Networks

The 1980s - "A PC on every desktop"

Before the 1980s, computers were scarce and users would share large mainframe computers.

The PC revolution of the 1980s was about giving a computer to every user. This was a good idea because:

The machine did not get overloaded by other users.
You could take the machines home, on travel, and other places where you could not access your mainframe.
You got your own dedicated machine to run a user-friendly graphical user interface (which is CPU and memory intensive).
It was usually easier to install new software on PCs because you had complete ownership of the machine. On mainframes new software would have to install in the user space only. To install in the Operating System space would require the co-operation of the system manager. As a result, people often find it easier to customise their PCs than their user spaces on mainframes.

The future? - "The network is the computer"

But the PC era is seen now as defined by the fact that networks were nonexistent or at least slow and unreliable.

As the network got faster and "always on", problems with PCs (or any user device) emerged:

Mainframe - 1 professional has to maintain 1 big, complex machine.
The professional knows how the machine works, and has nothing else to do with his time except keep it running smoothly for his hundreds of users, upgrade software, etc.
v.
PCs - 500 amateurs have to maintain 500 big, complex machines.
The amateurs have no idea how it works, don't want to know, and are too busy doing their real jobs to have any time to learn. If they spend time fixing and maintaining the computer it is money down the drain, since they are not paid to do that. Billions of person-hours a year are lost by amateurs wrestling with incompatible software, upgrades, installation and system crashes, all because we bought into this PC idea in the 1980s.

The Network Computer

Many PC users have grown tired of maintaining software, incompatible upgrades, missing libraries. They have other, real, work to do.

An attractive alternative is a login at some central operation with a paid professional at the other end of the line keeping it running for me, making backups, installing upgrades, etc. I want to be able to access my account no matter where I am in the world.

One issue of concern is privacy: PCs are more private. Would the NC company be able to read your files? This can be solved by an encryption-decryption layer between home and NC company, so the NC company cannot actually read your files.

Long-term storage - a possible example of the NC model

As a historian I am interested in the long-term, something technologists often pay little attention to.

Consider where most human data is kept in electronic form. How does a business keep its long-term records (e.g. land ownership records) viable for 50, 70 or 100 years? How does a family store its digital photo album for 50 or 100 years?

You can't store it yourself on removable media, since these media get lost, stolen, decay over time, and anyway the formats will be incompatible and unreadable in a few decades time.

The only way to store long-term data is through an NC-type operation, a company that you pay to manage your data, copy it into new formats and new media, etc.

But what happens if you stop paying your subscription to the NC company? Perhaps the service is combined with libraries (who keep long-term data of all sorts) and banks (who do long-term storage of valuables for a fee). Perhaps if you stop paying your subscription, the data is not destroyed, it keeps on being re-copied and saved, but you have to pay the arrears to actually see it.

Backup

Privacy on the Internet

Packet readable by every machine it passes through, like a postcard.

Eavesdropping harder since messages travel different routes. Also messages broken into packets on different routes. Also (for non-government eavesdropping) where to eavesdrop? Most of route is along links you will not have access to.

Also packets mixed with other packets, binary data, etc. Also sheer volume. Manpower to eavesdrop expensive. Software not very powerful.

Still, only real privacy/security is encryption.

It is certain that intelligence agencies do run automatic software to scan not only email but other communications. What is open to debate is the scope of such surveillance and also its effectiveness. Remember, the 9/11 plot was not detected.
Surveillance
- ECHELON
- Carnivore

Email

Email is all very well, but many people are drowning in email. It is simply too easy to send someone a message.

It is often not recognised that email is a very inefficient method of communication (compared to telephone or meeting in person) because email is one-way. Someone asks you a question, but their message is garbled and semi-literate. You reply asking what do they mean. Sometime later, they reply clarifying their question. You reply to that. Then they reply and finally you come to a conclusion. The process takes days, whereas it could have been solved in minutes if you met face to face.

Spam

"Spam should be illegal" - Otherwise everyone will get thousands of messages a day. No reason not to send them.

"No need to make it illegal" - Tech products and services can deal with this problem themselves, by forming networks, sharing info in automatic lists and filters. No need for the law to get involved.

The second has tended to win.

Spam
- Legality
- Spam is legal in the USA.
There are many appalling variants of spam:
- Spam forged to come from you.
- Virus spam.
- Virus spam forged to come from you.
- Porn spam.
- Porn spam forged to come from you.
Micropayments may solve the spam problem. Just charge 1 cent to send an email to me. If that doesn't solve it, charge 5 cents to send an email to me.
Micropayments have been promised for years with little success.

Spam sent by viruses from compromised PCs

Spam may be legal in the USA, but a lot of spam is sent through illegal means - with fake From lines, fake headers, and from compromised PCs infected with viruses.
(Sending spam normally from a spammer's own site is too easy for filters to block.)

So, since most spammers are breaking the law already, making spam illegal may change little. It will not stop the flood of spam generated by viruses.

Long-term solution? Email needs to be re-designed?
"You Might Be An Anti-Spam Kook If ..." mocks the idea that the "Final Ultimate Solution to the Spam Problem (FUSSP)" is easy or obvious.
Spam actually achieves something: Text spam kills a suicide bomber, New Year's 2011.