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Government Finishes Internet Study -- 7 years late 444

Posted by CmdrTaco from the they-started-about-the-same-time-as-slashdot dept.
djp928 writes "A study commisioned by Congress in 1998 to report on internet traffic has finally been published -- 7 years, two presidents, and one internet boom/bust later. Some of their findings include "DNS is good" and "We should probably have some more TLDs""
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Government Finishes Internet Study -- 7 years late More

Government Finishes Internet Study -- 7 years late

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  • What a waste =( (Score:2, Insightful)

    by lw54 ( 73409 ) *
    You've got to be kidding me.. How much did this cost us?

    • $1 million (Score:5, Informative)

      by wils0n ( 139703 ) on Thursday March 31, 2005 @02:04PM (#12102572)
      FTA

      "Lawmakers had demanded the $1 million federal study, ultimately called "Signposts in Cyberspace," under a 1998 federal law, the Next Generation Internet Research Act."

      • Re:$1 million (Score:5, Funny)

        by Infinityis ( 807294 ) on Thursday March 31, 2005 @02:21PM (#12102791) Homepage
        I think maybe they took "next generation" a bit too literallly...

        • Re:$1 million (Score:3, Informative)

          by Mysticalfruit ( 533341 )
          Firstly, you realize that the people that wrote this study are going to exclaim that they need another 7 years to revise the study so it'll be suitable.

          Secondly, I bet if you read in the study it'll say stuff like:
          "It's in our judgement that internet worms are not going to be become factors until at least 2010."

          • Re:$1 million (Score:5, Informative)

            by rs79 ( 71822 ) <hostmaster@open-rsc.org> on Thursday March 31, 2005 @03:15PM (#12103390) Homepage
            The study was used as a tactic by the trademark lobby to impede deplyment of new tlds. "We must assess the effect on stability of the internet by doing such a thing". NTIA nodded its pointy little head and commissioned the report. You'll notice all new tlds added by ICANN todate are considered and declared "experimental". Never mind that 100 new cctlds were quietly added in the past decade.

            And now the report says "dozens of new tlds should be added each year".

            Duh. Double duh. This what Jon Postel said in 1996.

            We now return you to your regularly schedulred ICANN who will do as close to nothing as possible in the area of new tld creation as they can get away with and still pretend to represent the consensus of the Internet community.

            Saaaaaaaay, notice how many lawyers and IP guys are on the ICANN board now? Just a coincidence I'm sure, I'm certain we'll see lots of new tlds RSN.

            • Re:$1 million (Score:5, Insightful)

              by Bob_Robertson ( 454888 ) on Thursday March 31, 2005 @05:52PM (#12105145) Homepage
              John Postel was wrong. I was at the IETF BOF that discussed the issue. So was Postel. It was nice meeting him.

              The guy from Dunn and Bradstreet was correct when he said that "we" were trying to use the registry like an index.

              As other people have pointed out, CokaCola just has to buy coke.com, coke.net, coke.us, coke.biz, coke.firm, coke.soda, coke.etc.etc.etc. More top level domains does not increase the "name space", nor does it increase usability. In fact, it obfuscates.

              Indexes and portals are in increasing use all the time. A new verb has entered the language, "to google". There is in fact no reason to use a domain name at all, because someone will find your page in Google regardless of what it's called. Even at the time of the BOF, I gave the examples of Yahoo and AltaVista making domain names obsolete.

              I really thought that the success of Geocities (.com) was going to make it obvious to everyone. Instead of extra names, they had subdirectories. Numbered subdirectories and a search engine. The URL didn't relate to anything at all.

              So what was the result of that BOF, where the brightest minds came together to discuss the issue? Even Postel agreed, it would be best to reduce the number of TLDs. They have outlived their usefulness, that was based on insufficient hardware size/speed at the time. "We" already have country codes, .US, .UK &etc. to differentiate the physical top servers.

              At some point, the .earth TLD will be appended to them, but I doubt I'll have to worry about that.

              Bob-

      • Re:$1 million (Score:5, Funny)

        by hackstraw ( 262471 ) * on Thursday March 31, 2005 @02:48PM (#12103082)
        "Lawmakers had demanded the $1 million federal study, ultimately called "Signposts in Cyberspace," under a 1998 federal law, the Next Generation Internet Research Act."

