November 2005 - Utah-Astronomy - mailman.xmission.com

Re: [Utah-astronomy] RE: Showdown Could Break Up Internet
by Michael Carnes 15 Nov '05

15 Nov '05

While I don't disagree with many of Robert's points (although I don't have the reflexive dislike of the French that seems to be popular these days), one shouldn't think of the U.S. as completely innocent in this. Our own government has made several attempts over recent years to have access to private emails and various personal transactions on the net--things that are none of their damned business--and U.S. "control" of the net makes it considerably simpler to force implementation of this intrusiveness. Yeah, Chirac and various other boogeymen may see the net as some sort of golden goose, but business and private individuals alike won't let those wacky taxation schemes happen. And it is simple chauvinism to assume that all technological innovation comes from the U.S. My own company--American owned, but with engineering centers all over the U.S. and Europe--puts me in daily contact with engineers from Germany, Switzerland, England, France, Italy, etc--and I can assure you that there are bright and innovative people all over the world. The world has caught up with us (or we've slowed down to them). Internet penetration is considerably deeper in many parts of Europe than it is here. There's a chance that we might just have something to learn if we tone down the rah-rah business a little. >There has been much talk and effort by various countries and international >bodies about wresting control of the Internet from the US.

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RE: Showdown Could Break Up Internet
by Robert Taylor 15 Nov '05

15 Nov '05

There are a lot of comments above that deserve a response however I don't want to add any more politics to this board than I already have so I will refrain. If you would like a response send me a private e-mail. Regarding Patrick's comments: The U.S. controls the root commands and basic structure of the internet, we created it, and we have been the custodian of it if you will, although most of those duties have been passed off to universities and private companies. So the US does control the Net to the extent that it can be controlled but this does not mean that the US could turn it OFF per se. The internet by design is decentralized (now into most countries) and difficult to turn-off and would view any attempt to disable or interfere with it by simply re-routing. This is where it shows its Defense Department roots. I don't think it could really be turned off at this point even if we wanted to. Much of the debate about the future of the Net is due to its own success, it can not grow forever with its current addressing system, at one point the Net will have to move to a more robust and expandable addressing system. Without getting too technical there are a few halfway measures in place right now, using more domain suffixes like BIZ, FIRM and others as well as some beefing up of some of the other suite protocols. This will buy some time but the underlying TCP/IP scheme (ver.4 is the current standard) is showing its age and limitations. I believe TCP/IP version 8 is currently in development; none of the previous versions 5, 6, or 7 of TCP/IP have been deployed in large scale, I don't know that there are any definite plans to deploy the new version. The main point here that eventually we'll have to go to a newer version, if you're going to change the Net that would be the time to do it. Bob Taylor

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Re: [Utah-astronomy] RE: Showdown Could Break Up Internet
by Michael Carnes 15 Nov '05

15 Nov '05

Let's see here... We have mail protocols that allow return addresses to be spoofed so that there's no clear way to determine if incoming mail is real, simple spam, or a security problem. Over half of email traffic is spam. We have no quick ways to protect servers from denial of service attacks. Many users spend a good amount of their time and money attempting to protect themselves from viruses and spyware. So who says it ain't broke? > From what I've heard, the U.S. is standing firm against a takeover. >This is a classic example of, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." --

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RE: Showdown Could Break Up Internet
by Robert Taylor 15 Nov '05

15 Nov '05

There has been much talk and effort by various countries and international bodies about wresting control of the Internet from the US. The US of course created the basic infrastructure of the internet back in the 60's starting with DARPANet. Universities got on board in the 70's and 80's and eventually it became what we have today. It is at its foundation a US project, worse than that, a US Defense Dept. project. Now that the whole world is using the Internet there are a lot of countries that don't want the US to have control and oversight of the internet they've come to depend on. Recently there have been many proposals to internationalize the Internet to take it away from US control. Jacque Chirac, the President of France has said the Internet should come under UN control and should be taxed. Can you think of a worse scenario? The monies, coming mostly from the US as we are the biggest users, could then be used to support some of his pet projects. China would like to see a stronger censoring system put into place under the guise of national security. Other countries have been trying for years to put their own stamp on the internet. I personally believe the heart of this issue is envy of the US for having put this thing together, this is killing the Europeans, particularly the French, and most importantly internationalizing the internet would allow it to be taxed, which is what the Europeans want and will happen if the Europeans get their way. Could the Internet be broken up? It's possible but I doubt it. It would require other countries to take themselves off the Net and creating their own version. There could be gateways between the systems (theirs and the rest of the world) but I think everyone knows that this would be a really bad idea and would cut their country off from much of the benefit of the Net. Quite frankly I think they're all too lazy and unwilling to spend the money to do it, easier and cheaper to try to take it away from us. I think what you'll continue to hear is a greater and louder call for the Internet to be internationalized, soon after rich countries (read US) could be taxed by the international body in charge, presumably the UN, and the money would go in the Black Hole of the UN. I can't think of too many things worse than these people, particularly the Europeans, getting their way with the internet. This is one thing the US has done right and world is benefiting from it. In fact it may be the most important invention in human history. Letting the UN or any other international body take it over would be a travesty we must all fight against. Bob Taylor

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Post Office issues Constellation stamp series
by Canopus56 15 Nov '05

15 Nov '05

Of passing interest - http://shop.usps.com/cgi-bin/vsbv/postal_store_non_ssl/browse_content/press… - C __________________________________ Yahoo! Mail - PC Magazine Editors' Choice 2005 http://mail.yahoo.com

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Showdown Could Break Up Internet
by Patrick Wiggins 14 Nov '05

14 Nov '05

Any of you IT folks here care to express an opinion as to whether this really could happen? http://www.terradaily.com/news/cyberwar-05zzi.html Curious Patrick

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Caldwell catalog
by Chuck Hards 14 Nov '05

14 Nov '05

I bought S&T's laminated Caldwell card years ago, I wonder if it's still available? Extremely handy at the eyepiece. All-sky map on one side, catalog, coordinates, and descriptions on the other. __________________________________ Yahoo! Mail - PC Magazine Editors' Choice 2005 http://mail.yahoo.com

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New images
by Edward Lunt 14 Nov '05

14 Nov '05

Hi everyone; I have just updated my photo album with: 1)one image of M1 (Crab Nebula) 2)two images of M45 (Pleiades or Seven Sisters) 3)two images of NGC891 4)two images of the Perseus Galaxy Cluster images can be seen at: http://www.edsgalaxy.com Thanks for looking; Ed Lunt __________________________________ Yahoo! FareChase: Search multiple travel sites in one click. http://farechase.yahoo.com

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Neat picture
by Patrick Wiggins 14 Nov '05

14 Nov '05

Just came across this image of asteroid Itokawa as seen from the Japanese spacecraft Hayabusa ("Falcon" in English) when the spacecraft was about 70 meters from the surface. The part I found fun was that the craft's shadow is plainly visible on the asteroid's surface. More details in tomorrow's issue of News but here's the picture: http://www.isas.jaxa.jp/j/snews/2005/image/1112_itokawa.jpg Patrick

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Re: [Utah-astronomy] New images
by Michael Carnes 14 Nov '05

14 Nov '05

Nice shots, Ed. I think the NGC891's are my faves. --mc Hi everyone; I have just updated my photo album with: 1)one image of M1 (Crab Nebula) 2)two images of M45 (Pleiades or Seven Sisters) 3)two images of NGC891 4)two images of the Perseus Galaxy Cluster images can be seen at: http://www.edsgalaxy.com Thanks for looking; Ed Lunt

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