Jim Choate wrote:
The behaviour of the leading proponents of crypto-anarchy when faced with 'non-compliant' behaviour is clear evidence of why the philosophy doesn't work.
Hang about! No-one has shot at you, confiscated your computer, tried to block or bomb your nodes, sued you, complained to any government officials about you, or written any nasty letters to your mother. All that has happened is some complaints. You can carry on doing what you want, if you want to put up with others having a lower opinion of you. They can carry on doing what they want & if their opinion gets low enough they can ignore you. If anything this is evidence that anarchy does work, at least in the limited-harm domain of a mailing list. Any functioning political anarchy would have to have more local, personal social sanctions on behaviour than an authoritarian society, not less. More one-to-one sanctions, peer-to-peer political interaction, (RAH might have called it a geodesic political culture if he hadn't got this strange Marxist idea that politics is just an emergent property of economics :-) A state society can rely on one-to-many flows of political or social pressure, the government & big business can deal with people as the masses. A natural outgrowth of the one-to-many techniques of cheap mass communications (OK, maybe Hettinga is right after all). The cypherpunks list is a sandpit of many-to-many communications, a realm in which anarchy is the natural, technologically favoured, form of social control. And complaining about the behaviour of others is exactly the sort of social control you'd expect to see happening in an anarchy. Anarchy is a great way to organise mailing lists, peasant villages, and regular evenings at the pub. Maybe it's a great way to organise large-scale industrial societies as well, it remains to be seen. But anarchy doesn't have to mean nobody tells you what to do - it just means that no one person (natural person like a king, or corporate person, like a state) tells everybody else what to do. In anarchy everyone is free to tell you what to do, and you are free to ignore them. Until you piss them off once too often of course... Ken Brown (wow! an on-topic post for once!)
Mr. Brown (in the library with a candlestick) said:
(RAH might have called it a geodesic political culture if he hadn't got this strange Marxist idea that politics is just an emergent property of economics :-)
Even a stopped clock is right twice a day (once if it's military). -- A quote from Petro's Archives: ********************************************** "Despite almost every experience I've ever had with federal authority, I keep imagining its competence." John Perry Barlow
On Thu, 7 Dec 2000, petro wrote:
Mr. Brown (in the library with a candlestick) said:
(RAH might have called it a geodesic political culture if he hadn't got this strange Marxist idea that politics is just an emergent property of economics :-)
Just by the way, how widespread is this use of the word 'geodesic'? Offhand, I'd refer to many of the things I've seen it used for here as 'distributed' or 'fractal'. Is 'geodesic' an accepted term of art for a network or protocol in which all the parts work roughly the same way? Bear
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- At 8:46 AM -0800 on 12/8/00, Ray Dillinger wrote:
Just by the way, how widespread is this use of the word 'geodesic'?
Not especially. :-).
Offhand, I'd refer to many of the things I've seen it used for here as 'distributed' or 'fractal'. Is 'geodesic' an accepted term of art for a network or protocol in which all the parts work roughly the same way?
