Mark Russinovich: Vista Multimedia Playback and Network Throughput

Sure, network performance is affected by people downloading YouTube videos and streaming radio stations, but if you use Windows Vista, it can also be affected by playing media you've already downloaded, as Mark Russinovich explains:

A few weeks ago a poster with the handle dloneranger reported in the 2CPU forums that he experienced reduced network throughput on his Vista system when he played audio or video. Other posters chimed in with similar results, and in the last week attention has been drawn to the behavior by other sites, including Slashdot and Zdnet blogger Adrian Kingsley-Hughes….

…I caused throttling to be visible on my laptop, which has three adapters, by copying a large file to it from another system and then starting WMP and playing a song. The Task Manager screenshot below shows how the copy achieves a throughput of about 20%, but drops to around 6% on my 1Gb network after I start playing a song.

The problem is… well, the problem is complicated, and you're better off reading the whole article. But in a nutshell, Vista prioritizes CPU power towards showing multimedia - not networking.

ComputerWorld: Rural broadband drought puts hurt on retailer

Despite the fact that cable and DSL providers have promised rural broadband penetration, many homes and businesses in the more sparsely populated areas of the United States can't get broadband service - and retailers which rely on broadband are using more expensive, slower services such as frame relay to get bits to the store.

The lack of broadband access in rural areas isn't just hurting individuals and small businesses. Even large retail chains, which often have stores in rural shopping centers, find that they can't get online.

Consider the plight of Trans World Entertainment, which relies mostly on DSL services to link more than 1,000 music stores - including its Coconuts and f.y.e. chains - to its back-end systems. "Unfortunately, DSL isn't available everywhere yet, even in retail areas. Right now, about 17% [of store locations] can't get broadband," says CIO Robert Hinkle, noting that availability can be limited even in the major retail zones within rural areas.

PCMagazine's John C. Dvorak: Don't Trust The Servers

John Dvorak believes that the crash of Microsoft's WGA servers (which disabled a number of verified Windows users's OSes) shows that SaaS programs are not a replacement for desktop apps - and that they have distinct disadvantages.

One aspect of the nightmare scenario should be discussed now. What kind of system is this, anyway? There should be no way that a legitimate user of a product should be suddenly cut off from use of that product because of an authentication server error, ever….

And what happens if the system fails? The damage wouldn't be too bad if you backed everything up, but then why use the online system in the first place?

Dvorak also believes that if desktop apps were a new development and SaaS was established, then…

…you can image the advertising push. "Now control your own data!" "Faster processing power now." "Cheaper!" "Everything at your fingertips." "No need to worry about network outages." "Faster, cheaper, more reliable." On and on. I can almost hear the marketing types brag about how much better "shrink wrap" software is than the flaky online apps. The best line for the emergence of the desktop computer in a reverse timeline would be "It's about time!"

Though tech trends are clearly going in the direction of having apps online, last weekend's massive failure of an important online subsystem does prove that such reliance on the network and applications servers has the potential to be catastrophic. Microsoft is a provider of server software and is more than a little familiar with running huge installations. This 19-hour outage that the company itself said would last perhaps 72 hours happened to Microsoft, not to Alabama Joe's Server Farm and Toaster Repair. So that in itself is scary.

Atlanta Journal-Constitution: India's Wipro to Open Center in Atlanta

Want to know how bad the U.S. economy has gotten? Indian companies are now outsourcing their programming jobs to America…

NEW DELHI - Wipro Technologies, the global services arm of Indian outsourcing company Wipro Ltd., plans to open a software development center in Atlanta, the company said.

Wipro will initially employ 200 people and anticipates about 500 positions within three years, mostly graduates from state universities, the company said in a statement.

Wall Street Journal: What Did U $@y? Online Language Finds Its Voice

This is another case of: "The story isn't news, the publication it's reported in, is."

In this hard hitting expose by the Wall Street Journal, arguably one of the pre-eminent business newspapers of the world, reporter Christopher Rhoads takes a hard look at a matter of vital importance to the world economy. Apparently, gamer's shorthand, or "leetspeak" is changing the way that human beings communicate.

