Re: [69ATTENDEES] IETF in the local news

[Lloyd Wood <[e-mail]>]

At Friday 27/07/2007 08:53 -0500, Richard Barnes wrote:
>This article was in the local paper this morning.  Saw it in hard copy
>on the IETF message board, but here's an electronic version.  Copied
>from:
><http://www.chicagotribune.com/services/newspaper/premium/printedition/Friday/chi-fri_netheadsjul27,0,2758439.story>
>--Richard

Worth pointing out that the article made page 1 of the Chicago Tribune, left-hand column.

An article in the same issue debates celebrity deaths, and whether they should feature on the front page.

Thus, the IETF meet ranks with Marilyn Monroe.

L.



>www.chicagotribune.com/services/newspaper/premium/printedition/Friday/chi-fri_netheadsjul27,0,2758439.story
>
>chicagotribune.com
>
>Their mission: A better Internet
>A loose-knit group of 'netheads' gathers in Chicago to tackle some of
>the problems vexing the Web
>
>By Jon Van
>
>Tribune staff reporter
>
>July 27, 2007
>Click here to find out more!
>
>The guys who decide how the Internet should work (a few are women)
>want you to know they don't run the Internet. Nobody does.
>
>Despite its tremendous influence on Web technology, the Internet
>Engineering Task Force goes to great lengths to be loosey-goosey,
>almost hippylike. It is a purely voluntary group with no dues, no
>board of directors and no headquarters.
>
>"Our mission is to make the Internet work better," said Russell
>Housley of Herndon, Va., one of some 1,200 engineers from the U.S. and
>40 other countries who gathered in Chicago this week to swap ideas.
>Earlier this year they met in Prague, Czech Republic, and later they
>will meet in Vancouver.
>
>The engineers make suggestions in the form of technical language
>protocols with arcane acronyms like TCP and DKIM, and they have
>developed a system for reviewing, approving and publishing standards.
>But they have no power to enforce anything.
>
>Ordinary people who use the Web would have no idea what these
>engineers talk about -- or that they even exist.
>
>But it was not difficult to spot the "netheads" as they gathered in
>meeting rooms at Chicago's Palmer House Hilton or sat in the hotel's
>coffee shops and eateries. Nearly every one is tapping away on a
>laptop computer as he talks, eats or listens to others.
>
>"Nothing beats two guys sitting in a bar drawing on a cocktail napkin
>over a beer," said Housley.
>
>One project the engineers have worked on is aimed at decreasing phony
>e-mail messages asking you to provide your bank, PayPal or some other
>legitimate-sounding outfit with personal financial information. This
>form of spam, known as phishing, seeks to trick unsuspecting people by
>appearing to come from their bank or other place where they do
>business.
>
>A new task force standard attaches a signature to real communications
>from an actual business, enabling computer servers to identify and
>discard the phonies.
>
>"If a server gets 70 e-mails from PayPal and only five have the real
>signature, then only five go through and the other 65 don't," said
>Barry Leiba, who has worked with other engineers for about 30 months
>on the new standard.
>
>"Some companies are starting to adopt the standard, and we hope that
>within a year people will see fewer phishing spams," said Leiba. "The
>consumer doesn't have to do anything. Users don't understand the
>details and don't have answers. We don't want to involve them in
>this."
>
>Leiba's day job is working as a senior technical staff member for
>Internet messaging with IBM Research. Like most of the engineers who
>work on Internet standards he does so with his company's blessing.
>
>"I'm not here representing IBM," he said. "We are looking for what
>will improve the Internet, not what promotes our company's interest.
>Our companies all have a general interest in seeing the Internet work
>better."
>
>While most of the volunteers are engineers, anyone can attend a
>meeting of the task force, listen to what is said and make
>suggestions, and while they need not be professional engineers, they
>do have to have a deep understanding of technical issues and language.
>
>"No one is going to ask to see your diploma," said Olaf Kolkman, chief
>of NLnet Labs in Amsterdam. "Anyone can participate."
>
>Kolkman said some people he has never met have made comments and
>suggestions online that have been incorporated into standards. Some
>engineers who attend the meetings have no affiliation with any
>company. A few made big bucks during the dot-com boom, retired early
>and participate in the task force as a hobby, said Housley.
>
>The engineers discuss suggestions and reach what they call a "rough
>consensus and running code," meaning that most go along with a
>solution that works. All the work is published online as engineers
>make comments and revisions.
>
>Tasks on their plate include revising standards so that equipment
>exploring Mars can send photos back to the Internet for researchers to
>see immediately. Problem is, computers are used to things happening in
>seconds or milliseconds and it takes about four minutes for a bit to
>travel from here to Mars, so adjustments are in order.
>
>There's also a push to improve Internet telephony so that calls aren't
>dropped because computers lose track of the identity of the machines
>they are communicating with.
>
>The group, started with a meeting of 21 people in 1986, strives for a
>type of anarchy that mirrors the Internet itself but does rely on a
>certain amount of organized support.
>
>The Internet Society, a not-for-profit organization based in Reston,
>Va., provides logistical support for task force gatherings and
>recruits sponsors. Cell phone-maker Motorola Inc. picked up much of
>the tab for the Chicago meeting, and AT&T Inc. donated high-speed
>lines to bolster the Palmer House Hilton's communications systems.
>
>Bringing 1,200 Internet-obsessed engineers into a hotel for a week
>creates a communications demand that would cause an ordinary system to
>crash in an hour or two, said Steven Schroedl, founder of Verilan
>Networks in Portland, Ore., who brought a crew of five and literally a
>ton of equipment to beef up the hotel's wireless Internet.
>
>They added switches to a dozen electrical closets in the hotel and
>installed 30 access points for wireless Internet.
>
>"If you brought this group into a hotel without doing this," said
>Schroedl, "it would be a disaster. At this meeting, it doesn't matter
>how nice the venue or whether the food is good. It could be Paris or
>Prague, but if they can't get on the network, all they'll ever
>remember is how bad it was."
>
>- - -
>
>Five Internet priorities
>
>*Stop phishing spam
>
>*Improve communication with Mars probes
>
>*Improve telephony
>
>*Optimize video transmission
>
>*Adjust technology to allow basic functions (like e-mail) in Africa,
>South America
>
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Cisco router in space tested: ftp://ftp-eng.cisco.com/lwood/cleo/README.html
-- 
Lloyd Wood           [e-mail]          http://www.cisco.com/go/space
space initiatives manager, Cisco Systems Global Government Solutions Group
11 New Square, Bedfont Lakes, London. [phone] cell:[phone] 

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