Slashdot Banner
Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments
typodupeerror delete not in
  • Preferences

Comments: 188 +-   Network Adapter Keeps Talking While a PC Is Asleep on Wednesday August 19, @04:00PM

Posted by timothy on Wednesday August 19, @04:00PM
from the would-make-me-feel-better-about-keeping-a-server-on dept.
networking
hardware
news
it
Al writes "Researchers at Microsoft and the University of California, San Diego have developed a network adapter that lets a computer enter sleep mode without disrupting the network connection. The adapter, dubbed Somniloquy (meaning to talk in one's sleep), consists of a gumstix running embedded Linux, 64MB of RAM and a 2G SD memory card, connected via USB. The adapter keeps the network connection going and the researchers have also developed a simplified IM client and bittorrent client that carry out more complicated tasks autonomously, only waking the computer if, for example, an actualy IM is received or a download is completed."
story

Related Stories

Submission: Network Adapter Keeps Talking While A PC is Asleep by Anonymous Coward
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.

Network Adapter Keeps Talking While a PC Is Asleep 50 Comments More /

 Full
 Abbreviated
 Hidden
More
Loading... please wait.

  • So in other words... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Darkness404 (1287218) on Wednesday August 19, @04:01PM (#29125179)
    So in other words you still have a computer running, just not your main computer.

    • So in other words you still have a computer running, just not your main computer.

      How's it gonna help those of us that download more than 2 gigabytes of porn^Wlinux distros at a time?

    • To be hoist, one of the main reasons I turn my office computer off when I go home is so it is not hacked by script kiddies at night - I don't think I need a non updating embedded linux system running all the time on my network.

      • One of the reasons I don't turn off my office computer at night is because, if some pathetic script kiddie walks on water all the way through thousands of hours of preventative labour and hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of top tier hardware all the way down to my desktop windows PC, I want to see it first thing, so I won't have had my coffee before I stab myself through the eyeball with a ballpoint.

        Seriously? You think you're safer by having it off 16 hours a day? Moreover, your tech people think that it's acceptable to have an environment where the security precaution is to turn off your computer when you're not using it?

        Wow. Just...Wow...

        • Seriously? You think you're safer by having it off 16 hours a day? Moreover, your tech people think that it's acceptable to have an environment where the security precaution is to turn off your computer when you're not using it?

          You would be surprised of how often tech "pros" do something stupid. I've had some people not update Windows because it might "mess something up" then others still have IE 6 because some outdated intranet program needs it, other times they have had non-updated anti-virus, run everything as admin, and a whole lot of other random bad ideas.

              • Re:So in other words... (Score:4, Informative)

                by dave562 (969951) on Wednesday August 19, @06:54PM (#29127157) Journal
                -you- might have not gotten a virus, but I'm sure I'm safe to say that you know a heck of a lot more about computers than the average employee using a computer. Most of them just need a "click here and run the program to see a cute kitten" and they will install a trojan willingly.

                I think it's time to put this one to rest. In any sort of corporate environment where "employees" are using computers, there should be multiple layers of defense to eat the 'click here to see the kitten' program before it makes it to the desktop. Between anti-virus on the email server, content filters and the like on the perimeter and anti-virus on the desktop, it should be next to impossible for an employee to get a virus.

                I'll be the first to admit that having to have those various levels of security is pretty insane, but it is what it is. Where I work we use Websense to filter malicious content from the web. We route our email through Postini (Google) first and then scan it on the Exchange server before it gets delivered to the users' mailboxes. Then we're running AV on the desktop and Firefox as the default browser (with AdBlock) to pick up whatever Websense doesn't filter. It sucks to have to run the network that way, but it has kept infections down to zero so far this year. One of the pluses is that the users are starting to run Firefox at home because they appreciate the lack of ads at work.

        • Re:So in other words... (Score:5, Funny)

          by Dogtanian (588974) on Wednesday August 19, @05:04PM (#29126055) Homepage

          You think you're safer by having it off 16 hours a day?

