Mother of Internet Speaks Out 114
Anonymous Coward writes to tell us that Radia Perlman, sometimes called the "Mother of the Internet" for her invention of the spanning tree algorithm used by bridges and switches, recently gave a very candid interview with NetworkWorld. From the interview: "The taste of whoever is in the funding agencies tends to cause everyone to look at the same stuff at the same time. Often technologies get hot then go away. There was active networking for a while, which always mystified me and has now died. In security the money is behind digital rights management, which I think ultimately is a bad thing -- not that we need to preserve the right to pirate music, but because the solutions are things that don't solve the real problems in terms of security."
Mother of the Internet? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Mother of the Internet? (Score:1)
Re:Mother of the Internet? (Score:1)
I am the Mother of all Internets.
Re:Mother of the Internet? (Score:2)
Examine the quote carefully, "I took the initiative in creating the internet."
Clearly, someone else had the initiative, Mr. Gore became envious and absconded it.
Re:Mother of the Internet? (Score:1)
Re:Mod? (Score:1)
Thank you.
-Managment
Re:Mod? (Score:2)
Re:Mod? (Score:1)
Layer 2 Protocols Run the Internet? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Layer 2 Protocols Run the Internet? (Score:1)
Sure, but the algorithm makes the interconnecting of layer 2 networks easy, permitting IP routing to do its job of traversing those L2 networks.
Re:Layer 2 Protocols Run the Internet? (Score:2, Informative)
STP, in a nutshell, stops router loops from happening. When a router loop happens, all packets caught in the loop will just keep going and going and going, kinda like the energizer bunny, around in a circle amongst some routers not actually going anywhere useful. Once enough packets get caught in the loop either your routers die or there's so much tra
Re:Layer 2 Protocols Run the Internet? (Score:2, Informative)
I call BS!
STP is a layer two protocol mostly implemented in Ethernet PHY switches to prevent SWITCHING loops from occurring. When more than one physical connection is present between switches, STP turns off a switching port to prevent the loop.
In modern telecoms networks, the switching architectures mainly use Frame relay, SDH / SONET, MPLS or ATM. These switching architectures do not use STP in any form, since they use virtual circuits to perform
Re:Layer 2 Protocols Run the Internet? (Score:1)
Re:Layer 2 Protocols Run the Internet? (Score:2)
Re:Layer 2 Protocols Run the Internet? (Score:2)
Re:Layer 2 Protocols Run the Internet? (Score:2)
STP prevents loops that will take a network down. We are currently going through all of our layer 2 switches and enabling it as loops have cost us a lot. Yes, our network uses IP routing to run, but that doesn't negate any layer beneath layer 3. The layers build on one another, and, thus, her invention provided stability for layer 2 and everything above it....
Government Take Over of Research (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Government Take Over of Research (Score:5, Interesting)
I think it's safe to say that most research throughout history has always been driven by government and specificially the military. The vast majority of inventions and innovations come from the military and government. So, I'm not sure what you are basing this on, but I don't think that having government involvement in funding research is a new thing or a bad thing.
Re:Government Take Over of Research (Score:3, Insightful)
Yeah, they are kind of like a big huggable IP firm that doesn't sue for royalties (unless you count the IRS).
Re:Government Take Over of Research (Score:2)
Re:Government Take Over of Research (Score:5, Interesting)
My first instinct in reading your post is that you don't know what you're talking about. I think since WWII, the government, and specifically military has always been a big funder of academic and industry research.
So... I decided to take 2 seconds and look up the history of the transitor. Now I know its a stretch sometimes looking to Wikipedia, but from here [wikipedia.org] I see
"On 22 December 1947 William Shockley, John Bardeen and Walter Brattain succeeded in building the first practical point-contact transistor at Bell Labs. This work followed from their war-time efforts to produce extremely pure germanium "crystal" mixer diodes, used in radar units as a frequency mixer element in microwave radar receivers."
Seriously dude, I know blaming the government for everything is cool and all, but at least try.
Re:Government Take Over of Research (Score:2)
The tradition is quite long (Score:2)
Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) used to be a military engineer and architect for quite some time, to pay his bills.
Re:Government Take Over of Research (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Government Take Over of Research (Score:2)
I disagree. A monopoly is a horrible thing, unless it's heavily regulated and controlled by the government.
If there were a choice between having an abusive monopoly doing research, or the government doing research, I'd choose the latter. The problem with abusive monopolies is that they prey on consumers, with high prices. Some good may come from it because of their research, but their main goal is profit. Wit
Re:Government Take Over of Research (Score:1)
But I certainly agree that nobody is picking up the slack.
And yet, I would prefer the money-hungry ogres of corp america over the kill-hungry government as funding my research.
So much of what Darpa and NSF are funding are simply either Congression
Re:Government Take Over of Research (Score:2)
More info on bridge problems and solutions (Score:2)
http://www.postel.org/rbridge/infocom04-talk.pdf [postel.org]
I dunno if this is the best thing to post, but it does discuss some of the problems with bridges and a proposed solution. Note, at the time it was called "Rbridges" but was since renamed Trill.
ietf.org has a lot of presentations on Trill/Rbridges...
