The IBM and Macintosh computers have been in competition with each other for years, and each
of them have their strong points. They both had their own ideas about where they should go in
the personal computer market. They also had many developments, which propelled themselves
over the other.
It all started when Thomas John Watson became president of Computing Tabulating Recording
in 1914, and in 1924 he renamed it to International Business Machines Corporation. He
eventually widened the company lines to include electronic computers, which was extremely new
in those days. In 1975 IBM introduced their first personal computer (PC) which was called the
Model 5100. It carried a price tag of about $9,000 which caused it to be out of the main stream
of personal computers, even though their first computer did not get off to as big as a start they
had hoped it did not stop them from continuing on. Later on IBM teamed up with Microsoft to
create an operating system to run their new computers, because their software division was not
able to meet a deadline. They also teamed up with Intel to supply its chips for the first IBM
personal computer. When the personal computer hit the market it was a major hit and IBM
became a strong power in electronic computers. Phoenix Technologies went through published
documentation to figure out the internal operating system (BIOS) in the IBM. In turn, they
designed a BIOS of their own which could be used with IBM computers. It stood up in courts and
now with a non IBM BIOS, the clone was created. Many manufacturers jumped in and started
making their own IBM Compatible computers, and IBM eventually lost a big share in the desktop
computers.
While IBM was just getting started in the personal computer market, Apple was also just getting
on its feet. It was founded by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak in 1976. They were both college
drop outs, Steve Jobs out of Reed College in Oregon and Steve Wozniak from the University of
Colorado. They ended up in Silicon Valley, which is located in northern California near San
Francisco. Wozniak was the person with the brains and Jobs was the one who put it all together.
For about $700 someone could buy a computer that they put together, which was called the
Apple I. They hired a multimillionaire, Armas Clifford Markkula, a 33 year old as the chief
executive in 1977. In the mean time Wozniak was working at Hewlett Packard until Markkula
encouraged him to quit his job with them, and to focus his attention on Apple. Apple went public
in 1977, for about $25 a share. In 1977 the Apple II was introduced which set the standard for
many of the microcomputers to follow, including the IBM PC.
The Macintosh and IBM computer have been in competition ever since they put out their first
personal computers. In 1980, the personal computer world was dominated by two types of
computer systems. One was the Apple II, which had a huge group of loyal users, and they also
had a large group of people developing software for the Apple II. The other system was the IBM-
Compatible, which for the most part all used the same software and plug in hardware. In 1983
Apple sold over $1 billion in computers and hardware. Now Apple was trying to appeal more to
the business world so they designed the Lisa computer that was a prototype for the Macintosh
and it cost around $10,000. It featured a never before seen graphical interface and the mouse,
which are as common as any other component on the computer today. IBM introduced a
spreadsheet program called Lotus 1-2-3, which caused anticipated sales of the Lisa computer to
drop to nearly half.
In order for Apple to compete with the IBM-Compatible they had to change some things around.
Jobs headed the development of the Macintosh, with the goal in mind of a "computer for the rest
of us." He wanted it to be easily set up out of the box and up in running in 15 minutes. The
developers of the Macintosh made it so that you could not upgrade it for they did not think that
you needed to open your computer. In 1984, they launched the Macintosh for $2,495. The
advertisements for it cost around $500,000 and more than $1.5 million to play it on Super Bowl
Sunday in 1984. They decided later that if they wanted to keep up with IBM they would have to
make the Macintosh cheaper and easier to upgrade in order to appeal to the business market. In
1991 Apple's desktop computing business was going down hill, and Motorola, who was their chip
manufacturer, was being known as the company that was always one step behind Intel. So
Apple lost developers for their personal computer.
This is the label on many of the current chips that are being shipped today.
One thing that is different between the IBM and Macintosh is the type of CPU architecture they
are using. The IBM computers have been using the same chip design as it did when it first
created the personal computer. They created their systems around a CPU design Intel created,
which used an architecture called CISC (Complex Instruction Set Computing). This also allowed
the IBM computer to be compatible through out the years with the older systems. For instance if
you had some sort of typing programming that was on an IBM-Compatible computer that had a
286-12 CPU, you could run that same exact software on one of your newest Pentiums today. So
even after 10 years the same software could be used. This also has it down sides, because that
means we have been using an internal CPU architecture that is at least 20 years old. One thing
that IBM users can look forward to is the advancements that Intel is making with it's CPUs. One
of the latest things that has hit the market is MMX, which allows programs that are more
graphically inclined to run faster, as well as programs that use sound. They already have chips
in the making going by the code name Klamath. These will be a cross form of the current
Pentium Pro chips and the Pentium MMX chips. They should be coming out in 1998, and will
have a MHz rating up to 400. Right now the MMX chips are shipping at 200 MHz and will soon
have one at 233 MHz. Intel is moving very swiftly in bringing us the top of the line technology.
Apple decided to go with a different CPU architecture. IBM created a RISC (Reduced Instruction
Set Computing) CPU that could run faster than the CISC model of the same MHz rating, so a
RISC chip with a MHz rating of 100 could run just as fast as a CISC chip with MHz rating of 133.
Now with the definitions of CISC and RISC you would think that the RISC chip has fewer
instructions, and actually in fact it is just the opposite, but since it started out with fewer
instructions then the CISC chip it kept that name. Now IBM did not want to put it into their own
personal computers because of the compatibility issues. The computer would not be able to use
the current hardware or software, that was being made for the IBM-Compatible computers. So
IBM sought out a company that would be willing to buy their RISC chip, and Apple was the
company they found. Motorola had previously been designing the chips for Apple, but they were
not as fast as IBM so the Macintosh development slowed down in comparison to IBM. IBM could
design RISC chips for Apple with no problem. With this Apple needed to get developers to make
applications made to run specifically for the RISC chip. IBM decided to team up with Motorola
because they were not equipped to put out chips in high volume like Apple needed. Apple had
already been creating a mother board based on the Motorola chip design, so with IBM and
Motorola teaming up they did not have to redesign their mother boards. So now an Apple
computer could run faster than an IBM, in a certain sense. A Macintosh Quadra 40 MHz using
Motorola 68040 chip would be faster than most 486DX-66 MHz CPUs. The reason being is that
the Macintosh computer was totally design to run with each other. So the Operating System in
the Macintosh would take advantage of the hardware's capabilities as well as the hardware
taking advantage of the Operating System. So with this interconnected system it would be faster
than a system not made to take advantage of every little thing in a piece of hardware.
Apple Macintosh Mouse
With the both companies in heated competition, the pressure was on for them to come out with
things that the other did not have. Apple came through very strongly in this area. They created
many devices that are used in many computers today. In 1984 Apple created the first GUI
(Graphical User Interface) this also brought about folders or directories, long file names, drag
and drop, and the trash can. All these devices are used in the more popular operating system
for the IBM-Compatible computer called Windows 95. Apple also created the mouse, which is as
common as the keyboard. One thing that helps the IBM-Compatible in the hardware area, is all
the third party developers. With the Apple computer, only Apple had the rights to develop
hardware for their computers. With IBM-Compatibles anyone can develop hardware for it, thus
we have many innovative accessories and hardware for the IBM-compatibles. One of the more
interesting devices for the IBM-compatible computers, that was featured at the 1997 Comdex
show in Vegas was a speaker system. It looks like a giant plastic dome that is placed above
your head pointing down towards you, and allows stereo sound to be heard only by the person
directly underneath it. One company that was showing it in action was Creative Labs, which is a
maker of Sound Cards and usually sets the standard for them. They had many computers
networked together and were running a popular game of 1996 called Quake, which is a first
person action game. They had put the dome shaped speakers above each computer station and
it allowed each player to hear what was going on around them, but it would not make any outside
noise or interfere with the person playing right next to them.
Installing a card can be very easy
One of the latest things with computers these days is Plug 'n' Play. It was meant to alleviate the
fear of people upgrading their computer themselves, even though some people will always pay
someone big time money to do it. If you are afraid of opening your computer it is strongly
suggested that you have a professional do it, for they have been doing that sort of thing for
years, and they know exactly what they are doing as well as what to do if they encounter any
problems that are uncommon to the regular consumer. The deal with Plug 'n' Play is that it
would allow you to install a new sound card or some other plug in card and then just turn on your
computer with out you having to change any jumpers or configure it in any way. The Macintosh
computer and the Windows 95 operating system both have this feature built into it as well as
some of the newer IBM-Compatible BIOS. There have been draw backs to it, for some of the
people that prefer to configure it themselves for the software used to configure the card might
not be able to use a configuration you wish to use.
