I laughed at the question.
No. No, I’m not claustrophobic.
But, they kept asking. I answered the same way every time, but it was starting to make me wonder. Good thing I wasn’t afraid of small places.
My arm hurts. Not all the time, but often enough when I turn a particular way, or when I try to move it to a certain position (like the position I need it in to use my mouse and keyboard.) A slight shift of position and a conscious effort to turn my head left generally relieves the pain. A few times I have forced it to stay — just. . .need. . .to. . .finish. . .this. . .sen. . .ten. . .ce. . In those cases, it hurts. . .a lot.
I worried about my trip to Southern Utah last weekend. Climbing like this means you CANNOT move your arm. Not unless you want to take a swim.
The doctor’s initial diagnoses was not my shoulder, but a problem with my neck. (Sadly, she didn’t use the phrase it was a pain-in-the-neck.) She scheduled me for an MRI to be sure. One of the side effects of the new healthcare law is that at the end of the year, if you have a big family, you have typically met your “out of pocket” maximum. So, $1000 medical procedure? Sure, let’s do it.
The test was scheduled for yesterday.
I’ve also gotten out of the habit of going to the dentist. Not because I’m afraid of small places. . .I mean, not because I’m afraid of the dentist. I just got off track. And no, I’m not claustrophobic. I had a dentist appointment scheduled for yesterday as well. The MRI was first thing in the morning and the dentist was after I got off work in the evening.
As I checked in for my appointment at the hospital, they had me answer a series of questions.
- Do you have any metal in your body?
- Are you claustrophobic?
- Have you ever had an MRI done in the past?
- Do small spaces make you uncomfortable?
- Do you have a living will?
Wait, what?
It’s just routine. We need to ask. Oh and any issues with claustrophobia?
You’ve probably seen pictures of an MRI machine. They lay you on a table and slide you inside a big machine that will take a 3D picture of your spine, or whatever part they need to look at. My lovely wife had done the procedure in the past.
Just close your eyes so you don’t have to look at the tube that is about 4 inches above your face.
Right. Like I need help to get through this. The snow caves we built last winter were pretty small. The ceiling was a few inches above my face an I did just fine. No problem.
The technician had some final instructions.
Here are some earplugs. It can get pretty loud in there. And if you need anything just talk normally. I can hear what you are saying even from the control room. You’re okay with small spaces?
I laid on the table and placed my head between two pieces of plastic designed to keep it perfectly straight. Next, he placed a plastic guard over my face. I closed my eyes and tried not to think about it. Intentionally, I hadn’t looked at the tiny hole that they were going to feed me into like sliding a pizza into an oven.
Just relax. It’s just like a snow cave. Keep your eyes closed. You won’t even know when you are in there.
The table jerked slightly as it started to roll in.
Breathe.
Just like the snowcave.
Won’t even know when I’m in
The ambient light through my eyelids abruptly turned black.
Breathe.
That’s totally fine. Should have expected it.
Eyes closed.
Won’t even . .
My elbows brushed against the sides of the tube as my upper body made it’s way in.
My elbows? They were tucked in pretty close.
It’s even smaller than I thought.
Brea. . .I just need need one good deep brea. . .
Okay. Calm down. This is silly.
Snow cave
Breathe
Stopped
Don’t open your eyes
Don’t try to move your arms
Breathe
Slower
One deep breath
Head is locked in place
Breathe
Trapped
Breathe
You’re fine
Don’t panic
“Hey, um. . .Could you pull me back out just a minute?”
Tick, tock, tick, tock He can hear me. Patience. Wait. It’s only a second
“Sure, I’ll be right there.”
Breathebreathebreathe
The technician removed the plastic faceguard and I sat up and drank in the oxygen that was so much thinner inside the machine.
I’m not claustrophobic, but what do you typically do for people who are?
Well, we can put a washcloth over your face so that you can’t see the inside of the tube. That often helps. Or, we can cancel today and you can get a prescription for valium from your doctor and then come back. You typically need someone to drive you because you’ll be pretty hammered. Or, there’s a place not too far from here that has a machine like this but half of it is cut away. It’s designed for obese patients, but some people are more comfortable with that. Do we need to reschedule this?
No. I’m fine. I just need to know, if I had to, could I climb out of that machine?
Sure. I do the same thing. Once I know I can get out, I’m okay with it. The machine is open on both ends. If you needed to you could crawl out the other end.
Okay. I think I’m ready.
Do you want the washcloth over your face?
No thanks. I’m fine.
Here, hold this sensor just in case. If for some reason I can’t hear you, squeeze this ball and it will shut down the machine.
What, what? Can’t hear me?
I laid back down and the technician readjusted the face mask. I held the panic trigger in my hand althought I knew I wouldn’t need it. I remembered to tuck my elbows in tight. The movement of the bed was expected. And because it was expected, It wasn’t scary. I started the relaxation breathing that I’d practiced from the time I was a teenager to get through the pain and discomfort of procedures around treating Crohn’s disease. The rattling of the machine had a certain techno-punk beat to it that was not all together unpleasant.
Just knowing that I had an escape route reassured me that I didn’t need one.
Later, as I laid back in the dentist chair, I thought again about escape routes. The “tiny prick” of the mammoth needle putting in the Novacane that makes your face feel like it’s sliding down the side of your skull. The “mouthguard” that locks your jaw at a 180 degree angle and forces you to swallow in tiny gurgles. Maybe it was the familiarity. Maybe it was knowing that the dentist was right there to stop if I needed him to. Maybe it was the fact that I asked for this procedure. Maybe it was the realization that I cannot always be in control.
