Internet Archive

170Mbps Through an Electrical Socket Demoed

Matsushita showed off an exceptionally high-speed Internet through an ordinary electrical socket at a Japanese trade-fair. Matsushita Electronics has claimed a breakthrough in powerline broadband by running an Internet connection through an ordinary electrical socket, using a new chip. At a tradeshow in Japan on Thursday the company demonstrated a network capable of running at 170Mbps over the electrical network.

EU Deal Threatens End to US Dominance of Internet

At PrepCom3, a dramatic last-minute deal drawn up by the EU may mark the end of the US government's control of the internet. In essence, a new version of the current overseeing body ICANN and an end to the US government's overall control of the DNS. The US was scathing about the proposals, within minutes telling delegates that it "can't in any way allow any changes" that would prevent it from having overall control of the internet. Other countries, like Brazil, China, Iran and Cuba support the proposal. Brazil's ambassador outlined: "It is not a question of being anti-ICANN, it's about having a very clear and open and democratic and inclusive mechanism of overview of certain functions that today are performed by ICANN with no kind of supervision."

Localhost: an Internet-Wide Decentralized Filesystem

"Localhost is a program that lets you access a shared, world-wide file system through your web browser. This file system is maintained in a fully decentralized way by all of the computers running Localhost. The program uses BitTorrent technology, and new distributed hashtable technology called Kademlia. Every user accesses the system from the same root folder. You can change any folder (including the root folder) by adding files and/or folders to it."

Discussion: Which is Your Favorite Browser Extension?

The last few years have seen the introduction of the concept of "extensions" in most popular web browsers. While Mozilla natively supports extensions, Opera and Safari come feature-packed and can be easily hacked via config files, and a market has cropped up around the IE engine which supports adding new functionality to your browser. In the interest of sharing a good thing, which are your favorite browser extensions?

Resuscitating Microsoft Exchange 5.5 with Linux

Microsoft dropped support for Exchange 5.5 on December 31st, 2004. Exchange 5.5 users can upgrade to Exchange Server 2003, continue to run 5.5 with all accompanied security risks, or switch over to another mail/groupware system.In this article I propose a fourth option that is really options two (run Exchange) and three (run another mail system) combined.