Rerouting the Networks 108
prostoalex writes "Scientific American looks at a new approach to clearing networking jams, in research funded by the US military. Instead of using routers to route the packets from point A and point B, thus making some hop in the sequence critical for delivering the message, researchers are exploring a new approach called 'network coding.' (Here is the illustration cited in the article.)" Quoting: "[Four researchers] then at the University of Hong Kong published groundbreaking work that introduced a new approach to distributing information across shared networks. In... network coding, routers are replaced by coders, which transmit evidence about messages instead of sending the messages themselves. When receivers collect the evidence, they deduce the original information from the assembled clues. Although this method may sound counterintuitive, network coding, which is still under study, has the potential to dramatically speed up and improve the reliability of all manner of communications systems and may well spark the next revolution in the field. Investigators are, of course, also exploring additional avenues for improving efficiency; as far as we know, though, those other approaches generally extend existing methods.'"
This sounds vaguely like (Score:5, Interesting)
realistic receiver connectivity and bandwidth (Score:2, Interesting)
Great way to create battlefield targets, though. Take out any one intermediate link and lots of the troops at the receiver end are cut off.
Man in the Middle Attacks (Score:3, Interesting)
From that, they can stage any number of man-in-the-middle attacks -- the least potent but most widespread of which is convincing a clueless electorate^W userbase that they are certain sources of acclaimed truth, and manipulating them for their own narrow or evil ends.
Philosophers write about this in inspiring 5-page screeds like "On Truth and Lies in a Non-Moral Sense" [anus.com] by Friedrich Nietzsche. That theory in itself is the foundation of postmodernism and some more dangerous philosophies as well. Could it be that philosophy applies to computer science?
Re:That still wouldn't work. (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Umm most traffic is unicast (Score:4, Interesting)
Where is "D"? (Score:3, Interesting)
A to B to C
and
C to B to A
It's about A sending to D while at the same time B is sending to C.
You've left off "D".
And you failed to account for how B would know ahead of time that C would be sending a message. Which fails completely when you try to account for "D" in the equation. You need to account for the packets telling B which points wish to transmit.
In your wireless example, it would be easier to just skip B and have A broadcast its message to all and sundry and then C can broadcast. B and D would pickup whatever was meant for them.
1. A broadcasts to everyone, D receives the message.
2. B broadcasts to everyone, C receives the message.
Only two steps required. A further 33% savings and it includes an additional recipient.
Re:Isn't comprehensible to me (Score:5, Interesting)
2x + y - z = 1
x - y + z = 2
x + 2y - 3z = -4
Okay, now instead of x,y & z being numbers, imagine they are blocks of data. Bits. And instead of using addition and subtraction, make your operand xor.
Next step, pretend that your original message is the variables strung together in order, xyz.
Easy as 1,2,3.
Nothing to see here folks (Score:3, Interesting)