Geekularity

After watching “The Minority Report” and seeing the transparent screen that Tom “I jumped the shark, yet I still get to work with JJ Abrams” Cruise uses to do his research, I thought that the science fact was a long ways away from the science fiction that I saw on the screen. Fortunately some super smart people at my alma mater, Oregon State University, disagree. They’ve developed the world’s first transparent electrical circuit! In a press release from last week, John Wager of the OSU college of electrical engineering says: “This is a quantum leap in moving transparent electronics from the laboratory toward working commercial applications.”

Go Beavs!

Not as well known for their stance on technology issues as they are for lobbying on pension and medicare protections, the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) has recently joined the battle to keep the big telcos from walling off the Internet! Check out Anne Broache’s article on C|Net.

As of Friday, March 03, 2006 the Library of Congress has not yet received and/or published the text of Senate Bill 2360, which was only introduced yesterday. So, I have not read the official bill yet. However, an early copy, possibly even a draft version, has been circulating around the web and has been quite an interesting read!

First, I fully endorse the intent of this bill as I have read it. In a nutshell, it says that network operators shall be obligated to maintain a neutral stance on all data that passes through their network. They shall not offer special or exclusive access to those entities who pay extra. It does however permit network providers to take reasonable measures to fight spyware, malware, and spam so long as the network provider gives their subscribers the ability to opt out of the protection system. Both points seem reasonable and I hope that this bill progresses through committee more or less in the same state that it exists today.

In reading the early version however, I did discover some wording that, should it remain in the bill, could ultimately become a loophole for the network providers to wriggle through. The problem is as follows:

Sec. 4.(a).(1) of the bill states:

“[A network operator shall] not interfere with, block, degrade, alter, modify, impair, or change any bits, content, application or service transmitted over the network of such operator.”

It is technically impossible for a network provider to not “change any bits” as data travels through their network. Internet Protocol (IP) packets do change as they move from network node to network node. For example, an IP packet has a field called Time to Live (TTL). It is an integer that, by design, decrements every time a router device touches it. When the TTL field decrements to zero, the router is supposed to discard the packet. It’s meant to be used for troubleshooting and to keep data from traveling in an infinite loop.

I recommend modifying Sec. 4.(a).(1) to include language similar to:

“… over the network of such operator except where modification of the data is part of a standard network protocol transmission process and where such modification does not change the priority or eligibility of the data to travel across the operator’s network.”

Now I have already written multiple letters to Senator Wydens offices, but a few more voices will always help. Please help spread the word that you want this bill to succeed and that the wording should be changed in order to keep network operators from exploiting a possible loophole! You are free to use this form letter to contact Senator Wyden or modify it and use it to contact your Congressional representative!

Thanks,
Sean

Senator Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) intends to introduce new legislation today entitled the “Internet Non-Discrimination Act of 2006.” While details are scarce, aside from today’s New York Times Article, the intent is to limit network providers from offering faster access to those businesses who pay for premier pathways to the network provider’s customers; effectively creating toll roads on the information super highway. The argument against this scheme is that network providers won’t have any incentive to maintain or enhance the public networks and over time, a two-tiered, walled off network will arise. I look forward to reading this bill to see if it has any relevance to the AOL/Yahoo email extortion scheme.

Thanks to Robert Scoble for pointing this out in his blog. Microsoft has taken the street level image database developed by Amazon’s A9 engine and is taking it up a notch. Nice interface! I was able to drive what looks like a Lotus Elise the wrong way down The Embarcadero in San Francisco! It’s kind of fun actually.

Here’s a classic Win-Win solution! And there’s no need for AOL and Yahoo to extort money from email senders in the name of stopping SPAM. In fact, let the SPAM keep coming! Using a Dance Dance Revolution mat and Microsoft’s experimental StepUI, the fat-ass computer user (as you can see, mine is only a medium-sized-ass, but I need to work on it!) can burn the calories moving their spam into the trash! I love it! Here’s the article by Mary Jo Foley of Microsoft Watch where I first read about StepUI. ¡Viva la DD Revolución!