I’m now less certain of my answer to “Are you claustrophobic?” Oh, and I still cannot feel my face.
Rodney M Bliss is an author, columnist and IT Consultant. His blog updates every weekday. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife, thirteen children and grandchildren.
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Last weekend I was hiking in Utah’s backcountry. The backcountry in Utah, especially southern Utah is marked by sand, sagebrush, rocks, blue skies, more rocks, and hardy trees. (Okay, maybe the blue skies are not necessarily specific to the backcountry, but you couldn’t tell from the pictures.)
This is a Juniper tree. And by the look of it, a healthy one. You might think, just to look at it, that’s it’s sick or dying. After all, there’s a lot of dead wood hanging off that tree. We’re into the fall here in Utah. Plants in my garden are nearly all dead, their dry stalks will serve one more purpose as Halloween decorations before getting tilled back into the ground.
But, Junipers are different. Dead branches are not a sign of the death of the tree. They are actually a healthy sign of progress.
Two weeks ago, my supervisor at work made a startling announcement. Some of the departments had done layoffs. My team wasn’t impacted, and eve the dapartments that were might have trimmed one or two positions. It’s what is sometimes referred to in business as a haircut. Just a small cutback.
The idea is that by cutting back a little now, we can keep the company healthy going forward. These haircuts can be a vital part of a successful company strategy. And they are a lot like the Juniper trees.
Junipers are adapted to a desert climate where water, the lifeblood of all living things is scarce and inconsistent. Junipers have adapted to the desert. In times of drought, the tree will stop sending water to certain limbs. Essentially killing part of the plant to let the rest of it survive. The dead limbs look to the casual observer like a sign of death or disease. In fact, they are evidence that the tree is actively working to survive. The green part is stronger because it was willing to sacrifice some of the rest of it.
Companies do layoffs for the same reason. Fortunately with layoffs, teh employees who are let go can move on to other opportunities. But, still, it was an interesting business lesson as I hiked the high desert of Southern Utah last weekend.
Rodney M Bliss is an author, columnist and IT Consultant. His blog updates every weekday. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife, thirteen children and grandchildren.
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The canyon floor was littered with house sized boulders. The canyon walls, no longer perfectly straight, were a jumble of broken rock and narrow ledges. The ledges were deceptively inviting. They started at the floor of the canyon and gradually sloped upwards containing a broken collection of shale, sandstone and granite. I say deceptive, because occasionally, after winding their way for 100-150 feet along the canyon wall, they simple disappeared. Sucked back into the walls to leave the adventurer with no choice but to backtrack down and look for another way.
We were hiking a canyon named Ding outside of Goblin Valley, a state park in Southern Utah. It was a beautiful fall day with the temperature in the mid 70’s and an occasional cool breeze blowing down the canyon. We make this trip with the boys from our church group every year on the weekend of the full moon. The previous night was all about playing capture the flag among the rock formations called Hoodoos in the valley of the Goblins. Today was a five mile hike, up Ding canyon and back down a sister canyon named Dang.
This was my third year on this campout, but the first time I’d made the hike up Ding and Dang. We had 18 boys and six leaders. Many of whom were experienced with the hike. However, even with experience, choosing a route through a canyon, especially one as cluttered as Ding or Dang, is not a straightforward process.
As we approached one set of boulders nearly choking the floor of the canyon, we had a decision to make. As one of the slowest hikers, I could see in front of me that people had gone to the left to find a route above the blockage. Some of the boys could be seen scrambling over and around the rocks in front of us, and two of the more adventurous leaders had taken the route up the right-hand canyon wall. Greg, one of the other leaders, was paused, considering which path to take.
What do you think, Rodney? Looks like some of those boys are coming back from the middle section. Might be blocked.
I’m going to the right.
You think there’s a way around going that way?
I’m not going this way because I think it’s right. I just figure we can blame those other guys if it’s wrong.
The business version of this statement is
No one ever got fired for buying IBM.
Before the explosion of the Personal Computers starting in the 1980s, business computers were ruled by “big iron.” And no one was bigger, or ironier than IBM. IBM was the computer company. If you were going to buy computer equipment, you did have other choices, but IBM was far and away the biggest company in the field. Buying someone else (UNIVAC, NCR, Honeywell) was a risk. Buying from IBM was safe. It was safe for a couple of reasons.
First, IBM was a good computer company. Their products were typically well built and they had a good reputation for service and support. If you needed something done on a computer, IBM could probably get it down for you.
Second, all of your competitors were buying IBM. That meant that you were going to have the same positives and negatives that your competition had. Computing ability was not going to be a distinguishing factor in the success or failure of your business. As a CEO, you might want to look to your IT department for a strategic advantage. As an IT manager, you were DELIGHTED to standardize on a known safe platform.
It meant that you could more easily find people to hire with the skill set you wanted. It meant that there were hundreds, or thousands of other companies that were (hopefully) going to find the bugs in the equipment and software before you. It also mean that if something went wrong, you were not the one on the hook for the problem. You could easily justify to your bosses why you bought IBM.
IBM is not the #1 computer company anymore, of course. In the 1990’s the safe bet was Microsoft and Intel based personal computers. Today the move is to cloud-based computing. It’s not wrong to pick the path that has been marked by those who’ve gone before. IBM was a good bet because it was good company. Windows and Intel PCs were a low cost option that allowed companies to quickly expand. You do not always have to be the pioneer.
