West Coast...Galileo...decent NSA dudes?
Well, there's some truth to Tim May's east/west coast characterization, at least as far as technology is concerned. East coasters tend to think in terms of fitting into pre-existing organizations and structures, west-coasters are far more able to conceive of creating a new structure. (The arts are a completely different matter, however!) But what I don't fully get is why stance matters, per se. For instance, take p2p. We can actually argue all we want about what government should/not do about the problem, but in the end file sharing is just about unstoppable. If I write or release an app, then, that will facilitate seamless (ie, within the Kazaa browser, for instance) transmision and storage of shared files in an encrypted format, it kinda doesn't matter what my personal philosophy is, does it? I can claim to be a libertarian or say that Ayn Rand is a big pooh-pooh head, but in the end its pretty clear that file sharing is here to stay. Governing authorities can attempt to make all kinds of useless laws against it, or perhaps (and I don't think this is impossible), accept it as a reality and thereby strengthen its relevance to our every day existence (ie, I don't consider it impossible that some legislation could come along that might make things better for most people). Look, traffic lights work pretty good, and the hypothetical existence of hidden cops make us take them seriously. In other words, I'm not particularly pro- or anti-government per se. Frankly, I don't care a ton what the government does on this issue (for instance). By writing and releasing apps (or simply conceiving of and discussing new apps which are one day coded by others), I enable the safe-er transfer of files by those who choose to do so. I don't really know or care if they are transferring intellectual property...that's for individuals to decide. But by supporting (through actions and creating stuff) P2P, I am in effect taking a protocol nuetral stance...I am enabling individuals to generate and broadcast their own content, and make their own morality and even rules (eventually we'll see various trading cultures come into being on top of P2P). If that strengthens some government eventually, so beit. If that tumbles some governments (I admit more likely), so beit. (In a way, the protocol neutrality of cryto and other technologies also acts as a bellwether...if we weren't sure a government was repressive before, we'll get an idea very quickly after releasing a killer crypto app.) But in the end, the fact is that the cat is out of the bag and it doesn't matter what anyone thinks should/could/would happen. Technology is the main thing altering policy in directions we favor. The VCR changed policy through technological means...the Court in Disney v. Sony (the Betamax case) only provided a fig leaf (fair use, time-shifting) for the horse already being irreversibly out of the barn. The wide use of networks, SSH, crypto in general, made any crackdown on crypto in the U.S. a hopeless case, hence the retreat on Clipper, export laws. The invention of the printing press gave the pirates of that age the ability to subvert state-granted ownership of information. This long pass altered the ground truth in ways that law spent the next several hundred years dealing with. Actually there's some truth here. The Catholic church, arguably, was not upset with Galileo so much for saying the earth moves around the sun (Church big-shots at the time agreed with him and saw no contradiction with religious teachings). The real threat was that Galileo was claiming that knowing this could be achieved by direct observation of nature, bypassing the church. Likewise with the Protestant reformation, the printing press, the compass, and the appearence of fixed-hour clocks in town centers (as opposed to the monastary). And you know what? The Catholic church still ain't exactly the center of enlightened thinking on most issues (the pope silenced the big So American liberation theologians, remember), but you know what? It still exists, and it's a hell of a lot less repressive than it was during Galileo's time. So heliocentrism proved that the church was both repressive, but also had enough something or other to deal with it and change. Yes, I am unabashedly a technological determinist. I was talking in terms of knowledgequakes changing the environment long before Lessig neatly summarized the ideas (independent of me, by the way) in his tripod of custom vs. tools vs. law. (he has since expanded this to four legs, IIRC, but I favor the simpler version, the version which matches my own analysis from the early 90s.) This is why Cypherpunks have no use for Washington. Again, what I don't understand is the (apparently) necessary linking between the creation of enabling technologies and the existence (or eventual nonexistence) of ruling bodies as a whole. My point is not so much that any view on such
Fwd: CRYPTO-GRAM, December 15, 2002
