Wednesday, April 23, 2014

News quikies of the day - 4/23

FCC says 'Screw It' on Net Neutrality

Net Neutrality is saying everyone get equal speed an access on all internet networks.  The FCC was holding tight to this idea.  That was until some courts said that Time Warner and Comcast can do whatever they want on their networks.  They don't have monopoly on the market and people can go elsewhere if they want a different internet experience.

My Opinion: The FCC was getting black eye and offending heavy contributors to the Democratic party and had to back down on this policy.  BTW: whatever happened to that free wireless network the FCC was going to build from the open bandwidth from the sale of analog TV channels?

Two Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Allegedly Planted Guns at a Pot Store

http://www.scpr.org/news/2014/04/23/43721/2-former-la-deputies-accused-of-planting-guns-to-j/

There is evidence that LA Sheriffs planted weapons jsut so that they could raid a pot dispensary.

My Opinion: I think marijuana should be legal.  But it needs tighter controls then what it has now.  Things are way to loose.  And I can see why law enforcement is frustrated because federally its illegal but at the state level it is legal.

But two wrongs don't make a right.  Also this isn't LA Sheriffs have been under a federal investigation.  I think all federal funds should be suspended to this department until either they officers do a full confession or the matter is fully investigated.

I was hoping to do another one tonight but I'm tired.


Wednesday, February 19, 2014

They want government observers in the newsroom

Its been announced that the FCC what to study how news stories are selected.  They want to make sure the 'undeserved' are getting equal time with CIN program.

Quoting from the FCC article:
Today, the Office of Communications Business Opportunities (OCBO) and the Media Bureau (MB) issued a Request for Quotation (RFQ) for a study to examine the critical information needs of the American public so that the Commission can more effectively meet its statutory and judicially mandated obligations.

That sound good, but what is the result?

Someone, or many someones, would be taking personal notes on what people are saying.  What they are doing.  Who they are and if they have views in favor of opposed to the state's.  That information could potentially be used to pull a station's license.  Sounds MacArthur like doesn't it?

The definition of 'undeserved' changes from administration to administration.  Each FCC chair and committee has their own parameters for what they think should happen in a newsroom.  Its all subjective and changing, dare I say newspeak.

With cable new networks and new media coming age does it really matter?  Everyone has access to a radio, internet, and newspapers now. So why concentrate so hard on a shrinking medium: over the air broadcasting? Also it makes me really nervous when I see government official intruding into private affairs.

Many of you maybe saying 'you must be a part of X party!  You sound like a kook.'  Let flip this, what if the opposite party wanted to do this you?  When you stand for or against it then?  You need to look beyond thr prism of party lines and look at what its really doing.

I want to keep the government out of my life as much as possible.  Beside, the TV newsroom has operated the essentially the same way since the 60's: 'if it bleeds its leads' or 'if positively reflects on my friends and advertiser or negatively reflects on my perceived enemies run the story.'  The FCC knows and the government in general knows this.  The president ran the most effective media campaign ever.  Why is this study really needed?

Monday, February 17, 2014

What is IPv8?

An article on SlashDot about the IPv4 'crisis' reminded of something else: what ever happened to IPv8 and IPv9.

For the non-techies you're wondering what is IPv4?  An IP address is like having a world wide ID card for buy food.  That card has enough room for 7 numbers (0 - 9,999,999).  We'll call this IPv4.  You need that card to buy food. Lets say we easily have enough numbers so everyone in the world has unique card.

But dogs and cats eat food too, we HAVE to count them now as well! So we need cards for them as well.  Uh oh, we have way more dogs, cats, gold fish, ect. then people.  We're running out of number!  So what do we do?

We make a new system that has more numbers and now uses letters as well.  We'll call that IPv6.  Wait, all our old system can't deal with bigger numbers and letters. That means we have to start all over again!  It took us 50 years to build the first system.

So you get the idea of where the internet is heading.  Change the animals to tablets, smart TV's, and even internet enabled crock pots and you can see where things are going. We're getting close to running out of numbers.

There are work arounds like NAT.  NAT works by giving a number to a neighborhood and having a runner take orders. The runner remembers who asked for a red apple, gets the apple, and gives the apple to them.  But NAT has issue like being slow. Also someone in your neighborhood ALWAYS knows what you're eating or mix up your order with your neighbors.

IPv6 is a much better and faster way to do things on the internet but it doesn't work well with old internet. The old internet can't talk back to it easily eitehr.  Also almost every electronic device that will talks on IPv6 has to be upgraded, replaced, or you have to but a proxy device to keep something that is wearing out working. That's expensive.

Now I know what IPv6 is, what's IPv8 and IPv9?  IPv8 was a replacement for IPv4 just like IPv6.  IPv8 was also supposed to work more like IPv4 for easier upgrades and have tons more numbers than IPv6.  So where is it?

IPv6 was designed but a very small group so that could get things going faster.  IPv8 what open to whole world and got lost the conversation.  IPv9 was a similar idea but it was being made by the Peoples Republic of China. Its seems to have been more of a PR stunt then anything.  No code or specs has ever been released for IPv9 to my knowledge.

I hear IPv8 is used by spies?  I thought you said it never got off the ground?  You know I change my name to Barrack Obama but that doesn't make me the president.  Someone else started a P2P system for sending secret messages and called it IPv8 as well.

Are there any other IPv... something out there.  Sure but they're all in the shape of IPv8.

Will we ever see IPv6 running?  If you have a smart phone you already have.  Most cell phone companies use IPv6 on their phones and use NAT to talk to old IPv4 that our computers use now.  I guessing in about 4-6 years the real IPv4 crisis is going to hit us.  Then we'll see the big change over to IPv6 happen.