Wrong anchortext: Mother of Internet (Score:2, Interesting)
It's mindboggling to me how slowly this supposedly tech-savvy community is coming to terms with formulating a consistent, user-friendly policy about anchortext.
If you use the name of the magazine, it implies you're going to the homepage of the magazine, not to the article itself, so don't do that. (And we don't need a link to that homepage at all-- i
Re:Wrong anchortext: Mother of Internet (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Wrong anchortext: Mother of Internet (Score:1, Offtopic)
Re:Wrong anchortext: Mother of Internet (Score:4, Informative)
This might be a quite radical conception about the hyperlink, but I think that the overwhelming majority of human users are using a browser which shows context around the link so it doesn't matter whether you say click here [example.com] or link [example.com] or "I found the most interesting description of how to build a Beowolf cluster of hot grits [example.com] while I was browsing Slashdot earlier today", the user will be able to know what the link pertains to regardless. The only major group of users who really need that extra reinforcement in the link text are spiders (and, because I should make at least a token effort to recognize that usability is important, folks with clients which have an extremely small "field of vision" whether thats because of their client not being on a traditional PC or because their client is non-visual). Both of these user groups benefit a heck of a lot more from "Mother of the Internet" than they do from "article".
Re:Wrong anchortext: Mother of Internet (Score:1)
Not in isolation, but "Radia Perlman interview" is a plausble search and there's no guarantee of the interview containing the word "interview". Most do, but no guarantee.
Why don't the DRM Nazis understand this (Score:5, Insightful)
And she's exactly right. Pirates aren't defeated by DRM, but land lubbers trying to exercise their fair use rights are. Just as a f'rinstance, I just this weekend had to order a fresh copy of my favorite game (No One Lives Forever 2) because the CD got damaged. As an informed end user, I had long ago tried making a backup disk to use so as not to damage the original, but the backup disk didn't work. As a lilly-livered non-pirate type, I did not use a "no-cd" crack to circumvent the publishers wishes and violate DMCA. You can bet I will this next time around, though. What has the game publisher accomplished? They've turned an honest, paying customer into someone willing to download and use illegal cracks. Good job, guys.
Re:Why don't the DRM Nazis understand this (Score:2, Interesting)
first thing I do when buying any new game is go download a cracked ISO of it so I can burn the copies I need. I also gram the Keygen, the cracks and specifically the no-cd crack and build a companion CD for the game. I then burn my CD copy and put the real disc away in my media safe.
Why do I do this?? so in 5 years I can take that game out and actually play it. Too many of these asshole programmers and publishers make their crap call-home-ware and
Re:Why don't the DRM Nazis understand this (Score:2)
Re:Why don't the DRM Nazis understand this (Score:2)
TuxRacer and Mahjongg are good enough for me anyway.
Re:Why don't the DRM Nazis understand this (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Why don't the DRM Nazis understand this (Score:3, Interesting)
So for parents at least, there are perfectly legitimate reasons for wanting to copy DVDs.
Re:Why don't the DRM Nazis understand this (Score:2)
My kids (3 and 5) don't get to play with CDs and DVDs at all -- not even copies. Even making copies is too labor intensive, as the kids destroy them in very short order.
Daemon Tools [daemon-tools.cc] and Daemonscript [daemon-tools.cc] and a big hard drive are my friends in that regard. The kid's computer has all
Re:Why don't the DRM Nazis understand this (Score:2)
Re:Why don't the DRM Nazis understand this (Score:2)
Re:Why don't the DRM Nazis understand this (Score:2)
DRM isn't TRYING to solve YOUR security (Score:2)
Re:Why don't the DRM Nazis understand this (Score:1)
Once again, folks, this isn't about defeating pirates. In fact the methods being used are protecting the street vendors who usually only sell ??AA content. As been said ad nauseum, it's to keep "non-aligned"(independent) creators out of public view.
They've turned an honest, paying customer into someone willing to download and use illegal cracks.
That's the idea. To make you a criminal. To put you at risk of arrest and have your equipement siezed at any moment. My advice to al
"don't solve" (Score:4, Insightful)
Of course they don't solve security problems, but they create new problems for which they can "sell" these as solutions. This technique (create a solution then convince people they have a problem) has greatly "evolved" recently. However, besides not solving security problems, they create new meaning for "rights management", "trusted computing", etc. We could just probably get to live the day when pirate will mean police and stealing will mean giving. We will have to solve the same problems but by calling them differently they will make us believe the old problems are gone and these are new problems to be solved.
Do I make sense ? No, not really. But I'm too lazy to delete
Mother, you had me, but I never had you... (Score:1, Offtopic)
What is a mother to do when she realizes all her children care about is making money?
If we are done picking TFS apart letter by letter. (Score:5, Insightful)
I like to think of all security as a battle of will, your willingnes to keep your stuff and a thiefs willingness to take your stuff. When you are trying ot sell somethig ad secure it thinks get tricky because you need to make it avalable to your customers but not those who would take it without alienating your potental customers.