Apparently, referring to things by slang and acronyms is a major breaking news story for an organization which is commonly referred to as "the WSJ" and competes with "the NYT," and was recently bought by News Corporation, which is commonly known as "Fox."

Lest you think I exaggerate the seriousness which the WSJ has decided to cover this story, they even included a stipple portrait of Pure Pwnage's Jarett Cale.

"I pone you, you're going down dude, lawl!" is how Johnathan Wendel says he likes to taunt opponents in person at online gaming tournaments. Pone is how he pronounces "pwn," and lawl is how "LOL" usually sounds when spoken…

"There used to be a time when people cared about how they spoke and wrote," laments Robert Hartwell Fiske, who has written or edited several books on proper English usage, including one on overused words titled "The Dimwit's Dictionary."…

"Leet: slang for 'good' or 'great,' apparently, and 'idiotic,' certainly," he wrote on the Vocabula Web site. "Leet" is in dictionaries with other meanings, including a soft-finned fish…

Gail Kern Paster, director of the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C., has reason to believe that a certain English poet and playwright would cheer the latest linguistic leap. Just as the rise of the printed word and the theater spurred many new expressions during Shakespeare's time, the computer revolution, she notes, has necessitated its own vocabulary -- like "logging in" and "Web site."

"The issue of correctness didn't bother him," says Ms. Paster. "He loved to play with language." As for leet, "He would say, 'Bring it on,' absolutely."

In order to advance this hard breaking story, I interviewed some participants in PurePwnage's IRC chat room.

<bboyko> Did you see the WSJ report on leetspeak?
<bboyko> working on a story for NetworkPerformanceDaily.com.
<PwnDaddy123> NO WAIIII!!
<Damilkman> gtfo
<PwnDaddy123> u a reporter??
<PwnDaddy123> wtf mann
<Max[Tuna`age]> [expletive deleted]
<Max[Tuna`age]> report that

TimesOnline: The Internet is dead. Long live the Internet.

Japan's Communication Minister, Yoshihide Suga pronounced that Japan wants to build a new internet that would be ready by 2020 that would create quicker and more reliable data transfer, and would be less susceptible to virus outbreaks and hacking.

For the rest of us, Mr Suga's proposal merits consideration. The current net is fine if you don't mind the occasional virus outbreak, the mounting presence of extortion-minded hackers or the bandwidth hiccups that make net video a jerky, pixelated approximation of TV. The net, while stable and functioning admirably, and capable, as many network engineers say, of surviving a catastrophic explosion, is still in a precarious state, particularly when you consider it has become the linchpin of the global economy. Telecoms and cable companies, tech firms and the like, have been building on top of 1960s era architecture for decades. The net is a mixed bag of networks - a bit of copper here, maybe some fibre there and wireless hotspots attached here and there to extend its range. This mishmash of technologies called the internet has got us this far, but will it hold up as our personal and collective bandwidth needs skyrocket?

BBC News: Troubled times for home networks

This BBC News article takes a look at the difficulty of home networking for the average consumer, a valid concern in the age of multiple computers in the household, Windows Home Server, etc.

And then there are the technologies that prove how useless they are when you actually try them. Take for instance, home networking.

The problem, [Gartner's Van Baker] said, was the sheer complexity of getting all those different devices to work together and swap data via a home network….

"Mention WPA or encryption or SSID or DHCP and you have lost the vast majority of consumers already," he said. "Most of them are not going to deal with that level of complexity and knowledge." The technical know-how required to set up a network and run music or video across cables or wi-fi, was, he said, "the elephant in the room that no-one wants to talk about."

Networking across Windows computers gives me a headache in my current setup - so much so that I'm considering switching from using Network Places to operating FTP daemons on each machine and using that. The one bright spot is that I can access my MythTV box in the living room from my bedroom computer. Of course, now that I can't get a channel guide, that's rather moot, but for the month that I had it, it was a pretty swell setup! (Anyone want to buy a formerly useful PVR?)

ComputerWorld: How IT is rethinking the traditional budgeting process

Seemingly straightforward, the traditional IT budgeting process still manages to put many CIOs and IT controllers on the defensive. Corporate accountants and business unit leaders demand to know what departments are getting in exchange for their technology surcharges, which are often levied as a chargeback or a fee extracted from various operational divisions to fund the IT department.

To inject the new levels of transparency that senior managers now demand, and further assert the business value of IT, more CIOs are becoming proactive.

"Now we are facilitating the dialogue and helping to establish the priorities. This subtle change makes a world of difference and allows my team to get an early heads-up so that we can plan resources accordingly," says Robert Golden, director of strategic business services at Insurance House, a Marietta, Ga.-based brokerage company that works with independent retail insurance agents throughout the Southeast.

Which business unites should fund the latest technology investments, and how? What is a sustainable business model for funding a next-generation converged network design with video, audio, and applications? This article dives into methods for changing normal IT budgeting process into a proactive IT financial management - for example, billing different departments for their IT use, motivating users to use resources more wisely. Reduced demand might even trickle down into fewer network devices, servers, storage, power, cooling, and floor space, reducing IT costs, if you can make the connection between usage and value.

WorseThanFailure: The Cool Cam

Indeed, this is a particularly interesting anecdote that shows that many sins are forgivable if there is enough value to what you do.

"European Air War was doomed. It was four years in development and not even close to being ready to ship… It almost seemed as though the execs were only keeping the project alive for the sadistic pleasure they took in watching the developers squirm. And among the bugs mentioned above, there were mountains more.

Tim knew what he was getting into when he came aboard the project…. With all of the bugs he could get started on, he decided it was necessary to add a new feature instead. He developed a camera system that would focus on anything "cool" happening near the player.…

Getting a double whammy of tough questions ("How overbudget is this project?" and "Why shouldn't we cancel this right now?"), Tim made sure his plane was level and flying evenly and let go of the joystick and hit the cool cam button… Suddenly, the camera zoomed in on an explosion, following a flaming plane barreling toward the earth, then the focus moved slightly to another plane quickly evading the flaming shell. Tim took the controls again when the execs lobbed another tough question about bugs they'd made no progress in fixing. …, he didn't have to answer because everyone was fixated on the screen. ...Tim's "cool cam" saved European Air War.

The lesson is not that debugging isn't important, but that it's often a good idea, when talking about IT budgeting or new projects, to keep your focus on what the project can do and what you can do next with it, rather than point out all the good progress you've been making fixing things. As techies, we tend to think in terms of how to effectively do what we've been tasked with when what really gets rewarded (with continued projects and larger IT budgets) is figuring out what we can do to help the company more effectively do its business and make money.

Network World's Layer 8: Hear no evil, see no evil: business e-mail overtakes the telephone.

E-mail has taken over as the number one business communication tool, according to a survey by Datamonitor/Dimension data, which revealed that while only 80% use fixed-line telephones, 76% use mobiles, and 66% use IM, but fully 100% of those that responded use e-mail.

The research surveyed 390 IT managers and 524 enterprise users across 13 countries in the United States, Asia Pacific and Europe, Middle East and Africa. The results may not come as a surprise to those companies that have a lot of branch office s or telecommuters. Nemertes Research says 83% of companies run virtual workplaces, and such organizations overall are experiencing an average 11% growth in the number of branch offices meaning there's a whole lot of people communicating without ever seeing or possibly hearing their branch office brethren.

Because no one will see or hear employees, e-mail is the preferred method of communication at Ninja Burger.

Our friends and business partners at Network Instruments have recently started their own blog, called "Network Observations." The name is a reference, partially to the Gigastor probe, which they develop and we at NetQoS resell. It's a retrospective network analysis tool that enables one to observe all the traffic that has passed through the network by saving it to disk.

They've certainly got the right idea, as far as the philosophy of blogging goes:

"For me it's about finding topic areas in networking that are of great interest to me. What can I write passionately about?"

Passion is key, even if some readers disagree with a particular stance. Readers are far more likely to connect with an opinion piece I write about a topic that stirs me than with a phoned-in blog on why Network Instruments is great (and we are!).

