Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Soviet web: the tale of how the USSR almost invented the internet (2017)

calvertjournal.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 187 posts

Re: The Soviet web: the tale of how the USSR almost invented the internet (2017)

#91

Post by pkaye »

rhn_mk1 wrote: post #82
mherdeg wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hard to believe this was nearly a quarter century ago. T he references are getting dated: > "How do you scare a Bellhead?" he begins. "First, show them something like RealAudio or IPhone. Then tell them that right now performance is bandwidth-limited, but that additional infrastructure is being deployed." > … > One result is undergrads who, for $29.95 a month, clog up the Internet with CU-SeeMe sessions.

The article is dated 1996. How does it have an IPhone reference?

Its crazy to think that the iPhone only came out in the great recession in 2007. Seems like we had it forever.

Re: The Soviet web: the tale of how the USSR almost invented the internet (2017)

#92

Post by tus88 »

jandrese wrote: post #89

IMHO the project was doomed from the start. Top down design on a scale that massive and distributed is nightmarishly complex, and when the designer is well ahead of the state of the art like this it doesn’t stand a chance. ARPANET by contrast started from the bottom and worked up. This is crucial because it makes it easy to iterate on the design until you get it right. With a top down design mistakes get baked in and…

Sounds like something else the USSR attempted :D

Re: The Soviet web: the tale of how the USSR almost invented the internet (2017)

#93

Post by jandrese »

gen220 wrote: post #61
xxpor wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Were the armed guards there to keep the western trains from stopping or for keeping easterners from escaping via the tunnels?

I think this is one of those cases where the most correct answer is simply "yes". Realistically, the guards were put there to halt the transfer of people, goods, and currency: to be the physical manifestation of a hard border. Although, the motivation for this border (who it benefits, is it to keep "others" out vs "us" in) was a dynamic concept that evolved over time. However, if you integrate the motivation function…

The thing that really drove this home for me was the way the wall was built literally overnight with no warning to the public to prevent people from fleeing.

Re: The Soviet web: the tale of how the USSR almost invented the internet (2017)

#94

Post by BrainInAJar »

WC3w6pXxgGd wrote: post #24
cambalache wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's extremely anti-soviet, almost propagandistically so. It wouldnt be out of place as a work made at the request of Voice of America, although the author is an Englishman.

Should the novel be pro-soviet?

Much like the USA, lots of stuff about the USSR was bad. Lots was good. Including the political decisions the respective countries made.

Re: The Soviet web: the tale of how the USSR almost invented the internet (2017)

#95

Post by guenthert »

simonjgreen wrote: post #34
Spooky23 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Somewhat related, Netheads vs. Bellheads https://www.wired.com/1996/10/atm-3/ I briefly worked at a place fully dominated by Bellheads early in my career. They were bemoaning IP and holding on to ATM stuff as late as 2001. I'm told that the last of their tribe (after I left) fought off VoIP as a passing fad well into the 2000s.

ATM is still actively in use in broadband networks all over the place. Its a real pain when you're on the ISP side.

It might very well be a pain for the admins, but for low latency applications, ATM has clear advantages to the user.

Re: The Soviet web: the tale of how the USSR almost invented the internet (2017)

#96

Post by talideon »

macspoofing wrote: post #71
talideon wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't "own" a domain: you have a recurring lease on it.

A domain is a type of intellectual property. For all intents and purposes you own it.

It's not, unless you have a trademark, and even then only within narrow domains in which you've registered the trademark.

You don't own domains any more than anything else you lease.

In fact, if you read your registration agreement, you'll find out just how _little_ you own it.

Re: The Soviet web: the tale of how the USSR almost invented the internet (2017)

#97

Post by smsm42 »

vidarh wrote: post #16
myth_drannon wrote: post #2

So a bit like a capitalist entrepreneur who needs to have a brilliant idea and be a great salesman, the scientists in USSR had to have a cunning social skills to push their ideas through layers of un-interested bureaucracy. A Sisyphian task that would just cause them to become disengaged. That's how that society got its alcoholics, poetry evenings and other sublimation hobbies.

One of my pet theories is that economic growth is surprisingly poorly correlated to economic or social systems except for one thing: Stability. Bring stability, and people learn the mechanisms that works for their society, and overcome surprisingly large differences in type of obstacles. Be it dealing with the vagaries of the free market, or how to maneuver a Soviet-style bureaucracy. It's in fact almost depressing h…

The 70s and early 80s is the USSR were universally regarded as the period of stability. So much stability that the official name of the period is "stagnation": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Era_of_Stagnation

This era ended by the USSR assuming the most stable position possible, i.e. dead. So I wouldn't over-promote the value of "stability" as such. Being stable is good if you're in a good place, otherwise it's deadly.

Re: The Soviet web: the tale of how the USSR almost invented the internet (2017)

#98

Post by Baeocystin »

082349872349872 wrote: post #30
kome wrote: post #7

Unrelated, but fun: the .su (soviet union) domain is still active and running. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.su http://www.fid.su/

I'm fond of the site hosting http://diafilmy.su/7209-sojuz-appolon.html among others (use arrow keys to advance the filmstrip).

As a space fan, what a great filmstrip! Thanks for posting it for us to see.

Re: The Soviet web: the tale of how the USSR almost invented the internet (2017)

#99

Post by emiliobumachar »

truantbuick wrote: post #76

Isn't this article missing the point of the internet? It talks about an ambitious (but ultimately aborted) top-down project to build thousands of interlinking mainframes. But building large networks wasn't particularly novel. It was the idea that you could build a logical layer that potentially linked any network. The key to the early internet was you didn't necessarily need to build anything physical. You could link…

Could you please elaborate?

How would one link up two existing networks with different systems and infrastructure?

What I can think of is either installing a couple translating routers, which do speak TCP/IP as well as their network's internal protocol, or making them, by repurposing existing machines with software-only modifications. Is that what you had in mind as not really counting as installing something physical, or did I miss something?

Re: The Soviet web: the tale of how the USSR almost invented the internet (2017)

#100

Post by thodin »

andi999 wrote: post #87
mantas wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would planned economy do with hands not needed anymore? :) Even with totally unproductive economy, USSR had lots and lots of bullshit jobs just to keep people employed. What would USSR do with tons of unemployed people? Create fake jobs? Or what... let people find out what they'd like to do and let them start private initiatives?!?

I read a while ago that in communist society there is usually a shortage of everything including labor (that also why females were encouraged to work soon after giving birth)

USSR invited a lot of Vietnamese and North Korean workers because of this problem.
Post reply on HN