5 ms·

Indeed, this is the point in the comment thread where you get the feeling the internet is broken.

by mcphilip 10y ago

kordless 10y ago
The Internet will remain periodically broken until we put a cost metric on the breaking (and working) times.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
gambler 10y ago
What I'm wondering: how many fuckups like this need to happen for website owners to realize that uber-centralization of vital online infrastructure is a bad idea? But I guess there is really no incentive for anyone in particular to do anything about this, because it provides a kind of perverted safety in numbers. "It's not just our website that had this issue, it's, like, everyone's shared problem." The same principle applies to uber-hosting providers like AWS and Azure, as well as those creepy worldwide CDNs. Interestingly, it seems this is one of the cases where using a smaller provider with the same issue would really make you better off (relatively speaking) because there would be fewer servers leaking your data.
- whitepoplar 10y ago
  Cheaply fix DDoS attacks as Cloudflare does and people will move away. It's a big problem and the general consensus is, "just use Cloudflare to fix your DDoS problem!"
  - loup-vaillant 10y ago
    You might as well scrap http entirely, with or without the "s". The web simply doesn't scale. The only way to fix DDoS reliably is peer-to-peer protocols. Which hardly ever happens because our moronic ISPs believed nobody needed upload. Or even a public IP address.
    - pyvpx 10y ago
      as someone who has been involved in a number of moronic ISP designs, operations, and build outs --- asymmetric access networks are designed that way due to actual traffic patterns and physical medium constraints. you can argue "if everything was symmetric, then traffic patterns would be different" and you might be right, but that's not how the market went or how the "internet" started. the client-server paradigm drove traffic patterns, and there was never any market demand or advantage by ignoring it.
      - loup-vaillant 10y ago
        That's not how the market went because the market is often moronic. Case in point: QWERTY. (Why QWERTY is actually the best layout ever is left as an exercise to the occasional extremist libertarian) Yes, traffic patterns at the time was heavily slanted towards downloads. I know about copper wires and how download and upload limit each other. Still, setting that situation in stone was very limiting. It's a self fulfilling prophecy. You don't want to host your server at home because you don't have upload. The ISP sees nobody has servers at home so they conclude nobody needs upload. Peer-to-peer file sharing and distribution is slower than YouTube because nobody has any upload. Therefore everybody uses YouTube, and the ISP concludes nobody uses peer-to-peer distribution networks. And so on and so forth. It's the same trend that effectively forbid people to send e-mail from home (they have to ask a big shot provider such as Gmail to do it for them, with MITM spying and advertisement), or the rise of ISP-level NAT, instead of giving everyone a public IPv6 address like they all deserve (including on mobile). There is a point where you have to realise the internet is increasingly centralised at every level because powerful special interests want it to be that way. Regulation is what we need. Net neutrality is a start. Next in line should be mandated symmetric bandwidth, no ISP-wide firewall (the local router can have safe default settings), public IP (v4 or v6) for everyone, and no restriction on usage patterns (the ISP should not be allowed to forbid servers). Ultimately, our freedom of expression and freedom of information depends on this. They are messing with human rights.
        the8472 10y ago
        > Peer-to-peer file sharing and distribution is slower than YouTube because nobody has any upload. And because IP multicast doesn't work over the internet. If it did, even if merely to some limited extent, some asymmetries would be far easier to stomach.
- regularfry 10y ago
  Decentralisation doesn't do a whole lot better. Just think about MTA or DNS vulnerabilities, for a start.
  - creshal 10y ago
    Or look at how many websites are still vulnerable to Heartbleed.

Indeed, this is the point in the comment thread where you get the feeling the internet is broken.

kordless 10y ago

The Internet will remain periodically broken until we put a cost metric on the breaking (and working) times.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

gambler 10y ago

What I'm wondering: how many fuckups like this need to happen for website owners to realize that uber-centralization of vital online infrastructure is a bad idea? But I guess there is really no incentive for anyone in particular to do anything about this, because it provides a kind of perverted safety in numbers. "It's not just our website that had this issue, it's, like, everyone's shared problem." The same principle applies to uber-hosting providers like AWS and Azure, as well as those creepy worldwide CDNs. Interestingly, it seems this is one of the cases where using a smaller provider with the same issue would really make you better off (relatively speaking) because there would be fewer servers leaking your data.

whitepoplar 10y ago
Cheaply fix DDoS attacks as Cloudflare does and people will move away. It's a big problem and the general consensus is, "just use Cloudflare to fix your DDoS problem!"
- loup-vaillant 10y ago
  You might as well scrap http entirely, with or without the "s". The web simply doesn't scale. The only way to fix DDoS reliably is peer-to-peer protocols. Which hardly ever happens because our moronic ISPs believed nobody needed upload. Or even a public IP address.
  - pyvpx 10y ago
    as someone who has been involved in a number of moronic ISP designs, operations, and build outs --- asymmetric access networks are designed that way due to actual traffic patterns and physical medium constraints. you can argue "if everything was symmetric, then traffic patterns would be different" and you might be right, but that's not how the market went or how the "internet" started. the client-server paradigm drove traffic patterns, and there was never any market demand or advantage by ignoring it.
    - loup-vaillant 10y ago
      That's not how the market went because the market is often moronic. Case in point: QWERTY. (Why QWERTY is actually the best layout ever is left as an exercise to the occasional extremist libertarian) Yes, traffic patterns at the time was heavily slanted towards downloads. I know about copper wires and how download and upload limit each other. Still, setting that situation in stone was very limiting. It's a self fulfilling prophecy. You don't want to host your server at home because you don't have upload. The ISP sees nobody has servers at home so they conclude nobody needs upload. Peer-to-peer file sharing and distribution is slower than YouTube because nobody has any upload. Therefore everybody uses YouTube, and the ISP concludes nobody uses peer-to-peer distribution networks. And so on and so forth. It's the same trend that effectively forbid people to send e-mail from home (they have to ask a big shot provider such as Gmail to do it for them, with MITM spying and advertisement), or the rise of ISP-level NAT, instead of giving everyone a public IPv6 address like they all deserve (including on mobile). There is a point where you have to realise the internet is increasingly centralised at every level because powerful special interests want it to be that way. Regulation is what we need. Net neutrality is a start. Next in line should be mandated symmetric bandwidth, no ISP-wide firewall (the local router can have safe default settings), public IP (v4 or v6) for everyone, and no restriction on usage patterns (the ISP should not be allowed to forbid servers). Ultimately, our freedom of expression and freedom of information depends on this. They are messing with human rights.
      - the8472 10y ago
        > Peer-to-peer file sharing and distribution is slower than YouTube because nobody has any upload. And because IP multicast doesn't work over the internet. If it did, even if merely to some limited extent, some asymmetries would be far easier to stomach.
regularfry 10y ago
Decentralisation doesn't do a whole lot better. Just think about MTA or DNS vulnerabilities, for a start.
- creshal 10y ago
  Or look at how many websites are still vulnerable to Heartbleed.