Here's the actual text that's being discussed in another thread. I haven't read it yet, but FYI for those of you who haven't seen it... Date: Sun, 15 Dec 2002 03:11:26 -0600 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Bruce Schneier [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: CRYPTO-GRAM, December 15, 2002 CRYPTO-GRAM December 15, 2002 by Bruce Schneier Founder and CTO Counterpane Internet Security, Inc. [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.counterpane.com A free monthly newsletter providing summaries, analyses, insights, and commentaries on computer security and cryptography. Back issues are available at http://www.counterpane.com/crypto-gram.html. To subscribe, visit http://www.counterpane.com/crypto-gram.html or send a blank message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Copyright (c) 2002 by Counterpane Internet Security, Inc. ** *** * *** *** * In this issue: Counterattack Crypto-Gram Reprints Comments on the Department of Homeland Security News Counterpane News Security Notes from All Over: Dan Cooper Crime: The Internet's Next Big Thing Comments from Readers ** *** * *** *** * Counterattack This must be an idea whose time has come, because I'm seeing it talked about everywhere. The entertainment industry floated a bill that would give it the ability to break into other people's computers if they are suspected of copyright violation. Several articles have been written on the notion of automated law enforcement, where both governments and private companies use computers to automatically find and target suspected criminals. And finally, Tim Mullen and other security researchers start talking about strike back, where the victim of a computer assault automatically attacks back at the perpetrator. The common theme here is vigilantism: citizens and companies taking the law into their own hands and going after their assailants. Viscerally, it's an appealing idea. But it's a horrible one, and one that society after society has eschewed. Our society does not give us the right of revenge, and wouldn't work very well if it did. Our laws give us the right to justice, in either the criminal or civil context. Justice is all we can expect if we want to enjoy our constitutional freedoms, personal safety, and an orderly society. Anyone accused of a crime deserves a fair trial. He deserves the right to defend himself, the right to face his accused, the right to an attorney, and the right to be held innocent until proven guilty. Vigilantism flies in the face of these rights. It punishes people before they have been found guilty. Angry mobs lynching someone suspected of murder is wrong, even if that person is actually guilty. The MPAA disabling someone's computer because he's suspected of copying a movie is wrong, even if the movie was copied. Revenge is a basic human emotion, but revenge only becomes justice if carried out by the State. And the State has more motivation to be fair. The RIAA sent a cease-and-desist letter to an ISP asking them to remove certain files that were the copyrighted works of George Harrison. One of the files: Portrait of mrs. harrison Williams 1943.jpg. The RIAA simply Googled for the string harrison and went after everyone who turned up. Vigilantism is wrong because the vigilante could be wrong. The goal of a State legal system is justice; the goal of the RIAA was expediency. Systems of strike back are much the same. The idea is that if a computer is attacking you -- sending you viruses, acting as a DDoS zombie, etc. -- you might be able to forcibly shut that computer down or remotely install a patch. Again, a nice idea in theory but one that's legally and morally wrong. Imagine you're a homeowner, and your neighbor has some kind of device on the outside of his house that makes noise. A lot of noise. All day and all night. Enough noise that any reasonable person would claim it to be a public nuisance. Even so, it is not legal for you to take matters into your own hand and stop the noise. Destroying property is not a recognized remedy for stopping a nuisance, even if it is causing you real harm. Your remedies are to: 1) call the police and ask them to turn it off, break it, or insist that the neighbor turn it off; or 2) sue the neighbor and ask the court to enjoin him from using that device unless it is repaired properly, and to award you damages for your aggravation. Vigilante justice is simply not an option, no matter how right you believe your cause to be. This is law, not technology, so there are all sorts of shades of gray to this issue. The interests at stake in the original attack, the nature of the property, liberty or personal safety taken away by the counterattack, the risk of being wrong, and the availability and effectiveness of other
Re: [IP] Limits Sought on Wireless Internet Access (fwd)
On Tue, Dec 17, 2002 at 05:12:35PM -0800, Lucky Green wrote: | In other words, the new WaveLAN cards are shipping with a remote | off-switch held by minor government officials. Let's recap the | initiatives currently underway by both governments and major software | vendors: | | Remote disabling of your OS. | Remote disabling of your applications. | Remote disabling of your network connectivity. | Remote invalidation, if not downright alteration, of your digital | documents. | | I wonder what they'll announce next. Local disabling of your cynicism, in room 101. -- It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once. -Hume