        Thats a bargain. It took between $6 and $10 million to figure out Clinton got head from a fat girl.
    • FTA: Lawmakers had demanded the $1 million federal study, ultimately called "Signposts in Cyberspace," under a 1998 federal law, the Next Generation Internet Research Act

      $1 million is pocket change to a gov.
    • You didn't RTFA, but you got frist psot. Congrats...?

  • The results are in: (Score:5, Funny)

    by Neil Blender ( 555885 ) <neilblender@gmail.com> on Thursday March 31, 2005 @02:03PM (#12102548)
    This internet thing is just a fad.

  • no more TLDs, please (Score:4, Informative)

    by suso ( 153703 ) * on Thursday March 31, 2005 @02:03PM (#12102549) Journal
    "We should probably have some more TLDs"

    I don't think we need any more TLDs. Especially since silly TLDs like .museum and .aero are created which are either too long, or aren't restricted in use to just museums and aerospace companies. I feel that online commerce has bent themselves on destroying the usefulness of DNS. Nearly one quarter if not more of ccTLDs can be purchased by the public and used for any purpose. What will happen when countries like Tuvalu (.tv) reach technological savyness and find that their entire TLD has been used up by TV networks, domain brokers and companies that felt they needed to register theirname.com, .net, .org, .cc, .mx, .name, .info, and .tv just in case someone actually thought of typing one of those instead.

    On top of that, some ccTLDs are being sold for crazy prices. I found one regist
    rar that was trying to sell .ro extensions for over $500/year. What?!? Why? D
    oes 'ro' mean something in the same way that 'tv' does?

    People need to learn to properly use what they have before we can move on. Unfortunately, this has rarely happened in our society and in the end sadly, money rules the day.

    • Re:no more TLDs, please (Score:5, Funny)

      by kevin_conaway ( 585204 ) on Thursday March 31, 2005 @02:06PM (#12102599) Homepage
      Unfortunately, this has rarely happened in our society and in the end sadly, money rules the day.

      --
      Need better website hosting or email? Visit suso.org [suso.org] and sign up for an account. Thanks!

      Your statement is kind of ironic with a link in your sig trying to get people to sign up for your pay service.
      • http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4396457. stm [bbc.co.uk]
        Yes, I know it's slightly offtopic, but interesting, no?

        • Re:Here's another study 7 years to late... (Score:2, Informative)

          by Anonymous Coward
          My cynicism is in full force after reading this news item today.

          Step 1: Claim there's WMD in Iraq.
          Step 2: In the face of the rest of the world disagreeing with you, invade.
          Step 3: When no WMD are found, launch an investigation into your intelligence.
          Step 4: Investigation demands that spy agencies are unified and should have more power.

          It's almost the perfect plan. You get to invade with no real reason (excepting the spin machine's claims of 'freedom and democracy') while simultaneously conglomerating
          • and my favorite quote from here [washingtonpost.com]:

            "Robb and Silberman agreed they had found no evidence that senior administration officials had sought to change the prewar intelligence in Iraq, possibly for political gain."

            Well DUH...they got EXACTLY what they wanted/asked for, why would they CHANGE anything in the intelligence reports?


      • Yeah, a little bit. However, I'm trying hard with suso.org to get things right by generally steering people in a more informed direction and respect things like the original intent of the domain name system. There is nothing wrong with running a business. But I think there is something wrong with trying to run a business solely to make money through confusing and tricking people. Consumers can be intelligent, but I think many businesses don't give them a chance to be and would prefer to keep them uninfo
    • From a quick google, .ro is for romania, not sure why it would be 500/year, unless its a differant currency.

    • Re:no more TLDs, please (Score:5, Insightful)

      by cmburns69 ( 169686 ) on Thursday March 31, 2005 @02:09PM (#12102635) Homepage Journal
      The problem is that nobody thinks "The company I'm looking for is an aerospace company, so I'll try name.aero". Everybody tries name.com, name.net and finally name.org (generally in that order).