As with everything else I know of any use, I stole it. :-). It comes from Peter Huber's 1986 "The Geodesic Network", containing (Huber's?) observation that as the price of switches gets lower, like with Moore's "law", the price of network nodes gets lower versus the price of network lines, and the network changes from a hierarchical network with expensive switches with the most expensive switches at the top to a geodesic one, with most switches tending toward the same price in the aggregate. Huber stole "geodesic" from Bucky Fuller, who in turn stole it from topology, where it means the straightest line across a surface. In three dimensions it's a great circle, for instance, the straightest line across a sphere, which is what "geodesic" translates to literally. Bucky called his domes geodesic, because when you pushed on a point on the dome force radiated out in all directions to the ground. Of course, the internet is the mother of all geodesic networks, right? :-). I've expropriated the word "geodesic" in all kinds of outlandish ways, like a cash settled auction-priced single intermediary (with lots of competing intermediaries, of course, just one between each buyer and seller) internet market is a geodesic market, like my claim that societies map to their communication architectures and thus we're moving from a hierarchical society to a geodesic one, and so on. There's a collection of essays on geodesic markets on <http://www.ibuc.com>, and pointers there to other rants of mine with the "G" word in them, as well. Cheers, RAH -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: PGPfreeware 6.5.8 for non-commercial use <http://www.pgp.com> iQEVAwUBOjEXhsUCGwxmWcHhAQGDigf+KobTrRn4xHJGvGHKauWEtsH90BVG+tJj Z1hIyFD9O5I6Az5+SNt1SO8dYyBqKwk103GzWmu8Gbm+mUJdgy/dp+Aoxou5nPt/ n/Mi2FVpYnzdnRPRbnE10R6hqeBqWoerjonfhhSbWur3TGJUPsJUdbWKeglaygMW 4eMPGCBNeVUufvvbUcQ5iqkA0nxxa+46XREqtFhKybSzBYaA2LfcHPTRoMbzWM8J c7+uias/tuT75pWo0xUA2vX5p2BQM8yHVrs46gunxBkAk2Lz8Ri7P9Pi2c0jOjwa yyYy32ElXgw0gdR16DupSVw/2tTRtZPFyv664FsT8g+Q7/PsNPYiyg== =fx+a -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah@ibuc.com> The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'
At 8:46 AM -0800 12/8/00, Ray Dillinger wrote:
On Thu, 7 Dec 2000, petro wrote:
Mr. Brown (in the library with a candlestick) said:
(RAH might have called it a geodesic political culture if he hadn't got this strange Marxist idea that politics is just an emergent property of economics :-)
Just by the way, how widespread is this use of the word 'geodesic'?
Offhand, I'd refer to many of the things I've seen it used for here as 'distributed' or 'fractal'. Is 'geodesic' an accepted term of art for a network or protocol in which all the parts work roughly the same way?
Distributed, fractal, peer-to-peer, nonhierarchical, geodesic, silk road, agoric, anarchic, are all terms basically describing the same sort of thing. Which term is whizzier is in the eye of the beholder. Personally, I got tired several years ago of hearing everything described as a "fractal geodesic network." I don't know whether the term was coined by its chief user, Bob Hettinga, or by a similar propagandist, George Gilder, or by someone else. The naming issues are parallel to the issues with "open systems," "bazaar and the cathedral," etc. But I imagine others are tired of hearing me talk about crypto anarchy. I'm not sure "geodesic" captures the important issues. Are merchants in a Baghdad bazaar part of a "fractal geodesic network"? I suppose. But this is just a basic open market, with no top-down rules set. Is the Law Merchant a fractal geodesic network? Whatever. --Tim May -- (This .sig file has not been significantly changed since 1992. As the election debacle unfolds, it is time to prepare a new one. Stay tuned.)
On Fri, 8 Dec 2000, Tim May wrote:
Distributed, fractal, peer-to-peer, nonhierarchical, geodesic, silk road, agoric, anarchic, are all terms basically describing the same sort of thing. Which term is whizzier is in the eye of the beholder.
Personally, I got tired several years ago of hearing everything described as a "fractal geodesic network." I don't know whether the
'geodesic' means the shortest possible path, with respect to the geometry of the 'space', between two points. Fractal simply means non-integer dimension. Computer networks, at least copper or fiber based, can't be fractal. The traffic patterns can have fractal patterns (e.g. Foucault Dust periodicity) but that isn't the same thing at all. 'fractal geodesic network' is spin doctor bullshit. And the Internet is most certainly NOT(!) geodesic with respect to packet paths. ____________________________________________________________________ Before a larger group can see the virtue of an idea, a smaller group must first understand it. "Stranger Suns" George Zebrowski The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage@ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------
On Fri, 8 Dec 2000, Jim Choate wrote:
Fractal simply means non-integer dimension.
Yeah, that's where it started. But I'm using it more in the sense of meaning the properties that fractal structures have; self-similarity across scales, for one, as in the big nodes work the same way as the little nodes and larger patterns are emergent from the interaction of simple rules.
Computer networks, at least copper or fiber based, can't be fractal.
Physically, true. There is a minimum size feature, in the sense that some computing hardware and memory is required of every node. In terms of the flow of information, I'm not as sure.
The traffic patterns can have fractal patterns (e.g. Foucault Dust periodicity) but that isn't the same thing at all.
The traffic patterns *ARE* the network. If the network has fractal traffic patterns, the network is fractal.
'fractal geodesic network' is spin doctor bullshit.
Yup. Mutually exclusive sets of properties.
And the Internet is most certainly NOT(!) geodesic with respect to packet paths.
At the lower levels in user-land and very small ISP's, it seems to be hierarchical (eg, I have an "uplink" who connects me to the rest of the Internet, and people who connect through my system treat me as their uplink...). But at major nodes like big ISP's and server farms, it's more like a distributed or peer-to-peer network (eg, my uplink has several dozen peers, each with independent connections to other points on the internet, and they each maintain independent connections to several different "backbone sites", and the backbone sites are connected both via dedicated links peer-to-peer *and* via all the ISP's that have connections to more than one of the backbone sites ....) Anyway, once you get up out of hierarchy levels, I think the Internet starts looking a lot more fractal -- self-similarity across scales in traffic flow, emergent bandwidth and load patterns, etc. Bear
At 3:57 PM -0800 12/8/00, Ray Dillinger wrote:
On Fri, 8 Dec 2000, Jim Choate wrote:
Fractal simply means non-integer dimension.
Yeah, that's where it started. But I'm using it more in the sense of meaning the properties that fractal structures have; self-similarity across scales, for one, as in the big nodes work the same way as the little nodes and larger patterns are emergent from the interaction of simple rules.
Computer networks, at least copper or fiber based, can't be fractal.
Physically, true. There is a minimum size feature, in the sense that some computing hardware and memory is required of every node. In terms of the flow of information, I'm not as sure.
Argghhhh. Anyone claiming that something "can't be fractal," as Choate apparently does in the section you quote, just doesn't understand the meaning of fractal. Or, in Choateworld, "Since all physical things have three spatial dimensions, there are no non-integer dimensions, and hence fractals cannot exist." Like Choatian physics, Choatian economics, Choatian law, and Choatian history, such crankish ideas are neither useful nor interesting. --Tim May -- (This .sig file has not been significantly changed since 1992. As the election debacle unfolds, it is time to prepare a new one. Stay tuned.)
On Fri, 8 Dec 2000, Tim May wrote:
Argghhhh. Anyone claiming that something "can't be fractal," as Choate apparently does in the section you quote, just doesn't understand the meaning of fractal.
Or, in Choateworld, "Since all physical things have three spatial dimensions, there are no non-integer dimensions, and hence fractals cannot exist."
Bullshit. I find fractals all the time. I make a good part of my living dealing with them.
Like Choatian physics, Choatian economics, Choatian law, and Choatian history, such crankish ideas are neither useful nor interesting.
Counter arguments, instead of ad hominims, eagerly awaited... ____________________________________________________________________ Before a larger group can see the virtue of an idea, a smaller group must first understand it. "Stranger Suns" George Zebrowski The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage@ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------
On Fri, 8 Dec 2000, Jim Choate wrote:
On Fri, 8 Dec 2000, Tim May wrote:
Or, in Choateworld, "Since all physical things have three spatial dimensions, there are no non-integer dimensions, and hence fractals cannot exist."
As a person who holds a physics degree you should know the best guess number of dimenions is somewhere in the 20+ range (ie Super Symmetry). Some of those dimensions are linear (ie x-axis) and some have very little 'lenght' at all, and others are 'twisted' back upon themselves. You should also know better than to try to seperate the time from the space dimensions. It's hard to discuss concepts like 'phase space' without a time dimension (especially in the context of a network). ____________________________________________________________________ Before a larger group can see the virtue of an idea, a smaller group must first understand it. "Stranger Suns" George Zebrowski The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage@ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------
At 02:47 PM 12/8/00 -0600, Jim Choate wrote:
'fractal geodesic network' is spin doctor bullshit.
