dinsdag 16 juni 2009

USENET but then FASTER: tsunami-udp FTW!


Downloading data via USENET has become the default FAST track for most DSL|Cable users. The data is nicely placed 'locally' and for a small fee, one gets priority access for 4, 8 or however many connections. Nice. Much faster then the old single-sourced-http access or the newer multiple-source-bittorent [too many cheaters in bittorent country who who do not obey to the rule that one should at least have a share ratio of 1:1.20 or better].

Cool, so now we finally get to use all the bandwidth we pay the ISP for. But since the USENET servers are useualy close to the endpoint, the need for a connection oriented protocol like TCP is hard to make. UDP is a cheaper protocol and thus could increase the effective bandwidth since it requiers less 'overhead'. The old fasioned reasoning for using TCP over UDP is that UDP is only usefull for transmissions where order isn't important and you don't need all of the messages to get to the other machine.

Other reasons for using TCP over UDP are that the upstream application needs less state awareness and since we like our coders dumb, we take that burden off of them.

But since our USENET servers are close, packetloss is not much of an issue. It is far more exceptional to loose packets. In the rare case we do, we could simply ask for a resent of that particular packet [or block].

So I went to BING [I have to admit I am impressed by the google-like results!] and asked "when is tcp better then udp" Hardly anything interesting showed at first glance. I repeated the same question to GOOGLE, more 'good' material was listed at first, but still not what I was looking for. BING has been setup to give me 100 results so I took a second look and found at hit 38 tsunami-udp.

In pseudo-code, the server and client operate approximately like this:

**Server**
start
while(running) {
wait(new incoming client TCP connection)
fork server process:
[
check_authenticate(MD5, "kitten");
exchange settings and values with client;
while(live) {
wait(request, nonblocking)
switch(request) {
case no request received yet: { send next block in sequence; }
case request_stop: { close file, clean up; exit; }
case request_retransmit: { send requested blocks; }
}
sleep(throttling)
}
]
}

**Client**
start, show command line
while(running) {
read user command;
switch(command) {
case command_exit: { clean up; exit; }
case command_set: { edit the specified parameter; }
case command_connect: { TCP connect to server; auth; protocol version compare;
send some parameters; }
case command_get && connected: {
send get-file request containing all transfer parameters;
read server response - filesize, block count;
initialize bit array of received blocks, allocate retransmit list;
start separate disk I/O thread;
while (not received all blocks yet) {
receive_UDP();
if timeout { send retransmit request(); }

if block not marked as received yet in the bit array {
pass block to I/O thread for later writing to disk;
if block nr > expected block { add intermediate blocks to retransmit list; }
}

if it is time {
process retransmit list, send assembled request_retransmit to server;
send updated statistics to server, print to screen;
}
}
send request_stop;
sync with disk I/O, finalize, clean up;
}
case command_help: { display available commands etc; }
}
}


It combines the strength of TCP [reliable data transfer] with the efficiency of UDP [no handshakes etc].

How It Works:
Tsunami performs a file transfer by sectioning the file into numbered blocks of usually 32kB size. Communication between the client and server applications flows over a low bandwidth TCP connection. The bulk data is transferred over UDP.

Most of the protocol intelligence is worked into the client code - the server simply sends out all blocks, and resends blocks that the client requests. The client specifies nearly all parameters of the transfer, such as the requested file name, target data rate, blocksize, target port, congestion behaviour, etc, and controls which blocks are requested from the server and when these requests are sent.

vrijdag 12 juni 2009

Peace Future School defrauding kids?

Someone thought it a good idea to help African people in & outside Africa and to do so, collect money from others. But how to get people to give you money? Well, one soft target are kids. So when you have a volunteer working for you who is linked to a school, why not use that opportunity?

So you register a site, copy the content [one page] of another site and sit back watching the kids donating money. Simple & potentially effective. Until a parent gets a little suspicious and decides to contact the school and ask them what this is all about. As it happens, the school knew as little as what the copied one paged website let them know: nothing really.

Another parent used some who is, some google-fu, some Maltego & some RL contacts in the fraud business. Everything found smells fishy, except the person who claims to be behind the Peace Future School. They go to extended lengths to assure the doubters that all is very legit, all is being done in good faith, there is no official registration YET, but surely that will be done one day, there is no content for the site YET but that too is on it's way, there are many trustworthy people behind the project but not one links from their site to the Peace Future School YET but that will surely come.

