Re: why the internet is a piece of crap [was re^80,000 net art]

If anything, your e-mail proves my point. The infrastructure of the system was
never intended to carry as much as it does, nor is it totally distributed as you
are implying - it has everything pivoting on a mere 13 root zone servers, it
follows the phone line system,
and it has ridiculously expansive and CENTRALIZED data centers and hubs. Oh,
wait, we're moving towards a satellite system, where there are no more wires,
but everything will be dependent on a ludicrously small and finite number of
satellites, sitting quietly like big fucking targets in space. And did I mention
a serious movement towards how much to charge people if they happen to
go over a line that just happens to belong to Company X? US government projects
identifying ways to blotto box the entire system
(http://redheadedstepchild.org/destruct/texts/infoOpRoadmap.pdf and
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0KNN/is_36/ai_n13807588)?

The system is
straining at its seams and it is a matter of time before those seams break.
The Internet has been patched and patched and patched for
decades - a time span you mentioned. It cannot sustain itself with that
infrastructure, with its core RFPs dating back to 1980 and earlier, or with its
exciting routers and switches "online since the inception of DARPANET decades
ago!" The IAB has practically shuttered its doors. The IETF is reduced to
squabbling about nonsensical minutiae as its members devolve into theoretical
fights about who has the largest technological cock. IPv6? WTF. So we won't
run out of IP addresses - who cares, when the physical structure WILL run out? When it
finally occurs to people that the very non-distributed nature of the net makes it
completely, 100% controllable by government entities? When people's need for
streaming media and illegal music downloads outstrips current bandwidth ability,
and fiber optic cable continues to lie around unused?

So, I repeat - the Internet is broken, from the ground up. Duct tape and string
will only carry us so much further. It'll be a hell of a ride, but it'll end if
people continue to take it for granted that this is the only way the system can
be built. The structure of the Internet is not a fact of nature. It isn't a
"discovery." It's an invention, and as such it can be changed, rebuilt, or totally
scrapped as needed. People need to be willing to spend their energies doing
that, not burying their heads in the sand pretending the inevitable won't or
can't happen, or claiming that it would simply be too "incovenient" to implement
complete change. Inconvenient will be the day you try to log on and there
simply is no Internet, either because someone decided to take out a couple of
those 13 root zone servers, because your government decided they didn't want you
to have it, or because your neighbors and 10,000,000,000 of their closest
friends just flat out killed it by simultanesouly downloading videos of some
jackass "interpreting" the history dance movements from 1950-today. Now THAT
will be inconvenient.
-Alexis


On Wed, 2 Aug 2006 [email protected] wrote:

::I would have to strongly disagree with the sentiment that the internet is broken or dying. The empirical data shown below is a graphical representation of the current AS's trended since 1994 in the internet core routing table.
::
::http://bgp.potaroo.net/
::
::The internet currently facilitates interconnectivity between more hosts that ever. More data, more bandwidth, more people, and more access.
::
::Public wireless networks offer anonymization of ip addresses. Learn about networks and their operation, theres so much to execute in terms of pro-decentralization, open information sharing and social interventions for any individual who seeks to do so.
::
::We still have routers and switches that have been on-line since the inception of DARPANET decades ago! Not only that, they route billions of terabytes every day! Your generalization that it will be supplanted to something we don't recognize is very incorrect. IP v6 was released several years ago and really embraced by the IETF as being the nextgen protocl for networks. IP v4, as old as it is, is still the predominant protocol on the internet and will be for at least the next decade. So as long as their are IP networks, there will be hosts connected to them. Given this, the direction might be to become more adept at writing dynamic code like perl or learning unix systems to achieve a more conceptual end. Using technology as a means for making a statement is something that the computer underground has been executing on for a long time.
::
::chad
::www.chadscoville.com
::
::
::Alexis Turner wrote:
::
::> Okay then. I think the real discussion we are all having boils down
::> to whether
::> net art as has been practiced is "dead" or still evolving.
::> Personally, I say
::> neither. I say it hasn't been born yet at all.
::>
::> The Internet in its current incarnation is broken. It's dying. It's
::> a short
::> matter of time before it is supplanted by something we don't even
::> begin to
::> envision right now. So, quite simply, the thing we are calling "net
::> art" right
::> now will not have a chance to figure out how to work before its
::> vehicle is
::> completely snatched out from underfoot.
::>
::> So, for those who want to move on to bigger and better things: bully
::> for you -
::> that's the right attitude, even though what you discover tomorrow is
::> going to
::> be looked at as ancient and retarded by the new turks in 2 years.
::> Enjoy
::> being a turk now. You don't have an inkling where we will be, but you
::> keep
::> trying, and what else can you do? You might as well wring the life
::> out of the
::> thing while it is here. Plus, hell, it will put you in a better
::> position to
::> understand where we end up, and maybe even guide the way just a
::> little.
::>
::> For those of you getting misty eyed over the lack of rumination in the
::> field,
::> you are both right and doomed. No art can be worth the pot it's
::> pissed in if
::> there's nothing "behind" it, and this is exactly why the majority of
::> current
::> net art sucks, and hard. That said, the Internet as it stands right
::> now is
::> a tiny, meteoric spark that is gleaming its last gleam. By the time
::> you decide
::> how to make net art that is worthwhile, it will be too late and you
::> will have to
::> start over from scratch. That is not to say that reflection is not a
::> worthwhile
::> goal, but to pine for the days when one could spend 30 years
::> perfecting mastery
::> of a medium exhibits an inherent lack of understanding of this
::> particular
::> medium. The very act of creating with it, of making it do beautiful
::> or
::> interesting things no one has thought of is the very act that causes
::> it to
::> evolve.
::>
::> So the issue about capitalism turning us all into consumers thirsting
::> hungrily
::> for the next big thing is misguided. It isn't about capitalism. It
::> isn't
::> about handy, tried and true paradigms that we all have in our back
::> pockets
::> to pull out as the bogeyman/trump card whenever we think a system is
::> flawed.
::> It's about real people, big researchers and the little basement
::> hobbyists being
::> intrigued by, pushing, hacking, tinkering, and ultimately being
::> dissatisfied
::> with an incomplete system. The Internet has a potential that hasn't
::> been
::> realized, and pushing to make it
::> better, rather than sitting and mulling over a broken system without
::> fixing it
::> (because it demands our contemplation), is what people that realize
::> this do.
::> Not because they have already consumed it and crapped it out, not
::> because
::> they are bored with it, but because they realize it has an untapped
::> potential that would be criminal not to try and discover.
::> -Alexis
::>
::>
::> On Fri, 28 Jul 2006, Ryan Griffis wrote:
::>
::> ::Date: Fri, 28 Jul 2006 17:58:50 -0500
::> ::From: Ryan Griffis <[email protected]>
::> ::To: rhizome rhizome <[email protected]>
::> ::Subject: RHIZOME_RAW: Re: net art?
::> ::
::> ::On Jul 28, 2006, at 5:07 PM, Alexis Turner wrote:
::> ::>
::> ::> On the contrary, I'm suggesting that culture is made up of many,
::> many things
::> ::> and
::> ::> evolves for many, many reasons, not merely the trite and lame
::> argument that
::> ::> we
::> ::> are capitalist whores.
::> ::
::> ::it's equally lame and trite to equate capitalism with economic
::> determinism. i
::> ::don't think Mark ever made such a lazy equation. i also don't think
::> anyone's
::> ::talking about "culture" in some larger, universalizing sense. Of
::> course
::> ::culture is made of many things. You don't have to be Levi-Strauss to
::> state
::> ::that. But one can look for dominant systems within different
::> contexts, and not
::> ::fall into some relativistic paralysis.
::> ::You also don't have to buy classical economic theory (or simplified
::> marxism)
::> ::to use the identifier "capitalism" and attempt a critique of it.
::> ::Good lord, the Frankfurt School established that more than 60 years
::> ago, if
::> ::Marx didn't first. We can write that off as academic hoo-ha, but
::> then we can
::> ::write off anything if it doesn't suit our needs/reaffirm our ideas.
::> i don't
::> ::buy the totality of psychoanalysis, but i also don't think it's all
::> crap
::> ::either.
::> ::Capitalism is a broad ideology, and arguably the one most directing
::> our way of
::> ::life. If you don't think so, i'd like to hear another suggestion.
::> And not just
::> ::another analysis of how economics is REALLY just the expression of
::> other
::> ::psycho-social desires. duh. Maybe the label is losing its usefulness
::> here, but
::> ::that's another discussion.
::> ::i don't know what this is about any more, but i've contributed my
::> worthless,
::> ::non-art-related rant nonetheless :)
::> ::ryan
::> ::+
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