          Dude, if I was having it off [urbandictionary.com] for 16 hours a day, I wouldn't give a flying **** about some shitty PC security!

    • So in other words you still have a computer running, just not your main computer.

      Don't worry, they're working on a solution which allows the network computer to go to sleep as well without disrupting the network connection. Perhaps they could add a second network computer that allows the first to power down...

    • 'sup dawg, I heard you like computers, so I put a computer in your computer so you can download while you sleep.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Locutus (9039)
      much like the OLPC design for their mesh networking. Another cool thing they, the OLPC people, was to let the CPU sleep but the video card keeps displaying what's on the screen.

      LoB

  • Yo Dawg (Score:5, Funny)

    by decipher_saint (72686) * on Wednesday August 19, @04:02PM (#29125191) Homepage

    We put a computer on your computer so you can download while you download...

    • Re:Yo Dawg (Score:5, Funny)

      by Brian Gordon (987471) on Wednesday August 19, @04:09PM (#29125309)

      The question is whether the NIC can go into a power saving mode and be awoken by an even simpler device when a packet comes in.

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by ichthus (72442)
        I use Wake On Lan [wikipedia.org] to wake my PC. The same thing should work for this.

        • Re:Yo Dawg (Score:5, Insightful)

          by tepples (727027) <slash2006NO@SPAMpineight.com> on Wednesday August 19, @04:50PM (#29125853) Homepage Journal

          I use Wake On Lan [wikipedia.org] to wake my PC. The same thing should work for this.

          Some applications, such as BitTorrent, require a continuous stream of packets. If you can offload processing these packets to another device that draws less electric power and keep the PC turned off until the device is ready to commit its changes, you can save money on your electric bill.

          • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

            by KibibyteBrain (1455987)
            Still, the issue remains, why not just have two computers, a gumstix based box that runs bittorrent 24/7 and forwards the data to a cifs share on the windows box, and then a windows box that is set to sleep when idle but WOL? I see no benefit in tying the low power headless machine to your other computer. I essentially do this now, running my 24/7 tasks on an Atom based desktop and then sleeping my workstation when im not sitting in front of it. I also run my IM client on the remote host too, so the only be

  • Slashdot editor's demonstrate..... (Score:5, Informative)

    by jdb2 (800046) * on Wednesday August 19, @04:04PM (#29125207) Journal
    .....their incompetency once again.

    Apparently Timothy doesn't understand how to use Google [google.com], or, dare I say, even the Slashdot "Old Stories" search [slashdot.org]

    Almost the exact same story was posted on Monday, April 27 . [slashdot.org]

    jdb2

  • Microsoft using Linux? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by markdavis (642305) on Wednesday August 19, @04:04PM (#29125223)

    "Researchers at Microsoft"..."have developed"..."running embedded Linux"

    Um, was that a misprint or did hell just freeze over? Hasn't MS referred to Linux as a "virus", a "cancer", "un-American", a "patent violator", and "communistic"?

  • Awesome (Score:3, Funny)

    by Monkeedude1212 (1560403) on Wednesday August 19, @04:04PM (#29125225)

    only waking the computer if, for example, an actualy IM is received or a download is completed."

    So now if my falling asleep leads to the computer falling asleep, it'll wake up to wake me up when it finished downloading.

    It sounds like a dislexic "Yo Dawg..."

  • "carry out more complicated tasks autonomously"

  • Now all we need is a network cable that can carry on the tasks of this NIC allowing it to sleep when it isn't busy, waking it when it needs to wake the main computer! Wait...
  • 'Round these here parts, we've had a device like that for years. We call it a network router.

  • .. does this mean my botnet can continue to spam folks even if they turn off their PCs? If so, this is a great feature!

  • so a lower cost ver of the killer nic?

  • If they'd only had this for Token Ring maybe one of its shortcomings wouldn't have hurt it so badly.