Well, buzzword bingo output anyway.
And the Internet is most certainly NOT(!) geodesic with respect to packet paths.
....more like a geodesic dome filled with boiled spaghetti... Thanks! Bill Bill Stewart, bill.stewart@pobox.com PGP Fingerprint D454 E202 CBC8 40BF 3C85 B884 0ABE 4639
At 5:49 PM -0800 on 12/8/00, Bill Stewart wrote:
At 02:47 PM 12/8/00 -0600, Jim Choate emetted:
'fractal geodesic network' is spin doctor bullshit.
Well, buzzword bingo output anyway.
:-). "Neological" is so much more... euphemisitic...
And the Internet is most certainly NOT(!) geodesic with respect to packet paths.
....more like a geodesic dome filled with boiled spaghetti...
Depends on what dimension you're measuring. For fun, I pick time. I leave a definition of fractal time to the more mathematically creative out there. Cheers, RAH -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah@ibuc.com> The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'
At 10:17 PM -0500 12/8/00, R. A. Hettinga wrote:
At 5:49 PM -0800 on 12/8/00, Bill Stewart wrote:
At 02:47 PM 12/8/00 -0600, Jim Choate emetted:
'fractal geodesic network' is spin doctor bullshit.
Well, buzzword bingo output anyway.
:-). "Neological" is so much more... euphemisitic...
And the Internet is most certainly NOT(!) geodesic with respect to packet paths.
....more like a geodesic dome filled with boiled spaghetti...
Depends on what dimension you're measuring. For fun, I pick time.
I leave a definition of fractal time to the more mathematically creative out there.
You're the one using it, so why would you ask us to try to guess what you mean? Unless you are saying you were just hand-waving, which would make Choate's point, much as I am loathe to admit. --Tim May -- (This .sig file has not been significantly changed since 1992. As the election debacle unfolds, it is time to prepare a new one. Stay tuned.)
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Depends on what dimension you're measuring. For fun, I pick time.
I leave a definition of fractal time to the more mathematically creative out there.
You're the one using it, so why would you ask us to try to guess what you mean?
Actually, since I'm not the one trying to use "fractal time", or fractal anything else, for that matter, in any coherent sentence, I abdicate any responsibility for its use, which I probably wasn't clear enough in saying, I guess. As to my wild-ass guess of picking of time as a dimension, it seems to me that the latency, load, whatever of the network can be measured in dropped packets, or time or something, and the network certainly *looks* like a geodesic one, with multiple nodes plugged into lots of lines routing packets in arbitrary directions instead of up and down a hierarchy. That and having read Huber's idea (or at least Huber is where I saw it first) that decreasing switch prices creates geodesic networks. But, of course, I don't know nearly enough about how packets move across the network, even after reading some pretty good stuff on network/ISP settlement, like, say, <http://www.isoc.org/inet99/proceedings/1e/1e_1.htm>, to make any actually informed claims about it.
Unless you are saying you were just hand-waving, which would make Choate's point, much as I am loathe to admit.
