March 2011 - nexa - server-nexa.polito.it

Re: [nexa] precisazioni su Baran e sulla nascita di Internet

by J.C. DE MARTIN

Paolo, ecco cosa ha appena scritto Vint Cerf: > I think the NY Times did not intend to make that claim. Rather, it was > aiming at the notion that the heart of Paul's work on distributed > communication was based on the same ideas that informed the design of > the ARPANET: packet switching. Paul's design for a resilient, packet > voice command and control system was contemporary with Len Kleinrock's > work on the mathematics of packet switching in his Ph.D. dissertation > topic and with Donald Davies' work at the UK National Physical > Laboratory. Davies coined the use of the term "packet" to refer to > addressed chunks of data. > > While the designers of the ARPANET did not apparently know of Paul's > work until it was brought to their attention after the major design > work was done, it is fair to say that all of these players, including > Paul Baran, appreciated the power of this alternative to traditional > circuit switching. > > vint cerf > Paolo Brini wrote: > Paul Baran ha o non ha avuto per primo, o comunque in simultanea con > altri, l'idea cardine del packet switching? > > Ciao, > Paolo >

March 29, 2011

Re: [nexa] precisazioni su Baran e sulla nascita di Internet

by Paolo Brini

March 29, 2011

precisazioni su Baran e sulla nascita di Internet

by J.C. DE MARTIN

> *Subject: * [ NNSquad ] [Les Earnest] Re: Paul Baran's passing > *Date: * Mon, 28 Mar 2011 23:36:25 -0700 > *From: * Lauren Weinstein <lauren(a)vortex.com> <mailto:lauren@vortex.com> > *To: * nnsquad(a)nnsquad.org <mailto:nnsquad@nnsquad.org> > > > > ----- Forwarded message from Les Earnest<les(a)cs.stanford.edu> <mailto:les@cs.stanford.edu> ----- > > Date: Mon, 28 Mar 2011 18:07:29 -0700 > From: Les Earnest<les(a)cs.stanford.edu> <mailto:les@cs.stanford.edu> > Subject: Paul Baran's passing > > I am saddened to learn of Paul Baran's passing (3/28/11 page B4) since he > has been a long time helpful friend. However I am also dismayed by false > claims in the New York Times article that Paul played a central role in the > creation of ARPAnet, the precursor of the Internet. I never heard him make > such a claim but see that others are now trying to rewrite history for some > reason. > > Working at Rand Corporation, Paul did important theoretical work in the > early 1960s on how to build survivable military communication networks and > tried to make it happen but was unable to get funding from the Defense > Department. He initiated a number of later innovations including Ricochet, > the first public wireless mesh networking system, in 1985. > > It appears to me that one source of confusion about networking history is > that nearly all writings on this topic skip over the first computer > network, which was part of the SAGE air defense system. SAGE was initiated > in the early 1950s by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and > also gave the first practical demonstration of interactive computing, > accomplished by timesharing, which was an essential precursor to ARPAnet. > Thus ARPAnet was a direct descendant of SAGE and was mostly developed by > people who came from MIT Lincoln Lab. I note that the Internet is still > mainly composed of timesharing systems, now called "servers," connected to > various kinds of terminals, many of which are now so small that they fit in > your pocket. > > SAGE used special purpose packetized networks to gather radar data from a > hundred and some radar sites across North America and to process it at 23 > large computer centers. SAGE also used land line data links to communicate > between adjacent sectors and with higher level commands.It used packet > radio systems to issue guidance commands to manned interceptors and > ground-to-air missiles in order to intercept incoming bombers. The only > problem with this technological marvel was that in an actual attack, which > thankfully never happened, SAGE would have immediately malfunctioned at > several levels. Nevertheless it was kept going for 25 years at a cost to > taxpayers of billions of dollars and to the immense profit of the > military-industrial-political complex. But that is another ongoing story. > > J.C.R. Licklider ("Lick" to his friends) helped design the human-computer > interface for SAGE and subsequently wrote a seminal paper on that topic > [1]. He also provided financial support for the development of general > purpose timesharing systems, both while managing projects at Bolt, Beranek, > and Newman (BBN) and when he later initiated a computer research program at > ARPA. The first person to advocate general purpose timesharing was MIT > Prof. John McCarthy [2] and Lick hired him as a consultant at BBN, then > sponsored the development of a demonstration timesharing system there. > > After moving to the Defense Department's Advanced Research Projects Agency > (ARPA) in 1962 Lick funded development of a number of general purpose > timesharing systems at various universities and subsequently called for the > development of computer networks that would interconnect such systems, > which resulted in the ARPAnet, though he did not specify exactly how this > should be done. > > How do I know all this? I was there. I had known Lick since 1949 and > reconnected when I came to Lincoln Lab in 1956 to help design SAGE. I > later developed an experimental cursive handwriting recognizer using the > Lab's TX-2 computer, which I shared on evenings and weekends beginning in > 1960 with other graduate students including Ivan Sutherland, then working > on his Sketchpad drawing system, Larry Roberts working on perception of 3D > objects from photographs, and Len Kleinrock, doing simulations of partly > connected computer networks. After later being sent to the Headquarters of > Central Intelligence Agency for a year and two years at the Pentagon > assisting the Joint Chiefs of Staff I escaped to Stanford University and > helped John McCarthy set up the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Lab > (SAIL). During 1967-68 I was the Stanford representative on the start-up > committee for ARPAnet, which included about a dozen people. > > The principal architect of ARPAnet was Larry Roberts, who had been > recruited to ARPA from Lincoln Lab. He based his approach to packet > switching on the analysis in Len Kleinrock's dissertation [3]. Our goals > had nothing to do with military communications or the survivability > thereof. Our aim was to facilitate cooperative research by interconnecting > academic timesharing systems. We didn't hear about the similar ideas being > proposed by Paul Baran and by Donald Davies in Britain until the end of > 1967 and by then our architectural specifications were pretty well set. In > any case, neither Baran nor Davies were able to get funding then, so there > were no competing development projects. > > Following our review of technical proposals for ARPAnet in November 1968, > BBN was chosen as the contractor and those working on the project came > mainly from Lincoln Lab. Our committee had foolishly rejected the idea of > providing email service, which turned out to be the first "killer app," but > the performance specifications that we chose happily turned out to be able > to support both email and the much later web services. We were ultimately > both surprised and delighted by the enormous growth and usefulness of the > net. > > Les Earnest > Senior Research Scientist Emeritus > Stanford University > > REFERENCES > > [1] J.C.R. Licklider, "Man-Computer Symbiosis," IRE Transactions on Human > Factors in Electronics, March 1960. > http://groups.csail.mit.edu/medg/people/psz/Licklider.html > > [2] John McCarthy, "Memorandum to P.J. Morse Proposing Time Sharing", MIT > Memo, Jan. 1, 1959. > http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/history/timesharing-memo/timesharing-mem… > > [3] Leonard Kleinrock, "Information Flow in Large Communication Nets," PhD > dissertation, MIT, 1963. > >