Apple computers have many things that already come with it, that the IBM-Compatibles do not
always have. For instance they come with a 16-bit sound card, that has voice recognition built
into it. With the voice recognition the operating system was designed to use it in every way you
could think of, you could do anything without typing or clicking on a thing. For instance you
could tell it to "Shut Down" and it will go through and turn off the computer, or you could write a
letter to a long lost relative just by speaking. The Macintosh computer was designed so that
everything you did was made as easy as possible, so that is why all the software has to be
redone when they add new hardware. If you wanted to eject a disk you stuck into it, you went up
into the pull down menus and told it to "eject disk." You could also shut off the computer from
the pull down menus. This is basically the total opposite of the IBM-Compatible computers. To
eject the disk you just plainly press the little button on the disk drive, and if you wanted to turn off
the computer you just press the power button. The Macintosh computer could run into problems,
say if you had a disk in there and somehow the computer locked up or the power was off, you
would not be able to get that disk out of there. Some of the other things that the latest Macintosh
computers have been coming with are networking cards built into it already. If you wanted to
play a game or transfer files with a friend, you just grabbed a cord and plugged the two
computers together and then you are off. You could also do video conferencing and send email
over the network, as well.
With the way the Macintosh computer was designed you cannot upgrade the sound card for
everything is built into the system, but with an IBM-Compatible computer you could easily take
out one card and put in another. Anything that you add on to the Macintosh has to be put on the
outside, like CD-ROMs and Modems. Also because the Operating System of the Macintosh
relies on the computer's hardware and was designed for that particular hardware, if you ever
upgrade it you have to upgrade the operating system as well as many hardware components and
software that were made for that particular model. That is one reason many of the big time
business users would not want to buy a Macintosh for they would want their investment to last
awhile and if they needed to they would want to upgrade their systems as cheaply as possible
and the IBM-Compatible made it cheap for them to do so. The Macintosh computer itself usually
costs about two times as much as a comparable IBM computer. They also tend to confuse their
customers by bringing out many new models out all the time. For instance in 1993 alone, Apple
introduced 17 different models of their Macintosh computer.
Software for the Apple computers is harder to come by then for the IBM-compatible computer.
Apple controls all the software for their computers and will not license it to any other developer.
So you do not have the variety you do with the IBM computers. A big thing that has become
very popular in the last few years is something called the Internet. Almost everyone has
experienced the internet in some form or the other. You can almost do anything you wanted
over the internet. From writing a message to some distant relative and have it arrive to that
person in minutes, or playing a chess game with someone from Russia. You can also get any
program you are looking for over the internet, and many of these programs are usually only for
the IBM-compatible computer for there is more people with an IBM computer and thus more
people making applications and games for the IBM computer. So basically there is just a ton of
software out there for people who own an IBM-compatible computer.
With the IBM-compatible computer you can continue to upgrade it, even someone who bought a
computer five years ago could have upgraded it so that it is just as fast as any computer of
today, but with the Macintosh you basically would have to buy a new system. Also since IBM
had used a third-party for its operating system other companies could license the operating
system to make their own compatible operating systems, as well as any other software for it.
Compatible hardware could easily be assembled. As well as peripherals and components that
will improve the IBM compatible computer. From some of the common components, like CD-
ROMs, Modems, Sound Cards, and Printers. You even have a choice from about 20 different
styles of mice that you could use on your system, from three basic groups: Roller, Track balls,
and Touch Pads. They have some other ones, like one that clips onto your monitor and shoots
infrared beams across the screen to detect movements by your finger, and so it basically turns
your monitor into a touch screen. As well as hand held ones that move the cursor based on the
position of your hand.
The Apple computer has usually always appealed to the school systems. With the IBM-
compatible computers going more towards businesses and personal use. The main reasons
behind this are that the Apple had many types of software directed towards children and helping
them learn. They were also easier to use so that appealed to the school system, for they would
be able to have children that are five years old be able to use a computer with no problem. The
IBM computer went more with businesses, because of its ability to be upgraded and they would
be able to get longer use out of it. They could more easily adapt an IBM-compatible computer to
their way of doing things, just because of the many different software out there as well as its
ease of adding or upgrading it capabilities. The IBM-compatible computers have been becoming
increasingly more popular with the school systems, because of Apple going down hill and having
less and less software available for it.
The IBM and Macintosh computers have been in competition with each other for years, and each
of them have their strong points. Apple dominated in the personal computer market when it first
started, but when the IBM clone was created that started its downfall. Some of Apple's earlier
decisions caused it to lose in the battle with IBM as well. Motorola as its chip manufacturer,
caused them to be one step behind the Intel based IBM-compatibles. Not licensing out its
software so that third parties could create software for it, was also a down fall for it. Now, that
the IBM-compatible computer has a strong support it is very unlikely that Apple will be able to
bring back a large user group for its personal computer, even though their computers are faster.
Sunday, December 30, 2012
ISDN vs Cable modems
1.0 Introduction
The Internet is a network of networks that interconnects computers around
the world, supporting both business and residential users. In 1994, a
multimedia Internet application known as the World Wide Web became
popular. The higher bandwidth needs of this application have highlighted
the limited Internet access speeds available to residential users. Even at 28.8
Kilobits per second (Kbps)-the fastest residential access commonly
available at the time of this writing-the transfer of graphical images can be
frustratingly slow.
This report examines two enhancements to existing residential
communications infrastructure: Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN),
and cable television networks upgraded to pass bi-directional digital traffic
(Cable Modems). It analyzes the potential of each enhancement to deliver
Internet access to residential users. It validates the hypothesis that upgraded
cable networks can deliver residential Internet access more cost-effectively,
while offering a broader range of services.
The research for this report consisted of case studies of two commercial
deployments of residential Internet access, each introduced in the spring of
1994:
· Continental Cablevision and Performance Systems International (PSI)
jointly developed PSICable, an Internet access service deployed over
upgraded cable plant in Cambridge, Massachusetts;
· Internex, Inc. began selling Internet access over ISDN telephone
circuits available from Pacific Bell. Internex's customers are residences and
small businesses in the "Silicon Valley" area south of San Francisco,
California.
2.0 The Internet
When a home is connected to the Internet, residential communications
infrastructure serves as the "last mile" of the connection between the
home computer and the rest of the computers on the Internet. This
section describes the Internet technology involved in that connection.
This section does not discuss other aspects of Internet technology in
detail; that is well done elsewhere. Rather, it focuses on the services
that need to be provided for home computer users to connect to the
Internet.
2.1
ISDN and upgraded cable networks will each provide different functionality
(e.g. type and speed of access) and cost profiles for Internet connections. It
might seem simple enough to figure out which option can provide the needed
level of service for the least cost, and declare that option "better." A key
problem with this approach is that it is difficult to define exactly the needed
level of service for an Internet connection. The requirements depend on
the applications being run over the connection, but these applications are
constantly changing. As a result, so are the costs of meeting the applications'
requirements.
Until about twenty years ago, human conversation was by far the dominant
application running on the telephone network. The network was
consequently optimized to provide the type and quality of service needed for
conversation. Telephone traffic engineers measured aggregate statistical
conversational patterns and sized telephone networks accordingly.
Telephony's well-defined and stable service requirements are reflected in the
"3-3-3" rule of thumb relied on by traffic engineers: the average voice call
lasts three minutes, the user makes an average of three call attempts during
the peak busy hour, and the call travels over a bidirectional 3 KHz channel.
In contrast, data communications are far more difficult to characterize. Data
transmissions are generated by computer applications. Not only do existing
applications change frequently (e.g. because of software upgrades), but
entirely new categories-such as Web browsers-come into being quickly,
adding different levels and patterns of load to existing networks.
Researchers can barely measure these patterns as quickly as they are
generated, let alone plan future network capacity based on them.
The one generalization that does emerge from studies of both local and wide-
area data traffic over the years is that computer traffic is bursty. It does not
flow in constant streams; rather, "the level of traffic varies widely over
almost any measurement time scale" (Fowler and Leland, 1991). Dynamic
bandwidth allocations are therefore preferred for data traffic, since static
allocations waste unused resources and limit the flexibility to absorb bursts
of traffic.
This requirement addresses traffic patterns, but it says nothing about the
absolute level of load. How can we evaluate a system when we never know
how much capacity is enough? In the personal computing industry, this
problem is solved by defining "enough" to be "however much I can afford
today," and relying on continuous price-performance improvements in digital
technology to increase that level in the near future. Since both of the
infrastructure upgrade options rely heavily on digital technology, another
criteria for evaluation is the extent to which rapidly advancing technology
can be immediately reflected in improved service offerings.