As we made our way through the canyon last weekend, we eventually found ourselves looking down on the boys making their way through the maze of boulders and scrambling along the opposite wall.
We shouted directions to a route we could see for them. One of the leaders shouted directions to a route down that we, given our vantage point, couldn’t see. In the end, we helped them and they helped us. That’s often how communication works in IT.
Rodney M Bliss is an author, columnist and IT Consultant. His blog updates every weekday. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife, thirteen children and grandchildren.
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or email him at rbliss at msn dot com(c) 2016 Rodney M Bliss, all rights reserved
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There are certain places that don’t belong on earth. There is New Zealand and it’s magical depiction as Middle Earth from Lord Of The Rings. New Zealand is lush and green. On the other end of the color spectrum is the American Southwest.
On the 8th day God realized he’d forgotten to finish Southern Utah.
Tonight I will be here.
In the words of Galaxy Quest it’s “a nearby planet with beryllium spheres.” It’s also the home of the “miners not minors,” the pig lizard and Gorignak.
Home of beryllium shares and paper bags.
Sure, they must be about 12 years old.
The exploding pig-lizard.
Gorignak doesn’t have any vulnerable spots. . .he’s a rock.
It’s also Goblin Valley, a Utah state park. Every year we take all the boys from our church youth group down for an overnight campout. Last year we went on October 30th. This year we are going a couple of weeks earlier. The schedule is synced to the phases of the moon. Literally, we plan the trip to coincide with the full moon.
It’s about a 3 hour drive from Pleasant Grove, UT to Goblin Valley near Moab, UT. We’ll stop for dinner somewhere around Price, UT. Leaving at 4:00 we’ll pull into the area around the park at 8:00pm. We’ll quickly set up tents, but then, pile into the vehicles and head to the actually Valley of the Goblins. And here’s why we aim for the night of the full moon. for the next 4 hours the boys will run among the hoodoos playing capture the flag. Or, more accurately, capture the bundle of glow sticks that represents the flag.
The boys pretty much run the game themselves with older boys coaching younger boys on strategy and rules. Meanwhile, the old men stand around and watch the moon rise, talk about jobs, and families and how much we enjoy the part of the country we live in. It will be in the mid-70’s when we arrive, dropping down to a very comfortable mid-60’s by the time we round them up and send them to bed.
We’ve attended this particular church location for the past three years. The Goblin Valley tradition stretches back for years and years. It’s a tradition that helps fathers and sons connect. It connects neighbors and friends. And it’s a wonderful chance to visit “a nearby planet with beryllium spheres.”
Rodney M Bliss is an author, columnist and IT Consultant. His blog updates every weekday. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife, thirteen children and grandchildren.
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or email him at rbliss at msn dot com(c) 2016 Rodney M Bliss, all rights reserved
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I don’t have TV. Oh sure, I own a TV, two or three of them, in fact. But, I don’t have cable, or satellite TV, or even over-the-air service. We cut the cable years ago. So, why was I laying flat on my back staring up at a TV showing an episode of The Profit?
I was doing something I hadn’t done in years. (2.5 according to the records.) I was at the dentist getting my teeth cleaned. My dentist mounts TVs in the ceiling. I don’t have any particular fear of the dentist. I never had a terrible dentist experience that scarred me for life. I wasn’t avoiding going to the dentist. I simply got off track.
My dentist office, like many others, has a very subtle method to keep their patients coming back. Before you leave your current appointment, they schedule your next one. And then, they have a system of text and email alerts to let you know that your appointment is coming up. Finally, there’s a penalty if you fail to cancel an appointment more than 24 hours in advance. The system is designed to compensate for our worst selves.
Two and a half years ago, I got off track. I cancelled because something came up. (Probably a trip, but I don’t honestly remember.) Whatever it was, I cancelled and didn’t reschedule. And that was the end of my dentist appointments. I always knew I could get back on track, but there was always something else to do rather than call to set up a dentist appointment.
Ironically, my family went to the dentist a lot. My lovely wife blocks out a half day at the dentist office and takes all the kids in all at once. Several years ago she quit trying to schedule my dentist appointments. I don’t think she used the words, “I’m not the boss of you,” but she might have.
My dentist appointment was last Tuesday. I visited one other health care professional on Tuesday. I went to see my doctor. I should probably schedule routine physicals and exams. I’m to the age where I’m supposed to get poked and prodded every dozen months or so to make sure that all the pieces still work. That’s not why I was there.
For the last several months my shoulder has been hurting. It started as a slight intermittent irritation. It got worse and worse. It’s now to the point where when the pain comes on, I can barely raise my arm. It’s still intermittent, but it has started to seriously impact my quality of life. It hurts. And at times, it hurts a lot.
What’s this have to do with computers and information technology? We often approach IT tasks like I approach my doctor and dentist visits. Several years ago I set up a backup solution for my home network. I was finally tired of not having something that I could rely on consistently to save my documents, but especially our pictures. I didn’t check the backup very often. I did a few times when I was setting up, but eventually I stopped. I just assumed it was working.
It wasn’t.
My backup provider switched their model and gave their users a six month grace period to move their data to the new model. The six months came and went without me needing to access any of my files. I got off track. Unfortunately I didn’t even know I was off track. Once I figured it out, the process was painful to try to recover my files. I spent 90 minutes in the dentist’s chair last Tuesday. After two and a half years, it took longer than normal for them to clean my teeth. . .even though I do a pretty good job brushing and flossing. Once you get off track, getting back on track is tougher than just staying on in the first place.