      It is the classic chicken and egg problem. Until the general population knows how to use TLD's properly, companies will not start using them properly. But companies will not start using them properly until the general population knows how.
      • Why would anyone try .com, .aero or .net? Just enter the name in Google and you'll have your site MUCH faster.
      • Exactly! Until the egg hatches, the chicken will never be born. But the chicken will never be born until the egg hatches!
      • Everybody tries name.com, name.net and finally name.org (generally in that order).

        Everyone I know has typed "name" in google and clicked on the first link.

        TLDs are absolutely stupid. The only ones that mean anything are .edu, .gov, and .XX for country codes, all the others are the same or just bullshit domains that spammers bought from the .biz tld.

        • Re:no more TLDs, please (Score:3, Interesting)

          by lazlo ( 15906 )
          The only ones that mean anything are .edu, .gov, and .XX for country codes

          I would submit that .mil and .arpa also have meaning. Actually, very important meaning. The moral of the story is: The harder it is to get a domain name in a TLD, the more valuable that TLD is to the end user. The easier it is to get a domain in a particular TLD, the more valuable that TLD is percieved to be by its registrars.

      • It is the classic chicken and egg problem. Until the general population knows how to use TLD's properly, companies will not start using them properly. But companies will not start using them properly until the general population knows how.

        Actually, it's not a problem. Yeah, people don't know "how to use TLD's properly", but they really don't need to.

        Other people have correctly pointed out that if you can get to a site through the search engines, the URL doesn't matter. Generally, if you can't get a site

    • Re:no more TLDs, please (Score:4, Insightful)

      by FrankSchwab ( 675585 ) on Thursday March 31, 2005 @02:14PM (#12102683) Journal
      Gotta agree. More TLDs just mean more domain names that Microsoft, Walmart, Sears, etc., have to buy up, and don't really expand the number of names available.

      Do you really expect Walmart to be happy with Walmart.com, and not also snap up Walmart.biz, Walmart.org, Walmart.biz, Walmart.us, and anything else that comes up?

      Junk the TLDs. They were a good idea that has fatally flopped in the real world.

      /frank

    • Re:no more TLDs, please (Score:2, Interesting)

      by JCY2K ( 852841 )
      A couple new TLDs could be good. If they created a .sex domain it would make porn sights much easier to block. I agree that something like .museum is necessary but a couple that sector off specific parts of the net people want to steer their children or employees clear of would be good.

    • Re:no more TLDs, please (Score:5, Interesting)

      by breon.halling ( 235909 ) on Thursday March 31, 2005 @02:15PM (#12102709)
      ...countries like Tuvalu (.tv) reach technological savyness and find that their entire TLD has been used up by TV networks...

      According to Wikipedia: [wikipedia.org]

      "In 2000, Tuvalu negotiated a contract leasing its Internet domain name '.tv' for $50 million in royalties over the next dozen years."

      They seemed to have profitted from having the .TV TLD, so it's not all bad.

      • It may just be an urban myth, but didn't they fund an entire public health system from domain name sales?

        Really... are the people likely to be more worried about getting myname.tv, or getting fixed up when someone hits them because they didn't look while crossing the road?

    • Re:no more TLDs, please (Score:5, Interesting)

      by an_mo ( 175299 ) on Thursday March 31, 2005 @02:20PM (#12102769) Journal
      More, unlimited TLD, please. There is no technical reason why we should restrict addresses to .com, .org, etc... just free up the whole thing and let people choose the name they want to associate to their ip.
    • I agree. One TLD that I do wish they had created from the beginning, however, is a personal website TLD, like .per, or .me, or even .ws. That is one very common type of web site that did not fit very well into any of the original TLD categories (I know .org was supposed to be the preferred one, but I am not an organization), so you ended up with people using .net, .org, and .com indiscriminately for personal web sites. Of course, introducing one now wouldn't help any, especially since the TLDs have become s

    • Re:no more TLDs, please (Score:3, Insightful)

      by ajs ( 35943 )
      "I don't think we need any more TLDs. Especially since silly TLDs like .museum and .aero are created which are either too long, or aren't restricted in use to just museums and aerospace companies."

      You're restricting yourself to a view that has no technical value, and ultimately, almost no social value.

      Top level domains are meaningless. Secondary level domains are meaningless.