Though they may have just started blogging, they've already got interesting stuff that readers of this blog might like. Here are a few stories that caught my attention:

What hard drive manufacturers aren't telling you

First, the president and co-founder of Network Instruments, Douglas Smith, talks about hard drive failure rates. I recently had my own hard drive fail spectacularly at the worst possible time, so I can certainly relate.

In a nutshell, the study states that drive failure rates are between 2-13% per year. We have seen other studies that state average failure rates are around 5% per year. Keep in mind that these rates are for average use (studies include data centers and user systems). Hard drive manufacturers would have you believe the average rate of failure (MTBF) is over 1.5 million hours. This equates to roughly over 171 years of constant service before problems. A 5% failure rate translates to 100% failure in 20 years, a far cry from 171 years…

…One last note: the study indicated that the highest failure rates are in the first year and after the fifth year. Translated, 2-13% is an average over the life of a drive - in the first year and past the fifth year drive failures will be much higher.

Well, I'd rather have a hard drive fail on me than a frontal lobotomy…

Monitoring VoIP Quality Across the LAN and WAN

They also cover some pure Networking items too, like this story on VoIP monitoring:

In a landline business setting, we demand nothing less than reliable toll-grade phone service. As a result, excluding cost savings, call quality is the only measure VoIP is subjected to in the enterprise space. This means one of the chief jobs of the enterprise IT staff is ensuring that VoIP calls receive the highest QoS priority among all applications competing for bandwidth on the LAN and WAN.

Since today's infrastructure devices support NetFlow (which can tell you the VoIP traffic's priority), the case should be closed, as long as the highest priority is given to VoIP on an end-to-end basis. End-to-end is the key phrase.

You know you're too old for technology when…

There's also a touching personal account by Veena Vadgama on technology in alienation.

I hate IM - it's a major distraction-that darn thing popping up every few minutes saying "are you there?" or "hey, quick question".

I understand you would rather text versus call when you're not sure if the person can talk live but trying to communicate via texting is cumbersome and impersonal.

I don't get Facebook or MySpace and I say no to every LinkedIn request I get.

And, yes, will someone please tell me what a Wiki is?

Don't feel bad, Veena, I can't figure out how to send a text from my cellphone at all.

A Wiki, by the way, is a database accessed through the Web, where anyone and everyone who has access to the Wiki Web site has the ability to edit the content of the database in a structured environment.
Usually, the Wiki database will be used as a reference for collaborative projects - much like a whiteboard, only accessible by anyone, globally. (Smaller, private wikis can be used to help team members collaborate - these are usually not open to the outside world.)

The biggest known Wiki project is Wikipedia, and it shows surprising levels of accuracy, based on the assumption that the people who want a factually correct encyclopedia vastly outnumber - and can overpower the editing capacity - of those who would use the Wikipedia for other purposes.

A lesser known Wiki project is Uncyclopedia, which is just plain silly.

Beskerming.com: German Security Professionals in the Mist

A controversial computer security bill, Section 202c of the computer crime laws, became law in Germany, causing many networking companies and projects to close up shop or relocate from Germany.

This hope was important because earlier this year the German Government had introduced similar language into Section 202c StGB of the computer crime laws, which would have made the mere possession of (creates, obtains or provides access to, sells, yields, distributes or otherwise allows access to) tools like John, Kismet, KisMAC, Nessus, nmap, and the ability to Google effectively a crime.

Despite all efforts to peer through the mist about whether changes would be made to the proposed law, as of today it became active legislation. Penalties under the law include up to 12 months imprisonment, a fine, and potential linkage to terrorism related activities (at least as per sections 202a and 202b of the law).

Notably, the Month of PHP Bugs project has withdrawn all the code that details the PHP bugs that the project was trying to expose.

The Answer Machine

You're doing your homework. You're stuck and you need some answers. So you get help from your answer machine. On a table next to you is part of the machine - a typewriter keyboard. When you push the correct keys, Your questions will be answered on a screen on the wall.

So… the future looks a hell of a lot like Google…

Ars Technica: Dell Considers Bundling Virtualization on Motherboards

It's an interesting idea - why not put the virtual machine on the motherboard, rather than having to load an entire OS to run a virtualized one? Ars Technica reports that Dell is considering adding this to their offerings.

