Posts by Nextweek 111 publicly visible posts • joined 14 Jul 2009
> I mean, it's not like anything fundamental that everyone uses is missing like, say, NAT or anything?
Arrgggg, surely we're past having to educate people about this now. NAT was a dirty hack, it's not required. There is large enough address range not to run out and if you like security (which we all do) you have firewalls and the security extensions.
FFS.
How about the benefits we'll get from the future?
IPv6 is better at handling network latency.
It has extensions which allow for yet to be thought of ideas without everybody needing to upgrade.
It has multicast build in, which one day could free up airwaves for more mobile internet usage. (Although by brother is aghast as the thought of TV and radio airwaves being given to mobile and WiFi operators).
> The moment it fails when a person is relying upon it then it is not fit for purpose in the current state
WTF?!?! How do you travel? Someone comes out with a safer car and you call it not fit for purpose?
Your problem is your ego, you think you and all humans are better than a computer. However you aren't taking into account the collective stupidity of the human race.
I think you are right, in the past you could get the same PC equivalent as a Mac for half the price, but these days the 'Idiot Tax' joke doesn't fit any more. Competition has created devices that cost about the same for the same build quality.
Try looking up an equivalent laptop to a MacBook Pro from Dell and you'll see the price is practically the same.
Its a bit like the BSOD joke for windows, back in 2000 it was a running joke, these days if you get a BSOD 99% of the time its an actual hardware problem that needs fixing.
"Once you've set up the blocking mechanism, you only need technical admin effort to add new ones or remove 'cleared' ones as needed, surely?"
You clearly work in tech support, the cost of doing something is not limited to just keeping hardware up.
The block would generate support calls (taking staff time and angering others), it would need to be reviewed by a lawyer on a regular basis (lawyers know how to keep themselves busy), project managers would need to be involved (because when are they not) and directors would have to make decisions. All those people cost a business money.
> - Accident liability. Are you responsible if your car is at fault in a crash, or is your car's AI?
Liability is already established in law.
Car manufacturers have large legal departments which decide when to payout and when to recall cars. Your AI will be no different from a fuel line or breaking system.
>> Microsoft is the largest corporate contributor to the Linux Kernel
Microsoft do not contribute the most to the Linux kernel, that is old news:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/09/16/linux_foundation_kernel_report_2013/
http://lwn.net/SubscriberLink/631509/0ac9f129c7a76ecd/
> It's a fact that Comreg and Ofcom in Europe want to abolish Terrestrial TV entirely and have people only pay for TV via Internet (not scaleable for 20M simultaneous HD viewers), Satellite and Cable
Wireless TV broadcast should be gone by 2050, its a horribly ineffective use of the spectrum. The 20M viewers is the peak rate. Plus when you consider the majority of the population have a fixed line into their homes it frees up the airwaves for the more versatile IP traffic. IPv6 has multicast built in, that should be a catalyst for improvements.
Plus facilitating people watching the Xfactor on a Saturday night should not be a network engineers priority.
When your closest police response is 30 minutes away the camera is a good deterrent for that Coop and Pub not getting knocked off.
Why I sleep at night is that these devices are not all hooked up, the Coop and the Pubs are independent, the police usually cannot get a lot of detail and still rely on knowing the local villains or getting help from the populous.
Its when we have a concentration of power is when we are in the crapper, if they start saying about ID cards or centralising the CCTV I'll be ordering my V mask.
@Mage
I recently had this discussion with my brother, DTT is a great thing, it saved having to wire up every home. However broadcast is built into the IP protocol, just not switched on. The most efficient use of our airwaves is not DTT (although DTT is a very efficient system).
99% of people are using a static location to watch TV. We should be setting a mandate that by 2050 every home has fixed Internet line with speeds enough to carry TV, that the IP protocol enables the multicast feature and mobile broadband handles IPTV.
This is all the wrong argument. This whole debate goes out the window if you restored capitalism to the market place.
AT&T and the other telcos are monopolies, most people don't get a choice of providers. When people can choose providers you get innovation and downward pressure on price. America is not a capitalist country.
>Except that currently our entire economic system is founded upon the labour market
That is of course the lie people are told. Our economic system is built on capital. The most well off in our society are those with the most capital, NOT the ones with the most labour.
Karl Marx new that machines would replace humans and that communism was his answer, he imagined you have workers spending less and less time working and everything could be just shared.
Of course history is just going to repeat itself, with a widening rich poor divide, you'll eventually see a revolt where people take back from the haves to a distributed ownership. Until capitalism kicks in again.
The question is which side will you be on?
Actually this bug is an awesome demonstration of how bad closed ecosystems are. The open systems that are running on Linux (RedHat, ubuntu, etc) are all patched and updated.
HOWEVER! OSX which is also affected is still waiting. If I owned an Apple server I'd be screaming right now.
Embedded devices with closed eco systems are stuffed. Basically, you can kick back and relax if you are use open source in the manner it was intended to be used.
For those wanting to actually try things on their computers:
For windows: (All these settings require the “Run As Administrator” permission)
To show the current state of the TCP settings:
netsh int tcp show global
To turn on ECN:
netsh int tcp set global ecncapability=enabled
To turn on cTCP:
netsh int tcp set global congestionprovider=ctcp
Fedora 20 (possibly other Linux based systems):
To turn on ECN to help feedback to the AQM in the file: /etc/sysctl.conf add the following line:
net.ipv4.tcp_ecn = 1
To alter the Active Queue Management scheduler alter the following file: /etc/rc.d/rc.local and add the following line:
tc qdisc add dev eth0 root fq_codel
replacing eth0 with the name of the computers network device. Then reboot.
