Re: nettime Olivier Auber: Network symetry and net neutrality
On 26.02.2013 00:05, Florian Cramer wrote: Today, nobody uses http proxies for those purposes any more. In a time where most information on the Internet is dynamically generated, this issue has become obsolete. The issue as presented by Van Jacobson is today addressed by content ditribution networks like Akamai, CloudFlare, etc. Caching is very much in use today, not only at on the CDN, but also in the stack of most major sites, who use proxies like Varnish. Strategies like HTTP ETags are used to identify when dynamically generated content has not changed and can be retrieved from local cache. [...] In the end, it would be mostly big broadcasting stations profiting from IP multicasting because they would have to pay much less for bandwidth - while those packets would still generate the same transmission load on the rest of the Internet and thus outsource costs to the user's ISPs. Yes, this is true, multicast does not help day-to-day peers sharing as such, but it does allow less well capitilized organizations to broadcast to a larger audience when they have one, like for instance coverage of a large scale political action, and thus it is in a political issue, since without it, only institutions such as google can broadcast to large audiences. I agree that it is a different issue than P2P. Best, -- Dmytri Kleiner Venture Communist # distributed via nettime: no commercial use without permission # nettime is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nett...@kein.org
Re: nettime Olivier Auber: Network symetry and net neutrality
Van Jacobson, one of the main promoters of Multicast has written in 1995: How to kill the internet? Easy! Just invent the web ! ftp://ftp.ee.lbl.gov/talks/vj-webflame.pdf This reflects the web of the 1990s which for the most part consisted of static data. The problem of caching, back in those times, was solved through http proxies which every ISP provided and most people used to speed up their dial-up web access. Today, nobody uses http proxies for those purposes any more. In a time where most information on the Internet is dynamically generated, this issue has become obsolete. Multicast may, as you imply, have benefits in some p2p distribution scenarios like bittorrent - but only if the same data is shared/simultaneously downloaded on a massive scale. It wouldn't make a difference to the torrent download of a Stan Brakhage film from an obscure film lover's community tracker with maybe two seeds and three peers. In the end, it would be mostly big broadcasting stations profiting from IP multicasting because they would have to pay much less for bandwidth - while those packets would still generate the same transmission load on the rest of the Internet and thus outsource costs to the user's ISPs. It would be great for giants like Google because it would cut their bandwidth costs when millions of people simultaneously watch Gangnam Style or a live stream from the Oscar ceremony on YouTube. I still fail to see your political argument. # distributed via nettime: no commercial use without permission # nettime is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nett...@kein.org
Re: nettime Olivier Auber: Network symetry and net neutrality
Dear Florian,
Concerning, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8c0sX6j5D_c , I think you
missed the key message of this prostatic guru. The question is not
whether the multicast protocol is working or not, and why (I'll talk
however of this issue below) but to clarify the notion of symmetry
(of protocols), and to show that an asymmetrical network leads
AUTOMATICALLY to current state of the Internet, that is to say, a
centralized network, near to implode. Not to question the economic and
money paradigm, GAFA seem to be going straight for what the guru
called a triangular trade of personal data between them and States
on the backs of enslaved users. Thus we see how might look like
transhumans that Google makes us sparkle, to say nothing of
immortality ...
Regarding multicast, you mention a paper written by a DARPA-funded
scientist who can not imagine one second that the peers of P2P
networks may well become also kind of multicast routers, which would
transform the said P2P networks to P2P^10 networks!
Second, the concept of multicast is older than the Web (Steve Deering
1989) and began to be implemented on the Mbone also before the web:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mbone
Finally, yes, the prostatic guru tells the truth: the multicast
protocol is artificially used in an asymmetric fashion for IPTV.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPTV
Why multicast has not survived to the web? This is a complicated issue
that probably has common points with the VHS war of the 70s
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Videotape_format_war
You might be too young to have experienced the Multicast/web war of
the 90s. To my knowledge, nobody has written about that war, probably
because it is too recent and it is far from being over. However it is
real, with real victims, including scientists who worked on multicast
networks all over the world, who have seen their budgets cut to zero
(with the exception of those who have agreed to work on its adaptation
to crappy TV apps), and then all of us today, who are the playthings
of a network that claims there is no alternative and that leads us
into the wall.
Van Jacobson, one of the main promoters of Multicast has written in
1995: How to kill the internet? Easy! Just invent the web !
ftp://ftp.ee.lbl.gov/talks/vj-webflame.pdf
Berners Lee in some of his recent statements, is not far from agreeing with him.
Van Jacobson is still active. Here he admits that the multicast is not
scalable in the current economic rules. However, he seems to refrain
from thinking of new rules in the sense that the prostatic guru
indicates (symmetrical monetary creation such as http://openudc.org).
http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docid=-6972678839686672840
There, he worked with others to develop some patches inspired by
multicast, that would differ the collapse of net. But, AMHA, it's just
DIY ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Content-centric_networking
--
Olivier
On Sat, Feb 23, 2013 at 4:06 AM, Patrice Riemens patrice {AT}
xs4all.nl wrote:
Networks symmetry and Net Neutrality
by OlivierAuber
[...]
