knows our country, and that we're participating. Broadcast a datagram that says we're looking for a node to connect to. Everyone knows we're participating, but not our country. But in this process, we discover everyone who is participating. Then we're clear to attack all participants in the country. Limit the broadcast distance significantly, and things get a bit better.
Alternately, have a tree structure, where each node decides how much they want to participate. Have some kind of automated election process, where a well functioning node that's been up for a while gets elected upward along the tree. This should minimize disturbances. Net splits would still happen though. But the basic idea would be to stabilize the top of the tree as much as possible, and when someone attempts to start a new node, the request would flit along the bottom of the tree, until it encountered an empty position Have some kind of balanced tree type structure. If someone drops out, and stops participating, they need to rejoin at the bottom, as other nodes would get promoted to take their spot.
The tree won't work, but the concept might work if a proper structure was designed.
OK, brain is now drained again. And I'm enjoying this discussion too. Getting the ideas out there, and refining them in the same step. And it is really sad and disenheartening that we would need this. That we need to code our way around stupid laws.
Re:Why does it have to be so primitive? (Score:2)
Imagine we get the following network setup, 5 nodes in a simple chain.
A - B - C - D - E
All have non-conflicting subnets, and all are routing to each other, though none know anything about any of the others unless they connect directly. F comes along, wants to connect to E. He picks an unused subnet. D knows nothing of F, all it is aware of, is that a new subnet appeared, and that E claims to know how to get packets to it.
My somewhat amateurish understanding of how various routing protocols work, says it can already work like this. D doesn't have to know the country, or anything else, just that E claims to know how to get packets to a new subnet. Then D tells C the same thing, who tells B. That's the easy part.
But assuming the script kiddies will consider this too much work for what little mayhem they can cause, why can't we have 10.0.0.1 be a simple little website, that lists what subnets aren't taken. When E and F are negotiating to let F become a new node (this is negot. between people, not computers), E can do his homework, find a suitably random, unused subnet, and tell F to use it. E may not even know where 10.0.0.1 is located. Only that node itself, and it's immediate neighbors would be able to rat it out, as a CA. Thus, once the network grows, we can stop worrying they'll have an easy time tracking down the CA.
But even more so. Once the network grows, why couldn't non-neighbor nodes voluntarily start mirroring this website/database? Even though the authorities could stumble upon the original CA and take it out, by that time its too late. To make it easy for users to find a CA without actually knowing anything else, we could play a few DNS tricks to roundrobin www.ca.ntwrk through all the IP addresses. If you try it, and they've been knocked out, requery and you get a new IP. The CA mirrors can only grow to a point, but even 4 or 5 CA mirrors randomly distribute through the network, who know nothing other than the 10.x IPs of the others... that would be hard to de-nut. Especially with an emergency broadcast service, that let people know a mirror has just went down. Within an hour, another random node might have replaced it.
Of course, this is still vulnerable to assholes trying to mess it up intentionally. But those are gonna be hard to beat no matter what.
As for country discovery, that's not a problem. Say I'm on the regular internet in a channel, and I make friends with someone in Peru. After a few months, it becomes obvious he should be invited, and I let him on as a user. Connected directly to my routing node. Well, a few more months pass, and he has shown himself to be capable, so I offer to let him set up a node himself. Instead of a single IP, he gets a block of them. I know who he is, maybe even enough to discover his real name with a little research. But that's why he's across the border! Even if I rat him out, there is no way to serve a warrant on him, or vice versa. The only thing he has to do, is add a routing node onto his end, but that's his business. He should know enough to never even give me clues whom he might let connect, nor to let someone else from Peru to connect to him (this is true for routing nodes, I'm not sure if it has to be so careful for plain users).
The only thing left, is to decide what these "rules" are, so I can teach them to him well enough for him to teach to someone else.
Re:Why does it have to be so primitive? (Score:2)
I think this network would fit your spec pretty well. A country would have to query a significant number of nodes to find the location of an IP. I removed the "over national borders" requirement, as that can be implemented via wetware. (human social interaction)
And even today, you can chain a number of open HTTP proxies (for example) together, crossing international borders, and be near impossible to trace.
----
The other thought I had was to implement a TCP/IP stack for the major OSes, and link it to your anonymizing network, and have the connection come out of the anonymizing network in a somewhat consistent manner.