But what is the truth? Is it just a bunch of innocent people who do not know how to setup a reliable looking site or are they fraudsters? I leave the verdict up to you, but for my kids there is no way they are going to be giving money to this particular initiative. No matter how much private money the spokeswoman claims to have spend on it, no matter how many well connected people she claims are behind it, no matter how strange and surprising it was to all volunteers that people are doubting, no matter how sad it makes her Nigerian partners to be confronted with suspicion, no matter how many volunteers are emailing from free email addresses.

The people behind this will not make the same mistake again. They now will get some links to and from the site, and some content, change the graphics, list some names, do some more foot work and all that jazz. They learned from the incident and will not make the same mistakes. So for the next person who gets contacted and who does some online research, it will get harder to find in dices. That is worrying and reminds me of an experiment of the people behind Fake Trust.

woensdag 10 juni 2009

... completely change the way you shop!

"Remember the story about how you are going to be able to order coffee at Starbucks through the iPhone and then pay at the counter? 2 Think bigger. The new iPhone 3.0 operating system and its push notifications and the in-app commerce features and abilities to pay through your account at the iTunes store, could completely change the way you shop. As you walk into any store, you could browse information about their products, order and pay and maybe have the goods delivered to your home, without having to stand in line and all the usual hassle associated with shopping. It is like on-line ordering with the added benefit of being able to squeeze, smell, and try out the products. The rumored improved camera with autofocus enables bar-code scanning. Sit in a comfy sofa at IKEA, order it, and that’s it. You just walk out. Or you could pick the goods up as you leave."

zondag 7 juni 2009

vrijdag 5 juni 2009

Dictated but not dead

Listen, son: I am saying this as you lie asleep, one little paw crumpled under your cheek and the blond curls stickily wet on your damp forehead. I have stolen into your room alone.  Just a few minutes ago, as I sat reading my paper in the library, a stifling wave of remorse swept over me. Guiltily I came to your bedside. 

There are the things I was thinking, son: I had been cross to you. I scolded you as you were dressing for school because you gave your face merely a dab with a towel. I took you to task for not cleaning your shoes. I called out angrily when you threw some of your things on the floor. At breakfast I found fault, too. You spilled things. You gulped down your food. You put your elbows on the table. You spread butter too thick on your bread. And as you started off to play and I made for my train, you turned and waved a hand and called, "Goodbye, Daddy!" and I frowned, and said in reply, "Hold your shoulders back!" Then it began all over again in the late afternoon. 

As I came up the road I spied you, down on your knees, playing marbles. There were holes in your stockings. I humiliated you before your boyfriends by marching you ahead of me to the house. Stockings were expensive-and if you had to buy them you would be more careful! Imagine that, son, from a father! Do you remember, later, when I was reading in the library, how you came in timidly, with a sort of hurt look in your eyes? 

When I glanced up over my paper, impatient at the interruption, you hesitated at the door. "What is it you want?" I snapped. You said nothing, but ran across in one tempestuous plunge, and threw your arms around my neck and kissed me, and your small arms tightended with an affection that God had set blooming in your heart and which even neglect could not wither. And then you were gone, pattering up the stairs. 

Well, son, it was shortly afterwards that my paper slipped from my hands and a terrible sickening fear came over me. What has habit been doing to me? The habit of finding fault, of reprimanding-this was my reward to you for being a boy. It was not that I did not love you; it was that I expected too much of youth. I was measuring you by the yardstick of my own years. And there was so much that was good and fine and true in your character. The little heart of you was as big as the dawn itself over the wide hills. This was shown by your spontaneous impulse to rush in and kiss me good night. Nothing else matters tonight, son. I have come to your bedside in the darkness, and I have knelt there, ashamed! It is feeble atonement; I know you would not understand these things if I told them to you during your waking hours. But tomorrow I will be a real daddy! I will chum with you, and suffer when you suffer, and laugh when you laugh. I will bite my tongue when impatient words come. I will keep saying as if it were a ritual: "He is nothing but a boy-a little boy!" I am afraid I have visualized you as a man. Yet as I see you now, son, crumpled and weary in your cot, I see that you are still a baby. Yesterday you were in your mother's arms, your head on her shoulder. 

I have asked too much, too much.

woensdag 3 juni 2009

My blog blog crashes Firefox

I can not access the page you are looking at with my most favorite browser: Firefox. It crashes Firefox v3.0.10, released April 27, 2009

When you search for blog crashes firefox, the second link points to a story about Rob Levin's Spinhome blog crashing FF 1.5.0.2. In 1.5.0.3 it seemed to be fixed.

For me it happens not to be FF itself, but the addon NoScript, that I can not browse without anymore.