Cable networks satisfy these evaluation criteria more effectively than
telephone networks because:
· Coaxial cable is a higher quality transmission medium than twisted
copper wire pairs of the same length. Therefore, fewer wires, and
consequently fewer pieces of associated equipment, need to be
installed and maintained to provide the same level of aggregate
bandwidth to a neighborhood. The result should be cost savings and
easier upgrades.
· Cable's shared bandwidth approach is more flexible at allocating any
particular level of bandwidth among a group of subscribers. Since it
does not need to rely as much on forecasts of which subscribers will
sign up for the service, the cable architecture can adapt more readily
to the actual demand that materializes.
· Telephony's dedication of bandwidth to individual customers limits
the peak (i.e. burst) data rate that can be provided cost-effectively.
In contrast, the dynamic sharing enabled by cable's bus architecture
can, if the statistical aggregation properties of neighborhood traffic
cooperate, give a customer access to a faster peak data rate than the
expected average data rate.
2.2 Why focus on Internet access?
Internet access has several desirable properties as an application to
consider for exercising residential infrastructure. Internet technology is
based on a peer-to-peer model of communications. Internet usage
encompasses a wide mix of applications, including low- and high-
bandwidth as well as asynchronous and real-time communications.
Different Internet applications may create varying degrees of
symmetrical (both to and from the home) and asymmetrical traffic
flows. Supporting all of these properties poses a challenge for existing
residential communications infrastructures.
Internet access differs from the future services modeled by other studies
described below in that it is a real application today, with growing
demand. Aside from creating pragmatic interest in the topic, this factor
also makes it possible to perform case studies of real deployments.
Finally, the Internet's organization as an "Open Data Network" (in the
language of (Computer Science and Telecommunications Board of the
National Research Council, 1994)) makes it a service worthy of study
from a policy perspective. The Internet culture's expectation of
interconnection and cooperation among competing organizations may
clash with the monopoly-oriented cultures of traditional infrastructure
organizations, exposing policy issues. In addition, the Internet's status
as a public data network may make Internet access a service worth
encouraging for the public good. Therefore, analysis of costs to provide
this service may provide useful input to future policy debates.
3.0 Technologies
This chapter reviews the present state and technical evolution of
residential cable network infrastructure. It then discusses a topic not
covered much in the literature, namely, how this infrastructure can be
used to provide Internet access. It concludes with a qualitative
evaluation of the advantages and disadvantages of cable-based Internet
access. While ISDN is extensively described in the literature, its use as
an Internet access medium is less well-documented. This chapter
briefly reviews local telephone network technology, including ISDN
and future evolutionary technologies. It concludes with a qualitative
evaluation of the advantages and disadvantages of ISDN-based Internet
access.
3.1 Cable Technology
Residential cable TV networks follow the tree and branch architecture.
In each community, a head end is installed to receive satellite and
traditional over-the-air broadcast television signals. These signals are
then carried to subscriber's homes over coaxial cable that runs from the
head end throughout the community
Figure 3.1: Coaxial cable tree-and-branch topology
To achieve geographical coverage of the community, the cables
emanating from the head end are split (or "branched") into multiple
cables. When the cable is physically split, a portion of the signal power
is split off to send down the branch. The signal content, however, is not
split: the same set of TV channels reach every subscriber in the
community. The network thus follows a logical bus architecture. With
this architecture, all channels reach every subscriber all the time,
whether or not the subscriber's TV is on. Just as an ordinary television
includes a tuner to select the over-the-air channel the viewer wishes to
watch, the subscriber's cable equipment includes a tuner to select
among all the channels received over the cable.
3.1.1. Technological evolution
The development of fiber-optic transmission technology has led cable
network developers to shift from the purely coaxial tree-and-branch
architecture to an approach referred to as Hybrid Fiber and Coax(HFC)
networks. Transmission over fiber-optic cable has two main advantages
over coaxial cable:
· A wider range of frequencies can be sent over the fiber, increasing
the bandwidth available for transmission;
· Signals can be transmitted greater distances without amplification.
The main disadvantage of fiber is that the optical components required
to send and receive data over it are expensive. Because lasers are still
too expensive to deploy to each subscriber, network developers have
adopted an intermediate Fiber to the Neighborhood (FTTN)approach.
Figure 3.3: Fiber to the Neighborhood (FTTN) architecture
Various locations along the existing cable are selected as sites for
neighborhood nodes. One or more fiber-optic cables are then run from
the head end to each neighborhood node. At the head end, the signal is
converted from electrical to optical form and transmitted via laser over
the fiber. At the neighborhood node, the signal is received via laser,
converted back from optical to electronic form, and transmitted to the
subscriber over the neighborhood's coaxial tree and branch network.
FTTN has proved to be an appealing architecture for telephone
companies as well as cable operators. Not only Continental
Cablevision and Time Warner, but also Pacific Bell and Southern New
England Telephone have announced plans to build FTTN networks.
Fiber to the neighborhood is one stage in a longer-range evolution of
the cable plant. These longer-term changes are not necessary to provide
Internet service today, but they might affect aspects of how Internet
service is provided in the future.
3.2 ISDN Technology
Unlike cable TV networks, which were built to provide only local
redistribution of television programming, telephone networks provide
switched, global connectivity: any telephone subscriber can call any
other telephone subscriber anywhere else in the world. A call placed
from a home travels first to the closest telephone company Central
Office (CO) switch. The CO switch routes the call to the destination
subscriber, who may be served by the same CO switch, another CO
switch in the same local area, or a CO switch reached through a long-
distance network.
Figure 4.1: The telephone network
The portion of the telephone network that connects the subscriber to
the closest CO switch is referred to as the local loop. Since all calls
enter and exit the network via the local loop, the nature of the local
connection directly affects the type of service a user gets from the
global telephone network.
With a separate pair of wires to serve each subscriber, the local
telephone network follows a logical star architecture. Since a Central
Office typically serves thousands of subscribers, it would be unwieldy
to string wires individually to each home. Instead, the wire pairs are
aggregated into groups, the largest of which are feeder cables. At
intervals along the feeder portion of the loop, junction boxes are placed.
In a junction box, wire pairs from feeder cables are spliced to wire pairs
in distribution cables that run into neighborhoods. At each subscriber
location, a drop wire pair (or pairs, if the subscriber has more than one
line) is spliced into the distribution cable.
Since distribution cables are either buried or aerial, they are disruptive
and expensive to change. Consequently, a distribution cable usually
contains as many wire pairs as a neighborhood might ever need, in
advance of actual demand.
Implementation of ISDN is hampered by the irregularity of the local
loop plant. Referring back to Figure 4.3, it is apparent that loops are of
different lengths, depending on the subscriber's distance from the
Central Office. ISDN cannot be provided over loops with loading coils
or loops longer than 18,000 feet (5.5 km).
4.0 Internet Access
This section will outline the contrasts of access via the cable plant with
respect to access via the local telephon network.
4.1 Internet Access Via Cable
The key question in providing residential Internet access is what kind of
network technology to use to connect the customer to the Internet For
residential Internet delivered over the cable plant, the answer is
broadband LAN technology. This technology allows transmission of
digital data over one or more of the 6 MHz channels of a CATV cable.
Since video and audio signals can also be transmitted over other
channels of the same cable, broadband LAN technology can co-exist
with currently existing services.
Bandwidth
The speed of a cable LAN is described by the bit rate of the modems
used to send data over it. As this technology improves, cable LAN
speeds may change, but at the time of this writing, cable modems range
in speed from 500 Kbps to 10 Mbps, or roughly 17 to 340 times the bit
rate of the familiar 28.8 Kbps telephone modem. This speed represents
the peak rate at which a subscriber can send and receive data, during
the periods of time when the medium is allocated to that subscriber. It
does not imply that every subscriber can transfer data at that rate
simultaneously. The effective average bandwidth seen by each
subscriber depends on how busy the LAN is. Therefore, a cable LAN
will appear to provide a variable bandwidth connection to the Internet
Full-time connections
Cable LAN bandwidth is allocated dynamically to a subscriber only
when he has traffic to send. When he is not transferring traffic, he does
not consume transmission resources. Consequently, he can always be
connected to the Internet Point of Presence without requiring an
expensive dedication of transmission resources.
4.2 Internet Access Via Telephone Company
In contrast to the shared-bus architecture of a cable LAN, the telephone
network requires the residential Internet provider to maintain multiple
connection ports in order to serve multiple customers simultaneously.
Thus, the residential Internet provider faces problems of multiplexing
and concentration of individual subscriber lines very similar to those
faced in telephone Central Offices.