However, there are also symmetrical protocols on the Internet.
One may think about peer-to-peer protocols such as the ones used
over mesh networks, but more fundamentally, the general model
of it is called Multicast, defined as a part of IPv6, which
allows all-to-all relationships without the intervention of any
particular center, if it is the Internet in its entirety.
To my knowledge, the opposite is correct. Multicast
one-to-many transmission of network packets, effectively the
same as broadcasting. It's the opposite of peer-to-peer.
(Here is a technical paper on that difference:
http://www.cs.rutgers.edu/~rmartin/teaching/fall08/cs552/position-pape
rs/004-01.pdf )
...
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nettime Olivier Auber: Network symetry and net neutrality
Networks symmetry and Net Neutrality by OlivierAuber (watch it on YouTube WTFTalk: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8c0sX6j5D_c) Help improving the english speech : http://lite.framapad.org/p/rAgoXE7W1x As you may know,1/4 of the Amazon has been already deforested in order to print reports about Net neutrality Did we forget something? Maybe, yes ! Non tech people usualy imagine that the notion of symmetry in terms of networks, is a synonym of equality of UP and DOWN streams at user's level or IN OUT streams at the level of the peering points. But the notion of symmetry goes much further. It it also,and mostly, a question of protocols. When Vinton Cerf, one of the godfathers of the internet, recently appointed by President Obama to the National Science Board, asserts that Internet is symmetric, No doubt that he is taking it seriously. Yes, lnternet is POTENTIALLY symmetric, because it contains in itself all the resources to become effectively symmetric and the big players have the responsibility to implement it. If they do not, they should not complain about the domination of Goggle and other data silos that do precisely benefit the asymmetry of the net as it is in reality. In fact, the Internet as people know it so far, essentially implements asymmetrical protocols such as the well known http of the world wide web. Theses asymmetrical protocols, called Unicast, makes it necessary, when you want to achieve an all-to-all interaction to establish somewhere a special node which is responsible for the switch. According to the power law, it is obviously the biggest node that wins, because it allows to connect as many people as possible. In this game based on an asymmetrical protocal, the winner takes all every time (Goggle, Facebook, Twitter, etc.), which are, I would say, not social networks, but social silos), to the point that, after a while, everybody is a prisonner.of these silos, and nobody is interested to played anymore. However, there are also symmetrical protocols on the Internet. One may think about peer-to-peer protocols such as the ones used over mesh networks, but more fundamentally, the general model of it is called Multicast, defined as a part of IPv6, which allows all-to-all relationships without the intervention of any particular center, if it is the Internet in its entirety. Unfortunately, these protocols, when they are not fought by institutions (such as Peer-to-peer) are not (or little) made available to the public by the I S P and Telcos, which keep them for themselves so far. We understand why: the multicast protocol greatly saves bandwidth by allowing a transmitter who wants to send a video to a million receivers simultaneously, to emit it only once, then the routers distributed on the network replicate it, according to the requests. This is usualy how, we, simple users, receive the bullshits of the TV channels at home, but you may have noticed that you can't emit anything that way, because for us, the net is artificially made asymetric! So, obviously, when some can use the net symmetrically, and others can not, there is no netneutraliy Remember what Van Jacobson, another internet guru, asserted in 1995 : How to kill the internet? Easy! Just invent the web ! Unfortunately, this is more and more relevant! By not making these symmetrical protocols available, many network players are condemned to play a game where they lose every time (and users too). Indeed, as a recent skirmish between Free a french I S P and Google denotes it, the profitability of network carriers is much lower than the one of big nodes (Youtube, etc.) and other huge data warehouses, that essentially asymmetrical protocols make them absolutely necessary. Note also that all of us, simple users, we lose also, because our personal data are drawn into bottomless pits over which we have no control. In short, in order to escape this depressive spiral which centralises all the innovation and economic power in the hands of a few players, it would require a day where users as well as operators and others, become aware that another internet is possible: a symmetrical internet! (within the meaning ofdata flow AND protocols) Therefore, the Internet could be a little more neutral than it is now, because it would anymore favor dominant positions automatically. The future would cease to be written in advance. The innovation that seems to be dry today outside from dominant silos, would revive! Finally the Peer-to-peer spirit developed by the pioneers of the Internet could finally reach adulthood and show its full utility. Thank you. Any questions Yes, you, please! What do you think of the projects of some governments to tax the platforms like Google, on the basis of the personal data they hold on citizens? I fear that it will lead to clear an other quarter of the Amazon rainforest before they realizes that it is not a good idea. The intention behind is good, and I would not want to overwhelm the authors of this idea.
