Robot computer problem solving system

The conceptual, experimental, and practical phases of developing a robot computer problem solving system are outlined. Robot intelligence, conversion of the programming language SAIL to run under the THNEX monitor, and the use of the network to run several cooperating jobs at different sites are discussed

From diversity to convergence : British computer networks and the Internet, 1970-1995

The Internet's success in the 21st century has encouraged analysts to investigate the origin of this network. Much of this literature adopts a teleological approach. Works often begin by discussing the invention of packet switching, describe the design and development of the ARPANET, and then examine how this network evolved into the Internet. Although the ARPANET was a seminal computer network, these accounts usually only briefly consider the many other diverse networks that existed. In addition, apart from momentary asides to alternative internetworking solutions, such as the Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) seven-layer reference model, this literature concentrates exclusively on the ARPANET, the Internet, and the World Wide Web. While focusing on these subjects is important and therefore justified, it can leave the reader with the impression that the world of networking started with the ARPANET and ended with the Internet. This thesis is an attempt to help correct this misconception. This thesis analyses the evolution of British computer networks and the Internet between the years 1970 and 1995. After an introduction in Chapter 1, the thesis analyses several networks. In Chapters 2 and 3, the focus is on academic networks, especially JANET and SuperJANET. Attention moves to videotex networks in Chapter 4, specifically Prestel, and in Chapter 5, the dissertation examines electronic mail networks such as Telecom Gold and Cable & Wireless Easylink. Chapter 6 considers online services, including CompuServe, American Online, and the Microsoft Network, and the thesis ends with a conclusion in Chapter 7. All of the networks discussed used protocols that were incompatible with each other which limited the utility of the networks for their users. Although it was possible that OSI or another solution could have solved this problem, the Internet's protocols achieved this objective. This thesis shows how the networks converged around TCP/IP

The Beginnings and Prospective Ending of “End-to-End”: An Evolutionary Perspective On the Internet’s Architecture

The technology of “the Internet” is not static. Although its “end-to- end” architecture has made this “connection-less” communications system readily “extensible,” and highly encouraging to innovation both in hardware and software applications, there are strong pressures for engineering changes. Some of these are wanted to support novel transport services (e.g. voice telephony, real-time video); others would address drawbacks that appeared with opening of the Internet to public and commercial traffic - e.g., the difficulties of blocking delivery of offensive content, suppressing malicious actions (e.g. “denial of service” attacks), pricing bandwidth usage to reduce congestion. The expected gains from making “improvements” in the core of the network should be weighed against the loss of the social and economic benefits that derive from the “end-to-end” architectural design. Even where technological “fixes” can be placed at the networks’ edges, the option remains to search for alternative, institutional mechanisms of governing conduct in cyberspace.

Spam

With the advent of the electronic mail system in the 1970s, a new opportunity for direct marketing using unsolicited electronic mail became apparent. In 1978, Gary Thuerk compiled a list of those on the Arpanet and then sent out a huge mailing publicising Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC—now Compaq) systems. The reaction from the Defense Communications Agency (DCA), who ran Arpanet, was very negative, and it was this negative reaction that ensured that it was a long time before unsolicited e-mail was used again (Templeton, 2003). As long as the U.S. government controlled a major part of the backbone, most forms of commercial activity were forbidden (Hayes, 2003). However, in 1993, the Internet Network Information Center was privatized, and with no central government controls, spam, as it is now called, came into wider use. The term spam was taken from the Monty Python Flying Circus (a UK comedy group) and their comedy skit that featured the ironic spam song sung in praise of spam (luncheon meat)—“spam, spam, spam, lovely spam”—and it came to mean mail that was unsolicited. Conversely, the term ham came to mean e-mail that was wanted. Brad Templeton, a UseNet pioneer and chair of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, has traced the first usage of the term spam back to MUDs (Multi User Dungeons), or real-time multi-person shared environment, and the MUD community. These groups introduced the term spam to the early chat rooms (Internet Relay Chats). The first major UseNet (the world’s largest online conferencing system) spam sent in January 1994 and was a religious posting: “Global alert for all: Jesus is coming soon.” The term spam was more broadly popularised in April 1994, when two lawyers, Canter and Siegel from Arizona, posted a message that advertized their information and legal services for immigrants applying for the U.S. Green Card scheme. The message was posted to every newsgroup on UseNet, and after this incident, the term spam became synonymous with junk or unsolicited e-mail. Spam spread quickly among the UseNet groups who were easy targets for spammers simply because the e-mail addresses of members were widely available (Templeton, 2003)

Security as a context, generative force, and policy concern for the co-production of cyberspace: historical overview since WWII until the end of the Cold War

