Decius wrote:
] Having said that, I'm recommending this article because these
] are fairly reasonable ideas. Yes your RSS aggregator should be
] signing up to receive a message anytime something new pops up,
] instead of going around to 1000 machines and asking every few
] minutes. As for using bit-torrent as an RSS feed distribution
] mechanism, yes, but no. Bit-torrent shouldn't know anything
] about RSS or vice-versa. My take is that bit-torrent should be
] pushed down below the applications, and it ought to cache any
] web page you hit if the owner marks it as cachable. Any url
] you try to pull should get pulled from bit-torrent first, if
] available.

I agree with Decius..

Better ways of tracking when content has changed are in order. Thats the key problem. Not the clients fetching the data, its the client's checking the data.. There are multiple systems out there already in a position to solve that problem, and they are likely going to be the ones to do it. Technorati, Newsisfree, Syndic8, etc.. A new pure distributed model isn't really necessary when the natural market place creates multiple sites that can play the role of content checker and knowledge cache. Its already distributed.. The solution to the problem lies in someone knowing what content you care about, and telling you when its changed.. That's could happen via some new great piece of distributed vaporware that's just gonna work and get widely adopted overnight, but its not likely. Its probably going to happen by subverting another key persistent connection the user has already had for many years that preforms a very, very, very, similar function: Instant Messaging.. [ think the presence mechanism.. not geting IMs.. -ed ]

Bittorrent like distribution models only makes sense for rich content. Something much larger then the average 10k - 30k size of most text only RSS documents. There is a certain overhead that would be created by such a network, and I don't see that as necessary unless the data being distributed warranted it. And wiring that into the syndication format is a bad idea.. The syndication format, as far as any given author/weblogger is concerned, is just their authoritative source what's available/new/changed.. It points to content associated with entries and the various methods of retrieving them, and the client can make a descision about how/if to get it based on that.. That is the point where bittorrent like models fit in, once there is content that is sizable enough to warrant the overhead of a p2p swarm/cloud kind of thing.

Even the current semantics in play enforce this way of looking at it. Its called a syndication format, not distribution format.

Don't read this as me totally dismissing the idea of distributed feeds.. Things like Konspire/kast highly interest me. I think they will be critical at some point when it comes to distributing content.. Howev... [ Read More (0.2k in body) ]

RE: Yahoo! News - BitTorrent and RSS Create Disruptive Revolution

] Welcome to the Abusable Technologies Awareness Center
] (ATAC). Our mission is to provide current and accurate
] information about technology that oversteps its bounds.
] Whether the concerns relate to unexpected privacy
] violations or inappropriate security, ATAC serves as a
] clearinghouse for informed discussions. Our panelists,
] allrespected Computer Scientists introduce topics as new
] disclosures are made, and the forum is open to the public
] for discussion. This site is hosted at the Information
] Security Institute at Johns Hopkins University.

Found via BoingBoing.. As they did, note the list of contributors:

] Steve Bellovin, AT&T Labs-Research
] Matt Bishop, UC Davis
] Matt Blaze, University of Pennsylvania
] Dan Boneh, Stanford University
] Simon Byers, AT&T Labs-Research
] Bill Cheswick, Lumeta
] Lorrie Cranor, AT&T Labs-Research
] Ed Felten, Princeton University
] Dan Geer, Independent Consultant
] Tadayoshi Kohno, UC San Diego
] Carl Landwehr, University of Maryland
] Patrick McDaniel, AT&T Labs-Research
] Gary McGraw, Cigital
] Mike Reiter, Carnegie Mellon University
] Avi Rubin, Johns Hopkins University
] Bruce Schneier, Counterpane Internet Security
] Richard M. Smith, Internet Consultant
] Adam Stubblefield, Johns Hopkins University
] Dan Wallach, Rice University

ATAC: Abusable Technologies Awareness Center

] After a lifetime of public silence, a 78-year-old Los
] Angeles woman is stepping forward to say she is the
] daughter of the late Senator Strom Thurmond of South
] Carolina and a black woman who once worked as the
] Thurmond family maid.
]
] The woman, Essie Mae Washington-Williams, a retired
] vocational school teacher, says she has incontrovertible
] evidence, including financial receipts and cashier's
] checks demonstrating his support for her and personal
] notes -- showing that Mr. Thurmond, once one of the
] nation's leading segregationists, was her father.