Of course I just wave my hands a lot. And, if there's anyplace where handwaving is an art, cypherpunks is it, right? Note that I've never published a paper on any of this, though I've had my rants published as opinion pieces in various places, and I do know *where* to publish these hand-wavings, if I had enough of a clue, or discipline, to do so, having helped start a conference or two on financial cryptography, but only on the business, and certainly not the content, side. So, like I said before, everything I know, I stole from someone else. These days, I make no claims to *any* original ideas, ever. That's because every time I think I've thought of something new, it turns out someone else has thought of it already. For instance, I've always thought it was me who realized, on my own, that Chaum's blind signatures got you internet bearer financial instruments. It turns out that Nick Szabo figured it out, quite explicitly, long before I did, and that I probably got my own "discovery" of same from watching his stuff fly by on either cypherpunks or www-buyinfo in 1994 or so. His corpus of work in that regard is what informs a lot of the capability based work being done by Mark Miller and the language E, or Tyler Close with his Ferex securities underwriting system, for instance. About the only things I like to claim as my own these days are merely hypotheses. One, that in order for internet bearer transactions to replace book-entry ones, they need to be three orders of magnitude cheaper, and, two, that our social structures map directly to our communication architectures in a quite mechanical and, yes, Virginia, determinist fashion. Frankly, I expect that if those ideas are provable at all, someone's probably already proven/disproven those in the literature somewhere, long before we get actual data to that effect in the respective instances of bearer transactions and the internet. Cheers, RAH -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: PGPfreeware 6.5.8 for non-commercial use <http://www.pgp.com> iQEVAwUBOjJImsUCGwxmWcHhAQGd+Qf/WQCF84VBDidEMJIdvBgDRiiFifMFvEQP 3JRQRa1W71Ev+/psgF38u6xdP6cyk+N522GQovy6xGhH98SPqPEggSoQnhllmctp kTi5QkMhTqvTfoLwtKmOw8awKDb5JZhXmvP61sJs98itp2aDf0dtGbbtW1dHbts0 sxwZfR951imOBvuqiEvrxnvXy/rr1iwrdsHouiacaJYB3Fcr6qPPYc0GTSPZWD8W 2Kn4w30sMDvzZZ8fXVSTZEmFarYBUYi8keQ/nZWpt9E/3cR0GKwUSzb58MXeugdl Qj3xDWNwLzsJAOXlDKMQBOToipmXELTqB7gxBmJhdd8VYbDUSex6aA== =WgBd -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah@ibuc.com> The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'
On Sat, 9 Dec 2000, R. A. Hettinga wrote:
dropped packets, or time or something, and the network certainly *looks* like a geodesic one, with multiple nodes plugged into lots of lines routing packets in arbitrary directions instead of up and down a hierarchy.
That's not geodesic, that's a distributed systems with stochastic management algorithms. The epitomy of 'free market' thinking applied to communications engineering. It's certainly non-hierarchical but it isn't 'minimum distance'. If we apply 'geodesic' to the network between two participants then the goal would be to arrange their adjacency (ie minimize transaction costs). The network makes it appear that they are adjacent because of its ubiquity and acceptable latency. This goal was reached with the telegraph and the radio, 100 to 150 years ago. The next obvious goal would be to reduce the number of regulators. Then of course there is the aspect of the 'personal bank'. This would be where you and I exchange widgets via our PDA's that somehow get mapped into our personal financial/property space without going through some arbitration via 3rd party. The social and economic implications of this are staggering. This effectively means no taxes. This means that there are no shared or common resources. This implies that each person is either themselves autonomous, or acts as an agent who represents that independent autonomous collective (ie arcology or zaibatsu). It reduces society to a collection of 'families'. This implies a multi-planetary system in order to have resources of the requisite scale. Now consider the sorts of technology this will require to be ubiquitous? Neuromancer? Not hardly. Schismatrix is a more apt example. Gene engineered satellites that have doors made from lips and vagina's and the 'systems' of the satellite are the biological systems of the being which is the satellite. Killer butterflies. Shaper versus mechanist. Then consider the implications this has with respect to individual lifetimes and the changes that occur in society. It's clear that society changes slowly but a critical component in keeping it from stopping is the relatively short lives of people. They just aren't around long enough to have 'grand' plans and carry through on them. But, take away the economic issues of this ubiquitous melange of technology and reduce the major driving motivations to emotional ones, coupled with individual access to constructive technology that potentially surpasses the current output of the planet. Couple that will lifetimes approaching 200+ years and we begin to see a side that doesn't bode well at all. And the currently stabalizing force, the slowness of evolution, is going to be removed shortly. There will in effect be no apparent boundary or limit on the attainable goals of individuals. This implies a high level of conflict, or else some sort of meta-society. ____________________________________________________________________ Before a larger group can see the virtue of an idea, a smaller group must first understand it. "Stranger Suns" George Zebrowski The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage@ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------
On Fri, 8 Dec 2000, Bill Stewart wrote:
....more like a geodesic dome filled with boiled spaghetti...