I own a nice Microsoft Windows 2012 server. It sits in my basement lab and serves as as a data storage and print server for the people in my house. Or at least it did. . and it will again. . .I think. My server died. It got to the point where it refused to mount the hard drive. It had some issues for a while, but eventually, it got to the point that it hurt too much to go on. I finally unhooked it and hauled it to the computer doctor. My doctor’s name is Sean Neuman. He is working on the computer’s bum shoulder.
We, or at least I, are (am?) motivated by two things: pain and inertia. I typically don’t got to the doctor until it hurts. . .a lot. If it hurts enough, I’ll go do something to make the pain stop. But, if there is no pain (my teeth feel fine) I can go years without conducting basic maintenance. If I manage to get that maintenance scheduled, so that it just happens and all I have to do is show up, I’ll do it. But, often it takes some pain to get me back on track.
And in case you are curious, I have an MRI scheduled for my neck (5th and 6th vertebra) next week. And the next scheduled cleaning for my teeth is January 10th.
Rodney M Bliss is an author, columnist and IT Consultant. His blog updates every weekday. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife, thirteen children and grandchildren.
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I’ll bet you have no idea who said it. It’s often used to justify everything from copyright infringement to plagerism.
Charles Caleb Colton’s very name seems to identify him as a writer, with its alliterative cadence. In 1824 he published a work called “Lacon, Or, Many Things In a Few Words: Addressed to Those who Think.” His most famous quote comes from that almost 200 year old work. Although, he expresses it “Imitation is the sincerest of flattery.”
Is it true? In the age of the Internet, is imitation even allowed? Encouraged? I have two friends who are actively working to combat plagerism in their own areas.
Steve Hofstetter
Steve Hofstetter is a professional stand up comedian. He has helped organize a group called “Comedians against Plagerism.” You might not think that plagerism is a big deal in comedy. Doesn’t everyone retell jokes? If you think about it, how many original jokes have you thought up in your life? More likely, you’ve heard a comedian, or read a meme on Facebook that was funny and then you’ve retold, or reshared the meme. In fact, you might wonder why on earth anyone would have a problem with that.
David Farland
Dave is a New York Times bestselling author. He wrote the Runelord series among many other books. Dave is working with an author who had her book copied and republished under someone else’s name. Both the author and the plagerist are not full time authors. They, like most writers, and most comedians, for that matter, are hobbiests doing what they love.
So, who cares? Shouldn’t these people simply be happy that their work is being seen by a wider audience? If we didn’t know that the Mona Lisa was painted by Davinci, would it be any less of a masterpiece? And what about that whole “imitation” quote from Charles Caleb Colton?
The interent is a wonderful tool. It allows authors and content creators to share their work in ways that could never be imagined a generation ago. But, the downside is that the ease of sharing also makes it simple to share someone else’s work. And the internet is all about content, less so about authorship.
Apple vs Microsoft
Back in the 1990’s Microsoft dramatically changed the look and feel of the Windows interface. The new interface looked a lot like another operating system: Apple’s. Apple sued Microsoft for $3B or some huge amount. This court case affected me because I was trying to go from WordPerfect to Microsoft and WordPerfect threatened to sue me if I went to work before a six month non-compete period. Microsoft felt the non-compete was probably illegal, but they were in the middle of the Apple lawsuit and didn’t want to start another one.
Apple had a good case. The Windows layout was a near exact copy of the Apple desktop. Apple used their desktop look and feel as a selling point for their products. Microsoft’s earlier interface by contrast was pretty clunky and frankly it was ugly. Windows 95 was beautiful.
The trial went on for months. Eventually, the courts sided with Apple. They won the lawsuit. The court agreed that “Yes, Microsoft clearly had used Apple’s look and feel as the basis for their Windows interface.” After the trial, damages were awarded. And because it was an anti-trust case those damages were tripled.
Three dollars.
The courts awarded Apple three dollars as compensation for Microsoft stealing the look and feel of their desktop. But, why? If Microsoft stole the look and feel from Apple, why wasn’t Apple entitled to more compensation? Because, Microsoft took an idea and then built it.
Howard Tayler
I have a good friend, Howard Tayler, who created Schlock Mercenary, an online comic strip about a group of futuristic mercenaries. He has no reservations about sharing ideas for his story.
Aren’t you worried about someone stealing your idea?
The idea isn’t what’s valuable. The work to bring the idea to fruition is what is valuable.
Microsoft took an idea and then built a completely different (and at the Windows 95 stage) not as good, platform. You could go to the Louvre and base a painting on the Mona Lisa and not be quilty of plagerism, copyright infringement, stealing or anything else.
So, what’s the difference between Microsoft and the cases that my friends Steve Hofstetter and Dave Farland are working on? The difference is that plagerism is the actual copying of someone else’s work. When you simply copy someone’s work and don’t give them credit you are actually robbing the artist.
When you take someone else’s words and put them on a meme and send the meme out to the internet, you’ve done more than simply copy an idea. You’ve taken the actual product that was created and reused it without permission. None of us would think of walking into an artist’s gallery and, taking one of the pictures off the wall and walking out with it. Of course not.
I like paintings of Jesus Christ. I have prints of several of them in my house. Obviously, each one is unique. No pictures exist of Jesus, of course. Each artist uses his own imagination and inspiration. They are all using the same idea, but creating different works of art.