Re: CRYPTO-GRAM, December 15, 2002
At 11:08 AM 12/16/2002, you wrote: Are you for real??? I'm reading with horror the editorial of your latest crypto-gram. Phrases like revenge only becomes justice if carried out by the State or the State has more motivation to be fair sound like right out of 1984. What happened to you? This is so utterly ridiculous that I'd laugh if you wouldn't have so much influence on so many people. I got over your idea that arming pilots and people on planes is bad, while armed marshals are good (because they get 3 balls while on duty, presumably), I got over your ignorance of the solution to the public good dilemma - which is NOT state control, but private property and enforcement of property rights - but this is nuts. Do I have to explain to you why the state can NOT be just? Why it has NO motivation to be fair, if it can get away with it? Why the incentives are all wrong - and why, even if we found saints and put them to govern, their *signals* would be all wrong, because they wouldn't put *their* lives and properties on the line? Do you even read the articles whose URLs you present to support your ideas - because the first one, http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,64688,00.html , is definitely not friendly to the state's justice? I would have thought that someone whose name is well known among cypherpunks has at least some familiarity with these ideas. At the very least, it would have required you to explain why you believe the state is good for justice - something which is definitely alien for most of us! My intuition is that the government is going to be slightly fairer than, for example, Disney. That's just a guess, though. Bruce
Salon - Radio Free Software
[This is one of the projects I've been working on, though only the two key technical contributors get a mention. steve] http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2002/12/18/gnu_radio/index.html Radio Free Software Call them hackers of the last computing frontier: The GNU Radio coders believe that any device with a chip should be able to do, well, anything.
Re: CRYPTO-GRAM, December 15, 2002
From: Shawn Duffy [EMAIL PROTECTED] While I disagree with the phrase revenge only becomes justice if carried out by the State and I certainly don't agree with everything ever written in a Crypto-Gram, I must disagree with your evaluation of Mr. Schneier's editorial. Specifically, the phrase why the state can NOT be just... Please tell me why... [Mark] The state must have two characteristics, or it's a private company: 1) compulsory taxation, and 2) a legal monopoly over the use of power in a certain geographic area. That is, it has the legal right to steal and kill, a right which individuals don't have. (They can buy it, but it has to be granted by the state.) It must also have a monopoly over the creation / enforcement of laws, which individuals are forbidden from doing. In having these characteristics - which it must have BY NECESSITY, if it is to be a state and not a private defense agency - it is automatically injust; it applies different rules to individuals, depending on whether they are acting as state agents or not. (Note: it's not enough for someone to be a state employee to be able to steal with impunity; but if he is acting as a state agent when stealing, then he is NOT legally guilty of theft.) or better yet, how do you define just? [Mark] A simple way would be same laws (legal rights, although I don't like the term) for all people. perhaps, I am living in a dream world, but, if you live in the United States, then we DO still have control over what the State does... [Mark] And I DO have some bridges to sell... just send me your bank account number and SSN... (Btw, believing this only makes you a *willing* accomplice to your government's actions.) bring on the naysayers, and the people who cry about corruption and conspiracy... but the fact still remains, that what the people want, the people can have... [Mark] Definitely. Most people want to steal, apparently. if they want it bad enough... the problem is that the people don't want it bad enough anymore.. the apathy is sickening... who's fault is that? [Mark] Apathy is not the problem. Supporting murderers and thieves is. But this is unrelated to my point. as for the State having NO motivation to be fair... please support this... [Mark] There's an entire economic school - the public-choice school - devoted to this. As someone's sig in cypherpunks says (very approx. quote), politicians don't (and shouldn't) do the right things because they're good guys... they will only do it when they know that otherwise they'll be shot or hanged. Since they aren't (also a recent observation made by someone on cypherpunks), they don't have any incentive to be fair. instead of getting on your soapbox to bitch and moan about how unfair things are, why not start makings things fair... [Mark] Watch out, you might begin to sound like Tim May... who believes that a good way to do that would be to nuke Washington, D.C. I can't say I disagree with him there. Mark
