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The Telecom Digest for January 22, 2012
Volume 31 : Issue 22 : "text" Format
Messages in this Issue:
Re: Some unanswered questions from January 2011 (Garrett Wollman)
Re: Some unanswered questions from January 2011 (Bill Horne)
Re: Some unanswered questions from January 2011 (John Levine)
Cracking Teenagers' Online Codes (Monty Solomon)
A stake in the ground for IPv6 (Bill Horne)
Re: A stake in the ground for IPv6 (Barry Margolin)
We need to talk about piracy... (Bill Horne)
How U.S. Lost Out on iPhone Work (Monty Solomon)

====== 30 years of TELECOM Digest -- Founded August 21, 1981 ======

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Date: Sat, 21 Jan 2012 04:53:51 +0000 (UTC) From: wollman@bimajority.org (Garrett Wollman) To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Re: Some unanswered questions from January 2011 Message-ID: <jfdgcv$oh$2@grapevine.csail.mit.edu> In article <98b0b$4f19d52a$adce4530$14461@PRIMUS.CA>, Geoffrey Welsh <gwelsh@spamcop.net> wrote: >Garrett Wollman wrote: > >> Codecs that couldn't do this were rejected as unsuitable. > > ... which kind of brings me back to the original question: if codecs >that don't handle dropped datagrams gracefully were discarded as >unsuitable as streaming evolved, why the heck wasn't SIP discarded as >unsuitable for VoIP when it became apparent that it was not going to >play well with NAT? Your question works just as well the other way around, and NAT has the additional disadvantage that it's Clearly, Deeply, Architecturally Wrong, And Besides It Can't Possibly Work Once Everyone Uses IPsec. -GAWollman -- Garrett A. Wollman | What intellectual phenomenon can be older, or more oft wollman@bimajority.org| repeated, than the story of a large research program Opinions not shared by| that impaled itself upon a false central assumption my employers. | accepted by all practitioners? - S.J. Gould, 1993
Date: Sat, 21 Jan 2012 11:20:50 -0500 From: Bill Horne <bill@horneQRM.net> To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Re: Some unanswered questions from January 2011 Message-ID: <20120121162050.GA15532@telecom.csail.mit.edu> On Sat, Jan 21, 2012 at 04:53:51AM +0000, Garrett Wollman wrote: > In article <98b0b$4f19d52a$adce4530$14461@PRIMUS.CA>, > Geoffrey Welsh <gwelsh@spamcop.net> wrote: > >Garrett Wollman wrote: > > > >> Codecs that couldn't do this were rejected as unsuitable. > > > > ... which kind of brings me back to the original question: if codecs > >that don't handle dropped datagrams gracefully were discarded as > >unsuitable as streaming evolved, why the heck wasn't SIP discarded as > >unsuitable for VoIP when it became apparent that it was not going to > >play well with NAT? > > Your question works just as well the other way around, and NAT has the > additional disadvantage that it's Clearly, Deeply, Architecturally > Wrong, And Besides It Can't Possibly Work Once Everyone Uses IPsec. NAT may be "wrong" in theory, but it accomplished some important goals: 1. NAT extended the usable life of IPv4 long enough for IPv6-capable software to become widely available. 2. It saved untold millions of PC's from Internet worms, just by being in use, since it effectively provides a firewall. 3. By extending the life of IPv4, NAT allows for a gradual transition to IPv6, which has avoided economic hardships to millions of end users and small companies that can't buy new equipment in the current economy. More to the point of your email: everyone isn't going to use IPsec with IPv6, and those that do are actually less secure than those who use NAT-T, since the NAT traversal makes it more difficult for external attackers to do traffic-based security analysis. Bill -- Bill Horne (Remove QRM from my email address to write to me directly) "Their minds were overflowing with the visions of their day With many a fortune won and lost, and many a debt to pay" - Gordon Lightfoot