Making the picture, is of course, completely okay. No one has a copyright on “Pictures of Jesus.” But, physically copying one of the existing works would be robbing that artist of the rewards due him for his work.
Imitation might be the most sincere form of flattery, but don’t mistake copying an idea with copying a work of art.
Rodney M Bliss is an author, columnist and IT Consultant. His blog updates every weekday. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife, thirteen children and grandchildren.
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I only know him from our time playing early morning basketball. Sometimes we are on the same team. Just as often we are on opposite teams. As a player who focuses mostly on defense, I know that he has a great outside shot and is not above setting a moving screen, or moving a screen. But, like all the guys I play with in the mornings, he’s a good guy.
If you were to ask me, “What does he do?” I’m not sure I could answer. I literally don’t know anything more about him than what I see in the mornings. Today a few of us got to talking as we cooled down after playing.
Walter, did you ever work for WordPerfect?
Yeah, I was there from 92 to summer of 94. During the period Novell bought them.
We did the normal, “Did you know?” questions. I left WordPerfect in 1992, so there was little overlap. I worked in support, Walter was a programmer. After today, can I answer any better the question, “What does he do?” I would probably guess that he’s still involved in the software industry. Utah is a very popular place for software development. We’ve earned the nickname “Silicon Slopes.” (You nickname has to include alliteration.)
The conversation got me thinking, “What do I do?”
How do you answer that question? While I was at Microsoft, my email address was [email protected]. I used that address for everything. It was also my “private” address. My work and personal email was mixed freely. When I left, in 2003, one of the hardest things was separating my online identify from Microsoft. I knew exactly what I did. I worked for Microsoft. When that was gone, I was lost.
After Microsoft, I changed my online presence. I vowed to create some space between my personal life and my work life. I have a work email, of course. But, I don’t use it for anything personal. I have my personal email rbliss at msn dot com. I have on rare occasions used it to send a work email. But, that’s the exception.
What do I do?
Am I defined by my work? I used to be. Do I need to define myself by my past or my future?
I wrote my first book in the 1990’s. It was a Microsoft Exchange guide, one of the first. I had an agent and did a couple more books. And yet, I would not have called myself a writer. I was technically an author, but I didn’t feel like one. It would take me years before I became comfortable with the title. I remember the first few times I described myself that way. I was slightly embarrassed and was almost worried that someone would jump out of the woodwork and say, “No, you’re not a writer!”
I realized that the definition of “What do I do?” was entirely up to me.
Many years ago my lovely wife and I were touring houses in Utah’s “Parade of Homes.” It’s an event where buildiers get together and each builds a house and makes it part of a tour. You can buy a ticket and go around touring each of the homes. The homes span the range from starter homes to multi-million dollar mansions. We were at one very expensive home. I asked the builder,
How much did this cost to build?
Actually, I’m not really sure.
But, more than I’ve got, right? Ha Ha
I have no idea how much you’ve got.
It struck me. To the builder, I wasn’t some struggling IT professional. To him, I could literally have been anyone.
It’s better to keep your mouth closed and be thought a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.
We get to define ourselves. Of course, I can’t turn myself into a multimillionaire simply by changing how I describe myself, but if I’m not defining myself by my paycheck, it doesn’t matter.
If someone asks where I work, I’ll let them know. But when people ask what I do, I give different answers now. I’m the father of 13 kids. I’m a writer. I’m an assistant scoutmaster. I’m a backyard mechanic. I’m a husband. I’m a grandfather.
You and I literally get to define what we want others to think of us as. When you meet someone, they have no idea what job you have, or how much money, or any other number of pointless characteristics. Decide for yourself what you do. Don’t let society define you by arbitrary labels.
What do you do?
Rodney M Bliss is an author, columnist and IT Consultant. His blog updates every weekday. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife, thirteen children and grandchildren.
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or email him at rbliss at msn dot com(c) 2016 Rodney M Bliss, all rights reserved
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I had fifteen minutes to make my train. It’s about a twelve minute casual walk from my office to the train station. I knew that if I hurried, I should make it in plenty of time.
My lovely wife had called with one of the family emergencies that accompany a family as large as ours. Even though I’d just arrived at work, I was grabbing my coat and heading back to the train station to catch the 8:22. I checked my phone (who carries a watch any more?) as I hurried in the brisk autumn morning. It’s about a half mile from my office to the train station. Four blocks north and then one block east. (Utah “blocks” are pretty big.) Cross the train tracks and you’re there.
And that’s where I ran into an issue. The crossing guards were down and I could see a slow moving frieght train rolling south. I could tell that I was going to beat the end of the train to the crossing. I slowed and checked my phone. Seven minutes until my commuter train would be rolling in. As the frieght cars slowly ambled by, I could see the station platform in between them. I wasn’t worried about the time. I tried to wait patiently.
A minute ticket by, marked by the slow moving passage of the train cars. They were moving slowly enough that it was tempting to walk around the crossing guards, step up on to the train, and climb down the other side. I’m sure that the railroad peopl ewould have had a major problem with that. Besides I still had five minutes until my train came.
I could see the end of the freight train slowly approaching the crossing. The crossing bells kept up their constant clang as we waited for the engine to push the last of the cars across the road. The train slowed even further. If it slowed much more it would . . .and then it stopped. The engine was just a dozen feet or so from the crossing.