RE: CRYPTO-GRAM, December 15, 2002
Marcel Popescu[SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] My intuition is that the government is going to be slightly fairer than, for example, Disney. That's just a guess, though. While I do have a talent for pissing off (and getting pissed off by) known celebrities (see Tim May in the cypherpunks list), I must confess that you are an incredible disappointment. I mean, nevermind the flippant response (I don't know why you bothered, honestly - I would rather you hadn't), but that's it? You guess that the government is going to be slightly fairer than Disney? Do you know of many people wrongfully imprisoned by Disney? Mark Well, I'm sure there have been some. Remember that Disney Corp is just about the sole land owner of the Reedy Creek Improvment District, which was cut out of central Florida in 1967 on Walt's promise to build The ExPerimental Community Of Tommorrow there. Originally EPCOT was to have been a real town, where thousands of ordinary Floridians would live, vote, and have families. What actually happened was Disneyworld, with EPCOT just another theme park. Within the RCID, Disney is effectively as sovereign as Kissimmee or Orlando. It pays no local taxes (except to the RCID), and supplies all it's own services - roads, water, fire, and law enforcement. Yes, there are Disney Cops, over 800 of them, who can arrest you and lock you up, rightfully or wrongfully. A few Disney employees and their families (about 65 people) live on the 24 acres (out of 27,000) not owned by the Disney Corp, RCID, or the State of Florida. They are the only voters in the RCID, and the board of directors they elect are the independent government of the RCID. Check http://www.anomalies-unlimited.com/Disney101.html Peter Trei
Re: CRYPTO-GRAM, December 15, 2002
Bruce wrote: My intuition is that the government is going to be slightly fairer than, for example, Disney. That's just a guess, though. Governments have no restrictions on their conduct, aside from moderating it to the extent that they are not overthrown from within, or attacked by other governments. Governments cannot commit themselves to anything they cannot later undo by simply declaring they have changed their minds. Treaties, for instance, are far different legal instruments than contracts made between corporations. Given that governments can sell pretty much anything to the Proles, if they get to spin it to their benefit, my guess would be that we have far less to fear from Disney than we do from government. Disney also doesn't arrogate to itself the right to kill those who disclose its secrets. -- Eric Michael Cordian 0+ O:.T:.O:. Mathematical Munitions Division Do What Thou Wilt Shall Be The Whole Of The Law
Re: Suspending the Constitution
On Sat, Dec 14, 2002 at 03:18:09PM -0800, Mike Rosing wrote: On Sat, 14 Dec 2002, Tim May wrote: Lincoln's notion that the Constitution is suspendable during a war, or other emergency conditions, was disgraceful. Nothing in the Constitution says that it is suspended when a President declares it to be suspended. Power is what power does. He got away with it, that's all that counts. Then the consitution is meaningless babble. Don't stand out, don't protest policy, don't write letters, don't meet with hackers, and Washington won't interfere with your so-called constitutional rights. This is where we are. Almost, but not quite. There's definitly a protest movement already - http://www.notinourname.net is a national one there are 2 in my city http://www.mindspring.com/~wnpj and www.madpeace.org. There's plenty of people using words to change things. The Not in Our Name people are only running off at the mouth because it's a Republican in the white house. The didn't speak up when the Sodomizer in Chief bombed a pharmacetuical plant, nor a dozen or so other armed interventions during that period. No, those people aren't against the government taking away our rights by force, they're just against *THIS* government taking away our rights by force. The thermonuclear cleansing of Washington, D.C. cannot come soon enough. Allah willing, by next Ramadan. While I can't say I disagree, I think a more subtle approach may be more permenent. There is no approach that can be permanent, other than sterilizing the entire planet. Freedom, like security, is a process, a process you cannot stop or you lose it, and when you lose it, it's a lot harder to get back. -- They can attempt to outlaw weapons but they can't outlaw| Quit smoking: the Platonic Ideal of a weapon and modern technology makes | 240d, 13h ago it absolutely trivial to convert a Platonic Ideal of a | petro@ weapon into an actual weapon whenever one desires. | bounty.org
Re: Anonymous blogging and unlicensed medical advice.
