[IP] more on Network management and control (was: "Re: more on 1972 ARPANET Film ...")
Begin forwarded message:
From: Karl Auerbach <karl@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: March 19, 2006 9:21:52 PM EST
To: lauren@xxxxxxxxxx
Cc: David Farber <dave@xxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: [IP] Network management and control (was: "Re: more on
1972 ARPANET Film ...")
Reply-To: Karl Auerbach <karl@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
From: Lauren Weinstein <lauren@xxxxxxxxxx>
... but in terms of the sort of "network management and control"
that Suzanne mentioned, we've moved seriously backwards -- perhaps
to the edge of a potential operational abyss in some significant ways.
One concern that is rarely, if every, discussed is how our drive to
secure this and DRM that is creating a situation where, if the net is
ever broken, it could be very difficult to reassemble (especially as
we construct ever more intricate dependencies between the net and
other infrastructures like the phone system and power grid.)
My own particular concern is what happens to communities that suffer
human or natural disasters and have the people, competence,
equipment, and electrical power to start locally rebuilding their
communications infrastructure but find that they can not do it
because due to security and DRM locks they simply do not have the
power or authority.
Living as I do in a place that far too frequently seems to receive
nature's wrath (earthquake, fire, flood, landslide, large ocean
waves, nutcase who likes to dynamite power towers ... ) we've come to
learn that when things go south it's going to take a while before the
outside notices and is able to dig its way in. So we've learned the
value and necessity of recovering from the inside out.
In that spirit, several years ago I proposed to ICANN the possibility
of "DNS on a CDROM" (now "DNS on a DVD") - essentially Knoppix (CD/
DVD based Linux, no hard disk required, shove it into a PC, even a
Windows PC, and boot) with a runnable DNS server that had a skeletal,
but usable DNS hierarchy from root to com/net/org/.... ICANN pooh-
poohed it without discussion, I think because of the source of the
idea as opposed to the merits of the idea.
But that's not my main point.
For a long time I have argued that we need to start looking at the
internet as a distributed process rather than a collection of
individual machines. And in that distributed process we need to
start understanding the pathology of that system and not merely
devise tests, but also creating test points, so that we can find
problems and repair them.
See my talk "From Barnstorming to Boeing - Transforming the Internet
Into a Lifeline Utility" at:
http://www.cavebear.com/rw/Barnstorming-to-Boeing.ppt
with the notes at
http://www.cavebear.com/rw/Barnstorming-to-Boeing.pdf
--karl--
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