      They are keys into a database which is distributed around the world, and nothing more. The primary reason that we use them is that
    • TLDs suck. All of them. They shouldn't exist. I want to be able to type "chuck's plywood emporium" instead of blahblahblah.com.
    • It is true that "a few more TLDs" is no solution. However, a lot more TLDs would probably work handily. If there are several hundred TLDs, are companies actually going to register every single one?

      It also offers a handy solution to trademark issues and disposable domain names. Why not "matrix.movie" instead of "matrixmovie.com"? Do you actually think, if this were common, people would have more trouble with the former than the latter? It seems to me that if we had a ton of TLDs, and their usage actually m

    • So 3 problems I can see with DNS:

      1) ccTLD operators charging whatever they like
      2) ccTLD operators not having a default naming polity (eg .com.tv .org.tv .net.tv)
      3) Fake ccTLDs: yourname.uk.com

      Lack of TLDs is not one I would personally worry about, personally I dislike TLDs, each country should really be aiming for it's ccTLD rather than have everyone fight over who gets the yourname.com

    • Re:no more TLDs, please (Score:5, Insightful)

      by fossa ( 212602 ) <pat7 @ g mx.net> on Thursday March 31, 2005 @02:54PM (#12103158) Journal

      Yes, there are too many TLDs already. If you want to fix DNS, why not fix DNS.

      Things I like about the telephone directory:

      Allows names with spaces

      Allows names with punctuation (O'Malley)

      Allows entries with identical names

      Corporations still have trademark law

      I think the only thing ".com" is good for is making it obvious that you're talking about a website.

    • Re:no more TLDs, please (Score:3, Informative)

      by dave1g ( 680091 )
      That country willingly sold off (possibly leased?)its rights to the .tv domain. Its poor population was much better served by that transaction than reserving .tv domains for its citizens.

      The market put a price on .tv. The government of Tuvalu said CHA-CHING! Everyone is happy and everyone benefits.
    • I agree, too many TLDs is starting to be painful. Far from expanding the namespace, it just makes it easier to block everything .tv, .us and .ro, since they're full of crap.

      Bring back enforced registration rules!

      No, seriously. I would be happy if .com, .net and .org were all restricted to commerical, networking and non-profit respectively (no country-specific limits on these), country TLDs were restricted to the country they're intended for.

      I would be happy to use .per for a personal site if it meant tha

  • Typical government study... (Score:5, Funny)

    by stlhawkeye ( 868951 ) on Thursday March 31, 2005 @02:04PM (#12102567) Homepage Journal
    ...after spending 10 years and 13 billion dollars of tax payer money, we are proud to announce to the US Department of Bureaucracy has determined that the Internet is:
    • Big
    • Complicated
    • Busy
    • Using Electrons
    • Full of pornography
    We won't be able to really relax our collective guard until they add unregulatable to this list.

  • New Study (Score:5, Funny)

    by klatty ( 871061 ) on Thursday March 31, 2005 @02:05PM (#12102579)
    I hear that they also just finished their study on electricity.

    Findings include: "AC good for long distance" and that "devices that use this new technology may sometime exist throughout a common home"
    • I thought you were going to say the presidential inquiry had determined that flying a kite in a storm is bad for your health.

  • They should have... (Score:4, Funny)

    by DaFitzMan ( 872281 ) on Thursday March 31, 2005 @02:05PM (#12102583)
    just asked Al Gore. He could have filled them in a lot quicker.
    • Which of the internets was he an expert on?

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
      Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • Lighten up. It's just a joke that people like to make over and over. We all like to laugh at politicians and really, if this is all they have, big deal. This joke has just become part of pop culture. I do admit though, it doesn't take great wit to make this joke and it's sad to see professional comedians still make reference to it. So, to you: Lighten up. To Others: Get over it and give us some new material.
      • "You are a victim of spin"

        No, you are. This is one of the worse Snopes articles, as it tries to gloss over these important facts:

        Gore did claim to be the one to bring the Internet into being while in Congress. He used the word "Create". "Invent" means the same thing in this context.

        Gore's claim was incorrect: the Internet had already existed, and was called the Internet for a few years before he was in Congress.

        • Damn straight.