Many cybersecurity literature take the 1990s as a starting point to trace the process of securitising cyberspace; implicitly suggesting that it initially emerged as a non-security sector, which was then securitised. Although it is true that ‘cyberspace’ and ‘cybersecurity’ were novel terms at that period, their ontological status cannot be reduced to their mere utterances. If the security of cyberspace as a constructed metaphor signifies the security of computers and networks, with all their associated software, hardware, and data - technologies that have long historical roots - then an ahistorical approach to studying its evolution would be both insufficient and over-simplified. Therefore, this paper aims to prove that security has always been an integral part of the co-production of cyberspace: As a context in which it was developed, as a generative force behind many of its technologies, and as a policy concern in different phases of its evolution, since the emergence of the first computer till the advent of the internet. It seeks to prove that the history of cyberspace is better analysed as a complex process of restructuring, not just technically, but also politically and socially, in which the interests of various actors competed, and security considerations were intertwined with technical ones, and in many respects coproduced them. This analysis is important to show that security was not imposed on cyberspace by political discourses, but has always been intrinsic to the existence of its components and technologies. Besides, it challenges the deterministic accounts of the development of computers and networks, which present them in an idealistic, utopian image as being solely products of civilian and academic efforts

Spam on the Internet: can it be eradicated or is it here to stay?

A discussion of the rise in unsolicited bulk e-mail, its effect on tertiary education, and some of the methods being used or developed to combat it. Includes an examination of block listing, protocol change, economic and computational solutions, e-mail aliasing, sender warranted e-mail, collaborative filtering, rule-based and statistical solutions, and legislation

Voice technology and BBN

The following research was discussed: (1) speech signal processing; (2) automatic speech recognition; (3) continuous speech understanding; (4) speaker recognition; (5) speech compression; (6) subjective and objective evaluation of speech communication system; (7) measurement of the intelligibility and quality of speech when degraded by noise or other masking stimuli; (8) speech synthesis; (9) instructional aids for second-language learning and for training of the deaf; and (10) investigation of speech correlates of psychological stress. Experimental psychology, control systems, and human factors engineering, which are often relevant to the proper design and operation of speech systems are described

Inter-social-networking: Accounting for multiple identities

We argue that the current approaches to online social networking give rise to numerous challenges regarding the management of the multiple facets of people’s digital identities within and around social networking sites (SNS). We propose an architecture for enabling people to better manage their SNS identities that is informed by the way the core Internet protocols developed to support interoperation of proprietary network protocols, and based on the idea of Separation of Concerns [1]. This does not require modification of existing services but is predicated on providing a connecting layer over them, both as a mechanism to address problems of privacy and identity, and to create opportunities to open up online social networking to a much richer set of possible interactions and applications.This work is supported by Horizon Digital Economy Research, RCUK grant EP/G065802/1; and by CREATe, the Centre for Copyright and New Business Models, RCUK grant AH/K000179/1. Packages and source are available under open source licenses at github.com/CREATe-centre/.This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-20367-6_2

From diversity to convergence : British computer networks and the Internet, 1970-1995

The Internet's success in the 21st century has encouraged analysts to investigate the origin of this network. Much of this literature adopts a teleological approach. Works often begin by discussing the invention of packet switching, describe the design and development of the ARPANET, and then examine how this network evolved into the Internet. Although the ARPANET was a seminal computer network, these accounts usually only briefly consider the many other diverse networks that existed. In addition, apart from momentary asides to alternative internetworking solutions, such as the Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) seven-layer reference model, this literature concentrates exclusively on the ARPANET, the Internet, and the World Wide Web. While focusing on these subjects is important and therefore justified, it can leave the reader with the impression that the world of networking started with the ARPANET and ended with the Internet. This thesis is an attempt to help correct this misconception. This thesis analyses the evolution of British computer networks and the Internet between the years 1970 and 1995. After an introduction in Chapter 1, the thesis analyses several networks. In Chapters 2 and 3, the focus is on academic networks, especially JANET and SuperJANET. Attention moves to videotex networks in Chapter 4, specifically Prestel, and in Chapter 5, the dissertation examines electronic mail networks such as Telecom Gold and Cable & Wireless Easylink. Chapter 6 considers online services, including CompuServe, American Online, and the Microsoft Network, and the thesis ends with a conclusion in Chapter 7. All of the networks discussed used protocols that were incompatible with each other which limited the utility of the networks for their users. Although it was possible that OSI or another solution could have solved this problem, the Internet's protocols achieved this objective. This thesis shows how the networks converged around TCP/IP.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo