The Internet uses a vast network of closed specialized hardware-based routers to send information in “packets” nearly instantaneously. As new services such as video and mobile computing become the norm, there is a growing need to move from simply moving packets as fast as possible to a more programmable and extensible routing infrastructure that can be customized and adapted quickly. RouteBricks is an Intel Research Berkeley Labs project to evaluate the packet processing capability of emerging multi-core servers and exploring novel approaches to clustering these servers to build routers that are incrementally scalable and yet fully programmable. See RouteBricks video for more information.

Smartphones and emerging Mobile Internet Devices (MIDs) are giving us access to more and more of our computing applications on-the-go. As this trend continues alongside a revolution in visual computing on the desktop, people will want the same immersive experiences on their mobile devices that they get on their PC. Intel’s Clone Cloud research aims to make it possible to execute rich applications on resource-constrained mobile devices by off-loading computation to available cloud resources in nearby datacenters. The idea is to “clone” the entire set of data applications from the mobile device onto the cloud and selectively execute some operations on the clones, reintegrating results back to the mobile device. Intel’s research also seeks to make sure that as this is done, the system remains secure in the face of adversity, protects the privacy of sensitive data, and ensures critical operations are only performed by those who are authorized and that service is consistently reliable. See Clone Cloud video and Intel Research Berkeley Lab web page for more information.

Internet law professor Michael Geist on the battle over a controversial global anti-counterfeiting treaty.

"Since the United States, European Union, Japan, Canada, and a handful of other countries announced their participation in the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement negotiations in October 2007, the ACTA has been dogged by controversy over the near-total lack of transparency. Early negotiations were held in secret locations with each participating country offering nearly-identical cryptic press releases that did little more than fuel public concern.

The participating countries conducted four major negotiation sessions in 2008 and though the first session of 2009 was postponed at the request of the US (which was busy transitioning to a new president), the negotiations are set to resume in May in Morocco.

When they do, negotiators will face two key challenges. The first involves the mounting disagreement over transparency and the value of releasing the current draft text to assuage public mistrust. Last month, the European Parliament passed a resolution calling for the public availability of all ACTA materials.

Governments negotiating ACTA responded last week by releasing a six-page document that sketched a rough outline of ACTA negotiations to date. The decision to release the document only weeks after the US denied of access to ACTA documents on national security grounds, may have stemmed from the European Parliament resolution and Canadian support for an early release of the draft text.

Internal Canadian government documents reveal Marie-Lucie Morin, then the Deputy Minister of International Trade (and now National Security Advisor to Prime Minister Stephen Harper), warned Minister Stockwell Day in November 2008 that "should there be no consensus among the ACTA partners to make the ACTA text public, the Department will need to develop options to address Canadian stakeholders concerns about the lack of transparency in the ACTA process".

Tougher challenge

Assuming that the documents are ultimately released to the public, negotiators will then face an even tougher challenge – addressing concerns over the substance of the treaty itself. While little beyond the six-page summary has been officially confirmed, there has been a steady stream of leaks in recent weeks (including new documents on Wikileaks posted over the weekend) that paint a picture of the treaty.

The proposed treaty has six main chapters: (1) Initial Provisions and Definitions; (2) Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights; (3) International Cooperation; (4) Enforcement Practices; (5) Institutional Arrangements; and (6) Final Provisions.

Most of the discussion to date has centred on the Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights chapter, which is divided into four sections – civil enforcement, border measures, criminal enforcement, and the Internet. The first three sections were addressed in meetings last year. Although there is still considerable disagreement on the final text, leaked documents indicate that the draft includes increased damage awards, mandated information disclosure that could conflict with national privacy laws, as well as the right to block or detain goods at the border for up to one year.

Moreover, the criminal provisions go well beyond clear cases of commercial infringement by including criminal sanctions such as potential imprisonment for "significant wilful copyright and trademark infringement even where there is no direct or indirect motivation of financial gain".

Jail time

Jail time for non-commercial infringement will generate considerable opposition, but it is the internet provisions that are likely to prove to be the most controversial. At the December 2008 meeting in Paris, the US submitted a "non-paper" that discussed internet copyright provisions, liability for Internet Service Providers, and legal protection for digital locks.

The paper raised questions about damage awards, liability for hosting or storing content, and the extent to which national digital lock provisions mirror the U.S. approach. This indicates that the US is feeling out its negotiating partners on the potential for an international version of its much-criticised Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

The recent release along with an upcoming public meeting in Brussels demonstrates that officials are working to address the transparency concerns. If the leaked documents are accurate, however, public support for the treaty will require far more than just greater openness.

"

Michael Geist holds the Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-commerce Law at the University of Ottawa, Faculty of Law. He can be reached at mgeist@uottawa.ca or online at www.michaelgeist.ca.

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

Computer skills must mean more than word processing, says Bill Thompson.

"I’ve had my own website for 15 years now, running on a wide variety of different computers.
I started off with some space on the Pipex WorldServer, a large – for the time – system that offered web hosting back in the days when getting online was a dark art and I was lucky enough to work for one of the early commercial internet service providers.

On leaving Pipex I moved over to Cityscape, another Cambridge-based provider from the early days. When it went out of business I set up a server at home for a while before relocating the hardware to a shelf in the corner of a friend’s office, where he was happy to offer bandwidth and a power supply for a very modest monthly payment.

Three years ago I moved the whole thing again, this time onto a virtual server at Bytemark, one of the many small hosting companies that offer friendly and reliable server space for all sorts of organisations.

A virtual server is a way to get lots of different sites on one physical computer. From the outside you can’t really tell, and when you log on to the virtual server it acts just like a real box, but it’s a lot cheaper to run and you get the benefit of having serious hardware, a secure power supply and an easy way to upgrade.

"Far too many people who use computers every day, and have them in their homes, aren’t even capable of applying the system updates that Microsoft and Apple automatically send out"

Bill Thompson

If you run your own computer, even a virtual one, then you also have to take responsibility for keeping it up to date. Mostly this involves applying patches, checking system logs and other relatively straightforward tasks, but servers, like cars, sometimes need a proper service.

And so it was that I spent a happy couple of hours on Saturday morning stripping down my website, backing up the blog installation files, database and key configuration files, and then doing a complete rebuild, or ‘re-imaging’ as it is called.

It all went remarkably smoothly, and installing the latest version of Debian Linux went without a hitch. I spent most of the time copying the gigabytes of data from my home server back to the site because uploading is still slow thanks to the asymmetric nature of UK broadband services.

The configuration files for the virtual servers went in smoothly, and I even managed to trick the MySQL database management system that holds all my blog posts to let me simply copy my files by creating an empty database of the same name and then overwriting it with my backups – far faster than importing everything.

BILL’S LINKS

Bytemark on rebuilding your server

Rory Cellan-Jones on Digital Britain

Donald Clark on the British Library meeting

Apart from a ten minute hiatus when I failed to get the web server to restart because I’d forgotten to create the folders where it writes its log files, there were no problems and I managed to get to the cinema to see the excellent ‘In The Loop’ for the noon performance, as planned.

One reason it went well was that Bytemark’s systems made it easy, but it also helped that I’m trained to do this sort of stuff. I’ve got a master’s degree in computer science and have had 25 years of experience in the industry, including a period as managing editor and systems administrator for The Guardian’s first website back in the mid-90′s.

Far too many people who use computers every day, and have them in their homes, aren’t even capable of applying the system updates that Microsoft and Apple automatically send out, leaving them with buggy and insecure systems vulnerable to all sorts of attack.

Even though we rely on our computers for so much there is still a sense that understanding how they work is an optional extra, something that really only needs to be reserved for the geeks or those whose work absolutely requires it.

Last Friday the actor and self-confessed ‘technophile’ Stephen Fry was one of the more interesting contributors to a rather self-serving debate about Digital Britain held at the British Library.

He offered an analogy between the early days of the motor car and the current development of a network society, noting that there were no agonised debates or high-level task forces convened to discuss the rollout of the car, so perhaps we should be more relaxed in our attitude to going digital.

We might not have seen our cities damaged beyond repair in the interests of improving traffic flow if we’d stopped to think, of course. But even if the network is going to happen with or without government intervention, the end result is that most of us, most of the time, will be using computers to carry out activities that are pretty central to life in the modern world.

And if we do not understand how they work then we will be in trouble.

There are many reasons for knowing a bit about how cars work. You can tell if there’s something wrong, and avoid driving a dangerous vehicle. You can decide whether the mechanic suggesting a thousand pounds worth of repairs is ripping you off. And you can even do some things yourself.

It’s almost 50 years since the writer CP Snow gave his famous lecture about the ‘two cultures’ at Cambridge University, where he outlined the dangers that come from the lack of understanding between literary intellectuals and the scientific community. Today things don’t seem as bad, and there is clearly a much greater awareness of and interest in popular science.

Unfortunately a new divide has opened up, that between those of us who know enough about our computers to look under the bonnet from time to time and those who use them without any real curiosity or awareness.

The results could be far worse than being ripped off by unscrupulous engineers who offer them unnecessary upgrades, because these digital tools will increasingly shape society. Those whose understanding of IT stopped at learning how to use bold font in a word processor will be at a significant disadvantage, one that we should work hard to overcome before it is too late.

We don’t need a nation of programmers, but we do need to be confident that everyone knows what programmers do and what programs look like.

"

Bill Thompson will be speaking about the new two cultures in a lecture at the Computer Laboratory at Cambridge University on May 27th, part of the University’s celebration of its 800th anniversary.

Bill Thompson is an independent journalist and regular commentator on the BBC World Service programme Digital Planet

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.