] For years, Mr. Thurmond was a staunch supporter of
] segregation. He broke with the Democratic Party in the
] late 1940's to run for president in 1948 as a Dixiecrat,
] embracing the notion, as he said at the time, that "on
] the question of social intermingling of the races, our
] people draw the line." Ms. Washington-Williams was in
] her early 20's at the time.

Woman, 78, Says She Is a Daughter of Thurmond

Interesting article in the wake of a recent SFOBUG meeting..

] Talking to Fyodor in another context, with Althusser
] still on my mind, I asked him, "Do you want to tell me
] your real name?"
]
] Fyodor is the hacker handle he picked out for himself as
] a teenager. It isn't as if the name his parents gave him
] is a huge secret, although I don't know it. I was simply
] curious about whether he wanted to tell me, which isn't
] the same thing as finding it out.
]
] "No," he said with a smile.

I've been thinking about the use of nyms lately, so this is interesting..

The rest of this article focuses on the dual-use qualities of nmap, and trying to put them (and Fydor) in the light of French Marxist philosopher Louis Althusser. I'm not sure what to make of that..

SFOBUG - Fyodor Article

These are the lyrics of a new song by a NJ based band of rabblerousers calling themselves The Snipers. This song goes to the tune of Bob Marley's Redemption Song and it goes a little something like this...

Oh pirates yes they copy,
But who are we to bitch?
We write songs to make you think
Not for us to get rich,
But the Man he says you are wrong
Backed by RIAA
But we have the tools to fight them
Just get out there and play

Songs that make you think
True songs of freedom
All we'll ever have

We download songs.

Emancipate yourselves from market slavery
Boycott the servants who rule our lives
Have no fear of our corporate entities
There's no need for them in these times
Let's log on and kill their profits
While they treat us all like crooks
But it's them been ripping us off.
Time to steal back what they took.

Songs that make you think
True songs of freedom
All we'll ever have.

We download songs.

We Download Songs

This is a Google Bomb. Pass it on.

It occurred to me that SiteFinder does not even show up on the first page, let alone at the top, of a Google search for "evil", whereas PowerPoint is number seven. This situation must be rectified. Note that evil is a high mountain to climb; perhaps "most evil" is a better first target. You decide.

Democracy is a beautiful thing.

Evil

] The statistic is two days old, but Child's Play is now at
] a hundred and twenty-three thousand dollars in toy and
] cash donations. The original storage place now acts as a
] staging area, and is as full as it was when we needed a
] truck to take it all out. You guys are going to kill me.

This story got some attention earlier this week.. The Penny Arcade guys are up to over $123,000 in donations now, and more are still coming in.

This is very cool.

Penny Arcade - Child Play Toy Giveaway Stats

] Reuven Cohen of Bar-Ilan University in Israel and his
] colleagues propose a simple modification of random
] vaccination that is more effective, according to their
] computer simulations. The idea is to randomly choose,
] say, 20% of the individuals and ask them to name one
] acquaintance; then vaccinate those acquaintances.
] Potential super-spreaders have such a large number of
] acquaintances that they are very likely to be named at
] least once, the researchers found. On the other hand, the
] super-spreaders are so few in number that the random 20%
] of individuals is unlikely to include many of them.

Vaccinate Thy Neighbor

6,320,430 decimal digits. Enjoy!!

] 2^20996011 - 1 is prime
] 6.3 million digit prime number discovered 17 November 2003
] by Michael Shafer, George Woltman, Scott Kurowski, et al
] The Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search

Look! It's the largest prime number!

] Asked about the SiteFinder address redirect trick
] Verisign rolled out. A group of "200 technical zealots"
] were against it, and they got all the headlines. Did they
] misinterpret it? Of course. We're not going to let this
] go. It is going to be the point where we answer the
] debate.

Just one flash mob can forever settle that.

] He then goes on to say that we need to move the
] complexity back into the center of the Net! He says
] the edge can't be so complex.

Back? Center? What?!

This is all a ploy to control the net. There is nothing else it can be. There is no way you can understand the Internet and make a statement like that otherwise. Substitute "power" for "complexity" in the paraphrased statement, and you have their motive.

Its not like that's new news, but its still infuriating!

Bring on the alternative naming systems!!

Stratton Sclavos at Red Herring Conference