Monthly Archives: October 2006

McAfee Onigma Risk Management

At Metricon about a third of the speakers were on about risk management in one form or another, which is a big change from a few years ago. Here’s another datapoint towards the mainstreaming of risk management in IT security:
McAfee launched a new corporate strategy on Oct. 16 aimed at helping companies integrate IT defenses used to fight external attacks and manage internal compliance, announcing a $20 million buyout of data leak prevention software maker Onigma as part of the expanded effort.

McAfee Acquires Onigma, Launches Risk Management Strategy, By Matt Hines, eweek.com< October 16, 2006

Continue reading →

Cerf v. Farber

Carl Malamud points out on Farber’s Interesting People list that the debate on net neutrality between Dave Farber and Vint Cerf is available from the Internet Archive in transcript and video form. Carl also remarks:
The big file is, well, really big. But, it’s a 1280×640 24fps h.264 file. Maybe if the US infrastructure ever develops to the standards of a modern country, we’d be able to download this easily. 🙂
The smiley face may hide that that’s exactly why we need net neutrality.

-jsq

How the Net got Neutral

Scott Bradner remarks that Dennis Jenning reminded him that the NSFNet project was approved 21 years ago. In case you’ve forgotten or weren’t on the net back then, NSFNet was a fast (T1! Really fast for back then!) backbone network meant for primarily academic use, and that also served as the primary backbone of the Internet. This was in 1985, remember, six years before the first commercial long-haul ISPs (UUNET and PSINet).
By one measure the Internet has reached the age of majority in Washington, D.C. – one of the places that seems to have the worst understanding of what the Internet was, is and can be. The technology trickle that became the Internet started with research into packet-based networks in the early to mid 1960s by Len Kleinrock, Larry Roberts, Paul Baron and others (Google can help you find lots of information on these folks).

Key decisions that enabled the ‘Net By Scott Bradner, ‘Net Insider, Network World, 10/02/06

Scott lists ten design decisions that let the Internet be what it is today. Continue reading →

TV via Internet

Everybody’s used to YouTube clips of popular TV shows these days. Beyond that, some TV shows appear only on the Internet, such as these in Jeff Pulver’s network2.

Which will be the first broadcast or cable TV show to move entirely to TV? Coiuld it be Stargate SG1?

What’s this got to do with risk? This is a new paradigm. Producers who stick with the old TV paradigm are going to have business problems.

-jsq

ISPs as Useful Filters

Chris Anderson posts an old Calvin and Hobbes comic in which Bill Watterston anticipated the Long Tail. Google the grocery, eh?

This makes me wonder what would happen if the big telco ISPs that are spending so much effort gaming the legal system to prevent net neutrality instead spent the same effort doing local market aggregators and filters they could sell as value added services. After all, they own the last mile. Who better to do that?

-jsq

Participation and the Long Tail

If you haven’t read Chris Anderson’s book, The Long Tail yet, I highly recommend it.

Before the Internet, the numbers of movies that could be sold were limited by the number of movie screens or shelf slots in video stores. With the Internet, via Netflix or Amazon or many online stores you can buy all sorts of movies that never would have made it. Continue reading →

Pirates of the Mediterranean

A couple of thousand years ago, pirates attacked Ostia, the port of Rome, and the Romans authorized Pompey to go wipe them out, regardless of the cost in money or power. He succeeded handily, which led some to wonder whether the pirates were ever much of a threat.
But it was too late to raise such questions. By the oldest trick in the political book — the whipping up of a panic, in which any dissenting voice could be dismissed as “soft” or even “traitorous” — powers had been ceded by the people that would never be returned. Pompey stayed in the Middle East for six years, establishing puppet regimes throughout the region, and turning himself into the richest man in the empire.

Pirates of the Mediterranean, By ROBERT HARRIS, New York Times, Published: September 30, 2006

What’s this got to do with the modern world, the Internet, or anything? Continue reading →