    (Yes, I know they were supposed to close a pass-through relay on power loss -- and how often somehow they didn't.)

  • Mainframe architecture revisted ... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by golodh (893453) on Wednesday August 19, @04:09PM (#29125303)
    It's funny how today's PCs continue to take architectural queues from earlier mainframe and minicomputer designs.

    Remember when your IBM mainframe had an array of special I/O processors? Well, the bus arbitrator on your motherboard looks suspiciously like one of those. And remember when disk arrays because "smart"? Well ... just looks at the electronics on the average SATA IDE drive and you'll see what I mean. It manages the hardware, and you only talk to the drive's on-board controller, never to the drive itself.

    And now this network controller. Pardon me, I mean network card.

    • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recapitulation_theory

      It wasn't true in biology, but it is certainly true for computer design.

    • As long as my computer stays a PC, and not a "baby 36." Just typing those two numbers made my head hurt.

    • It's funny how today's PCs continue to take architectural queues from earlier mainframe and minicomputer designs.

      And fifos, and skip lists too!

  • Check all your Ethernet connections, at all terminations, especially if you are a bank or R&D place. Has someone snuck a battery-operated Linux gumstick somewhere, transparently mimicking the MAC address at both ends of its traffic, secretly recording and transmitting all your traffic to a nefarious third source? You don't usually notice somebody ADDING something to your network -- of course, in the two seconds of downtime it took to insert it, you probably just thought it was a blip. Maybe you didn'

    • Why run on battery when decent switches (used by banks...) have PoE available?

      • Why run on battery when decent switches (used by banks...) have PoE available?

        Because the switches and switch-router-NAT appliances marketed for use in homes or small businesses often aren't "decent switches", and because PoWLAN isn't yet available.

  • Much to the disdain of husbands around the world, women have known how to talk in their sleep for years! Perhaps they should hire a woman to do this?

    // Ducks! ;-)

  • both these nics are supposed to have this functionality.

  • NIC's with on board processors and off load for these types of applications have been on the market for several years.

    http://www.bigfootnetworks.com/products/ [bigfootnetworks.com]

    I think the only difference here is the operation while sleeping which could easily be done with a killer nic with firmware/driver changes

  • This sounds strangely familiar to a Dell Remote Access Controller [wikipedia.org], where it's basically a computer inside of your computer that interfaces with its various input and output buses and has its own NIC that's always powered on as long as the PSU(s) in the system have power. As long as the system is plugged in and the DRAC has an active network connection, the system can be accessed remotely no matter what state the physical system is in. I've performed many remote OS installs from 5 states away with these ni

  • How about security? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by bughunter (10093) <bughunter AT earthlink DOT net> on Wednesday August 19, @04:40PM (#29125689) Journal

    My first thought was "IMs? What about malware, etc?" In other words, a firewall on an embedded system in the NIC would be far more useful than something that lets your CPU sleep while you keep downloading porn.

    And then my second thought was "Great, another vulnerability for attack. Why hack someone's PC, which could have any configuration, when you can hack the monoculture of embedded processors in consumer NICs?"

    Either way, marketing this kind of NIC without addressing all of its security potentials/weaknesses would be hasty... and possibly even irresponsible.

  • Does this wake the system up every time that 2GB has filled up then?

  • Is it just me? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by SuseLover (996311) on Wednesday August 19, @04:42PM (#29125739)
    Is this scary technology? Now your system can become a true zombie on a botnet while asleep. Couldn't a virus/worm just wake your system up and infect it?

  • Sounds a lot like Lights Out Management [apple.com] eh. Seen this in Sun [sun.com] and HP [hp.com] too.

    • Download's not dead which can eternal lie.
      And with strange torrents even NICs may die.

Search
It is not best to swap horses while crossing the river. -- Abraham Lincoln

All trademarks and copyrights on this page are owned by their respective owners. Comments are owned by the Poster. The Rest © 1997-2009 Geeknet, Inc.