Date: Sat, 21 Jan 2012 18:11:44 +0000 (UTC) From: John Levine <johnl@iecc.com> To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Re: Some unanswered questions from January 2011 Message-ID: <jfev50$20f9$1@leila.iecc.com> >> Your question works just as well the other way around, and NAT has the >> additional disadvantage that it's Clearly, Deeply, Architecturally >> Wrong, And Besides It Can't Possibly Work Once Everyone Uses IPsec. > >NAT may be "wrong" in theory, but it accomplished some important goals: He's being a wee bit ironic. IPsec is a technology that seens great until you try to use it, at which point you discover that it's impossibly difficult to deploy, so people use other tunnel technologies like ssh and VPN that work fine over NAT. There was a theory in the IETF that if they pretended there were no ways to use kludges to extend the life of IPv4, that would force people to switch to IPv6, even though until a few years ago, it wasn't ready to deploy at large scale either. R's, John ***** Moderator's Note ***** I'm announcing a new subject-line option for posts to the Telecom Digest: the "[Irony]" tag. If you post contains irony, please use the "[Irony]" tag in addition to the customary ones. Bill Horne Moderator
Date: Sat, 21 Jan 2012 17:26:32 -0500 From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com> To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Cracking Teenagers' Online Codes Message-ID: <MVx7EC.A.4UB.Vb5GPB@telecom> Cracking Teenagers' Online Codes By PAMELA PAUL January 20, 2012 WITH her coordinated zebra-striped scarf, tights and arm warmers (arm warmers?), spiky out-to-there hat and pierced tongue, 34-year-old Danah Boyd provides an electric Gen Y contrast to the staid gray lobby of Microsoft Research in Cambridge, Mass., which she enters in a flurry of animated conversation, Elmo-decorated iPhone in hand. In a juxtaposition that causes her no end of mischievous delight, her laptop bears a sticker of Snow White, whose outstretched arm gently cradled the Apple logo. But Dr. Boyd - a senior researcher at Microsoft, an assistant professor at New York University and a fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard - is a widely respected figure in social media research. With a number of influential scholarly papers under her name, she travels relentlessly, tweets under the handle Zephoria and has fans trailing her at TED conferences, at South by Southwest and elsewhere on the high-tech speaking circuit. She is also a kind of rock star emissary from the online and offline world of teenagers. The young subjects of her research become her friends on Facebook and subscribe to her Twitter feed. "The single most important thing about Danah is that she's the first anthropologist we've got who comes from the tribe she's studying," said Clay Shirky, a professor in the interactive telecommunications program at N.Y.U. and a fellow at the Berkman Center. There's no shortage of grown-up distress over the dangers young people face online. Parents, teachers and schools worry about teenagers posting their lives (romantic indiscretions, depressing poetry and all), leaking passwords and generally flouting social conventions as predators, bullies and unsavory marketers lurk. Endless back-and-forthing over how to respond effectively - shutting Web sites, regulating online access and otherwise tempering the world of social media for children - dominates the P.T.A. and the halls of policy makers. But as Dr. Boyd sees it, adults are worrying about the wrong things. Children today, she said, are reacting online largely to social changes that have taken place off line. ... http://goo.gl/uYrdW
Date: Sat, 21 Jan 2012 21:49:55 -0500 From: Bill Horne <bill@horneQRM.net> To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: A stake in the ground for IPv6 Message-ID: <jfftgk$jrf$1@dont-email.me> From an entry in the Cybertelecom-L list: according to http://www.worldipv6launch.org/, everyone is going to start using IPv6 on June 6. I may have to buy a new router: or connect my Linux PC directly to the net! Has anyone else heard about this 'official' date for IPv6. Bill -- Bill Horne (Remove QRM from my address to write to me directly)
Date: Sun, 22 Jan 2012 00:20:11 -0500 From: Barry Margolin <barmar@alum.mit.edu> To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Re: A stake in the ground for IPv6 Message-ID: <barmar-50B225.00201122012012@news.eternal-september.org> In article <jfftgk$jrf$1@dont-email.me>, Bill Horne <bill@horneQRM.net> wrote: > From an entry in the Cybertelecom-L list: > > according to > http://www.worldipv6launch.org/ > , everyone is going to > start using IPv6 on June 6. > > I may have to buy a new router: or connect my Linux PC directly to the > net! Has anyone else heard about this 'official' date for IPv6. Have you actually read the FAQ at that site? For ISPs, the goal is 1% customer availability by that date. -- Barry Margolin, barmar@alum.mit.edu Arlington, MA *** PLEASE post questions in newsgroups, not directly to me ***
