Ummm Network, You Look a Little Bloated

Wartime bootleggers, the birth and death of Firewire, geeky movies, losing yourself in Manila, and more while we take your calls and questions.

Survey Finds Secure Sites Not So Secure

“A new project that was setup to monitor the quality and strength of the SSL implementations on top sites across the Internet found that 75 percent of them are vulnerable to the BEAST SSL attack and that just 10 percent of the sites surveyed should be considered secure.”

IEEE 1394 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The IEEE 1394 interface, developed in late 1980s and early 1990s by Apple as FireWire, is a serial bus interface standard for high-speed communications and isochronous real-time data transfer.

Travelling Salesman - A Movie About P=NP

“We all know that the P=NP question is truly fascinating, but now it is about to be released as a movie. Can they be serious? Yes, a proof of P=NP would change the world as we know it.”

Bloat - Introduction - Bufferbloat

Bufferbloat is a huge drag on Internet performance created, ironically, by previous attempts to make it work better. The one-sentence summary is “Bloated buffers lead to network-crippling latency spikes.”

The bad news is that bufferbloat is everywhere, in more devices and programs than you can shake a stick at. The good news is, bufferbloat is relatively easy to fix. The even better news is that fixing it may solve a lot of the service problems now addressed by bandwidth caps and metering, making the Internet faster and less expensive for both consumers and providers.

At 92, Movie Bootlegger Is Soldiers’ Hero

‘One of the world’s most prolific bootleggers of Hollywood DVDs loves his morning farina. He has spent eight years churning out hundreds of thousands of copies of “The Hangover,” “Gran Torino” and other first-run movies from his small Long Island apartment to ship overseas.’