Four minutes to train time. I was in danger of missing my train because of another train. The irony wasn’t lost on me. The emassive line of train cars inched forward about six inches and then stopped again. Behind me, one of the cars lined up waiting for the crossing gates to rise, honked his horn. I thought,
You’re honking at a train. . .Yeah, that’s really going to help.
Three minutes to my train. I was hurrying home to deal with an emergency and I knew if I missed this train the next one wouldn’t be here for another half hour. I really didn’t want to miss this train. Finally, at two minutes before the scheduled arrival of my commuter train, I made a decision. I crossed in front of the frustrated drivers and walked down the broken rock that held the train tracks in place. I was joined by a bicyclist and another pedestrian. We walked about 10 feet beyond the end of the train before cutting across the tracks. We then made our way across the additional tracks that would soon be bringing the Frontrunner commuter train. As we made our way around the end of the train, the people waiting to cross in the opposite direction took courage from our example and also made their way around the train.
There was no such relief for the drivers in the cars stuck staring at the graffiti covered oil cars.
Two minutes later I saw the headlight of my train coming around the back of the stopped freight. As I climbed on, the freight was still sitting in its original spot, blocking vehicle traffic and daring pedestrians to hike around the end. Finally, as I sat down in my seat, I could see the freight train slowly start to move. . .backwards.
I love riding the train.
Rodney M Bliss is an author, columnist and IT Consultant. His blog updates every weekday. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife, thirteen children and grandchildren.
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or email him at rbliss at msn dot com(c) 2016 Rodney M Bliss, all rights reserved
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The barn door is wide open and the horse is long gone. So, is there still anything that the USA can do to attempt to mitigate some of the risk from the USA Department of Commerce (DOC) not renewing the contract with the Interent Corporation for Names and Numbers (ICANN)?
Yes.
Up until October 1, 2016 the DOC provided oversight and control for ICANN. The government could prevent ICANN from making changes. For example, back in 2011, ICANN wanted to introduce the .xxx top level domain. The governments of the world, including the USA objected. Lawrence Strickling, was assistant secretary at the DOC and headed up the National Telecommunications and Information Administration. The NTIA was the department tasked with governing ICANN. NTIA could have refused to allow .xxx to be injected in the DNS root system.
NTIA and the Department of Commerce no longer have that power. But, they are not powerless. And they need to push for greater influence within ICANN.
Insist On The Biggest Role at The Table
The new multi-stakeholder model for ICANN means that the US is no longer the final arbiter of any disputes. ICANN has insisted that the decisions will be made in consultation with the Government Advisory Committee, a collection of 111 countries around the world. It is not the United Nations. And currently has no plans to join with that body. However, the UN is made up of 193 countries. And may provide some insight into how to run a multi-national organization.
The US needs to insist that safeguards be put in place to give preference to a few countries, much the way the UN Security Council is made up of a few powerful countries. The US has maintained a unique oversight role for twenty years. That role is changing, but we need to make sure we don’t become simply one member out of 111.
Stop Spying
The other thing the US has to do is stop spying on the interent. No, they don’t have to get rid of the NSA, FBI, CIA, etc. But, the whole reason we are in this mess is that the NSA was using the unique position that the US enjoyed to spy on internet traffic. Edward Snowden, a former NSA employee blew the whistle on that in 2013. That led to the Montevideo Statement on The Future of Interent Cooperation. It was the Montevideo Statement that forced the US to give up oversight of ICANN.
We are never going to be able to convince the world that we are no longer spying. The louder we protest that we’ve stopped, the more the interent will be convinced we are trying to cover something up. The trust that was built up over decades will probably never be restored. But, that doesn’t change the fact that if we want the interent to remain strong and vital the US needs to stop trying to track every user and every transaction. The argument will be that without the intrusive spying we cannot as accurately track and respond to global threats. That is true. However, that logic would say that my local police department should track the movements of everyone in my town. After all, that is going to make it easier for them to respond to crimes.
And that is the exact definition of a police state. The interent should not become a police state. The free flow of ideas and information is what made it what it is today. The US risks killing that by turning it into a great big electronic monitoring bracelet.
To the US government: Stop it!
Why should the world, and especially the administrators of ICANN, agree to allow the US a bigger than usual role in the oversight and governance of ICANN? The US still has a couple of big sticks that they can use to influence their former partner.
Antitrust
Part of the arrangement of the contract between ICANN and the DOC was US government federal antitrust protections. In 1998, VeriSign attempted to set up a competing name resolution service. ICANN shut them down and VeriSign sued. The courts found that ICANN was a monopoly, but a legally protected one. Now that the agreement is no longer in force, the rules have changed. The US government can agree to continue providing ICANN antitrust protection, but they certainly do not have to. Without that legal protection, ICANN will have to compete with anyone else who wants to start routing domain names on the interent.
Many companies would love to have a piece of that pie. Facebook already has taken a small set in that direction. If you place a link in a Facebook post, Facebook will display the contents, but keep you in the Facebook application. It would be a small step for them to start resolving addresses that were not explicitely in a post.
Google is also in a great position to take over name resolution duties. You go to google.com to find a website. When you click the link, Google sends you out to that site. It would be a small thing for Google to index those names and IP addresses and bypass the established DNS service.
The money is not in routing the requests, although there is plenty of metadata to be mined. The real money would be in allowing you to register domains. Facebook already allows you to create names for your groups and personal account. It’s a small step to registering new domains.