If you think about it this is actually one way to view the Internet. Consider the highest layer nodes. Place them equidistant on a sphere and interconnect them with links. Whether they are geodesic or not isn't relevant (unless you'r using a shortest-path algorithm, which we don't). Anyway. The next thing you do is connect each single user machine to it's appropriate node. Cluster them in a similar manner. You get a globe with little partial globe 'bumps' centered on each 'parent' node. Then from each of these parent nodes, using a different length path for distinguishing, list the multi-user nodes. Then interconnect these nodes. Repeat add infinitum (well you can't realy since the lowest level link, a single ppp link for example can't be broken down into smaller physical links, the net is pseudo-fractal at best at this scale). You can also do them as 'sea urchins'. The reality is that the Internet, as big as it is, is simply too small by several orders of magnitude to be modelled by anything approaching a true fractal. However, by looking at it from the perspective of emergent behaviour from simple rules we can probably gain more understanding and control over its use. Something akin to cellular automatons with simple neighborhood rules interconnected by 'small network' models. ____________________________________________________________________ Before a larger group can see the virtue of an idea, a smaller group must first understand it. "Stranger Suns" George Zebrowski The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage@ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------
perhaps the scale larger than the highest layer nodes is no longer recognisable as being part of the fractal. Likewise the nodes at each ppp have some organization as to how they handle data internaly. The shape of a shoreline is often used to illustrate fractal self similarity, but you quickly reach a point where it is hard to call it a shoreline anymore, it becomes grains of sand, pebbles, or boulders. So say you -could- estimate a fractal dimension for the internet. What would the number be good for? ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jim Choate" <ravage@einstein.ssz.com> To: <cypherpunks@einstein.ssz.com> Sent: Friday, December 08, 2000 8:33 PM Subject: Re: Fractal geodesic networks
On Fri, 8 Dec 2000, Bill Stewart wrote:
....more like a geodesic dome filled with boiled spaghetti...
If you think about it this is actually one way to view the Internet. Consider the highest layer nodes. Place them equidistant on a sphere and interconnect them with links. Whether they are geodesic or not isn't relevant (unless you'r using a shortest-path algorithm, which we don't).
Anyway. The next thing you do is connect each single user machine to it's appropriate node. Cluster them in a similar manner. You get a globe with little partial globe 'bumps' centered on each 'parent' node. Then from each of these parent nodes, using a different length path for distinguishing, list the multi-user nodes. Then interconnect these nodes. Repeat add infinitum (well you can't realy since the lowest level link, a single ppp link for example can't be broken down into smaller physical links, the net is pseudo-fractal at best at this scale).
You can also do them as 'sea urchins'.
The reality is that the Internet, as big as it is, is simply too small by several orders of magnitude to be modelled by anything approaching a true fractal. However, by looking at it from the perspective of emergent behaviour from simple rules we can probably gain more understanding and control over its use. Something akin to cellular automatons with simple neighborhood rules interconnected by 'small network' models.
____________________________________________________________________
Before a larger group can see the virtue of an idea, a smaller group must first understand it.
"Stranger Suns" George Zebrowski
The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage@ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------
On Fri, 8 Dec 2000, Carol A Braddock wrote:
So say you -could- estimate a fractal dimension for the internet. What would the number be good for?