On Wed, Dec 11, 2002 at 04:27:42PM -0800, Bill Stewart wrote: At 08:43 AM 12/11/2002 -0800, Tim May wrote: On Wednesday, December 11, 2002, at 01:31 AM, Morlock Elloi wrote: In a way, Mathew's and Choate's attack upon the list has done us a favour. The list is now effectively restricted to those with the will and ability to use filters, which raises the required intelligence level. Does this vindicate homeopathy ? No, it vindicates the vaccination approach, the antigen-antibody approach. Or, more pedestrianly, simple learning. Those who learn to filter do so. Others drown. A central tenet of homeopathy is the bizarre and acausal notion that dilution of the agent by 100x, by 1000x, even by one billion times, makes no difference. If there is just one atom of arsenic, maybe just one quarter of an atom, in this liquid, your body will learn to later tolerate arsenic! Homeopathy is a bogus quack theory backed by 200 years of trial-and-error experience. Just remember that when Homeopathy *started* it was less likely to kill you than the alternative. Of course, the scientific method eventually caught on in Medical Circles, an rapidly advanced to the point where they claimed they could tell if you were a criminal or not by how far apart your eyes were... -- We forbid any course that says we restrict free speech.| Quit smoking: --Dr. Kathleen Dixon,| 240d, 13h ago Director of Women s Studies, | petro@ Bowling Green State University | bounty.org
Re: Extradition, Snatching, and the Danger of Traveling to Other Countries
On Fri, Dec 13, 2002 at 11:44:28AM -0500, Trei, Peter wrote: For the Russians, 'a few' was over 70. I hope for a non-violent restoration - this sort of thing could give the Libertarian Party legs, if they handled it right. ROTFLMAO. You a funny man, you ever considered standup? if they handled it right... Ha! -- The end move in politics is always to pick up a gun. | Quit smoking: -- Richard Buckminster Fuller| 240d, 13h ago | petro@ | bounty.org
Re: Suspending the Constitution
On Wed, 18 Dec 2002, Adam Shostack wrote: The Volkh conspiracy blog had this Learned Hand quote recently: I often wonder whether we do not rest our hopes too much upon constitutions, upon laws and upon courts. These are false hopes; believe me, these are false hopes. Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can even do much to help it. While it lies there it needs no constitution, no law, no court to save it. The entirety is at http://www.criminaljustice.org/public.nsf/\ENews/2002e67?opendocument. Yup, all the ink and all the paper doesn't mean squat. Who points the guns where is what matters. I think there's enough people that still believe liberty is the right way to go. And after a whole bunch of others get their doors kicked in, they might joint the crowd too. Private comms is definitly important to freedom. It's also useful to tyrants. Preventing the monopoly is our job :-) Patience, persistence, truth, Dr. mike
Re: West Coast...Galileo...decent NSA dudes?