Date: Sat, 21 Jan 2012 23:21:21 -0500 From: Bill Horne <bill@horneQRM.net> To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: We need to talk about piracy... Message-ID: <jfg2s2$8kt$1@dont-email.me> This is a couple of days old, but it's a more nuanced explanation of the issues surrounding SOPA and PIPA, including links to other well-thought-out pieces on the subject by other authors. by Danah Boyd, Apophenia January 17, 2012 We need to talk about piracy (but we must stop SOPA first) Much to my happiness, the internets (sic) are in a frenzy about the "Stop Online Piracy Act" (aka SOPA). Congress is currently in recess, but the House announced a hearing on the potential impact to the Domain Name Service on January 18 and everyone expects the Senate to begin discussing a similar bill "PROTECT IP Act" when they return to DC on January 24. There's a lot to these bills - and the surrounding furor - and I'm not going to go into it, but I recommend reading the actual bill (http://www.opencongress.org/bill/112-h3261/show) and Open Congress info, the Wikipedia article (http://goo.gl/d7r5S), EFF's blog (https://www.eff.org/deeplinks), and the various links at Stop American Censorship (http://americancensorship.org/). Tomorrow — January 18th — a bunch of geeks are planning a SOPA Blackout Day to voice their discontent. I abhor SOPA for the same reasons as other geeks. I'm horrified that Congress has crafted a law that will screw with the architecture of the internet in ways that will undermine free speech. I love Josh Kopstein's post "Dear Congress, It's No Longer OK To Not Know How The Internet Works (http://goo.gl/Hetss)." And I'm glad that geeks are getting vocal, even if - as Clay Johnson has pointed out - geeks don't quite get how Congress works (http://goo.gl/C8Wdn). I'm stoked that the White House has asked (http://goo.gl/ZagIV) for a civil conversation around piracy (while also opposing SOPA's key pieces). And I find it utterly hysterical that Rupert Murdoch has come to geeks' turf (Twitter - https://twitter.com/#!/rupertmurdoch) to convey his pro-SOPA opinions, even as Obama steps in to state that he opposes SOPA. Rest at: http://goo.gl/wB0I4 Bill -- Bill Horne (Remove QRM from my address to write to me directly) "She gets up, falls down, breaks even Gets caught by the wrong Mr. Right It's a hard town; I wouldn't want to live in it But I wouldn't want to give up in it" - Ellis Paul
Date: Sat, 21 Jan 2012 18:37:18 -0500 From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com> To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: How U.S. Lost Out on iPhone Work Message-ID: <6yLS5D.A.SVB.Vb5GPB@telecom> How U.S. Lost Out on iPhone Work By CHARLES DUHIGG and KEITH BRADSHER January 21, 2012 When Barack Obama joined Silicon Valley's top luminaries for dinner in California last February, each guest was asked to come with a question for the president. But as Steven P. Jobs of Apple spoke, President Obama interrupted with an inquiry of his own: what would it take to make iPhones in the United States? Not long ago, Apple boasted that its products were made in America. Today, few are. Almost all of the 70 million iPhones, 30 million iPads and 59 million other products Apple sold last year were manufactured overseas. Why can't that work come home? Mr. Obama asked. Mr. Jobs's reply was unambiguous. "Those jobs aren't coming back," he said, according to another dinner guest. The president's question touched upon a central conviction at Apple. It isn't just that workers are cheaper abroad. Rather, Apple's executives believe the vast scale of overseas factories as well as the flexibility, diligence and industrial skills of foreign workers have so outpaced their American counterparts that "Made in the U.S.A." is no longer a viable option for most Apple products. ... http://goo.gl/Sjoam ***** Moderator's Note ***** I bet that if American buyers started looking for "Made in USA" labels again, this unwelcome part of Mr. Jobs' legacy would vanish. I also bet that if our Congress imposed the same tariffs on imported Iphones that other countries impose on American goods, the price advantage of making things overseas would also vanish. Bill Horne Moderator
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