NASA Successfully Tests First Deep Space Internet
Nov. 18, 2008

Dwayne Brown
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1726
dwayne.c.brown@nasa.gov

Katherine Trinidad
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1100
katherine.trinidad@nasa.gov

Rhea Borja
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
818-354-0850
rhea.r.borja@jpl.nasa.gov

RELEASE: 08-298

NASA SUCCESSFULLY TESTS FIRST DEEP SPACE INTERNET

PASADENA, Calif. -- NASA has successfully tested the first deep space
communications network modeled on the Internet.
Working as part of a NASA-wide team, engineers from NASA's Jet
Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., used software called
Disruption-Tolerant Networking, or DTN, to transmit dozens of space
images to and from a NASA science spacecraft located about 20 million
miles from Earth.

"This is the first step in creating a totally new space communications
capability, an interplanetary Internet," said Adrian Hooke, team lead
and manager of space-networking architecture, technology and
standards at NASA Headquarters in Washington.

NASA and Vint Cerf, a vice president at Google Inc., in Mountain View,
Calif., partnered 10 years ago to develop this software protocol. The
DTN sends information using a method that differs from the normal
Internet's Transmission-Control Protocol/Internet Protocol, or
TCP/IP, communication suite, which Cerf co-designed.

The Interplanetary Internet must be robust to withstand delays,
disruptions and disconnections in space. Glitches can happen when a
spacecraft moves behind a planet, or when solar storms and long
communication delays occur. The delay in sending or receiving data
from Mars takes between three-and-a-half to 20 minutes at the speed
of light.

Unlike TCP/IP on Earth, the DTN does not assume a continuous
end-to-end connection. In its design, if a destination path cannot be
found, the data packets are not discarded. Instead, each network node
keeps the information as long as necessary until it can communicate
safely with another node. This store-and-forward method, similar to
basketball players safely passing the ball to the player nearest the
basket means information does not get lost when no immediate path to
the destination exists. Eventually, the information is delivered to
the end user.

"In space today, an operations team must manually schedule each link
and generate all the commands to specify which data to send, when to
send it, and where to send it," said Leigh Torgerson, manager of the
DTN Experiment Operations Center at JPL. "With standardized DTN, this
can all be done automatically."

Engineers began a month-long series of DTN demonstrations in October.
Data were transmitted using NASA's Deep Space Network in
demonstrations occurring twice a week. Engineers use NASA's Epoxi
spacecraft as a Mars data-relay orbiter. Epoxi is on a mission to
encounter Comet Hartley 2 in two years. There are 10 nodes on this
early interplanetary network. One is the Epoxi spacecraft itself and
the other nine, which are on the ground at JPL, simulate Mars
landers, orbiters and ground mission-operations centers.

This month-long experiment is the first in a series of planned
demonstrations to qualify the technology for use on a variety of
upcoming space missions. In the next round of testing, a NASA-wide
demonstration using new DTN software loaded on board the
International Space Station is scheduled to begin next summer.

In the next few years, the Interplanetary Internet could enable many
new types of space missions. Complex missions involving multiple
landed, mobile and orbiting spacecraft will be far easier to support
through the use of the Interplanetary Internet. It also could ensure
reliable communications for astronauts on the surface of the moon.

The Deep Impact Networking Experiment is sponsored by the Space
Communications and Navigation Office in NASA's Space Operations
Mission Directorate in Washington. NASA's Science Mission Directorate
and Discovery Program in Washington provided experimental access to
the Epoxi spacecraft. The Epoxi mission team provided critical
support throughout development and operations.