The point-to-point telephone network gives the residential Internet
provider an architecture to work with that is fundamentally different
from the cable plant. Instead of multiplexing the use of LAN
transmission bandwidth as it is needed, subscribers multiplex the use of
dedicated connections to the Internet provider over much longer time
intervals. As with ordinary phone calls, subscribers are allocated fixed
amounts of bandwidth for the duration of the connection. Each
subscriber that succeeds in becoming active (i.e. getting connected to
the residential Internet provider instead of getting a busy signal) is
guaranteed a particular level of bandwidth until hanging up the call.
Bandwidth
Although the predictability of this connection-oriented approach is
appealing, its major disadvantage is the limited level of bandwidth that
can be economically dedicated to each customer. At most, an ISDN
line can deliver 144 Kbps to a subscriber, roughly four times the
bandwidth available with POTS. This rate is both the average and the
peak data rate. A subscriber needing to burst data quickly, for example
to transfer a large file or engage in a video conference, may prefer a
shared-bandwidth architecture, such as a cable LAN, that allows a
higher peak data rate for each individual subscriber. A subscriber who
needs a full-time connection requires a dedicated port on a terminal
server. This is an expensive waste of resources when the subscriber is
connected but not transferring data.
5.0 Cost
Cable-based Internet access can provide the same average bandwidth
and higher peak bandwidth more economically than ISDN. For
example, 500 Kbps Internet access over cable can provide the same
average bandwidth and four times the peak bandwidth of ISDN access
for less than half the cost per subscriber. In the technology reference
model of the case study, the 4 Mbps cable service is targeted at
organizations. According to recent benchmarks, the 4 Mbps cable
service can provide the same average bandwidth and thirty-two times
the peak bandwidth of ISDN for only 20% more cost per subscriber.
When this reference model is altered to target 4 Mbps service to
individuals instead of organizations, 4 Mbps cable access costs 40%
less per subscriber than ISDN. The economy of the cable-based
approach is most evident when comparing the per-subscriber cost per
bit of peak bandwidth: $0.30 for Individual 4 Mbps, $0.60 for
Organizational 4 Mbps, and $2 for the 500 Kbps cable services-versus
close to $16 for ISDN. However, the potential penetration of cable-
based access is constrained in many cases (especially for the 500 Kbps
service) by limited upstream channel bandwidth. While the penetration
limits are quite sensitive to several of the input parameter assumptions,
the cost per subscriber is surprisingly less so.
Because the models break down the costs of each approach into their
separate components, they also provide insight into the match between
what follows naturally from the technology and how existing business
entities are organized. For example, the models show that subscriber
equipment is the most significant component of average cost. When
subscribers are willing to pay for their own equipment, the access
provider's capital costs are low. This business model has been
successfully adopted by Internex, but it is foreign to the cable industry.
As the concluding chapter discusses, the resulting closed market
structure for cable subscriber equipment has not been as effective as the
open market for ISDN equipment at fostering the development of
needed technology. In addition, commercial development of both cable
and ISDN Internet access has been hindered by monopoly control of
the needed infrastructure-whether manifest as high ISDN tariffs or
simple lack of interest from cable operators.
The Internet is a network of networks that interconnects computers around
the world, supporting both business and residential users. In 1994, a
multimedia Internet application known as the World Wide Web became
popular. The higher bandwidth needs of this application have highlighted
the limited Internet access speeds available to residential users. Even at 28.8
Kilobits per second (Kbps)-the fastest residential access commonly
available at the time of this writing-the transfer of graphical images can be
frustratingly slow.
This report examines two enhancements to existing residential
communications infrastructure: Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN),
and cable television networks upgraded to pass bi-directional digital traffic
(Cable Modems). It analyzes the potential of each enhancement to deliver
Internet access to residential users. It validates the hypothesis that upgraded
cable networks can deliver residential Internet access more cost-effectively,
while offering a broader range of services.
The research for this report consisted of case studies of two commercial
deployments of residential Internet access, each introduced in the spring of
1994:
· Continental Cablevision and Performance Systems International (PSI)
jointly developed PSICable, an Internet access service deployed over
upgraded cable plant in Cambridge, Massachusetts;
· Internex, Inc. began selling Internet access over ISDN telephone
circuits available from Pacific Bell. Internex's customers are residences and
small businesses in the "Silicon Valley" area south of San Francisco,
California.
2.0 The Internet
When a home is connected to the Internet, residential communications
infrastructure serves as the "last mile" of the connection between the
home computer and the rest of the computers on the Internet. This
section describes the Internet technology involved in that connection.
This section does not discuss other aspects of Internet technology in
detail; that is well done elsewhere. Rather, it focuses on the services
that need to be provided for home computer users to connect to the
Internet.
2.1
ISDN and upgraded cable networks will each provide different functionality
(e.g. type and speed of access) and cost profiles for Internet connections. It
might seem simple enough to figure out which option can provide the needed
level of service for the least cost, and declare that option "better." A key
problem with this approach is that it is difficult to define exactly the needed
level of service for an Internet connection. The requirements depend on
the applications being run over the connection, but these applications are
constantly changing. As a result, so are the costs of meeting the applications'
requirements.
Until about twenty years ago, human conversation was by far the dominant
application running on the telephone network. The network was
consequently optimized to provide the type and quality of service needed for
conversation. Telephone traffic engineers measured aggregate statistical
conversational patterns and sized telephone networks accordingly.
Telephony's well-defined and stable service requirements are reflected in the
"3-3-3" rule of thumb relied on by traffic engineers: the average voice call
lasts three minutes, the user makes an average of three call attempts during
the peak busy hour, and the call travels over a bidirectional 3 KHz channel.
In contrast, data communications are far more difficult to characterize. Data
transmissions are generated by computer applications. Not only do existing
applications change frequently (e.g. because of software upgrades), but
entirely new categories-such as Web browsers-come into being quickly,
adding different levels and patterns of load to existing networks.
Researchers can barely measure these patterns as quickly as they are
generated, let alone plan future network capacity based on them.
The one generalization that does emerge from studies of both local and wide-
area data traffic over the years is that computer traffic is bursty. It does not
flow in constant streams; rather, "the level of traffic varies widely over
almost any measurement time scale" (Fowler and Leland, 1991). Dynamic
bandwidth allocations are therefore preferred for data traffic, since static
allocations waste unused resources and limit the flexibility to absorb bursts
of traffic.
This requirement addresses traffic patterns, but it says nothing about the
absolute level of load. How can we evaluate a system when we never know
how much capacity is enough? In the personal computing industry, this
problem is solved by defining "enough" to be "however much I can afford
today," and relying on continuous price-performance improvements in digital
technology to increase that level in the near future. Since both of the
infrastructure upgrade options rely heavily on digital technology, another
criteria for evaluation is the extent to which rapidly advancing technology
can be immediately reflected in improved service offerings.
Cable networks satisfy these evaluation criteria more effectively than
telephone networks because:
· Coaxial cable is a higher quality transmission medium than twisted
copper wire pairs of the same length. Therefore, fewer wires, and
consequently fewer pieces of associated equipment, need to be
installed and maintained to provide the same level of aggregate
bandwidth to a neighborhood. The result should be cost savings and
easier upgrades.
· Cable's shared bandwidth approach is more flexible at allocating any
particular level of bandwidth among a group of subscribers. Since it
does not need to rely as much on forecasts of which subscribers will
sign up for the service, the cable architecture can adapt more readily
to the actual demand that materializes.
· Telephony's dedication of bandwidth to individual customers limits
the peak (i.e. burst) data rate that can be provided cost-effectively.
In contrast, the dynamic sharing enabled by cable's bus architecture
can, if the statistical aggregation properties of neighborhood traffic
cooperate, give a customer access to a faster peak data rate than the
expected average data rate.
2.2 Why focus on Internet access?
Internet access has several desirable properties as an application to
consider for exercising residential infrastructure. Internet technology is
based on a peer-to-peer model of communications. Internet usage
encompasses a wide mix of applications, including low- and high-
bandwidth as well as asynchronous and real-time communications.
Different Internet applications may create varying degrees of
symmetrical (both to and from the home) and asymmetrical traffic
flows. Supporting all of these properties poses a challenge for existing
residential communications infrastructures.
Internet access differs from the future services modeled by other studies
described below in that it is a real application today, with growing
demand. Aside from creating pragmatic interest in the topic, this factor
also makes it possible to perform case studies of real deployments.
Finally, the Internet's organization as an "Open Data Network" (in the
language of (Computer Science and Telecommunications Board of the
National Research Council, 1994)) makes it a service worthy of study
from a policy perspective. The Internet culture's expectation of
interconnection and cooperation among competing organizations may
clash with the monopoly-oriented cultures of traditional infrastructure
organizations, exposing policy issues. In addition, the Internet's status
as a public data network may make Internet access a service worth
encouraging for the public good. Therefore, analysis of costs to provide
this service may provide useful input to future policy debates.
3.0 Technologies
This chapter reviews the present state and technical evolution of
residential cable network infrastructure. It then discusses a topic not
covered much in the literature, namely, how this infrastructure can be
used to provide Internet access. It concludes with a qualitative
evaluation of the advantages and disadvantages of cable-based Internet
access. While ISDN is extensively described in the literature, its use as
an Internet access medium is less well-documented. This chapter
briefly reviews local telephone network technology, including ISDN
and future evolutionary technologies. It concludes with a qualitative
evaluation of the advantages and disadvantages of ISDN-based Internet
access.
3.1 Cable Technology
Residential cable TV networks follow the tree and branch architecture.
In each community, a head end is installed to receive satellite and
traditional over-the-air broadcast television signals. These signals are
then carried to subscriber's homes over coaxial cable that runs from the
head end throughout the community
Figure 3.1: Coaxial cable tree-and-branch topology
To achieve geographical coverage of the community, the cables
emanating from the head end are split (or "branched") into multiple
cables. When the cable is physically split, a portion of the signal power
is split off to send down the branch. The signal content, however, is not
split: the same set of TV channels reach every subscriber in the
community. The network thus follows a logical bus architecture. With
this architecture, all channels reach every subscriber all the time,
whether or not the subscriber's TV is on. Just as an ordinary television
includes a tuner to select the over-the-air channel the viewer wishes to
watch, the subscriber's cable equipment includes a tuner to select
among all the channels received over the cable.
3.1.1. Technological evolution
The development of fiber-optic transmission technology has led cable
network developers to shift from the purely coaxial tree-and-branch
architecture to an approach referred to as Hybrid Fiber and Coax(HFC)
networks. Transmission over fiber-optic cable has two main advantages
over coaxial cable:
· A wider range of frequencies can be sent over the fiber, increasing
the bandwidth available for transmission;
· Signals can be transmitted greater distances without amplification.
The main disadvantage of fiber is that the optical components required
to send and receive data over it are expensive. Because lasers are still
too expensive to deploy to each subscriber, network developers have
adopted an intermediate Fiber to the Neighborhood (FTTN)approach.
Figure 3.3: Fiber to the Neighborhood (FTTN) architecture
Various locations along the existing cable are selected as sites for
neighborhood nodes. One or more fiber-optic cables are then run from
the head end to each neighborhood node. At the head end, the signal is
converted from electrical to optical form and transmitted via laser over
the fiber. At the neighborhood node, the signal is received via laser,
converted back from optical to electronic form, and transmitted to the
subscriber over the neighborhood's coaxial tree and branch network.
FTTN has proved to be an appealing architecture for telephone
companies as well as cable operators. Not only Continental
Cablevision and Time Warner, but also Pacific Bell and Southern New
England Telephone have announced plans to build FTTN networks.
Fiber to the neighborhood is one stage in a longer-range evolution of
the cable plant. These longer-term changes are not necessary to provide
Internet service today, but they might affect aspects of how Internet
service is provided in the future.
3.2 ISDN Technology
Unlike cable TV networks, which were built to provide only local
redistribution of television programming, telephone networks provide
switched, global connectivity: any telephone subscriber can call any
other telephone subscriber anywhere else in the world. A call placed
from a home travels first to the closest telephone company Central
Office (CO) switch. The CO switch routes the call to the destination
subscriber, who may be served by the same CO switch, another CO
switch in the same local area, or a CO switch reached through a long-
distance network.
Figure 4.1: The telephone network
The portion of the telephone network that connects the subscriber to
the closest CO switch is referred to as the local loop. Since all calls
enter and exit the network via the local loop, the nature of the local
connection directly affects the type of service a user gets from the
global telephone network.
With a separate pair of wires to serve each subscriber, the local
telephone network follows a logical star architecture. Since a Central
Office typically serves thousands of subscribers, it would be unwieldy
to string wires individually to each home. Instead, the wire pairs are
aggregated into groups, the largest of which are feeder cables. At
intervals along the feeder portion of the loop, junction boxes are placed.
In a junction box, wire pairs from feeder cables are spliced to wire pairs
in distribution cables that run into neighborhoods. At each subscriber
location, a drop wire pair (or pairs, if the subscriber has more than one
line) is spliced into the distribution cable.
Since distribution cables are either buried or aerial, they are disruptive
and expensive to change. Consequently, a distribution cable usually
contains as many wire pairs as a neighborhood might ever need, in
advance of actual demand.
Implementation of ISDN is hampered by the irregularity of the local
loop plant. Referring back to Figure 4.3, it is apparent that loops are of
different lengths, depending on the subscriber's distance from the
Central Office. ISDN cannot be provided over loops with loading coils
or loops longer than 18,000 feet (5.5 km).
4.0 Internet Access
This section will outline the contrasts of access via the cable plant with
respect to access via the local telephon network.
4.1 Internet Access Via Cable
The key question in providing residential Internet access is what kind of
network technology to use to connect the customer to the Internet For
residential Internet delivered over the cable plant, the answer is
broadband LAN technology. This technology allows transmission of
digital data over one or more of the 6 MHz channels of a CATV cable.
Since video and audio signals can also be transmitted over other
channels of the same cable, broadband LAN technology can co-exist
with currently existing services.
Bandwidth
The speed of a cable LAN is described by the bit rate of the modems
used to send data over it. As this technology improves, cable LAN
speeds may change, but at the time of this writing, cable modems range
in speed from 500 Kbps to 10 Mbps, or roughly 17 to 340 times the bit
rate of the familiar 28.8 Kbps telephone modem. This speed represents
the peak rate at which a subscriber can send and receive data, during
the periods of time when the medium is allocated to that subscriber. It
does not imply that every subscriber can transfer data at that rate
simultaneously. The effective average bandwidth seen by each
subscriber depends on how busy the LAN is. Therefore, a cable LAN
will appear to provide a variable bandwidth connection to the Internet
Full-time connections
Cable LAN bandwidth is allocated dynamically to a subscriber only
when he has traffic to send. When he is not transferring traffic, he does
not consume transmission resources. Consequently, he can always be
connected to the Internet Point of Presence without requiring an
expensive dedication of transmission resources.
4.2 Internet Access Via Telephone Company
In contrast to the shared-bus architecture of a cable LAN, the telephone
network requires the residential Internet provider to maintain multiple
connection ports in order to serve multiple customers simultaneously.
Thus, the residential Internet provider faces problems of multiplexing
and concentration of individual subscriber lines very similar to those
faced in telephone Central Offices.
The point-to-point telephone network gives the residential Internet
provider an architecture to work with that is fundamentally different
from the cable plant. Instead of multiplexing the use of LAN
transmission bandwidth as it is needed, subscribers multiplex the use of
dedicated connections to the Internet provider over much longer time
intervals. As with ordinary phone calls, subscribers are allocated fixed
amounts of bandwidth for the duration of the connection. Each
subscriber that succeeds in becoming active (i.e. getting connected to
the residential Internet provider instead of getting a busy signal) is
guaranteed a particular level of bandwidth until hanging up the call.
Bandwidth
Although the predictability of this connection-oriented approach is
appealing, its major disadvantage is the limited level of bandwidth that
can be economically dedicated to each customer. At most, an ISDN
line can deliver 144 Kbps to a subscriber, roughly four times the
bandwidth available with POTS. This rate is both the average and the
peak data rate. A subscriber needing to burst data quickly, for example
to transfer a large file or engage in a video conference, may prefer a
shared-bandwidth architecture, such as a cable LAN, that allows a
higher peak data rate for each individual subscriber. A subscriber who
needs a full-time connection requires a dedicated port on a terminal
server. This is an expensive waste of resources when the subscriber is
connected but not transferring data.
5.0 Cost
Cable-based Internet access can provide the same average bandwidth
and higher peak bandwidth more economically than ISDN. For
example, 500 Kbps Internet access over cable can provide the same
average bandwidth and four times the peak bandwidth of ISDN access
for less than half the cost per subscriber. In the technology reference
model of the case study, the 4 Mbps cable service is targeted at
organizations. According to recent benchmarks, the 4 Mbps cable
service can provide the same average bandwidth and thirty-two times
the peak bandwidth of ISDN for only 20% more cost per subscriber.
When this reference model is altered to target 4 Mbps service to
individuals instead of organizations, 4 Mbps cable access costs 40%
less per subscriber than ISDN. The economy of the cable-based
approach is most evident when comparing the per-subscriber cost per
bit of peak bandwidth: $0.30 for Individual 4 Mbps, $0.60 for
Organizational 4 Mbps, and $2 for the 500 Kbps cable services-versus
close to $16 for ISDN. However, the potential penetration of cable-
based access is constrained in many cases (especially for the 500 Kbps
service) by limited upstream channel bandwidth. While the penetration
limits are quite sensitive to several of the input parameter assumptions,
the cost per subscriber is surprisingly less so.
Because the models break down the costs of each approach into their
separate components, they also provide insight into the match between
what follows naturally from the technology and how existing business
entities are organized. For example, the models show that subscriber
equipment is the most significant component of average cost. When
subscribers are willing to pay for their own equipment, the access
provider's capital costs are low. This business model has been
successfully adopted by Internex, but it is foreign to the cable industry.
As the concluding chapter discusses, the resulting closed market
structure for cable subscriber equipment has not been as effective as the
open market for ISDN equipment at fostering the development of
needed technology. In addition, commercial development of both cable
and ISDN Internet access has been hindered by monopoly control of
the needed infrastructure-whether manifest as high ISDN tariffs or
simple lack of interest from cable operators.
Internet regulation
Government Intervention of the Internet
During the past decade, our society has become based solely on the ability to move large amounts of information across large distances quickly. Computerization has influenced everyone's life. The natural evolution of computers and this need for ultra-fast communications has caused a global network of interconnected computers to develop. This global net allows a person to send E-mail across the world in mere fractions of a second, and enables even the common person to access information world-wide. With advances such as software that allows users with a sound card to use the Internet as a carrier for long distance voice calls and video conferencing, this network is key to the future of the knowledge society. At present, this net is the epitome of the first amendment: free speech. It is a place where people can speak
their mind without being reprimanded for what they say, or how they choose to say it. The key to the world-wide success of the Internet is its protection of free speech, not only in America, but in other countries where free speech is not protected by a constitution. To be found on the Internet is a huge collection of obscene graphics, Anarchists' cookbooks and countless other things that offend some people. With over 30 million Internet users in the U.S. alone (only 3 million of which surf the net from home), everything is bound to offend someone. The newest wave of laws floating through law making bodies around the world threatens to stifle this area of spontaneity. Recently, Congress has been considering passing laws that will make it a crime punishable by jail to send "vulgar" language over the net, and to export encryption software. No matter how small, any attempt at government intervention in the Internet will stifle the greatest communication innovation of this century. The government wants to maintain control over this new form of communication, and they are trying to use the protection of children as a smoke screen to pass laws that will allow them to regulate and censor the Internet, while banning techniques that could eliminate the need for regulation. Censorship of the Internet threatens to destroy its freelance atmosphere, while wide spread encryption could help prevent the need for government intervention.
Jim Exon, a democratic senator from Nebraska, wants to pass a decency billregulating the Internet. If the bill passes, certain commercial servers that post pictures of unclad beings, like those run by Penthouse or Playboy, would of course be shut down immediately or risk prosecution. The same goes for any amateur web site that features nudity, sex talk, or rough language. Posting any dirty words in a Usenet discussion group, which occurs routinely, could make one liable for a $50,000 fine and six months in jail. Even worse, if a magazine that commonly runs some of those nasty words in its pages, The New Yorker for instance, decided to post its contents on-line, its leaders would be held responsible for a $100,000 fine and two years in jail. Why does it suddenly become illegal to post something that has been legal for years in print? Exon's bill apparently would also "criminalize private mail," ... "I can call my brother on the phone and say anything--but if I say it on the Internet, it's illegal" (Levy 53).
Congress, in their pursuit of regulations, seems to have overlooked the fact that the majority of the adult material on the Internet comes from overseas. Although many U.S. government sources helped fund Arpanet, the predecessor to the Internet, they no longer control it. Many of the new Internet technologies, including the World Wide Web, have come from overseas. There is no clear boundary between information held in the U.S. and information stored in other countries. Data held in foreign computers is just as accessible as data in America, all it takes is the click of a mouse to access. Even if our government tried to regulate the Internet, we have no control over what is posted in other countries, and we have no practical way to stop it.
The Internet's predecessor was originally designed to uphold communications after a nuclear attack by rerouting data to compensate for destroyed telephone lines and servers. Today's Internet still works on a similar design. The very nature of this design allows the Internet to overcome any kind of barriers put in its way. If a major line between two servers, say in two countries, is cut, then the Internet users will find another way around this obstacle. This obstacle avoidance makes it virtually impossible to separate an entire nation from indecent information in other countries. If it was physically possible to isolate America's computers from the rest of the world, it would be devastating to our economy.
Recently, a major university attempted to regulate what types of Internet access its students had, with results reminiscent of a 1960's protest. A research associate, Martin Rimm, at Carnegie Mellon University conducted a study of pornography on the school's computer networks. He put together quite a large picture collection (917,410 images) and he also tracked how often each image had been downloaded
(a total of 6.4 million). Pictures of similar content had recently been declared obscene by a local court, and the school feared they might be held responsible for the content of its network. The school administration quickly removed access to all these pictures, and to the newsgroups where most of this obscenity is suspected to come from. A total of 80 newsgroups were removed, causing a large disturbance among the student body, the American Civil Liberties Union, and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, all of whom felt this was unconstitutional. After only half a week, the college had backed down, and restored the newsgroups. This is a tiny example of what may happen if the government tries to impose censorship
(Elmer-Dewitt 102).
Currently, there is software being released that promises to block children's access to known X-rated Internet newsgroups and sites. However, since most adults rely on their computer literate children to setup these programs, the children will be able to find ways around them. This mimics real life, where these children would surely be able to get their hands on an adult magazine. Regardless of what types of software or safeguards are used to protect the children of the Information age, there will be ways around them. This necessitates the education of the children to deal with reality. Altered views of an electronic world translate easily into altered views of the real world. "When it comes to our children, censorship is a far less important issue than good parenting. We must teach our kids that the Internet is a extension and a reflection of the real world, and we have to show them how to enjoy the good things and avoid the bad things. This isn't the government's responsibility. It's ours (Miller 76)."
Not all restrictions on electronic speech are bad. Most of the major on-line communication companies have restrictions on what their users can "say." They must respect their customer's privacy, however. Private E-mail content is off limits to them, but they may act swiftly upon anyone who spouts obscenities in a public forum.
Self regulation by users and servers is the key to avoiding government imposed intervention. Many on-line sites such as Playboy and Penthouse have started to regulate themselves. Both post clear warnings that adult content lies ahead and lists the countries where this is illegal. The film and videogame industries subject themselves to ratings, and if Internet users want to avoid government imposed regulations, then it is time they begin to regulate themselves. It all boils down to protecting children from adult material, while protecting the first amendment right to free speech between adults. Government attempts to regulate the Internet are not just limited to obscenity and vulgar language, it also reaches into other areas, such as data encryption.
By nature, the Internet is an insecure method of transferring data. A single E-mail packet may pass through hundreds of computers from its source to destination. At each computer, there is the chance that the data will be archived and someone may intercept that data. Credit card numbers are a frequent target of hackers. Encryption is a means of encoding data so that only someone with the proper "key" can decode it.
"Why do you need PGP (encryption)? It's personal. It's private. And it's no one's business but yours. You may be planning a political campaign, discussing our taxes, or having an illicit affair. Or you may be doing something that you feel shouldn't be illegal, but is. Whatever it is, you don't want your private electronic mail (E-mail) or confidential documents read by anyone else. There's nothing wrong with asserting your privacy. Privacy is as apple-pie as the Constitution.
Perhaps you think your E-mail is legitimate enough that encryption is unwarranted. If you really are a law-abiding citizen with nothing to hide. What if everyone believed that law-abiding citizens should use postcards for their mail? If some brave soul tried to assert his privacy by using an envelope for his mail, it would draw suspicion. Perhaps the authorities would open his mail to see what he's hiding. Fortunately, we don't live in that kind of world, because everyone protects most of their mail with envelopes. So no one draws suspicion by asserting their privacy with an envelope. There's safety in numbers. Analogously, it would be nice if everyone routinely used encryption for all their E-mail, innocent or not, so that no one drew suspicion by asserting their E-mail privacy with encryption. Think of it as a form of solidarity (Zimmerman)."
Until the development of the Internet, the U.S. government controlled most new encryption techniques. With the development of faster home computers and a worldwide web, they no longer hold control over encryption. New algorithms have been discovered that are reportedly uncrackable even by the FBI and the NSA. This is a major concern to the government because they want to maintain the ability to conduct wiretaps, and other forms of electronic surveillance into the digital age. To stop the spread of data encryption software, the U.S. government has imposed very strict laws on its exportation.
One very well known example of this is the PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) scandal. PGP was written by Phil Zimmerman, and is based on "public key" encryption. This system uses complex algorithms to produce two codes, one for encoding and one for decoding. To send an encoded message to someone, a copy of that person's "public" key is needed. The sender uses this public key to encrypt the data, and the recipient uses their "private" key to decode the message. As Zimmerman was finishing his program, he heard about a proposed Senate bill to ban cryptography. This prompted him to release his program for free, hoping that it would become so popular that its use could not be stopped. One of the original users of PGP posted it to an Internet site, where anyone from any country could download it, causing a federal investigator to begin investigating Phil for violation of this new law. As with any new technology, this program has allegedly been used for illegal purposes, and the FBI and NSA are believed to be unable to crack this code. When told about the illegal uses of his programs, Zimmerman replies:
"If I had invented an automobile, and was told that criminals used it to rob banks, I
would feel bad, too. But most people agree the benefits to society that come from
automobiles -- taking the kids to school, grocery shopping and such -- outweigh
their drawbacks." (Levy 56).
The government has not been totally blind to the need for encryption. For nearly two decades, a government sponsored algorithm, Data Encryption Standard (DES), has been used primarily by banks. The government always maintained the ability to decipher this code with their powerful supercomputers. Now that new forms of encryption have been devised that the government can't decipher, they are proposing a new standard to replace DES. This new standard is called Clipper, and is based on the "public key" algorithms. Instead of software, Clipper is a microchip that can be incorporated into just about anything (Television, Telephones, etc.). This algorithm uses a much longer key that is 16 million times more powerful than DES. It is estimated that today's fastest computers would take 400 billion years to
break this code using every possible key. (Lehrer 378). "The catch: At the time of manufacture, each Clipper chip will be loaded with its own unique key, and the Government gets to keep a copy, placed in escrow. Not to worry, though the Government promises that they will use these keys to read your traffic only when duly authorized by law. Of course, to make Clipper completely effective, the next logical step would be to outlaw other forms of cryptography (Zimmerman)."
The most important benefits of encryption have been conveniently overlooked by the government. If everyone used encryption, there would be absolutely no way that an innocent bystander could happen upon something they choose not to see. Only the intended receiver of the data could decrypt it (using public key cryptography, not even the sender can decrypt it) and view its contents. Each coded message also has an encrypted signature verifying the sender's identity. The sender's secret key can be used to encrypt an enclosed signature message, thereby "signing" it. This creates a digital signature of a message, which the recipient (or anyone else) can check by using the sender's public key to decrypt it. This proves that the sender was the true originator of the message, and that the message has not been subsequently altered by anyone else, because the sender alone possesses the secret key that made that signature. "Forgery of a signed message is infeasible, and the sender cannot later disavow his signature (Zimmerman)." Gone would be the hate mail that causes many problems, and gone would be the ability to forge a document with someone else's address. The government, if it did not have alterior
motives, should mandate encryption, not outlaw it.
As the Internet continues to grow throughout the world, more governments may try to impose their views onto the rest of the world through regulations and censorship. It will be a sad day when the world must adjust its views to conform to that of the most prudish regulatory government. If too many regulations are inacted, then the Internet as a tool will become nearly useless, and the Internet as a mass communication device and a place for freedom of mind and thoughts, will become non existent. The users, servers, and parents of the world must regulate themselves, so as not to force government regulations that may stifle the best communication instrument in history. If encryption catches on and becomes as widespread as Phil Zimmerman predicts it will, then there will no longer be a need for the government to meddle in the Internet, and the biggest problem will work itself out. The government should rethink its approach to the censorship and encryption issues, allowing the Internet to continue to grow and mature.
Works Cited
Emler-Dewitt, Philip. "Censoring Cyberspace: Carnegie Mellon's Attempt to Ban
Sex from it's Campus Computer Network Sends A Chill Along the Info Highway."
Time 21 Nov. 1994; 102-105.
Lehrer, Dan. "The Secret Sharers: Clipper Chips and Cypherpunks." The Nation
10 Oct. 1994; 376-379.
"Let the Internet Backlash Begin." Advertising Age 7 Nov. 1994; 24.
Levy, Steven. "The Encryption Wars: is Privacy Good or Bad?" Newsweek 24
Apr. 1995; 55-57.
Miller, Michael. "Cybersex Shock." PC Magazine 10 Oct. 1995; 75-76.
Wilson, David. "The Internet goes Crackers." Education Digest May 1995; 33-36.
Zimmerman, Phil. (1995). Pretty Good Privacy v2.62, [Online]. Available Ftp:
net-dist.mit.edu Directory: pub/pgp/dist File: Pgp262dc.zip
During the past decade, our society has become based solely on the ability to move large amounts of information across large distances quickly. Computerization has influenced everyone's life. The natural evolution of computers and this need for ultra-fast communications has caused a global network of interconnected computers to develop. This global net allows a person to send E-mail across the world in mere fractions of a second, and enables even the common person to access information world-wide. With advances such as software that allows users with a sound card to use the Internet as a carrier for long distance voice calls and video conferencing, this network is key to the future of the knowledge society. At present, this net is the epitome of the first amendment: free speech. It is a place where people can speak
their mind without being reprimanded for what they say, or how they choose to say it. The key to the world-wide success of the Internet is its protection of free speech, not only in America, but in other countries where free speech is not protected by a constitution. To be found on the Internet is a huge collection of obscene graphics, Anarchists' cookbooks and countless other things that offend some people. With over 30 million Internet users in the U.S. alone (only 3 million of which surf the net from home), everything is bound to offend someone. The newest wave of laws floating through law making bodies around the world threatens to stifle this area of spontaneity. Recently, Congress has been considering passing laws that will make it a crime punishable by jail to send "vulgar" language over the net, and to export encryption software. No matter how small, any attempt at government intervention in the Internet will stifle the greatest communication innovation of this century. The government wants to maintain control over this new form of communication, and they are trying to use the protection of children as a smoke screen to pass laws that will allow them to regulate and censor the Internet, while banning techniques that could eliminate the need for regulation. Censorship of the Internet threatens to destroy its freelance atmosphere, while wide spread encryption could help prevent the need for government intervention.
Jim Exon, a democratic senator from Nebraska, wants to pass a decency billregulating the Internet. If the bill passes, certain commercial servers that post pictures of unclad beings, like those run by Penthouse or Playboy, would of course be shut down immediately or risk prosecution. The same goes for any amateur web site that features nudity, sex talk, or rough language. Posting any dirty words in a Usenet discussion group, which occurs routinely, could make one liable for a $50,000 fine and six months in jail. Even worse, if a magazine that commonly runs some of those nasty words in its pages, The New Yorker for instance, decided to post its contents on-line, its leaders would be held responsible for a $100,000 fine and two years in jail. Why does it suddenly become illegal to post something that has been legal for years in print? Exon's bill apparently would also "criminalize private mail," ... "I can call my brother on the phone and say anything--but if I say it on the Internet, it's illegal" (Levy 53).
Congress, in their pursuit of regulations, seems to have overlooked the fact that the majority of the adult material on the Internet comes from overseas. Although many U.S. government sources helped fund Arpanet, the predecessor to the Internet, they no longer control it. Many of the new Internet technologies, including the World Wide Web, have come from overseas. There is no clear boundary between information held in the U.S. and information stored in other countries. Data held in foreign computers is just as accessible as data in America, all it takes is the click of a mouse to access. Even if our government tried to regulate the Internet, we have no control over what is posted in other countries, and we have no practical way to stop it.
The Internet's predecessor was originally designed to uphold communications after a nuclear attack by rerouting data to compensate for destroyed telephone lines and servers. Today's Internet still works on a similar design. The very nature of this design allows the Internet to overcome any kind of barriers put in its way. If a major line between two servers, say in two countries, is cut, then the Internet users will find another way around this obstacle. This obstacle avoidance makes it virtually impossible to separate an entire nation from indecent information in other countries. If it was physically possible to isolate America's computers from the rest of the world, it would be devastating to our economy.