You can, there are at least two connectivity maps for the net out there. It would describe the complexity of the equivalent graph. As the network becomes more complex the routing issues become more complicated as the number of potential paths increases. So the closer the fractal dimention gets to 3 the more 'saturated' the network becomes with respect to routing issues for example. Admittedly it wouldn't be much use for the leaf node, but for those managing 'common' services (eg name resolution) it would at least give a model on which to base future expansion plans. ____________________________________________________________________ Before a larger group can see the virtue of an idea, a smaller group must first understand it. "Stranger Suns" George Zebrowski The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage@ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------
Could you explain 'saturated'? I am not sure this isn't related to a more simple surface - to - volume type number, but I only have three or so hands to wave at the difference. How about the average number of links to get to a destination vs the total network size? Plot that the way you would Minkowski sausage volume vs diameter to get fractal dimension. I saw an article pointing out that the average number of links was not growing as fast as the network size would predict, and blaming the expert and portal type sites for the difference. That is a cypherpunkish type observation, it is a number indicating intelligient intervention in the organization of the network. Carol Anne Cyperpunk's cat: =^.^= ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jim Choate" <ravage@EINSTEIN.ssz.com> To: <cypherpunks@EINSTEIN.ssz.com> Sent: Saturday, December 09, 2000 5:47 AM Subject: Re: Fractal geodesic networks
On Fri, 8 Dec 2000, Carol A Braddock wrote:
So say you -could- estimate a fractal dimension for the internet. What
would
the number be good for?
You can, there are at least two connectivity maps for the net out there.
It would describe the complexity of the equivalent graph. As the network becomes more complex the routing issues become more complicated as the number of potential paths increases. So the closer the fractal dimention gets to 3 the more 'saturated' the network becomes with respect to routing issues for example.
Admittedly it wouldn't be much use for the leaf node, but for those managing 'common' services (eg name resolution) it would at least give a model on which to base future expansion plans.
____________________________________________________________________
Before a larger group can see the virtue of an idea, a smaller group must first understand it.
"Stranger Suns" George Zebrowski
The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage@ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------
On Sat, 9 Dec 2000, Carol A Braddock wrote:
Could you explain 'saturated'?
Sure, I meant it as the actual level of capacity/usage approached the maximal capacity/usage. The 'channel' is saturated, it reaches a point where it can't grow. This is a small grain observation about the capacity/cost ratio for individual links. Another way the 'channel' might get saturated is with respect to 'common' services such as DNS. As the consumer layer grows the load increases and can become problematic (ie DNS time outs become very common). So, one could compare the percentage of requests at each layer of the network and then compare their time series.
I am not sure this isn't related to a more simple surface - to - volume type number, but I only have three or so hands to wave at the difference.
In a way that's what a fractal dimension is. In the case of say a Koch snowflake we're talking of a function part way between a line and a plane. In the context of the Internet we're talking about the complexity moving from 2d to 3d, we've already moved from 1d (direct connect ala BBS's) to 2d. With the growth of space based Internet assets you'll see this number approach 3.
How about the average number of links to get to a destination vs the total network size? Plot that the way you would Minkowski sausage volume vs diameter to get fractal dimension. I saw an article pointing out that the average number of links was not growing as fast as the network size would predict, and blaming the expert and portal type sites for the difference. That is a cypherpunkish type observation, it is a number indicating intelligient intervention in the organization of the network.
The network can't exist without 'intelligent intervention", at least I've never heard of a bridge (for example) self-assembling. It could happen but I suspect the odds are pretty slim. With respect to the growth of links, it doesn't surprise me that it's saturating faster than expected. After all 80% of the planets population hasn't ever made a telephone call (or that's the urban legend anyway). I saw an article somewhere the other day (no clue where) stating that the youngest kids (say 8 to 12) are not using the net as much as predicted either. ____________________________________________________________________ Before a larger group can see the virtue of an idea, a smaller group must first understand it. "Stranger Suns" George Zebrowski The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage@ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------
On Fri, 8 Dec 2000, Carol A Braddock wrote:
So say you -could- estimate a fractal dimension for the internet. What would the number be good for?
If it could be shown that a consistent estimate exists and it was calculated, it would probably affect the scaling properties of the Net - after all, what are fractal dimensions but numbers relating linear scale changes to changes in measures? Sampo Syreeni <decoy@iki.fi>, aka decoy, student/math/Helsinki university
If what you are looking for is an estimate of fractal dimensions in the Internet, look at the following paper, which was published in the 1999 ACM/SIGCOMM conference: On Power-Law Relationships of the Internet Topology, Michalis Faloutsos, University of California at Riverside; Petros Faloutsos, University of Toronto; and Christos Faloutsos, Carnegie Mellon University. Power laws are measurable, and somewhat related to the "fractal" nature. According to the measurement described in the paper, the Internet topology is, in fact, fractal. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Sampo A Syreeni" <ssyreeni@cc.helsinki.fi> To: "Carol A Braddock" <cab8@censored.org> Cc: <cypherpunks@algebra.com> Sent: Sunday, December 10, 2000 9:23 AM Subject: CDR: Re: Fractal geodesic networks
On Fri, 8 Dec 2000, Carol A Braddock wrote:
So say you -could- estimate a fractal dimension for the internet. What would the number be good for?