Basically:
[CLIENT] --> { ANONYMIZING NETWORK } --> [SERVER]
but using winsock and a TCP/IP stack to make it transparent to the end user.
Re:Why does it have to be so primitive? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Why does it have to be so primitive? (Score:2)
However, even after being noticed, I think this network could survive. It's all a matter of designing it in such a way that they'd have to put incredibly massive effort to shut it down. As in rescinding constitutional ammendments fulltime.
Re:Why does it have to be so primitive? (Score:2)
The only thing people like myself excel at, if anything, is technology. Surely it has a few tricks up its sleaves, that might make this possible.
Re:Why does it have to be so primitive? (Score:2)
But I've got ideas on how to make this hypothetical network very infertile soil for the weed that is spam.
Re:Why does it have to be so primitive? (Score:2)
And once it started, might not some enterprising soul set up a real $$$ < -- > virtual $$$ exchange?
The only reason I've thought of it, was because it's a potentiial security weakness to let someone do that. Something that we probably can't afford, forgive the pun.
These are the sorts of things that need to be discussed before implementation, so we don't screw it all up.
Re:Why does it have to be so primitive? (Score:2)
People seem to think that clever tech tricks will keep them ahead of politicians they don't like. I don't get it. All it will do is encourage draconian laws, like mandatory digital tags, mandatory hardware controls, and inspection and approval of code and code revisons before use on any network-accessible computer.
No government is ever going to allow something as important and, potentially, threatening, as the Internet to exist in uncontrolled anarchy. Radio and TV techs aren't allowed how to run that industry. Neither will IT techs. Sorry.
Re:Why does it have to be so primitive? (Score:2)
If the politicians and those in power have to destroy everything that is good, beautiful, or clever, to make themselves feel more powerful is that my fault?
If I try to escape from all that, is that my fault?
Blame those who've fucked everything up from time immemorial. Not those doing their best to fix it.
Re:Why does it have to be so primitive? (Score:2)
But I don't want to trade mp3s... I just want to be able to run a tiny, modest website on my little broadband link. Maybe some other services. Only full IP connectivity will do.
Too bad I can't get a domain name, it's dhcp only.
Too bad that all the good names are taken because they were allocated in a pisspoor way.
Too bad that if they aren't taken, a corp would swoop down and claim trademark infringement or cybersquatting.
Too bad that port 80 is blocked, with bogus reasons.(why would you need it anyway, unless you are a evil hacker?)
Too bad that port 25 is blocked too. Not that I could do much with it, without a domain name.
Too bad that the type of site [24.125.76.224] I might want to build offends corporate interests, even though it should be protected by the 1st amendment.
The list goes on... it's so long, I dunno that I want to finish it. Flame me if you want.
A small problem tho...:( (Score:2)
I myself have lamented the change of the net. Having only been online for 12 years, I haven't even come close to some of the real old timers. However, the old BBS's, pre-spam Usenet, email, talk, ytalk, and the dread of all the freshman getting online each year...aaaw, the good old days.
One of the biggest problems though is that we now have most people with access to wireless cards and such that I bet you'd see a 1:50 contributor to luser ratio. *sighs*
Internet Flower Childern... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Internet Flower Childern... (Score:2)
It'll be a DDOS drone or a useless shell... (Score:2, Insightful)
People, Not Technology (Score:2)
The Internet has always been about people, not technology. Sure, the tech is cool. But what makes it the killer app is the ability to communicate with others. Look at every Internet application that excels and you'll find it facilitates communication (whether it be 'I'm better at this game than you are', 'I know how to do this', 'I like it when people watch', or 'check out this song I like') - or at least is geared to fool people in to believing so (yea, right... "horny coed exibitionists waiting for YOU" indeed). Internet applications that crashed failed to grasp this (push technology - do we need another big business broadcast service? Apparently not.).
The boon and bane to this is it requires people. In theory, the more people the better - akin to the idea that the value of a network increases exponentially with its size. But then... the more people you add, the more wide their beliefs. The more likely you'll find people who do not have the same values... and do not value the network itself. The more likely you will find people who will sacrifice the network for some short-term personal goal.
In other words, the Internet changed when there were more people online who thought the movie Hackers was a "cool movie" and not a "comedy." Until these people change, or you manage to filter them out or exclude them from your network, the Internet of yesteryear will not emerge.
