We are almost out of Internet!

Back in the 1980s, the engineers who created the internet and the IPv4 specification made 4.3 billion addresses.  Last forever right?  Wrong - we have blasted right through that by assigning an address to just about anything.  Everyone gets a share of addresses and the US now has about 5 million IPv4 addresses left.....starting to sweat yet?  Have we got a disaster of unknown proportions looming by the end of summer?  Maybe not so much....

Back in 98 the IPv6 specification was approved which allows for 340 undecillion, or 340 followed by 36 zeroes. Oh and undecillion IS a word according to the Gizmodo article I found this data in.

So why aren't we switchin right now?  Well it is called ALL NEW EQUIPMENT.  No bigy for small users (read regular customers) but for big business.....routers and loads of associated equipment will need to be switched out...Big hit to the bottom line. 

So, the times, they are a-changing.....just business will put it off as long as they can...

the Gizmodo article

Ongoing Cyber Attacks Around the World

I read Kin Komando's breaking news every morning.  Often to check out the cool Sites or apps.  Today in the cool sites was a page compiled by Norse Viking.  It is supposed to show all of the cyber attacks, originating and destination.   It is a fascinating- check it out here -

cyber-attacks

NASA Has an Instagram Site!

Hey, I was just reading Kim Komando's site for some quick news and found this neat link.

Seems NASA has started an Instagram account and is letting the general public have access. 

I have taken a quick look and there are some really nice photos over there.  I would have to admit they seem to be as good as any you would find on any of NASA's own sites, but if Instagram is your thing or if it is easier just to go to the Instagram site, then you are golden here. 


Check it out - HERE

Bradbury prefers library over internet

Ray Bradbury, hands down - master craftsman of the speculative fiction genre, has a sore spot, it would appear. To quote Mr Bradbury “The Internet is a big distraction,”. That is a curious statement from someone accustomed to looking into the future and understanding the impact the Internet / Web has, and will have. But not really surprising is Bradbury's passion for the public library.

From the article:

• “Libraries raised me,” Mr. Bradbury said. “I don’t believe in colleges and universities. I believe in libraries because most students don’t have any money. When I graduated from high school, it was during the Depression and we had no money. I couldn’t go to college, so I went to the library three days a week for 10 years.”

But the internet?:

• “It’s distracting, It’s meaningless; it’s not real. It’s in the air somewhere.”

Due to a rapid decline in the economy and a sharp decline in property taxes, many libraries find themselves in financial trouble. And to say the least, he find this disconcerting.

Read the full article to find out what steps he is taking to secure the health of the library system

Venus Rises first webisode Ikarus available

The first episode of science-fiction series "Venus Rises" is now available on vidcast. "Ikarus" is a short film prequel to Venus Rises Series 1. Viewers can watch "Ikarus" Here. The main url for the project is http://www.venusrises.com/ where you can find all sorts of information about the project. This is what I have been able to glean from the website about the series:

• "Venus Rises" is an independent science-fiction vidcast series by J.G.Birdsall. The year is 2050. Earth was devastated by a chain of cataclysmic events leading to a pandemic collapse of governments. The human race colonize Mars and Venus, narrowly escaping with technology amassed by mega-corporations during Earth's final days. As Venus becomes home to the working class, and Mars the seat of power, two friends enlisted in the Mars Defense Directorate uncover the first signs of civil unrest. Humankind finds itself once again at the crossroads of extinction.

Ok that being said, I have watched it and can now review it. I really have to make a couple of points. The internet and therefor the web is certainly not a new incarnation. In the early day, yes, the whole system was the wild west so to speak, large big name sites were far outweighed by the hobbyist, hacker and scammers. Original material was truly forward thinking and deserved every bit of support that could be garnered. But at the end of the first decade of the 21st century, many parts of the web are getting long in the tooth and for the most part its a pretty staid mall. Major studios and network work in tandem with their web counterparts. In general this gives us choices of high quality entertainment....for the most part. In the past the wildcat producer was constrained by lack of fund, expertise and equipment, but their offerings were balanced of the bleeding edge of tech. Wild cat producers today have pretty much the same constraints, but for a different reason. The expertise is there, the equipment readily available and funds, well considering that the cost per minute for production is vastly lower due to the fact that so much can be produced in the very powerful computer equipment available for pennies...its not as much a major concern as it used to be. If your an independent producer today on the internet, its because you HAVE to or WANT to. But conversely the output does not HAVE to be less than acceptable. Sanctuary shows us that professionally made programming is possible with little more than an actor and a green screen. When I see SanFran invaded by Star Wars on YouTube, produced by a single person with a digital recorder and a working knowledge of digital production and editing....and find it damn good. Or when I see parodies of Tron done with Cardboard for Christ sake and find it wildly entertaining I realize that the internet viewer no longer has to be equated with sub par production. So with Venus Rising I find that what would have been viewed as ground breaking 10 years ago, merely comes off as painfully quaint. Maybe if VR wasn't reaching so high. If it placed itself right in amongst the fan produced Star Trek movies, it certainly would not be out of place. The graphics are on par with a quickly produced video game, The sets are overly dark and poorly lit, the dialog is poorly mixed - overly loud and then inaudibly quiet - which leads me to think the actors were all wearing mics and no boom operator... the dialog has characters thinking out loud to themselves and at times seems to be pervy 13 year olds. One minute drooling over the lone female and next calling off closing distances on a screen. yes, I am afraid I flinched quite a bit.

