gimlet

Bell Canada and TELUS (formerly owned by Verizon) employees officially confirm that by 2012 ISP's all over the globe will reduce Internet access to a TV-like subscription model, only offering access to a small standard amount of .................

More at:

I Power

The Bear

Don’t know ‘bout that but there is a problem looming in machines running UNIX whereby on January 19, 2038, at 3:14 a.m. UTC. (UNIX Epoch Time) is when Unix's 32-bit time_t register is full!

To those of us who have the scared personality that comes with bit twiddling, and who survived the horrors of Y2K and code written with a two digit year representation, (especially in embedded assembler or machine code stuff running in real time) the thought of the t_reg rollover event brings a shudder.

Especially since already the problem has manifested itself most noticeably on an AOL sever program that caused a bit more than just a kafuffle when it struck owing to the nature of the code dealing with server watch dogs looking so far into the future.

For them wot is interested simply out of curiosity there’s an “entry level” item about the problem here …

Unix epoch - encyclopedia article about Unix epoch.

There are work arounds, and they are increasingly being used but just as with Y2K the open ended issues is that surrounding legacy code that you will never need to recover from security escrow.

Until you do.

Then you need it really badly.

And find it won’t work!

__________________
I am an old man. I have eaten much salt.

TannyD

I am sure that will affect business and global ecomic industry, so I am sure people will try and do something about it, am I right?

__________________
Ignore/Avoid List: youcanhandlethetruth.

harryaldridge

This is a little OTT. THe whole issue is essentially over net neutrality. Network operators want to be able to start prioritising traffic in order to squeeze revenue out of the value chain. Up until now it has not really mattered but now people have the broadband speeds and the websites providing the content to start serious video streaming. This si putting pressure on networks.

Now either the end user pays for the bandwidth they use, in both the access layer of the network and core, or the company providing the service does. The iPlayer, for example, is an interesting one since the BBC is non-commercial, so who pays? The answer should be the end user since they clearly value the service and should pay its full cost of distribution.

Will network operators/ISPs start limiting access to certain websites in the way mentioned? I cannot see why. They might offer lower cost broadband with such restrictions, charging more for unrestricted access. To start restricting the internet would result in a massive backlash and cost customers. There will always be another operator/ISP ready to soak up the disgruntled by providing an open unrestricted service.

__________________
http://vindicovindico.blogspot.com

Ea of Dune

I've been following this issue recently. As a Software Engineer here is my perspective on this:

Companies like Bell, TELUS, Comcast etc. have a lot to gain from the abolishing of Net Neutrality. For a start they can start treating the net like a cable package. Companies can say OK you will get access to Itunes, and a plethora of other sites for free as part of your package and then charge for access to other web sites.
No doubt there will be a "bloggers package" and "music downloaders" package etc. which will give you a certain amount of bandwidth and access to certain sites.
Of course the problem comes when they start lobbying in Washington. I bet their lobbyists will make a b-line for the Christian right feeding them lines like being able to control access to content will allow them to stamp out porn and other "vices".
Once these big boys get their way then it will be very easy for a government agency to persuade the companies to strangle bandwidth to certain sites etc.

I think we won't really start to see the above until they roll out Internet2 technology i.e. allow ISPs to use the new backbone. Rumour has it that the big telecoms companies are already paying off the ISPs (who also don't want to be caught out in the cold) to adopt the new model.

For any of you who remember the web like it was back in 94/95 in the UK I think we will be going back to that sort of model of access and billing (just with better bandwidth and technologies). Compuserve and companies like that used to give you 20 hours free access then after that you had to pay per hour.
If the big boys do get to play it their way then it's going to have a big impact on small business.. and not for the best.

Ea of dune

Ea of Dune

This is an interesting site:

Save the Internet : Fighting for Internet Freedom

Ea of dune

22ANDUK

One outcome could be that the internet will carries on, but not as we know it.

However at the moment the internet is an example of classic Anglo-Saxon freedom i.e. you can walk on the grass unless there's a sign don't, unlike most others nation's banning all walking on the grass, unless a sign says you are allowed to. The internet is the most welcoming territory for different and outside opinions in the public realm, people have much more freedom to discuss than they do know and the reach it gives people to talk across the country and indeed world is unparallelled.

The future, for example, might see big internet corporations offering these aforementioned 'packages' will contain your retail sites (ebay, ebuyer, amazon etc), mainstream news (BBC, Sky etc) and other light entertainment sites. Really there's a chance that the internet will become just another controlled, regulated service focusing on the unchallenging world of trivia, entertainment and consumer products.

As the internet is the last bastion of anarchy, revolt and freedom, the big government, big business future may find this scenario very appealing.

Akria

I highly doubt such a move would be successful.
Consumer technology has reached the point where it's possible to completely circumvent such things.

In particular, I could see a network of high-capacity routers in people's houses acting as a chain to a more powerful one with uncurtailed Internet access, no matter how expensive, with the network mainly consisting of those routers acting in a bridge role and each user paying a small fee to whoever controls the Internet access point so that they can afford the uncurtailed package offered by an ISP.
And, if nothing else, it would not be so hard to set up a second global Internet. The main problem is bandwidth, and that could be overcome by concerted action.

I would also have suggested secure proxies, but presumably any limited package would be based on allowing specific domains and IPs and disallowing others, and of course you would not allow a proxy in a limiting package.

__________________
I am getting very tired of people not reading my posts properly.
Please do not reply to me unless you are sure you have not missed out the key points I am making and key words I am using.

http://real-democracy.co.uk | Admin and proud

The commonality of mankind:
If you prick us, do we not bleed?
If you tickle us, do we not laugh?
If you poison us, do we not die?

allanon

And how is connectivity between these routers provided ?