Recently, a major university attempted to regulate what types of Internet access its students had, with results reminiscent of a 1960's protest. A research associate, Martin Rimm, at Carnegie Mellon University conducted a study of pornography on the school's computer networks. He put together quite a large picture collection (917,410 images) and he also tracked how often each image had been downloaded
(a total of 6.4 million). Pictures of similar content had recently been declared obscene by a local court, and the school feared they might be held responsible for the content of its network. The school administration quickly removed access to all these pictures, and to the newsgroups where most of this obscenity is suspected to come from. A total of 80 newsgroups were removed, causing a large disturbance among the student body, the American Civil Liberties Union, and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, all of whom felt this was unconstitutional. After only half a week, the college had backed down, and restored the newsgroups. This is a tiny example of what may happen if the government tries to impose censorship
(Elmer-Dewitt 102).
Currently, there is software being released that promises to block children's access to known X-rated Internet newsgroups and sites. However, since most adults rely on their computer literate children to setup these programs, the children will be able to find ways around them. This mimics real life, where these children would surely be able to get their hands on an adult magazine. Regardless of what types of software or safeguards are used to protect the children of the Information age, there will be ways around them. This necessitates the education of the children to deal with reality. Altered views of an electronic world translate easily into altered views of the real world. "When it comes to our children, censorship is a far less important issue than good parenting. We must teach our kids that the Internet is a extension and a reflection of the real world, and we have to show them how to enjoy the good things and avoid the bad things. This isn't the government's responsibility. It's ours (Miller 76)."
Not all restrictions on electronic speech are bad. Most of the major on-line communication companies have restrictions on what their users can "say." They must respect their customer's privacy, however. Private E-mail content is off limits to them, but they may act swiftly upon anyone who spouts obscenities in a public forum.
Self regulation by users and servers is the key to avoiding government imposed intervention. Many on-line sites such as Playboy and Penthouse have started to regulate themselves. Both post clear warnings that adult content lies ahead and lists the countries where this is illegal. The film and videogame industries subject themselves to ratings, and if Internet users want to avoid government imposed regulations, then it is time they begin to regulate themselves. It all boils down to protecting children from adult material, while protecting the first amendment right to free speech between adults. Government attempts to regulate the Internet are not just limited to obscenity and vulgar language, it also reaches into other areas, such as data encryption.
By nature, the Internet is an insecure method of transferring data. A single E-mail packet may pass through hundreds of computers from its source to destination. At each computer, there is the chance that the data will be archived and someone may intercept that data. Credit card numbers are a frequent target of hackers. Encryption is a means of encoding data so that only someone with the proper "key" can decode it.
"Why do you need PGP (encryption)? It's personal. It's private. And it's no one's business but yours. You may be planning a political campaign, discussing our taxes, or having an illicit affair. Or you may be doing something that you feel shouldn't be illegal, but is. Whatever it is, you don't want your private electronic mail (E-mail) or confidential documents read by anyone else. There's nothing wrong with asserting your privacy. Privacy is as apple-pie as the Constitution.
Perhaps you think your E-mail is legitimate enough that encryption is unwarranted. If you really are a law-abiding citizen with nothing to hide. What if everyone believed that law-abiding citizens should use postcards for their mail? If some brave soul tried to assert his privacy by using an envelope for his mail, it would draw suspicion. Perhaps the authorities would open his mail to see what he's hiding. Fortunately, we don't live in that kind of world, because everyone protects most of their mail with envelopes. So no one draws suspicion by asserting their privacy with an envelope. There's safety in numbers. Analogously, it would be nice if everyone routinely used encryption for all their E-mail, innocent or not, so that no one drew suspicion by asserting their E-mail privacy with encryption. Think of it as a form of solidarity (Zimmerman)."
Until the development of the Internet, the U.S. government controlled most new encryption techniques. With the development of faster home computers and a worldwide web, they no longer hold control over encryption. New algorithms have been discovered that are reportedly uncrackable even by the FBI and the NSA. This is a major concern to the government because they want to maintain the ability to conduct wiretaps, and other forms of electronic surveillance into the digital age. To stop the spread of data encryption software, the U.S. government has imposed very strict laws on its exportation.
One very well known example of this is the PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) scandal. PGP was written by Phil Zimmerman, and is based on "public key" encryption. This system uses complex algorithms to produce two codes, one for encoding and one for decoding. To send an encoded message to someone, a copy of that person's "public" key is needed. The sender uses this public key to encrypt the data, and the recipient uses their "private" key to decode the message. As Zimmerman was finishing his program, he heard about a proposed Senate bill to ban cryptography. This prompted him to release his program for free, hoping that it would become so popular that its use could not be stopped. One of the original users of PGP posted it to an Internet site, where anyone from any country could download it, causing a federal investigator to begin investigating Phil for violation of this new law. As with any new technology, this program has allegedly been used for illegal purposes, and the FBI and NSA are believed to be unable to crack this code. When told about the illegal uses of his programs, Zimmerman replies:
"If I had invented an automobile, and was told that criminals used it to rob banks, I
would feel bad, too. But most people agree the benefits to society that come from
automobiles -- taking the kids to school, grocery shopping and such -- outweigh
their drawbacks." (Levy 56).
The government has not been totally blind to the need for encryption. For nearly two decades, a government sponsored algorithm, Data Encryption Standard (DES), has been used primarily by banks. The government always maintained the ability to decipher this code with their powerful supercomputers. Now that new forms of encryption have been devised that the government can't decipher, they are proposing a new standard to replace DES. This new standard is called Clipper, and is based on the "public key" algorithms. Instead of software, Clipper is a microchip that can be incorporated into just about anything (Television, Telephones, etc.). This algorithm uses a much longer key that is 16 million times more powerful than DES. It is estimated that today's fastest computers would take 400 billion years to
break this code using every possible key. (Lehrer 378). "The catch: At the time of manufacture, each Clipper chip will be loaded with its own unique key, and the Government gets to keep a copy, placed in escrow. Not to worry, though the Government promises that they will use these keys to read your traffic only when duly authorized by law. Of course, to make Clipper completely effective, the next logical step would be to outlaw other forms of cryptography (Zimmerman)."
The most important benefits of encryption have been conveniently overlooked by the government. If everyone used encryption, there would be absolutely no way that an innocent bystander could happen upon something they choose not to see. Only the intended receiver of the data could decrypt it (using public key cryptography, not even the sender can decrypt it) and view its contents. Each coded message also has an encrypted signature verifying the sender's identity. The sender's secret key can be used to encrypt an enclosed signature message, thereby "signing" it. This creates a digital signature of a message, which the recipient (or anyone else) can check by using the sender's public key to decrypt it. This proves that the sender was the true originator of the message, and that the message has not been subsequently altered by anyone else, because the sender alone possesses the secret key that made that signature. "Forgery of a signed message is infeasible, and the sender cannot later disavow his signature (Zimmerman)." Gone would be the hate mail that causes many problems, and gone would be the ability to forge a document with someone else's address. The government, if it did not have alterior
motives, should mandate encryption, not outlaw it.
As the Internet continues to grow throughout the world, more governments may try to impose their views onto the rest of the world through regulations and censorship. It will be a sad day when the world must adjust its views to conform to that of the most prudish regulatory government. If too many regulations are inacted, then the Internet as a tool will become nearly useless, and the Internet as a mass communication device and a place for freedom of mind and thoughts, will become non existent. The users, servers, and parents of the world must regulate themselves, so as not to force government regulations that may stifle the best communication instrument in history. If encryption catches on and becomes as widespread as Phil Zimmerman predicts it will, then there will no longer be a need for the government to meddle in the Internet, and the biggest problem will work itself out. The government should rethink its approach to the censorship and encryption issues, allowing the Internet to continue to grow and mature.
Works Cited
Emler-Dewitt, Philip. "Censoring Cyberspace: Carnegie Mellon's Attempt to Ban
Sex from it's Campus Computer Network Sends A Chill Along the Info Highway."
Time 21 Nov. 1994; 102-105.
Lehrer, Dan. "The Secret Sharers: Clipper Chips and Cypherpunks." The Nation
10 Oct. 1994; 376-379.
"Let the Internet Backlash Begin." Advertising Age 7 Nov. 1994; 24.
Levy, Steven. "The Encryption Wars: is Privacy Good or Bad?" Newsweek 24
Apr. 1995; 55-57.
Miller, Michael. "Cybersex Shock." PC Magazine 10 Oct. 1995; 75-76.
Wilson, David. "The Internet goes Crackers." Education Digest May 1995; 33-36.
Zimmerman, Phil. (1995). Pretty Good Privacy v2.62, [Online]. Available Ftp:
net-dist.mit.edu Directory: pub/pgp/dist File: Pgp262dc.zip
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)