But what I don't fully get is why stance matters, per se. For instance, take p2p. We can actually argue all we want about what government should/not do about the problem, but in the end file sharing is just about unstoppable. If I write or release an app, then, that will facilitate seamless (ie, within the Kazaa browser, for instance) transmision and storage of shared files in an encrypted format, it kinda doesn't matter what my personal philosophy is, does it? I can claim to be a libertarian or say that Ayn Rand ... In other words, I'm not particularly pro- or anti-government per se. Frankly, I don't care a ton what the government does on this issue (for instance). By writing and releasing apps (or simply conceiving of and discussing new apps Changing the method (or introducing a new one) of communication between subjects is inherently anti-government. Government is that by control, and requiring it to do extra work to retain that control is generally viewed as unpleasant. French resisted introduction of telegraph for several decades - the government insisted on soldier-guarded signalling tower system. I can not think of any current government that would not be shit scared at the prospect of all subjects suddenly acquiring method for secret or untraceable (or both) communication. So your releasing of that p2p app is and will be viewed as pushing arms (free guns, imagine the possibilities) and will be dealt with accordingly. Especially if you make it to operate as simply as .45 = end (of original message) Y-a*h*o-o (yes, they scan for this) spam follows: Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com
Re: Verdict's in: Elcomsoft NOT GUILTY of criminal DMCA violations
On 17 Dec 2002 at 16:43, Steve Schear wrote: [I'm more convinced than ever that nullification figured into the verdict. If so, bravo for the jury. steve] Both the defense and the prosecution sought to make the facts clear and understandable to the jury. So the defense was betting on nullification.
Re: Suspending the Constitution
On Wed, Dec 18, 2002 at 03:17:21PM -0800, Petro wrote: | On Sat, Dec 14, 2002 at 03:18:09PM -0800, Mike Rosing wrote: | On Sat, 14 Dec 2002, Tim May wrote: | Lincoln's notion that the Constitution is suspendable during a war, or | other emergency conditions, was disgraceful. Nothing in the | Constitution says that it is suspended when a President declares it to | be suspended. | Power is what power does. He got away with it, that's all that counts. | | Then the consitution is meaningless babble. The Volkh conspiracy blog had this Learned Hand quote recently: I often wonder whether we do not rest our hopes too much upon constitutions, upon laws and upon courts. These are false hopes; believe me, these are false hopes. Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can even do much to help it. While it lies there it needs no constitution, no law, no court to save it. The entirety is at http://www.criminaljustice.org/public.nsf/\ENews/2002e67?opendocument. Adam -- It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once. -Hume
[texas-hpr] My first run-in with the Safe Explosives Act (fwd)
-- Forwarded message -- Date: Wed, 18 Dec 2002 14:21:17 -0800 (PST) From: Jim Parker [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Rocketry - Austin [EMAIL PROTECTED], Rocketry - North Houston [EMAIL PROTECTED], Rocketry - Waco [EMAIL PROTECTED], Rocketry-Texas-Hpr [EMAIL PROTECTED], TRA [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [texas-hpr] My first run-in with the Safe Explosives Act I went to the local gun store today to get a can of 4F. I thought I would pass along the experience. The person that waited on me happened to be one of the owners. She asked me what I was going to use it for. I told her model rocket ejection charges, and I asked her why she wanted to know. She said that they had been advised to ask, but I gave an acceptable answer, so I could buy. I told her that the model rocket community was under the impression that the law was not going into effect until March, but that some paperwork changes were happening in January. She said they had been advised that all changes were effective immediately. I then told her that I thought gunpowder was what was getting regulated more, not black powder. Another salesman came up and told me that it was actually the opposite. They could leave gunpowder out on the shelf, but black powder had to be stored in a magazine. I asked the owner where they got their magazine. She said she had no idea where they got it because they had had it for so long. The salesman said it was just a big welded steel box with locks on it. She said (with much irony) that I looked dangerous. I told her (also with much irony) that everyone knew Osama was hiding out in a model rocket club somewhere. This exchanged brought another unhappy thought to mind. Even if we win the lawsuit over APCP, the BATF will still happily jump on us for igniters and ejection charges. A different solution will have to be found for those. They are so much smaller in volume that maybe someone in each club can have a LEUP and keep a magazine just for everyone's igniters and ejection charges. Jim Parker Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