Hypervisor: Not to be confused with this.

But on a machine that uses virtualization, a hypervisor-the thin software layer that sits between multiple "guest OSes" and the hardware in a virtualized system-will eventually run at a level lower than the OS, so why should the BIOS boot the OS first and then have the OS load the hypervisor that will then run underneath it? Why not just hand off control directly to the hypervisor, and let it handle the OS-loading?

Even better, why not put that hypervisor on a piece of flash memory and place that memory on the motherboard where the BIOS can reach it directly, and the OS and chipset never have to know what's going on? In this respect, the flash chip containing the hypervisor is kind of like a second BIOS, with its own firmware, that handles the task of loading the operating system(s).

A hypervisor in a virtual system host is not to be confused with the headgear of chief engineer Geordi LaForge.

DarkReading.com: Antivirus Tools Underperform When Tested in LinuxWorld 'Fight Club'

While the end-users are secure that Linux systems are relatively virus free, enterprise Linux/Unix users still have to take steps to ensure that their systems remain secure from even those few Unix-based virus threats. That's why this information is so disconcerting:

Only three of the antivirus tools caught and blocked all 25 viruses thrown at them. One tool caught fewer than 10 percent.

The "winners" in last night's contest were Linux tools from Kaspersky and Symantec, and the open source Clam AV. All three tools caught 100 percent of the viruses they encountered. FProt and Sophos caught 94 percent; McAfee caught 89 percent; and GlobalHauri, Fortinet, and SonicWall caught 61 percent.

To be fair, the Amish Virus (Pennsil.DTCH), which relies on the honor system for you to delete your files and programs yourself, was excluded from the test.

LoveMyTool.com

Just found this blog - which is completely "family wholesome" despite the unfortunate name - dedicated to customer testimonials of network monitoring tools. For those interested in evaluating network performance tools, this might be a very good site to check out.

PearlJam.com: Lollapalooza Webcast: Sponsored/Censored by AT&T?

Pearl Jam lead singer Eddie Vedder, Sept. 2006 in Pistoia, Italy.
--Credit: Marco Annunziata, CC2.0-BY

Aspects of censorship, consolidation, and preferential treatment of the internet are now being debated under the umbrella of "NetNeutrality." … Most telecommunications companies oppose "net neutrality" and argue that the public can trust them not to censor.

There are many advantages to a non-neutral net but the main concern is that companies such as AT&T shouldn't have the power to censor based on corporate preference - in other words, to limit the type of traffic, not the content of speech. What does this mean for AT&T and its bid for a non-neutral net? More importantly, what will it take for rock radio stations to stop playing "Alive" over and over again? (C'mon, KROX-FM… they've made other albums besides Ten since 1993!)

Chicken.chik: Chicken Chicken Chicken - Chicken Chicken.

Chicken chicken chicken chicken, chicken chicken chicken chicken. Chicken chicken chicken chicken chicken chicken chicken chicken. Chicken, chicken chicken chicken. Chicken chicken chicken, chicken.

Chicken, chicken-chicken chicken chicken-chicken chicken, chicken chicken 95% chicken chicken-chicken chicken, chicken chicken chicken chicken-chicken chicken chicken chicken. Chicken, chicken chicken, chicken chicken chicken 1987.

Chicken chicken chicken chicken chicken.
-- Chicken Chicken

Chicken Chicken Chicken: Chicken Chicken (Video)

Chicken Chicken Chicken: Chicken Chicken (Whitemeatpaper/PDF)

Slashdot: Proposed IPv6 Cutover By 2011-01-01

An internet-draft published this month calls for an IPv6 transition plan which would require all Internet-facing servers to have IPv6 connectivity on or before January 1, 2011. 'Engineer and author John Curran proposes that migration to IPv6 happen in three stages.

Stage 1: Require millions of companies to spend millions of dollars switching over to IPv6 even though there's no ROI for doing so.
Stage 2: ???
Stage 3: Profit.

Comp.lang.lisp: "Well, I want to switch over to replace EMACS LISP with Guile."

