Internet

Overdheard - The future of the Internet according to Pew

By 2020, the virtual world will  have blended with the physical world; to speak of them as separate spheres will seem anachronistic. Nicholas Carr, as quoted in Pew: 55% of Experts Herald Virtual Worlds and Augmented Reality in 2020

Here’s a link to the newest Pew Internet Life report.

Overheard: Internet metering brings us back to 1995

Internet metering is a throwback to the days of dial-up service… Brian Stelter, To Curb Traffic on the Internet, Access Providers Consider Charging by the Gigabyte

In the early days of dial-up access, America Online and other providers offered tiered pricing, in part because audio and video were barely viable online. Consumers feared going over their allotted time and bristled at the idea that access to cyberspace was billed by the hour.

In 1996, when AOL started offering unlimited access plans, Internet use took off and the online world started moving to the center of people’s daily lives.

Is Brian Stelter the only person who’s writing about how we’re going backwards with Internet metering? Everyone’s acting like this is a new thing. It’s an old thing, billed in a new way — gigabytes instead of minutes.

Overheard: Who invented the Internet?

During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating theInternet.
- Al Gore describing his 1986 legislation to interconnect five supercomputer centers (17 years after thefirst Internet servers hooked up)

If Gore invented the Internet, I invented spell-check.
- Former Vice President J. Danforth Quayle

The day I made that statement, I was tired because I’d been up all night inventing the Camcorder.
- Al Gore attempting damage control

Those days were funny, weren’t they? Actually, the Internet is just a grown-up version of ARPANET.

Overheard: New Internet on its way — thanks again to CERN

“We need so much processing power, there would even be an issue about getting enough electricity to run the computers if they were all at Cern. The only answer was a new network powerful enough to send the data instantly to research centres in other countries.” Tony Doyle as quoted in Coming soon: superfast internet

Yes, that’s right folks. The Internet could soon be made obsolete by a new “grid” system that’s going to transfer data 10,000 times faster than our current broadband Internet connections. Think of it — 10,000 times faster!!!

The Grid’s main purpose is to track the data associated with CERN’s Large Hadron Collider “big bang project” — although the Grid will also be made available to some researchers. Current thinking is that CERN is reinventing the Internet and no matter what you think about CERN messing with sub-atomic particles, the idea of a new Internet is intriguing — especially with recent predictions of our “using up” the Internet we have by 2010.

The new Grid has routing centers, dedicated fiber optic cables and over 50,000 servers — and the potential to offer everything from HD video telephony to the transmission of holographic images.

Overheard: Internet needs a $130 billion makeover

In three years’ time, 20 typical households will generate more traffic than the entire Internet today. Jim Cicconi, as quoted in AT&T: Internet to hit full capacity by 2010

Jim Cicconi, AT&T’s senior executive vice president-External and Legislative Affairs,  gave an interesting speech at the Westminster eForum on Web 2.0 last week.  First he got people’s attention by saying that the Internet will reach full capacity by 2010 and we need to invest $130 billion to update the infrastructure.  Then he went on to say that private industry should be the fixer, not government.  I agree with him. 

“I think people agree why the Internet is successful. My personal view is that government has widely chosen to…keep a light touch and let innovators develop it. The reason I resist using the term ‘Net neutrality’ is that I don’t think government intervention is the right way to do this kind of thing. I don’t think government can anticipate these kinds of technical problems. Right now, I think Net neutrality is a solution in search of a problem.”

Video: Vint Cerf talks about Net neutrality

Net neutrality is the principle that data packets on the Internet should be moved impartially, without regard to content, destination or source.

Overheard: ISPs are not the Internet police

The industry’s trade body, the ISPA, has spent months in discussions with music and movie companies about ways of preventing illegal filesharing, but buoyed by recent success in France, the major record labels and Hollywood studios have lobbied the government hard for faster action. Richard Wray, Filesharing law ‘unworkable’

If you asked yourself “What recent success in France?” like I did, here you go.  Short version? There are less than a dozen ISPs in France. All the stakeholders got together and agreed that service providers in France will issue warning messages to customers who are downloading files illegally — and if the customer ignores the message, he loses Internet access.  An independent authority, supervised by a judge, will be in charge.  

Overheard: Goodbye Netscape

In the unlikely event that you know someone who is still using Netscape, this would be a good time to point him or her towards Firefox, Safari, Opera, OmniWeb, or Internet Explorer 7, depending on the OS. And as you surf the ‘Net on March 1, stop and observe a moment of silence for the passing of what was once a hallowed name on the Internet. Eric Bangeman, AOL ending all support for Netscape on March 1

Even though users can still download Netscape 9, AOL will no longer provide any support at all for the browser. That includes security patches and bug fixes, too. AOL recommends fans of Netscape turn to Firefox, and if they’re especially nostalgic for the Netscape look and feel, install the Netscape theme and extensions for the popular open-source browser.

Overheard: Domain kiting is dead

Domain kiting is now dead. There is no longer any way to register and drop a domain without incurring a fee. Tasting operations now have a higher cost to operate, but they have not been stopped.Google And ICANN Did Not Kill Domain Tasting; Domain Kiting and NSI Front Running DOA

Domain tasting operations register bulk batches of domain names and keep the domain name that they believe will make them a return and delete the rest. Often times the taster will use a search company to place ads on the domain for that 5 day period in order to assess whether a domain name is worth keeping. Currently if the domain is deleted within the 5 day window there is no fee involved. This led to the abusive practice known as domain kiting. The kiter would register a bulk list of domains and keep them for the 5 day period and then delete and re-register the domain for another 5 day period, never paying for the domain or a fee. The practice does tie up large sums of money, as the registry requires registrars to prepay for registering domains.

According to an ICANN report, 94% of all .com registrations in January 2007 were deleted.

Overheard: Gov’t wants total access to Google search records

The nation’s top spy, Michael McConnell, thinks the threat of cyberarmageddon is so great that the U.S. government should have unfettered and warrantless access to U.S. citizens’ Google search histories, private e-mails and file transfers, in order to spot the cyberterrorists in our midst. Ryan Singel, NSA Must Examine All Internet Traffic to Prevent Cyber Nine-Eleven, Top Spy Says

On a related note, the Bavarian police want the gov’t to sanction a Trojan to help them eavesdrop on Skype conversations.