March 29, 2011

Fw: [Creis_Terminal] RFID, la police totale : le film

by Mariella Berra

RFID, la police totale : le filmCarissimi si può non concordare pienamente ma induce una riflessione .particolarmente su chi riflette sull'etica. Mb ----- Original Message ----- From: Maurice Liscouët To: creis_terminal(a)lecreis.org Sent: Monday, March 28, 2011 4:26 PM Subject: [Creis_Terminal] RFID, la police totale : le film Bonjour, Au sens premier depuis le XIIIe siècle, la police est le gouvernement de la cité - gestion et discipline, exercice du pouvoir politique - avant de désigner l'organisation rationnelle de l'ordre public. Subterfuge & Pièces et Main d'oeuvre présentent RFID : la police totale un film de 28 minutes contre la tyrannie technologique et l'avènement de la société de contrainte. On peut voir et télécharger ce film sur http://websuterfuge.free.fr/rfid.html On peut le commander en DVD, en envoyant un chèque de 5 euros (à l'ordre des Bas-Côtés) aux Bas-Côtés, 59 rue Nicolas Chorier, 38000 Grenoble, en précisant lisiblement sa commande et son adresse. Nous encourageons évidemment tout un chacun à le télécharger, à le diffuser, et à organiser des projections et des débats contre l'invasion des RFID. Peu de gens encore, hors des laboratoires, des services vétérinaires et de logistique, connaissent les RFID (Radio Frequency Identification), aussi nommées "étiquettes électroniques", "intelligentes", "smart tags", "transpondeurs", "puces à radiofréquences", "puces sans contact". Ces mouchards nés durant la seconde guerre mondiale supplantent désormais les codes-barres dans les objets de consommation et sont implantés dans les animaux, les titres de transport et d'identité, les livres des bibliothèques, les arbres des villes, toutes choses de proche en proche, et même de plus en plus d'êtres humains. Sans les nanotechnologies, qui permettent de réduire leur taille et leur prix, les puces RFID n'infesteraient pas nos vies et IBM ne pourrait pas proposer aux décideurs son programme de puçage généralisé de tout et de tous (des espaces "naturels" aux décors urbains, des marchandises aux infrastructures d'énergie, de transports et aux services, de santé, d'éducation, des animaux aux humains) baptisé "planète intelligente". Voici venu le temps du marquage électronique, universel et obligatoire. Bientôt il sera criminel d'extraire de son corps sa puce d'identité. - Avez-vous quelque chose à vous reprocher ? ******* Merci de faire circuler, Pièces et Main d'oeuvre -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- _______________________________________________ Creis_terminal mailing list Creis_terminal(a)lecreis.org https://listes.globenet.org/listinfo/creis_terminal