Today, that’s not possible because ICANN would shut them down. The US can use the antitrust protection to continue to maintain influence over ICANN and it’s functions.
Non-profit
ICANN is a non-profit corporation. Not a no-profit corporation. ICANN makes millions of dollars every year through the sale and renewal of domain names. If ICANN begins to act too much like a for-profit company, the US could decide that it no longer fits the definition of a non-profit. The biggest threat here is that as a for-profit company, ICANN’s multimillion dollar budgets would become subject to US taxes.
In truth, were this to happen, the US stripping ICANN’s non-profit status, we would probably see the organization move to a low tax country like Ireland. The US tax system would have claim on sales in the US, but nothing outside. Still, it’s one more level that the US can work to try to provide oversight to ICANN.
Grey Web
There is a real possibility that freed from the yoke of US oversight, ICANN refuses to subject itself to them again. Like the 18 year old fleeing his family home, they may decide to test their freedom and refuse advice, good or bad, from “mom and dad.” What’s the US to do in that case?
The United States built the internet. From the early ARPANET, and Jon Postel, who maintained the names and numbers before ICANN was formed, Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Facebook, eBay. The list of leading tech companies is decidely American.
The US, through the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), which created the original ARPANET, should investigate doing it again. If ICANN were to become controlled by an entity that was hostile to the United States, it would represent a threat to our economic, military and social interests. He who controls ICANN, or more accurately the Interent Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA), controls the world.
We should investigate building a competing system. The original ARPANET was designed to withstand a nuclear war. That’s part of the reason that TCP, the protocol that the interent uses to send data back and forth, is a connection based protocol. In other words, every packet that gets sent has to be acknowledged. However, the route that packet takes can be different for multiple packets in a data stream.
The US should investigate building a Grey Web. The Grey Web would be a parallel system to the current interent. It would allow companies, and especially military and government traffic to operate outside of the established interent. Grey Web gets its name from the existing Deep Web and Dark Web.
- Deep Web
- Parts of the interent that are not searchable
- Dark Web
- Parts of the deep web that are devoted to illegal activities
The Deep Web is not searchable. Parts of it, like the Dark Web are only accessible with a special browser. The Dark Web is set up to allow untraceable activities. Frankly, most of these are illegal. You don’t want to go to the Dark Web and we certainly don’t want to try to use it for government and military traffic. However, what the Dark Web has done for illegal activities, the Grey Web can do for secure government, and commerce traffic. We don’t have to use the existing interent.
I say that, knowing full well that there is no Grey Web. It would have to be built. When the ARPANET was being built DARPA put out bids for technology companies to build it. The contract was given to a company called BBN, now part of Raytheon.
If we built it once, we could build it again. And given the number of technology companies in the US who are anxious to get a competitive advantage, I do not think we would have any trouble finding takers to accept the challenge.
I hope my vision for ICANN’s future is wrong. I hope the lapsing of the contract between the US Department of Commerce and ICANN results in a rebirth of global cooperation and innovation. However, the United States, and really free states everywhere have to face the possibility that it might not turn out as good as we hope. It would be foolish to not have a Plan B.
This is the fifth in a five-part series on the ICANN contract that expired on October 1, 2016
- Monday – The Day The Internet Died (Introduction to the issues of ICANN’s change)
- Tuesday – Future So Bright, I Gotta Wear Shades (ICANN’s View of the Future)
- Wednesday – Did The Internet Really Start In Some Guys’s Garage? (A brief history of ICANN)
- Thursday – It Might Be Ok, But It Also Might Be Very, Very Bad (A dystopian view of the future of ICANN)
- Friday – How to fix it
Rodney M Bliss is an author, columnist and IT Consultant. His blog updates every weekday. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife, thirteen children and grandchildren.
Follow him on
Twitter (@rodneymbliss)
Facebook (www.facebook.com/rbliss)
LinkedIn (www.LinkedIn.com/in/rbliss)
or email him at rbliss at msn dot com(c) 2016 Rodney M Bliss, all rights reserved
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No, but it’s not far off. The internet, as we know it today, had its beginnings in the US government’s Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA.) On April 7th, 1969 DARPA awarded the first contract to build their “outlandish proposal” called Advanced Research Project Agency Network, or ARPANET, to BBN Technologies. The system got turned on nine months later. The first computers on what would become the internet had just 24 kilobytes of memory. This entire blog entry, if put into a Microsoft Word document would take 20 kilobytes of memory. The new iPhone 7 with the least memory comes standard with 32 gigabytes of memory. That’s over a million times more memory than those early computers had 50 years ago.
But, if the Internet began as a government research project, (partly envisioned as a system to survive a nuclear war) how can I even suggest it was built by some guy in his garage? The problem is that those early computers of the internet were pretty limited in who they could talk to. We take it for granted that a computer in Utah can reach out and talk to a server in Japan, or Washington DC or anywhere, really. The early computers didn’t have names. They had addresses. Think of your neighborhood. Every house has an address. The Jones family might live at 123 Main Street and their friends the Smiths live at 456 Center Street. You can get to either house by finding it’s address.
But, you probably don’t know your friends’ addresses. You obviously know their names. If you try to give someone directions, it doesn’t do any good to say, “Go to the Smith house.” But, if you tell someone to go to 456 Center street, they can easily find the house.
The internet is the same way. The computers and websites have addresses, and we need a way to associate names with those addresses. You would never type 64.233.171.113 to get to a Google Search screen, although you could. Instead, you’d type www.google.com, or even google.com to get to their site. Just as you may not know your friend Smith’s address, you most likely don’t know the physcial address of any website you go to.