Re: [CHOATE FIX] No quantum postcards (Re: Libel lunacy -all laws apply fnord everywhere)
On Tue, 17 Dec 2002, Major Variola (ret) wrote: Seems I have to explain why IP packet routing is not broadcasting some more. Those of you who understand that postcards have one trajectory from you to me can skip this. My first post was a first-order Choate fix. This post is a second-order fix. I refuse to respond to the next gripe, where JC brings up quantum postcards that take all paths at the same time, until you open your mailbox. Yada yada yada...same old CACL bullshit. At 07:12 AM 12/17/02 -0600, Jim Choate wrote: On Mon, 16 Dec 2002, Major Variola (ret) wrote: The network? Sorry, its one wire from here to there. No it isn't, try a traceroute to a regular site that isn't over your internal network over several days, why does it change? In a *virtual* connection, the *physical* paths may change transparently. Transparently says you, change the rules in the middle of the game and hope nobody notices. Thank you for making my point. One must have a physical connection prior to a virtual connection. That physical network connection is equivalent for this comparison to the physical connection between radio transmitter and receiver, which is also shortest path (usually). That phsical connection will change based on many variables. It is true that more intelligent routers will cache various pieces of data, and provided the cache doesn't go stale your route 'from here to there' will stay the same. The reason that the intelligence was put into the routers was because the packets were bopping around the network until their TTL went to zero (each individual packet gets it's TTL decremented each time it hits a router, until it hits zero when it's dropped, each router either sends it to a known host on its local net or it's default route - where the process starts all over again on that adjacent physical localnet). The comparison to radio and multi-path distortion is also valid with reference to receipt of multiple copies of a packet (and how prey tell does that happen? Does the single router send out the same packet twice? Nope, Different routers send them out and they get to the recipient who takes them based on first come, first served -by different intermediate paths-). Bottom line, if there are n hosts on a network link and a packet is injected each host gets a shot at it. If the host has sufficient info it can make intelligent decisions, otherwise it drops back to the TTL so the network doesn't get completely clogged by stale packets floating around in limbo for perpetuity. Each IP packet has one path though the sequence of packets may take different routes. Gibberish. Perhaps the mailing-postcards analogy is better than the telco one, since Ma Bell doesn't diddle the route after call setup AFAIK. But your postcards, once injected into the Postal Network, may take different routes. Not that you or your recipient knows. No they won't. If you drop your postcard in a specific drop point then it will be picked up and delivered to a specific central routing point. There it will be collected with others of a similar destination. Then it will be sent to the appropriate distribution center for that region. From there it will be sent via truck or air to another distribution center, where the reverse process takes place. About the only variance is the plane/truck that is travelling the route between regional distribution centers probably isn't the same one that took yesterdays mail, but it could be. The USPS doesn't want your mail being sent all over hell and half of Georgia, that costs us all way too much money. Nobody (but perhaps you by inference) is claiming it is identical, however, it -is- a broadcast (just consider how a packet gets routed, consider the TTL for example or how a ping works). Each packet you send out goes to many places -besides- the shortest route to the target host (which is how the shortest route is found). Modulo CALEA and multi-/broadcast packets, each postcard is handed off to exactly one other device, or dropped. Actually it's not. Take for example when my ISP send my packet (say this email for example) out on their T3 or SONET link, there will be MANY other hosts who will look at it and their inbound routers will try to route it, unless they happen to know that destination IP is not in their domain. Once the packet gets on a backbone -many- potential routes see it and decide to pass it on to their default routes or drop it based on the routing table and protocols (which are not spec'ed by TCP/IP). This sort of broadcast is also why Ethernet itself uses the collision detection and resend the way it does. It's also why Ethernet gets bogged to near uselessness when the actual network bandwidth load approaches 50%. This is analogous to tuning your radio to a specific frequency (ie IP = frequency; protocol = modulation technique). The other issues that you raise are -really- strawmen. --