In the end I see the RIAA and MPAA making there products so bloated with DRM and low quality because of it that eventualy companies will wake up to the true causes of there shrinking profits and move away from the cartels.
I see the same thing hapening in quite a few industrys in the next couple of years actualy.
in terms of security?... a bit terse methinks.. (Score:2, Insightful)
but this guy doesn't even talk about the more important factors surrounding DRM, mainly the fact that DRM as it is currently considered and the laws which currently protect it are diametrically opposed to a free and competitive marketplace without barriers to entry.
Every market in which DRM is perpetuated becomes gated off to only two types of competitors, c
Re:in terms of security?... a bit terse methinks.. (Score:2)
Only on slashdot could a rambling, confused, semi-understandable post like this one ("corporates" are bad, unless they're created for the purpose selling DVD-cracking software, in which case they contribute to the economy) get modded insightful. Apparently, OP thinks the "Mother of the Internet" is a man and that Radia Perlman is an obscure person (I'm forced to guess a bit here at the meaning). But he's "insightful" because he knows tha
Re:in terms of security?... a bit terse methinks.. (Score:2)
i was talking about the quote, not the person, and forgive me for having blurred vision while on a study break during finals pal.
That said, you need to justify your dig at DVD decryptor as if it's some kind of evil thing. Who says it is a "tool for piracy"? I guess the vcr is also a "tool for piracy".. imagine.. millions apon millions of people "stealing" tv via these "VCR's"... the vcr is to the movie producer what the boston strangler
Re:in terms of security?... a bit terse methinks.. (Score:2)
When you say you were talking about "the quote" I can only assume you mean the one in the original Slashdot pos
Re:in terms of security?... a bit terse methinks.. (Score:1)
This person is obviously intelligent. She, from what i'm reading here, invented the algorith for routing table updates.
With that said, she should know better than to speak of DRM from the security side of things because
Interface (Score:3, Insightful)
Consistently the most overlooked element of design.
I think the problem is inherent in that the problem is that the people who know how to build things are the ones who are used to figuring things out and making things straightforward. But they're mistaken in assuming that making things "straightforward" -- making it clear how the system operates, really -- is the right way to make things easy to use. Generally, it takes a lot of cleverness to make an interface that a person who has an idea of what they want to do can sit down and use with no manual. And no one is being paid to solve that problem.
People aren't spending time looking for better metaphors, and they're being stumbled on here and there by accident, often misapplied for years. It seems like Apple is the only group out there pouring money into UI design, and, from iPod to OS X, we're all reaping the benefits -- directly or indirectly.
As another poster's sig mentioned, letting programmers name flagship applications makes as much sense as letting marketers write them. Part of the solution is hiring marketers (or UI experts), and part of it is teaching the engineers at all levels a little bit of marketing.
Re:Interface (Score:1)
Re:Interface-- Industrial Design Not marketing (Score:2)
In a simplified definition, industrial design is how to make an object more user friendly/functional.
Some industrial designers have taken an extreme of form over function but, the field is supposed to take the ideal of function over form. Industrial designers should assist in making an object-user relationship work extremely well, while also attempting to make the object look/feel very good for it's purpose.
This almost forgotten aspect of Industrial D
Radia is to networking... (Score:1)
Why the EULA (Score:5, Insightful)
So true. So true! I really wonder how this trend started? And it looks like there's no going back. Are there alternates to this kind of EULA. Something like more responsible EULA. Why are the customers paying through their noses when the manufacturers accept *no responsibility*!?
Re:Why the EULA (Score:2)
It is only (what I call as) *retail* software that have EULA's as vague as this, and for that, you'd have to blame software manufacturers such as Microsoft and Adobe.
suing SW developers (Score:1)
Daydreaming... What if we could sue Microsoft for all the security loop holes?
Seriously, what would the effect of actualy being able to successfully sue a software programmer f
Candor (Score:2, Redundant)
Where should the funding go?
The things that seem absolutely unsolvable but that we have to solve is the user interface stuff. Everything is so complicated. People tell you to turn off cookies because they are dangerous, but you can't talk to anything on the Web without using them. People build this horribly complicated software, put up all these mysterious pop-up boxes and then blame the users when things don't go right. I keep hearing people say, like with distributed denial of service, that there a
Radia Perlman's book of numbers (Score:5, Interesting)
Hi, Radia.
Re:Radia Perlman's book of numbers (Score:2, Interesting)
Re: (Score:1, Redundant)
DRM again? (Score:1)
Even this article, that's mostly about networking, has elicited a predominantly DRM focussed discussion. And no, telling me to use the filters doesn't count, because she wrote over 12 paragraphs on networking and technology, and 80%+ of the discussion here is on her one DRM paragraph.
Turn off your friggin TV, take the
Re:DRM again? (Score:1)
/me shivers (Score:1)
Re:Rhea Perlman? (Score:2, Funny)
That explains it! (Score:2, Funny)
No wonder the Internet is constantly cranky, yet lovable.
Re:That explains it! (Score:2, Funny)