This is where the guy in his garage comes in. Although it wasn’t actually a garage. It was a guy named Jon Postel (yes, the guy who who figured out how to associate names with address on the internet was named “Postel.” Sometimes the universe shows us its sense of humor.) Postel’s regular job was as a computer science researcher who helped create ARPANET. As often happens, he had a side project. The side project was administering registries of name names and IP addresses. Eventually, it got too much for him.
On January 30, 1998, the National Telecommunication and Information Administration (NTIA), which was part of the US Department of Commerce, issued a “green paper,” or request for comment on “A Proposal to Improve the Technical Management to Internet Names AND Addresses.” This proposal was to take over the work that Jon Postel had been doing in his spare time. ICANN was formed as a result of the recommendations from this request for comment.
The new corporation, ICANN was tasked with managing the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA.) ICANN was incorporated as a not-for-profit corporation on September 30, 1998. Jon Postel became its first Chief Technology Officer. From a side project to CTO. Not exactly Steve Job’s garage, but also evidence of the sometimes organic nature of how the internet came about. It’s important to understand how ICANN got to the place it is in today in order to consider the risks of where it might go in the future. As you consider the history of ICANN below, here are a couple of vocabulary terms that will help make it a little more understandable.
- DNS:
- Domain Name Service – This is the process of associating names and addresses on the internet. DNS has, at it’s heart the root zone file. This 1MB file is the ultimate arbiter of all address resolution.
- ICANN:
- Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers – This is the corporation that controls the distribution of names and addresses.
- IANA:
- Internet Assigned Numbers Authority – this is the rules book for assigning names and address on the internet.
- Registrars:
- Companies that contract with ICANN to resell domain names and IP addresses.
- TLDs:
- Top Level Domains – these are the part of your domain name at the end. The most common are .com for businesses, .net for private groups, .org for non profits, .mil for military, .edu for educational institutions and .gov for government sites. There are also country specific TLDs like .uk for Great Britain, .us for the United States, etc.
Here are some key dates in the history of ICANN and the IANA.
- September 30, 1998: ICANN incorporated.
- October, 2003: VeriSign attempts to set up its own DNS service in competition with ICANN. VeriSign challenged the exclusive nature of ICANN’s role.
- February 27, 2004: VeriSign sues ICANN claiming antitrust violations.
- August, 2004: VeriSign’s antitrust claims are dismissed by the courts. Other aspects of their lawsuit continue. The courts declare that ICANN, like Major League Baseball, has a legally protected monopoly
- May 17, 2004: ICANN proposes increasing their budget from $8M to $16M. The new money will come from selling new top level domains and increasing the fees it charges for domain names..This is how ICANN makes its money.
- February 28, 2006: ICANN settles with VeriSign. In exchange for dropping their remaining charges, VeriSign is allowed to increase the fees they charge new domain owners by 7%.
- July 26, 2006: The US government renewed the contract for ICANN to manage the IANA under Department of Commerce oversight.
- May 23, 2008: ICANN legally goes after ten Accredited Registrars for not doing enough to crack down on spamming, and other illegal activities. This is how ICANN plays enforcer of the rules on the internet.
- June 26, 2008: ICANN starts the process of allowing new top level domains.
- July 2008: The Department of Commerce reiterates that it has no plans to transition the management of the authoritative root zone file to ICANN.
- September 30,2009: ICANN and the Department of Commerce sign an agreement to implement a multi-stakeholder model for governing ICANN. But the DOC still maintains oversight and control.
- February 3, 2011: ICANNN distributes the last block of IPv4 addresses to the world’s five Region Internet Registrars. The registrars will hand them out until they are gone.
- June 20, 2011: ICANN allows new top level domains. For $185,000 you can set up a new top level domain and it costs $25,000 per year to renew it. This is how ICANN makes money.
- 2013: Edward Snowden, a former employee at the National Security Agency reveals that the US government has been spying on internet traffic. As a result, the Montevideo Statement is drafted and signed by major players in the internet space. It calls for the globalization of the governance of ICANN and the IANA functions.
- March 10, 2016: ICANN and the DOC file divorce papers. They start the process of removing Department of Commerce oversight
- October 1, 2016: The formal agreement between ICANN and the Department of Commerce ends. . .and the internet died
Some of these dates and events will become key discussion points as the world looks at an “independent” ICANN. Will the corporation be free to raise prices however it wants? Will it be free to enforce “rules” based on the input of it’s multi stakeholder governing board some of whom may be countries interested in censoring dissent?
This is the third in a five part series on ICANN and the recent change to remove Department of Commerce oversight.
- Monday – The Day The Internet Died (Introduction to the issues of ICANN’s change)
- Tuesday – Future So Bright, I Gotta Wear Shades (ICANN’s View of the Future)
- Wednesday – Did The Internet Really Start In Some Guys’s Garage? (A brief history of ICANN)
- Thursday – Bad, bad, bad – A dystopian view of the future of the internet
- Friday – How to fix it
Rodney M Bliss is an author, columnist and IT Consultant. His blog updates every weekday. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife, thirteen children and grandchildren.
Follow him on
Twitter (@rodneymbliss)
Facebook (www.facebook.com/rbliss)
LinkedIn (www.LinkedIn.com/in/rbliss)
or email him at rbliss at msn dot com(c) 2016 Rodney M Bliss, all rights reserved