    
-end-


Pinging Alpha Centauri [164.224.187.99.236.63.53.189.43.212.173.91] with 32 bytes of data:

Reply from 164.224.187.99.236.63.53.189.43.212.173.91: bytes=32 time=8.121LY TTL=243
Reply from 164.224.187.99.236.63.53.189.43.212.173.91: bytes=32 time=8.121LY TTL=243
Reply from 164.224.187.99.236.63.53.189.43.212.173.91: bytes=32 time=8.120LY TTL=243
Reply from 164.224.187.99.236.63.53.189.43.212.173.91: bytes=32 time=8.121LY TTL=243

Ping statistics for 164.224.187.99.236.63.53.189.43.212.173.91:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in Light Years:
Minimum = 8.120LY, Maximum = 78.121LY, Average = 8.12075LY

--

Microsoft to offer free consumer security suite
Story : http://news.cnet.com/8301-1009_3-10101582-83.html
Microsoft on Tuesday said it is changing its strategy for offering PC antivirus software, with plans to discontinue its
subscription-based consumer security suite and instead offer individuals free software to protect their PCs.
Code-named Morro, the new offering will be available in the second half of 2009 and will protect against viruses,
spyware, rootkits, and Trojans, the company said in a statement.
With the arrival of Morro, Microsoft plans to stop selling the Windows Live OneCare service, although the
two services are not identical. Morro lacks OneCare's non-security features, such as printer sharing and automated
PC tuneup. Morro will, however, use fewer resources than the subscription-based offering, making it better suited
to low-bandwith systems and less powerful PCs.
Microsoft decided to switch to a free product because there are still so many PCs out there that lack any antivirus software.

--

Hosting firm takedown bags 500,000 bots
November 18, 2008 (Computerworld) The shutdown last week of a U.S.-based
Web hosting company crippled more
than 500,000 bots, or compromised computers, which are no longer able to receive
commands from criminals, a security researcher said today.
Although the infected PCs are still operational, the previously-planted malware that tells them what
to do can't receive instructions because of the shutdown last week of McColo Corp.
"Half a million bots are either offline or not communicating" with their command-and-control servers,
estimated Joe Stewart, director of malware research at SecureWorks Inc.
McColo was disconnected from the Internet by its upstream service providers at the urging of researchers
who believed the company's servers hosted a staggering amount of cybercriminal activity,
including the command-and-control servers of some of the planet's biggest botnets.
Those collections of infected PCs were responsible for as much as 75% of the spam sent worldwide.
When McColo went dark, spam volumes dropped by more than 40% in a matter of hours.
--


RIAA Wins, Campuses Lose as Tennessee Governor Signs Campus Network Filtering Law
Last week, the RIAA celebrated the signing of a ridiculous new law
http://www.legislature.state.tn.us/info/Leg_Archives/105GA/bills/Chapters/PC0819.pdf
in Tennessee that says:
Each public and private institution of higher education in the state that has
student residential computer networks shall:
[...]
[R]easonably attempt to prevent the infringement of copyrighted works over the institution's computer and network resources,
if such institution receives fifty (50) or more legally valid notices of
infringement as prescribed by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 within the preceding year.
While the entertainment industry failed to get "hard" requirements for universities in the
Higher Education Act passed by Congress earlier this year, the RIAA succeeded in Tennessee
(and is pushing in other states) with this provision that gives Big Content the
ability to hold universities hostage through the use of infringement notices. Moreover,
the new rules will cost Tennessee a pretty penny -- in the cost review attached to the
Tennessee bill, the state's Fiscal Review Committee estimates that
the new obligations will initially cost the state a whopping $9.5 million for software, hardware,
and personnel, with recurring annual costs of more than $1.5 million for personnel and maintenance.
Not a penny of this will go to artists, nor to any of the record labels RIAA represents.
[...]
Meanwhile, universities under the gun should make sure to shun the hype of network filtering when
possible and seek solutions more amenable to teaching and academic freedom --
our whitepaper on copyright infringement technologies on campus networks is a good place to start.
For more detail, EDUCAUSE has in-depth resources on P2P, file sharing, and the Higher Education Act.