If you ran a de-dupe data store, why would you ever delete data?
Mark it as deleted, if a user attempts to upload the same file you can just flag back instantly and say done and unmark it. Data storage is cheap, I/O is not. Its a waste of resources to write zeros to a disk if you are not specifically required to.
>Now it's all very well to say that you "just" add a new firewall to hide that lot from IPv6 connectivity - but that's just adding hardware to prevent what is being sold as a benefit
This is the most ignorant comment I have seen. NAT is address translation, home routers already have firewalls so additional hardware is NOT required. UPnP opens ports on your firewall for things to get in, that not going to change with IPv6.
The point is we need IPv6 to make it easier to do peer to peer things like videos, gaming, telephone. Removing NAT removes a level of CPU and memory requirements that saves electricity and latency. IPv6 brings a raft of other things, multicast is one example that would certainly cut back the ever growing bandwidth consumption.
Perhaps its from a philosophical point of view, that the GPL is their preferred license.
However the more accurate reasoning is probably because any engineer working to improve the Linux network stack is improving the data centre, mobile users and a small number of desktop user at the same time. Three birds one stone.
Effectively these laws say we are all suspected terrorists and there is no due process. If they make a mistake you have no means to get redress.
Last years Heathrow case was a prime example of how the laws do not limit themselves to a small minority of people that we might need protecting from.
The biggest problem I see is that these problems are not clearly defined. They are multifaceted with billions of research being spend already. Plus when you put the cost of HS2 in comparison, you have to think what's more important getting to Manchester faster or curing dementia?
More succinct challenges that get amateurs involved would be better. Say a prise for:
1, Landing a probe safely on the moon.
2, New form of food packaging that is also a benefit to the environment.
3, Robots that can do the washing (take clothes out the washing machine and hang them up to dry)
Whenever the subject of IPv6 comes up, misinformed comments spring up.
Just because you have a route-able address doesn't mean it has to be to everyone. Routers contain firewalls AND network address translation, they are two different things. IPv6 even contains privacy extensions.
If you are going to be a Luddite, then perhaps technology isn't the field for you. I look forward to a connected home, where I can remotely control thing. Where light bulbs are automatically sent to me when one is on the way out.
Quite simply, if someone went after them, they have a larger selection of patents to use to defend themselves. The South Korean firm can claim its not infringing one American company but its actually using the intellectual property of another. Anybody attacking Samsung also runs the risk of extra costs of dragging Google into the fray.
Its not much of a deterrent but as we all know patents are just a numbers game, it has very little to do with innovation.
However this still doesn't get over the problem that we actually need more frequencies for WiFi. My typical suburban home has a good 10-12 networks in range on any given evening, there has got to be a least 2-3 devices on each.
The 5Ghz band is useless at getting through a house with sturdy walls, although I would imagine these modern wooden framed homes would be easier on the signal.
The congestion is just killing the network, its like when you try and scale a token ring network.
This is why I switched to KDE, Dolphin has the Split button right there in the toolbar. It has the minimise and windowed toggle button.
The big question a lot of these user interface designers are missing is "Where is the discover-ability?", a new user or a transitioning user wants to look at something and type in something else. How just looking at the interface can a user do that?
The philosophy of "Perfection is reached when there is nothing left to take away" doesn't mean you remove features, it means you remove the barriers to using features. A smooth lump of marble is not better than Michelangelo's David.
I think you should go look up GPS clock PCI cards. You'd only need one on a closed network to keep everybody on that network in sync. More if you want security.
For the cost of a £200 PCI card its not worth the risk of changing how we currently work with clocks. We'll have 50 years of legacy data with leap seconds, which some future programmer will forget to cater for.
The risks of the system are being catered for, no need to rock the boat.
This buy out is super cheap. Its not about the phones its about Nokia's patents. If Apple can ask for $707m from Samsung. Imagine what Microsoft could do with 20 years of patents?
A litigious Microsoft could ask for money from EVERY mobile maker and be happy every time the Android or Apple market share went up.
I've stopped using my debit card everywhere. I pay off my credit card each month. Meaning that I get interest on the lump sum in my bank. I get cash back (0.5%) on my credit card purchases and protection on my purchases over £100. This is all value to me which a debit card or mobile payment methods do not add.
We really need a "Sense of Proportion Department". How much money was spend on prosecuting this person?
The amount of effort spent prosecuting a criminal should be proportional to the crime. In this instance a £100 fine from the local bobby should have been enough. Perhaps with a follow up visit in the next 6 months just to check.
I am fed up with seeing uneducated comments like this.
A/C you really need to go read some history and open your eye's to which direction society is heading down. You don't suddenly wake up in a police state, it takes years before you find out you gave everything up years ago and by then its too late.
Actually that was one of the key points of getting rid of the scanners. They statisically proved that the scanners cause more cancers (because you are regularly radiating a large population of people) than people die from terrorist attacks. Bruce Schneier is a great and logical read on the subject.
The TSA was nothing more than a kick back scheme. Reenforcing the plane doors was all it has taken to prevent another 9/11.
The biggest thing I wish more people did was write to there politicans and actually took note of how they voted.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