Shell access or not.
Re:People, Not Technology (Score:2)
We do that, but different... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:We do that, but different... (Score:2)
We all used to "note" at DEC back in the early 80's. It's still active (somewhat) at Compaq and then HP.
There were topics on everything from sex to pistols
It only took about 10 minutes for all the keypad commands to come back to me. It's great to have it back and with no HR department to worry about, we can say what we want.
Remember the good old days when... (Score:3, Interesting)
* 99% of the data transmitted on the net was useful informtion; now, 99% of the data transmitted on the net is porn, spam, advertisements, and useless graphics. Pretty soon, even Google won't be able to find a website that actually has text on it.
* You didn't get 1000 e-mails a day telling you about the latest greatest super-duper penis enlargment plan where you could make your penis larger just by "jilking it".
* You didn't get 1000 spam messages a day telling you about easy quick idiot-proof ways to make a million dollars in a few hours.
* The evil forces of the dark side, the raiders of the lost net, the proprietary corporate IP mongers, hadn't yet started bending the internet to their perverse Orwellian ideal of perfect control?
* News groups and message boards actually had mostly intelligent conversaion, as opposed to being flooded with, "YOU SUCK, I'M RIGHT YOU STUPID ****, EAT **** AND DIE".
* Al Gore was busy inventing the net.
You are making a common mistake, I think... (Score:5, Insightful)
I, too, grew up in the early days and I recall them well. No noise, you could use newsgroups, and receiving email was a real event. Archie, remember archie? And Gopher? Veronica?
BUT... in those days I could not do a tenth of what I can do now. Not one hundredth. Use google. Use google groups (nee dejanews). Look up song lyrics. Bank online. Download videos. Find any company I do business with. And P2P (ha ha... 1200 bps modems, remember those??)
So, the noise is despiccable but do realise it is a side phenomenon of the great cyberworld we are creating.
Give me today's 'net anytime!
People always remember more fondly than they were. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:People always remember more fondly than they we (Score:2)
Where the internet went wrong (Score:2, Insightful)
The internet, as it was envisioned in it's earliest forms (by the government no less) was for open and free exchange of information across a series of service. Anyone who needed access had it. As it expanded out and fell into control of the early hacker/geek community it moved from free flow of information between those in he know to free flow to anyone who had the equipment and the skills to get to it. The internet of the time was a self regulating society. People who wer obnoxious were ignored and shunned, malicious people were fought against by the rigtous vigalantes of the net. Sort of a wild west.
Soon however, the greedy people of the world realized that if they had information that no one else had, and restricted acess, they could control people. If they could control them, they could make money off of them. So they began businesses. This shifted the balance of power away from individuals and toward businesses and corporations with money. Feeling their power threatened, individuals with skills fought back. They were labled hackers, and unfortunately as with any group, it's the fanatics that generate the stereo-type and hackers bacme known as vicious online criminals.
So the businesses did what any business in danger of colapse would do. They complained to the government, and the government steped in. They started regulateing the internet, laws, rules, they took control of the system, the names, the places and it fell inot corporate control, with the lone individuals shut out and shunned. The individual became a criminal, suspect to doing crimes with every move he made.
And so the internet fell into the state it's in now, a pathetic mix of advertisements (because the businesses found you really can't make money off freedom, corporate watchdogs (because everyone online is out to destroy Free America ), porn (because as a society in the real world we have severe issues with sexualitycreatingan extreme and perverted attraction to it), and pathetic wannabie skript kiddies because all the real Hackers:
a) Are in jail
b) Have a real job as a security consultant
c) Gave up
d) Have become greedy
e) Fight on, bu tare shunned as extermists and lumped with scriptkiddies, pirates and warez makers.
f) Have focused on open source in the hopes of creating a free society within the controled one.
Though I wish him luck and will support him as best I can, I feel that unless he does everything in his power to prevent restrictions, he will merely see the same thing that the internet, hotline and p2p has seen. Freedom threatens buiness models of old, freedom must be destroyed.
Idealistic? Skewed viewpoint? Glorifying overy optimistic ideals? Maybe, but without ideals you have no purpose.
the good old days (Score:2)
Re:I'd be wary.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:I'd be wary.... (Score:2)
Re:Shell Accounts? (Score:2, Insightful)
Yes, you could do most of those things on your own system, but chances are pretty good that you have less bandwidth. This is especially true if you can only afford or only have access to dialup network access.