If it could be shown that a consistent estimate exists and it was calculated, it would probably affect the scaling properties of the Net - after all, what are fractal dimensions but numbers relating linear scale changes to changes in measures?
Sampo Syreeni <decoy@iki.fi>, aka decoy, student/math/Helsinki university
On Mon, 11 Dec 2000, Karst Starkenburg wrote:
Power laws are measurable, and somewhat related to the "fractal" nature. According to the measurement described in the paper, the Internet topology is, in fact, fractal.
There is no such thing as 'the Internet topology'. There are many topologies and protocols. Some aspects are fractal, some are not. If you're talking strictly of the connectivity diagram, it is certainly self-similar (which would account for the power law, I made reference to a similar power law, m/4, that is used in biology related to branching) and space filing, but that doesn't make it self similar enough to qualify for 'fractal' in the strictest sense of the word. Different branches, while they are both branches, wouldn't share enough common sub-structures to have similar fractal dimensions, and it still retain any convenience from a global perspective. ____________________________________________________________________ Before a larger group can see the virtue of an idea, a smaller group must first understand it. "Stranger Suns" George Zebrowski The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage@ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------
At 08:46 AM 12/8/00 -0800, Ray Dillinger wrote:
On Thu, 7 Dec 2000, petro wrote:
Mr. Brown (in the library with a candlestick) said:
(RAH might have called it a geodesic political culture if he hadn't got this strange Marxist idea that politics is just an emergent property of economics :-)
Just by the way, how widespread is this use of the word 'geodesic'?
It depends on how many hops away from Bob Hettinga you are :-) Thanks! Bill Bill Stewart, bill.stewart@pobox.com PGP Fingerprint D454 E202 CBC8 40BF 3C85 B884 0ABE 4639
On Fri, 8 Dec 2000, Ray Dillinger wrote:
(RAH might have called it a geodesic political culture if he hadn't got this strange Marxist idea that politics is just an emergent property of economics :-)
Just by the way, how widespread is this use of the word 'geodesic'?
Not very, I think. It seems it's RAH's specialty. It's quite poetic, actually.
Offhand, I'd refer to many of the things I've seen it used for here as 'distributed' or 'fractal'. Is 'geodesic' an accepted term of art for a network or protocol in which all the parts work roughly the same way?
Although 'geodesic' does have, through its use in general relativity, some faint echo of 'operates purely based on local information', I think it's a misnomer. People should rather use the term 'distributed' literally, as it's used in computer science. That's the meaning RAH is after, not true? Sampo Syreeni <decoy@iki.fi>, aka decoy, student/math/Helsinki university
Sampo A Syreeni <ssyreeni@cc.helsinki.fi> wrote:
Just by the way, how widespread is this use of the word 'geodesic'?
Not very, I think. It seems it's RAH's specialty. It's quite poetic, actually.
http://www.google.com/search?q="geodesic+economy"+-hettinga+-shipwright Linkname: David J. Phillips dissertation, draft for comments, discussion ... URL: http://www.asc.upenn.edu/usr/sphill/punks.htm Linkname: Executive Summit URL: http://www.icbi-uk.com/cyberetailfinanceforum/Exec-Summ.htm
participants (12)
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Anonymous -
Bill Stewart -
Carol A Braddock -
Jim Choate -
Jim Choate
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Karst Starkenburg -
Ken Brown -
petro -
R. A. Hettinga -
Ray Dillinger -
Sampo A Syreeni -
Tim May