Computer Science is a field that shows some danger signs of not evolving. Each and every Bright Idea is a revolution, and the primary purpose of a revolution is to throw away everything everybody had done up to some point in time. Revolutions sometimes do work, but their cost in human terms is /enormous/. Time and again we see that that which moves slowly from here to there win and that which tries to make it across the incompatibility abyss in one leap usually fall into it, instead.

The Novice has been the focus of an alarming amount of attention in the computer field. It is not just that the preferred user is unskilled, it is that the whole field in its application rewards novices and punishes experts. What you learn today will be useless a few years hence, so why bother to study and know anything well?

I have to disagree with this assertion by Erik Naggum. After all, some of what you learn today is useless immediately.

NetworkWorld: Cisco Networkers: Gyrating dancers, rollerbladers and some guy named John Chambers

These greeters then made their way to the stage for one final synchronized rollerblading group gyration while "Cisco Inferno" - yep, that same disco tune cleverly adapted for the host company's conference - blared from the loudspeakers.

Cisco Inferno? *groan*

Mcox.com: New Ethernet Standard both 40Gbps and 100Gbps

In a move worthy of the wisdom of King "Split 'em" Solomon, the IEEE has decided that the next generation of Ethernet will support both 40Gbps and 100Gbps.

The higher speed required more expensive and power-hungry equipment… Unable to come up with a consensus the HSSG decided to standardize both 40Gbps and 100Gbps speeds as the IEEE 803.23ba standard. Each speed will use different connection equipment.

Which begs the question, how standard is a standard that requires two different sets of equipment?

Ars Technica: Deep packet inspection meets 'Net neutrality, CALEA

An absolutely amazing, in-depth article about Deep Packet Inspection.

Imagine a device that sits inline in a major ISP's network and can throttle P2P traffic at differing levels depending on the time of day. Imagine a device that allows one user access only to e-mail and the Web while allowing a higher-paying user to use VoIP and BitTorrent. Imagine a device that protects against distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks, scans for viruses passing across the network, and siphons off requested traffic for law enforcement analysis. Imagine all of this being done in real time, for 900,000 simultaneous users, and you get a sense of the power of deep packet inspection (DPI) network appliances.

Don't be too proud of this technogical terror you've constructed. The power of deep packet inspection is insignificant next to the power of the Force.

ComputerWorld: Law firm's IT staff gives flimsy excuse for not whitelisting

Many people, in their effort to fight spam, often forget that it's more important to let good communications in than to keep the bad spam out. Such as a network administrator at Azar and Associates, a law firm that missed a court date because they forgot to whitelist e-mails from the U.S. District Court as "not spam."

Sure, this is a problem that's not likely to happen twice, but it shouldn't have happened first to begin with. This paragraph from the article makes an important point that all network professionals need to keep in mind:

The business process of the law firm was not understood by the admin. Obviously the CTO didn't relay to the admin the importance of these emails. He used to be a lawyer, so he should understand the criticality and do something to ensure this does not happen (the excuse above sounded like just that - an excuse). I'm not sure how often the domain of the district court changes, but it would be my guess that adding it to their whitelist would not require a lot of maintenance.

NetworkWorld Layer 8: Sand, sun, and RFID?: The high-tech networked beach is coming soon.

I grew up on the Jersey shore, and remember the days of fun down on the boardwalk. When I was little, we went to Funtown in Seaside Heights, then we grew into Casino Pier (especially when my cousins, Chris, David, and Michael were in town) and then to Jenkinson's in Point Pleasant when we moved from Brick, NJ to Clifton, NJ.
I digress. Ocean City is a South Jersey shore town with beautiful beaches and boardwalks as well - and they're planning to implement a municipal wi-fi system. (And an RFID beach-tagging system, but that's not the part I'm interested in.)

A wireless network will let Ocean City expand economic development and control the cost of local services. Wireless allows the City to save on cell phone usage, T-1 lines, and it adds efficiency. By maximizing connectivity, there are a variety of ways to enhance education, library services, and emergency management services, city executives say on their Website. The provider of the Ocean City wireless network has not been determined yet and the City meets this week to possibly select a service provider but it is on track to have wireless coverage by early 2008, according to the City's Website. The wireless net would be free to resident and $6 a day for tourists.