---
Learn how to use your Jury votes to control your government.
Know how to defend yourself against the RIAA in a trial.
http://www.edu-cyberpg.com/Music/musiclaw.html
We The People control the law.The right of "Jury Nullification of Bad Law"
is the ultimate right of the people to control their government.
The Grand Jury, and the Trial Jury were put in the system as separate powers.
The Trial Jury Check is the most important check and the final check in the
system of checks and balances. they are the check against all the others, because
EVERY JURY is allowed to Judge BOTH THINGS
1) the law itself !! -- is it just? is it right? or is it total crap and
2) the guilt or innocence of the defendant.
The jury's vote is the most important check against bad laws of politicians, and judges who have been corrupted.
---

The Value of Unlicensed Music “Shared” Worldwide on P2P Networks in 2007 was US$ 69 billion

--

'Life' Archive Goes Online in Google Deal
The entire archives of Life magazine are to be put online in a deal with
Google. By Stephen Adams
Last Updated: 9:26AM GMT 19 Nov 2008
Telegraph
<http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/
3482010/Life-archive-goes-online-in-Google-deal.html>
A shorter URL for the above link:
<http://tinyurl.com/6ghv7u>
Photographs and moving film going back to the 1880s - including the
amateur Super 8 film footage of President John F Kennedy's assassination -
will go online over the next few months.
The archive includes about 10million images, about 97 per cent of which
have never been seen before.
About 20 per cent of it has already gone online.

Search millions of historic photos
http://images.google.com/hosted/life
Search millions of photographs from the LIFE photo archive,
stretching from the 1750s to today. Most were never published
and are now available for the first time through the joint
work of LIFE and Google.


Google Adds Searching by Voice to iPhone Software - NYTimes.com
SAN FRANCISCO — Pushing ahead in the decades-long effort to get  
computers to understand human speech, Google researchers have added  
sophisticated voice recognition technology to the company's search  
software for the Apple iPhone.
Users of the free application, which Apple is expected to make  
available as soon as Friday through its iTunes store, can place the  
phone to their ear and ask virtually any question, like "Where's the  
nearest Starbucks?" or "How tall is Mount Everest?" The sound is  
converted to a digital file and sent to Google's servers, which try to  
determine the words spoken and pass them along to the Google search  
engine.


The Forces Driving Women Out of Computer Science - NYTimes
ELLEN SPERTUS, a graduate student at M.I.T., wondered why the computer camp she had attended as a girl had a boy-girl ratio of six to
one. And why were only 20 percent of computer science undergraduates at M.I.T. female? She published a 124-page paper, “Why Are
There So Few Female Computer Scientists?”, that catalogued different cultural biases that discouraged girls and women from pursuing a
career in the field. The year was 1991.Computer science has changed considerably since then. Now, there are even fewer women entering
the field. Why this is so remains a matter of dispute.
What’s particularly puzzling is that the explanations for under-representation of women that were assembled back in 1991 applied to all
technical fields. Yet women have achieved broad parity with men in almost every other technical pursuit. When all science and
engineering fields are considered, the percentage of bachelor’s degree recipients who are women has improved to 51 percent in 2004-5
from 39 percent in 1984-85, according to National Science Foundation surveys.



Click here: A Computing Pioneer Has a New Idea - NYTimes.com
The Convey computer will be based around Intel’s microprocessors. It will perform like a shape-shifter, reconfiguring with different
hardware “personalities” to compute problems for different industries, initially aiming at bioinformatics, computer-aided design, financial
services and oil and gas exploration.



Obama Assembles FCC Transition Team
By Ira Teinowitz
<http://www.tvweek.com/news/2008/11/obama_assembles_fcc_transition.php>
President-elect Barack Obama today named two academics to head his  
transition team looking at issues and personnel for the Federal  
Communications Commission.
Susan Crawford, a University of Michigan law professor of  
communications law, and Ken Werbach, a Wharton School assistant  
professor and a former counsel for new technology policy at the FCC  
during the Clinton administration, will lead the team.
blog http://scrawford.net/blog/

Supernova Show 2008
http://www.supernova2008.com/go/speakers

<anon comment> The selection of Crawford and Kevin Werbach to oversee the FCC  
selections for the transition team is pretty inspired. One thing that  
should make IPers happy is the fact that they're both "Internet  
people" rather than "telecom people," which signals a recognition on  
the part of the President-elect that we're in a new world that calls  
for new ideas to meet new challenges.
Obama's FCC team
profiled 30 possible FCC candidates, including four of the five chosen, at
Here's some details on them, all of whom I've met as a reporter and respect.  
Some are friends. Four of them are out of the 1990's group led by Reed Hundt
and close in belief to Obama. All except Ness were strong and early Obama supporters, I believe.