          And John Kennedy had nothing to do with putting a man on the moon. After all he didn't invent any rockets. Rockets existed before him. He didn't pilot the rockets. He didn't make space suits. He didn't leave his foot prints on the moon. He did NOTHING.

          Well, except he put the political pressure together on all the right agencies to get moving. .... And he made sure the necessary money was appropriated for it. ... and he guided other political groups, Congress and private industry to work toge

          • Bad analogies (Score:3, Insightful)

            by AtariAmarok ( 451306 )
            "And John Kennedy had nothing to do with putting a man on the moon"

            Kennedy did launch the Apollo program, actually. But the reason yout analogy is BAD is because the Internet existed before Gore claimed he created it. We did not put a man on the moon before Kennedy started Apollo. A matter of order of events that you are forgetting.

            "And it turns out that these are all the same things that Gore did for the internet. Parts existed prior to Gore"

            It existed, and it was called the Internet. Others created

      • You know, everyone else has gotten over the 2000 election.

  • DNS is good? (Score:4, Funny)

    by vidarlo ( 134906 ) <vidarlo@bitsex.net> on Thursday March 31, 2005 @02:05PM (#12102584) Homepage
    Without DNS, domain spoofing would've been kinda impossible...

  • more tie-ins (Score:5, Funny)

    by justforaday ( 560408 ) on Thursday March 31, 2005 @02:05PM (#12102587)
    Ahhh. Good to see another tie-in story [slashdot.org]...

  • Did the survey include.... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by LordPhantom ( 763327 ) on Thursday March 31, 2005 @02:05PM (#12102589)
    .....anything about terror orgs using the 'net?
    .....anything about how something called "broadband" would be "all the rage" in a few years?
    .....anything about what this new-fangled thing called "SPAM" is?

    Seriously, you would think that even the GOVERNMENT would be able to react more quickly than that in a tech market that changes by the month. If they planned this thing back in 1998 to take this long the planning committee and folks who approved the money should be brought up on criminal neglegance charges!

  • We should probably have some more TLDs? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Omega ( 1602 ) on Thursday March 31, 2005 @02:06PM (#12102597) Homepage
    "We should probably have some more TLDs"
    Yes because we haven't dilluted the overall TLD structure enough already. It used to be that .org, .edu, .com, .net and .gov had distinct, unique purposes. Now we have .biz, .info and .name? Please, someone tell me what these new TLD's add to the overall namespace (aside from ongoing legal battles over trademarks).

    Was this study done by domain resellers?

  • Fewer TLDs are needed (Score:5, Insightful)

    by OrangeTide ( 124937 ) on Thursday March 31, 2005 @02:06PM (#12102607) Homepage Journal
    I have a hard enough time getting people to use .net instead of .com on my email address. Too bad someone already took the .com version of my domain else I'd just have that too so people who didn't "get" it could still send me email.
    • We need new TLDs so that the domain speculation companies can register tens of thousands more domain names and auction them on eBay. :)

    • Re:Fewer TLDs are needed (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Someone else didn't take the .com version of your domain, you took the .net version of THEIR domain. Notice how they paid for it and registered it before you? Thats why they have it and you don't.

  • so.. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Turn-X Alphonse ( 789240 ) on Thursday March 31, 2005 @02:06PM (#12102609) Journal
    So they can investigate reasons to goto war in a couple of weeks yet to find out porn and slashdot waste alot of geeks time takes 7 years.

    Ever get the feeling the people doing the study got addicted to slashdot?

  • tdl... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by bird603568 ( 808629 ) on Thursday March 31, 2005 @02:07PM (#12102616)
    maybe if they had a .blog for blogs, .xxx for the porn and and so on it would be much easyer than making .tk and .tv and .ro (what is that?). The .xxx would cut google time in half.

    • Re:tdl... (Score:2, Insightful)

      by sudorm ( 872271 )
      If pr0n sites had mandatory .xxx TDL's then it would make filtering easier and save businesses money on productivity software. Probably a better idea than that Utah ISP filtering software law.

      • Re:tdl... (Score:4, Insightful)

        by ad0gg ( 594412 ) on Thursday March 31, 2005 @02:43PM (#12103023)
        And who would determine what is porn and what is not? Do breast implant doctors have to be in the .xxx tld if they have client before and after photos? Does photographer have to be in the .xxx tld, if they have a couple nude artworks on their sitework? Obscenity is hard enough for to be judge in America, now you going to judge it world wide?