March 29, 2011

NYT: "Paul Baran, Internet Pioneer, Dies at 84"

by J.C. DE MARTIN

March 27, 2011 Paul Baran, Internet Pioneer, Dies at 84 By KATIE HAFNER <http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/h/katie_hafner/i…> Paul Baran <http://www.rand.org/about/history/baran.list.html>, an engineer who helped create the technical underpinnings for the Arpanet <http://inventors.about.com/library/weekly/aa091598.htm>, the government-sponsored precursor to today's Internet, died Saturday night at his home in Palo Alto, Calif. He was 84. The cause was complications from lung cancer, said his son, David. In the early 1960s, while working at the RAND Corporation in Santa Monica, Calif., Mr. Baran outlined the fundamentals for packaging data into discrete bundles, which he called "message blocks." The bundles are then sent on various paths around a network and reassembled at their destination. Such a plan is known as "packet switching." Mr. Baran's idea was to build a distributed communications network, less vulnerable to attack or disruption than conventional networks. In a series of technical papers published in the 1960s he suggested that networks be designed with redundant routes so that if a particular path failed or was destroyed, messages could still be delivered through another. Mr. Baran's invention was so far ahead of its time that in the mid-1960s, when he approached AT&T <http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/business/companies/at_and_t/index.html?i…> with the idea to build his proposed network, the company insisted it would not work and refused. "Paul wasn't afraid to go in directions counter to what everyone else thought was the right or only thing to do," said Vinton Cerf, a vice president at Google <http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/business/companies/google_inc/index.html…> who was a colleague and longtime friend of Mr. Baran's. "AT&T repeatedly said his idea wouldn't work, and wouldn't participate in the Arpanet project," he said. [...] Continua qui: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/28/technology/28baran.html

March 28, 2011

Rif: Digitali e transnazionali. Giovani migranti e seconde generazioni sul web

by a.dicorinto＠uniroma1.it

March 28, 2011

notizie e rete

by peppino ortoleva

Ho scritto in un saggio di tre anni fa che tra le implicazioni meno visibili ma più durature dello sviluppo della comunicazione in rete c'è il ridursi progressivo del ruolo delle notizie: in precedenza il mondo ci si presentava prima di tutto appunto nella forma del notiziario, col quale ci colleghiamo regolarmente diceva Hegel "per sapere come regolarci"; ora il mondo ha sempre più la forma di una rete con il quale ci connettiamo attraverso una pluralità di canali interpersonali. Devo dire che questo reportage del NYTimes conferma quell'ipotesi prima di quanto pensassi (e sicuramente troppo prima di quanto sperassi) http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/27/us/27overload.html?_r=1&hpw

March 27, 2011

Copyright Police Want Truck Drivers To Have Licensed Cab Music

by Paolo Brini

March 27, 2011

Re: [nexa] libertà di parola e campagne elettorali

by a.dicorinto＠uniroma1.it

March 27, 2011

NYT (Darnton): "A Digital Library Better Than Google’s"

by J.C. DE MARTIN

March 23, 2011 A Digital Library Better Than Google’s By ROBERT DARNTON Cambridge, Mass. ON Tuesday, Denny Chin, a federal judge in Manhattan, rejected the settlement <http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/23/technology/23google.html> between Google, which aims to digitize every book ever published, and a group of authors and publishers who had sued the company for copyright infringement. This decision is a victory for the public good, preventing one company from monopolizing access to our common cultural heritage. Nonetheless, we should not abandon Google’s dream of making all the books in the world available to everyone. Instead, we should build a digital public library, which would provide these digital copies free of charge to readers. Yes, many problems — legal, financial, technological, political — stand in the way. All can be solved. Let’s consider the legal questions raised by the rejected settlement. Beginning in 2005, Google’s book project made the contents of millions of titles searchable online, leading the Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers to claim that the snippets made available to readers violated their copyrights. Google could have defended its actions as fair use, but the company chose instead to negotiate a deal. [...] Continua qui: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/24/opinion/24darnton.html

March 27, 2011