How would the four uses you mentioned work? (Score:3, Interesting)
[With a shell account,] you wouldn't need to [haul big files] very often - you do most of your work in your shell account on the remote box, right?
Much of my current work involves image editing [gimp.org], audio editing [sourceforge.net], and development of interactive graphical simulations [gbadev.org]. Do those work well over SSH?
The thought process is that since you have so little bandwidth and probably less power, disk space, memory, etc. at home that there's not much point in using that computer as anything but a glass terminal, and doing interesting things only on the remote system.
I'm still unclear on some of the uses of a shell account. Let's cross-check your thought process against your list of applications:
You can run servers, read mail, send mail, transfer files around, develop software, and so on.
Not according to the AUPs of most of the free shell providers I've seen. (Free shell providers are the subject of this Slashdot article.)
You can run servers, read mail, send mail, transfer files around, develop software, and so on.
Which is limited by the speed of the eyeballs and fingers. How is reading mail over SSH any better than reading mail over SSL'd IMAP? And unless you run a mailing list, why would sending mail need a lot of server bandwidth?
You can run servers, read mail, send mail, transfer files around, develop software, and so on.
To what? To other people's shell accounts? Transferring big .jpg files using a shell account doesn't get them to my screen any faster.
You can run servers, read mail, send mail, transfer files around, develop software, and so on.
I assume you're just talking about logging into a remote machine to maintain a CVS repository such as on OSDN's own service [sourceforge.net]. Otherwise, doesn't a fellow who develops software want a fast connection from the box where the application runs to the box where the application's display runs? That's likely to be a lot faster on localhost than on dial-up. In addition, using a programmer's text editor such as GNU Emacs or Vim over a network connection with a 200+ ms ping is a pain in the donkey.
The shell account is the network pc taken one step further, and is effective even with fairly slow networks.
Unless you want to run anything that's image or audio based and interactive. Take too much intelligence off the client, and you run the risk of having the cumulative effects of long-haul latency (speed of light across a big country such as the United States) and last-mile latency (slow dial-up connection) ruin the interactive experience. Has X11 been optimized to run efficiently over 48 kbps down, 24 kbps up?
Still, if you didn't think thin client computing was a good idea, you probably don't find shell accounts useful either.
Makers of modern network computers recognize that thin client does not mean as thin as a teletype machine's paper. They try to achieve a compromise between the shell account setup (all intelligence on the shell server; client is just a terminal or X server) and the PC setup (all intelligence on the client; only data is shared across the network) by using applets compiled to a cross-platform bytecode and run across the network. For more about this approach, look at Java(tm) technology [sun.com] or its competition [microsoft.net].
Re:Even on dial-up? (Score:2)
Not all [shell providers have an absurdly small quota] though - not some university accounts.
I have a 100 MB shell account at my university [rose-hulman.edu], but it costs $30,000 a year to maintain, and I'll lose it within the next ten months :-(
They can use a 386 laptop to log into a remote machine and compile the software on a state of the art machine.
How much space does a Solaris/SPARC hosted DOS/x86 targeted or GBA/ARM targeted cross-compiler take on a shell account's quota, assuming that it isn't popular enough for the shell server admin to install for everybody? And then how long does it take to download the binary once it's compiled?
Also, when I was on 14.4kbps modem and wanted several articles (totally maybe 4mb) on a page to look at I'd login to the remote shell account, wget the pages quickly, zip them up really same (text compresses really well after all) and then download them from my service provider.
Since then, HTTP has added gzip as a content encoding, and /. uses it.
Re:This Idiot (Score:2, Insightful)
What a shithead you are! beating up on the guy. Get a clue and at least login when you post so people can mod your ass down.
So he doesn't have a lot right now! That is the idea, start out one machine at a time. BTW If you're so smart and have all kinds of great hardware, sign up and contribute dick.
Did I mention I think your a dick?Re:This Idiot (Score:2, Insightful)
This guy isn't trying to make money, so cut him a break. I don't see you offering a free shell account. Why don't you give him the "fucking resources" and I'm sure he'd be glad to up his connection bandwidth. And it's not like he ASKED to be put on
Troll.
Re:Why note replace the existing Internet??! (Score:2)