        • make it voluntary (Score:3, Insightful)

          by Heisenbug ( 122836 )
          This is a great point, and I'd hate to see .xxx legally required, but that doesn't make it useless. It simply becomes an easy flag that says "I would prefer that whoever you consider to be minors not have access to this material." The vast majority of porn sites aren't interested in underage users anyway, I bet -- they don't have credit cards and they cause trouble if the parents find out. Are there any problems with xxx as a voluntary tool?

          I guess the only one that comes to mind for me is that not every "
    • .ro (what is that?)
      Romania. Some country in Europe (.eu).

  • Conspiracy theory! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Underholdning ( 758194 ) on Thursday March 31, 2005 @02:07PM (#12102619) Homepage Journal
    Coincidence? [slashdot.org] I think not!

  • Sorry, it's my fault. (Score:5, Funny)

    by The Lurker King ( 171562 ) on Thursday March 31, 2005 @02:08PM (#12102625) Homepage
    Sorry everyone, it's my fault. You know how you get some directive from management and you just throw it on your desk and forget about it? Well, eventually it gets buried under everything else I was working and quickly forgotten about. (Didn't we just have a previous post about how 95% of software projects are late?) Anyway, I was doing some spring cleaning last week and found it.

    Again, my apologies. It won't happen again.

  • Can you hear that gurgling sound? (Score:3, Funny)

    by Darren Winsper ( 136155 ) on Thursday March 31, 2005 @02:08PM (#12102628)
    That's the sound of millions of dollars going down the drain!

  • Dejavu! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Orangez ( 871612 ) on Thursday March 31, 2005 @02:10PM (#12102649) Homepage Journal
    Quote from the article: "To be honest, most people forgot it was ever going to happen" [end quote]. I'm still counting on that every time a deadline arrives...

  • DNS is good (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Lovesquid ( 840251 )
    So basically, we had one dude getting paid $250k per year to surf pr0n and read /. all day long for 7 years, doing "research", until one day, a week ago, his supervisors remembered what he was there for and told him to report on his findings by today. So he pulled an all-nighter, cooked up "DNS is good" and "we need more TLDs", made liberal use of copy and paste, and published it.

    A perfect example of your tax dollars at work. I sure am glad we aren't spending it on education or space exploration or somet
  • When they STARTED the report:

    1998: The iMac is introduced. I go ho-hum, my wife goes "I WANT ONE!" Steve Jobs is proclaimed to be next to God in design and everyone starts knocking off iMac colors.

    Today: iPod is what is hip. It is expected to exceed Mac in the next year or so. Steve Jobs is proclaimed to be reviving the music industry (which thinks it is God).

    So I wonder how current the info is in the report?

  • DNS is good! (Score:2, Funny)

    by Canordis ( 826884 )
    This reminds me of a Dilbert cartoon. Dilbert writes a memo, made up of three points:

    1 Oxygen is good.
    2 Competition is bad.
    3 I like jelly.

    And then the pointy-haired boss would tell him to take out the part about competition...
    Is Dilbert working for the US gov't?
  • What I want to know, does it say that Al Gore invented it?

  • The most needed TLD (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Nom du Keyboard ( 633989 ) on Thursday March 31, 2005 @02:23PM (#12102811)
    We should probably have some more TLDs

    The TLD we all need most of all: .sux

    A place where no coropration is ever allowed to register their own trademark!

  • In other news (Score:5, Funny)

    by UnknowingFool ( 672806 ) on Thursday March 31, 2005 @02:23PM (#12102817)
    After a 15 year study, NASA confirms Douglas Adams' ground breaking insight:
    Space is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly hugely mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist, but that's just peanuts to space...
    • A sentence or two past that one in Hitchhiker's Guide is (IMO) one of the funniest quotes in the entire series:
      Even light, which travels so fast that it takes most races thousands of years to realize that it travels at all, takes time to journey between the stars.
      That still makes me laugh.

  • Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Thursday March 31, 2005 @02:27PM (#12102849)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • decentralization (Score:2, Interesting)

    by gatrox ( 826121 )
    It also recommended those traffic-directing computers continue to be operated by volunteers, organizations and corporations around the world rather than governments.
    This seems to be an important conclusion of the study, which the summary failed to mention...

  • How about replacing internet1 ? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Billly Gates ( 198444 ) on Thursday March 31, 2005 @02:34PM (#12102915) Journal
    TCP/IP was designed to be reduant incase of a nuclear war. It was never meant to be secure or high performance.

    I think a new secure (non drm) and multimedia and fiber optic friendly replacement is needed. Also application level protocals could use some new standards as well.

    For example Email is a problem that both phishers and spammers are taking advantage of. I heard about Dmail as a replacement for SMTP and Pop3.

    I am thinking perhaps several levels of security servers similiar to dns servers producing encryption keys and authenticating phisher scams (maybe a legit business could get a unique key) and email addresses would be nice. Its also too easy to spoof an IP address. Maybe security in a new DNS model that hands out keys would be nice too.

    However Internet2 which is being experimented with has its own set of problems. Internet2 mainly deals with IPV6. IPv6 supposed to be a little bit better but spammers and phishers could change their IP addresses by the hour to prevent being caught and being filtered out. We need a better replacement that is more secure and allows better application level embedding for external protocals.

    If I were a politician I would do this just and have Darpa and a few companies and academics invest in a newer architecture.

    More router friendly support would be nice too to deal with bandwith allocation for different kinds of services like VOIP and UDP media streaming.

  • If this was commissioned in 1998, during Bill Clinton's perj^H^H^H^Hpresidency, and then concluded during GWB's perj^H^H^H^Hpresidency...

    Was someone the Perj^H^H^H^HPresident in between them?
  • Now if only someone would invent a way to quickly disseminate the information to those who need it...

  • Government in Action (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Scott7477 ( 785439 ) on Thursday March 31, 2005 @03:07PM (#12103297) Homepage Journal
    A conclusion one might draw from the article is that one can only study things that don't change:)...Seriously, though.
    The main problem that this incident shows to me is how difficult it is to kill a government program of any kind once it has been started. Since the study was driven by an act of Congress, it would have taken another bill passed through the entire legislative process to kill the study. Since the people contracted to do the study and the congressmen of whatever state the study was done in had every incentive to keep the thing going, some other group would have had to notice and start a push to get rid of this.
    Since it was a small budget item buried in the massive federal budget, nobody noticed it. If it had been noticed and some representative had brought the issue up in the House, the reps from the state involved would have thrown a fit. So it sticks around.
    It's important to know that once something is authorized by Congress, it is budgeted for every year unless it is specifically killed in a budget bill.
    In Bush's last budget request, the administration included a list of small programs like this one that they wanted to kill. Of course, every single item on the list had reps saying how critical it was to keep the funding.
    Maybe we should be spending a little more time looking at what the government is actually doing rather than talking about tinfoil hats and berating George Lucas.

    Cheers...

  • TLDs I'd like to see (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Phroggy ( 441 ) * <slashdot3@@@phroggy...com> on Thursday March 31, 2005 @05:13PM (#12104786) Homepage
    .movie .radio .stock

    Every movie has a web site, but there's no way you could possibly guess the URL to most of them. If there were a restricted .movie TLD, studios could register the title of the movie under that TLD. Sure, there'd be a few conflicts, but it wouldn't be that bad.

    Every radio and television station is assigned call letters by the FCC (well, the station chooses, but the FCC actually assigns it). Stations usually also choose a name that they use for marketing, usually related to their call letters somehow. There would be quite a bit of overlap [google.com] if radio stations could register their chosen marketing name under the .radio TLD, but registering their call letters seems like a pretty good idea to me (many already have with .com anyway, but there's really not much consistency here).

    I'm not sure if .stock is the best choice here, but it'd be nice to be able to enter a company's ticker symbol and get their web site. For example, mot.com and hpq.com are owned by those companies, but again this isn't standardized. I'd expect this TLD to be used mostly for redirects to a more attractive domain name (notice how www.mot.com redirects to www.motorola.com).

    Again, these TLDs would be useless if they weren't carefully restricted, but if usage became common enough that you could expect the domains to be registered, it would probably be pretty useful.

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