The optimist in me believes that you can get work done while your family plays in the beautiful waters of the New Jersey coastline. The cynic in me believes that you will be working while your family plays in the beautiful waters of the New Jersey coastline.

Wired: Martha Stewart Geeks Out for Wired's Annual How To Guide

You'd think that as the reigning queen of old-fashioned country-time beautification, Martha Stewart would be technophobic. Amazingly, that's not the case - she's technophilic, as this interview with Wired shows.

Stewart: I'm working on Marthapedia right now, which is my version of Wikipedia. If you know how to take red wine out of a white cloth napkin better than I do, that's good to know. We'll be editing user content, and it won't be as freewheeling as Wikipedia. Because a lot of this - you have to really monitor it.

And of course, Martha's got her own, better version of the gadget closet. It's a good thing.

Stewart: I have something called the servery. It's a room with two long white marble counters on either side and lots of plugs. That's where everything is - I have my cameras, a lot of batteries, everything.

Google.com: the Speed of Light in Furlongs per fortnight

the speed of light = 1.8026175 × 10¹² furlongs per fortnight

I'm sure that will come in handy if you ever need to calculate propagation delay in imperial units.

Tuesday Links On Wednesday: Coverage from the NetQoS/Cisco WAAS announcement, and other stuff.

First, here's what people are saying about yesterday's NetQoS/Cisco announcement:

• ZDNet UK: IT pros get to grips with WAN reports
• EWeek: Cisco, NetQOS Prove WAN Optimization Gains
• Network World: Cisco adds security, monitoring to WAN optimization gear
• Search Networking: Cisco adds monitoring to WAAS
• Network Computing: Cisco and NetQoS Partner for WAN Optimization and Performance Monitoring
• Techworld.com UK: WAN optimisation breaking app monitoring

And… some other things may have happened…

Wired - 27B Stroke 6: ISP Seen Breaking Internet Protocol to Fight Zombie Computers

ISPs, taking action against botnets on IRC, have been redirecting attempts to reach certain online IRC channels. The plus side: It does take care of some bots. The downside - breaking the DNS protocol prohibits access for all users.

"Specifically, Cox's DNS server is responding to a domain name request for an Internet Relay Chat server. Instead of responding with the correct IP address for the server, Cox sends the IP address of its own IRC server (70.168.70.4). That server then sends commands to the computer that attempt to remove malware."

What I'm worried about is the legal aspects - if ISPs can "edit" the type of material passing through the network by breaking DNS, do they lose a common carrier legal status? That is, of course, assuming this type of redirection is even legal.

In related news, some ISPs have been inserting advertisements into web pages - this site from the University of Washington and the International Computer Science Institute should help you determine if that's the case on your network.

Dark Reading: Attackers Hide in Fast Flux

Criminal organizations behind two infamous malware families -- Warezov/Stration and Storm -- in the past few months have separately moved their infrastructures to so-called fast-flux service networks, according to the Honeynet Project & Research Alliance, which has released a new report on the emerging networks and techniques.

So what is fast-flux?

Fast-flux is basically load-balancing with a twist. It's a round-robin method where infected bot machines (typically home computers) serve as proxies or hosts for malicious Websites. These are constantly rotated, changing their DNS records to prevent their discovery by researchers, ISPs, or law enforcement.

"The purpose of this technique is to render the IP-based block list -- a popular tool for identifying malicious systems -- useless for preventing attacks," says Adam O'Donnell, director of emerging technologies at security vendor Cloudmark.

Well, crud.

InfoWorld: Confessions of a former spammer

This is buried near the end of the article, but I think it's the most important line.

As broadband speeds increase, spammers will increasingly look to market goods by making VoIP calls or sending out videos, Ed said. The ultimate unsolvable problem is users, who continue to buy products marketed by spam, making the industry possible.

The problem with fighting spam is that we are going after the middle men, not the people who provide the supply - unscrupulous peddlers - and those who provide the demand - people who fall for spam.

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Correction: This article was originally posted as "Tuesday Links", despite the fact that we wrote and posted it on a Thursday. You ever have one of those days that... actually turns out to be another one of those days? -- ed.