So... independent content is always of interest so go check it out. Don't go in expecting too much and you probably will have an entertaining few minutes.

Cyberattacks: The new battlefront

Barry sends in a very interesting article from the New York Times. The article documents a curious occurrences that took place several weeks leading up to the Russian invasion of Georgia.

• Weeks before bombs started falling on Georgia, a security researcher in suburban Massachusetts was watching an attack against the country in cyberspace.
• (Internet Experts at) Arbor Networks in Lexington noticed a stream of data directed at Georgian government sites containing the message: “win+love+in+Rusia.”
• Other Internet experts in the United States said the attacks against Georgia’s Internet infrastructure began as early as July 20, with coordinated barrages of millions of requests — known as distributed denial of service, or D.D.O.S., attacks — that overloaded and effectively shut down Georgian servers.

In the early '90, during the first Iraq invasion, the U.S. weakened their opponent with sustained barrages of bombs and missiles. Less than 2 decades later we are seeing clear evidence that the first steps in a sustained engagements contain bombs of a completely different caliber. Every bit as effective towards crippling the opponents ability to share and access data and disrupt communications, is the sustained attack on the internet infrastructure. This kind of attack becomes ever so much more insidious when you consider that projections have the U.S. military comprised of 20% of robotic armament in the coming decade. Disrupting the ability to communicate and control these weapons would be every bit as effective as bombing the individual units themselves with the added advantage of being faster and lest costly overall.

William Gibson and the other crafters of the Cyberpunk venue were pretty much dead on IMHO
The article is full of descriptions of not only ddos attacks but site defacement and other very inventive attacks.

<- more of the NY Times cyber attack on Georgia ->

The "web" time forgot

I often rail against the common misconceptions used when describing the internet and the world wide web. Users do not often differentiate between the two but in truth they are two separate entities. The internet supports the web, the web could not survive without the internet but the internet could operate without the web. Think of the internet as the computer and the web an application running on it. Simplistic surely, but there is a distinction. Ok, that being said, Barry sends in this article from the New York Times describing visionary Paul Otlet's description of an interconnection of devices that would allow users to look up all manners of documents anywhere in the world. Not in the 80s or the 50s but In 1934, Otlet sketched out plans for a global network of computers (or “electric telescopes,” as he called them) that would allow people to search and browse through millions of interlinked documents, images, audio and video files. He described how people would use the devices to send messages to one another, share files and even congregate in online social networks. Although Otlet’s proto-Web relied on a patchwork of analog technologies like index cards and telegraph machines, it nonetheless anticipated the hyperlinked structure of today’s Web. Otlet’s vision hinged on the idea of a networked machine that joined documents using symbolic links. While that notion may seem obvious today, in 1934 it marked a conceptual breakthrough.

click the title to go to the complete article. There is a snippet of the film "The Man Who Wanted to Classify the World" that sounds like a manual for setting up the web in the 90s not the 30s. Facinating!

Free Telescopes....well almost

Shaun Saunders and I must have discovered this at the same time. So, let me pose a question to you. Are you fascinated by the night sky? Do you know the name of a few of the constellations and know where the ecliptic is? Do you have a small telescope, but wish you could afford something really massive? Have I got a sweet deal for you. How about something in the 14 inch range, robotic control that will output pictures to you, so you never have to spend another freezing night bent over an eye piece? Oh and its free. Whats the catch? Well you have to share. What we came across was several telescopes that are remotely controlled and are accessed by the internet. You point them, take pictures and then download your output. And we are not talking about toys here people. No, these are the real deal, upwards of 14 inches of raw telescopic enjoyment. Here is the WIRED page that describes the installations and where to log on to get started. In most cases your allowed to use these machines for free, in some cases, your asked for a donation for the pictures you take.

Telescopes

Paging Dr. Robot

When a patient arrives at an emergency room with symptoms of a stroke, doctors must act fast. But often a neurologist is not available, and not every hospital has one on call. Starting next month, however, 21 Michigan hospitals will have what is being touted as the next best thing: a robot on call. The new program, will make the Pontiac hospital's specialists available around the clock to any hospital in the state that joins. The on-call specialist will use a laptop and the internet to connect to a robot in the participating hospital to join the attending physician at the patient's bedside.