Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site lasspvax.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxr!mhuxt!houxm!vax135!cornell!lasspvax!olson From: olson@lasspvax.UUCP (Todd Olson) Newsgroups: net.news.group,net.news.adm Subject: Saving the net Message-ID: <639@lasspvax.UUCP> Date: Sat, 2-Nov-85 17:18:22 EST Article-I.D.: lasspvax.639 Posted: Sat Nov 2 17:18:22 1985 Date-Received: Mon, 4-Nov-85 02:06:55 EST Reply-To: olson@lasspvax.UUCP (Todd Olson) Followup-To: net.news.adm Organization: LASSP, Cornell University Lines: 94 Keywords: money, fairness Xref: watmath net.news.group:4228 net.news.adm:406 Summary: [] I would like to make a suggestion for restructuring the net in such a way that everyone pays their FAIR SHARE of the PHONE COST. Let me warn you first that I do not know how the net currently works as my thesis keeps getting in the way of studing the matter, hence my solution might be the current system. (Please: no flames, I'm merely a concerned citizen trying trying to keep a 'public good' going.) Also if the problem is more the demand the net is putting on a machine in cpu time spent serving the news then in money paid to the Phone Company, then my 'solution' isn't. |-->-- 1 news --->--- A --->---|-->-- 2 |-->-- 3 |-->-- 4 The current distribution method, if my inference is correct is that after the news has arrived at A, A calls up 1,2,3,4 in turn and passes the news on to them each in turn. Probably, at the same time A also collects the any new news from 1,2,3,4. Thus A pays for all of the communication between it and 1,2,3,4. IN SHORT I suggest this should be turned around. Machines 1,2,3,4 should each call A and ask for any new news. IN DETAIL Several problems immediately come to mind, one being how do we keep 1,2,3,4 from calling A at the same time and another being how should A get new news from 1,2,3,4. Here is what I imagine should happen... 1) For every pair of machines that exchange news directly, (eg A,1) one is designated the up-stream site (A) and one the down-stream site (1) 2) At some (more or less) prearranged time A calls 1 and asks for any new news that 1 has to pass along. 1 sends the news to A. The connection is then terminated. 3) Immediately 1 calls A back and asks if A has any news for it. Now A sends news to 1. The call is terminated. 4) The news exchange is now done. DISCUSSION The main point to note is that if every machine gets every piece of news then EVERY machine PAYS the SAME in phone bills because each machine pays only for what it gets, not for what it feeds to others. One might object that it this takes TWO phone calls to exchange the news where one should suffice. But TWO phone calls is the only way to make each machine pay for their share of the news. The reason for having one site (A) always initiate the exchange is so that it doesn't get called simultaneously by 1,2,3,4. Note that if A decides that it will not deal in some group, say *.mac, and 1 wants this group, then 1 can still get most of its news from A and then go elsewhere (possibly long distance) to get *.mac. This scheme might make it easier for some of the backbone sites to off load some of the serving because it would be less costly for other sites to become servers. PROBLEMS 1) The main backbone sites will still spend a lot of cpu time communicating with other machines. They will still need banks of phones to handle the traffic. (However they won't be paying for all that traffic. Only for what they get, which is the same as every one else) 2) What if in step (3) above, 1 does not call back. Does A hang, not dealing with 2,3,or4? I suggest some sort of time out mechanism. 3) This scheme will encourage Fragmentation. That is it will be possible for some site to draw it's news from several sites, for speed or cost reasons. This will complicate book keeping. Maybe the first bit of communication should be, "I want news from you, the last thing I saw was ... Do you have anything more up to date than this?" 4) Sites that feed news long distance will have higher phone bills. (I suppose we could put up with only local calls and long transit times if the net is dense enough in real space. (-:) Maybe then we could get the biologist to study it for us to help us keep it alive (-:)) 5) Suppose one site generates a lot of 'junk'. They never pay for what they generate, but everone else pays to get it. Well, I don't see a way around this. All I can say is that at least it is better that each site pay for receiving junk mail rather than one backbone site (that merely transmits the junk) paying for everyone to get the junk. I'm sure that there are other technical problems. Will this distribute costs more equitably? What do the rest of you think? Is there anyone up to creating this new beast? (Unfortunately(?), I have a physics thesis to produce, otherwise I'm just crazy enough to try create this on my own, for personal amusment and education.) SUMMARY Structure the net so that people pay for what they get rather than what they give. -- Todd Olson ARPA: olson@lasspvax -- or -- olson%lasspvax.tn.cornell.edu@cu-arpa UUCP: {ihnp4,allegra,...}!cornell!lasspvax!olson US Mail: Dept Physics, Clark Hall, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York 14853-2501