Friday, April 14, 2000

4/14/2000 4:44:56 PM

Using the Internet as a massively parallel computer See also TBTF for 2000-03-31, 1999-08-30, 07-19, 01-26, 1998-03-02, 1997-10-27, 09-08, 09-01, 06-23, 01-29, 1996-12-02

• Process Tree to merge with dCypher.net. The Process Tree Network, featured in TBTF for 2000-03-31, and dCypher.net signed a letter of intent to merge on Wednesday 12 April. dCypher.net runs distributed computation jobs of scientific and social interest; it is advertising-funded and distributes rewards to participants. The press release (note: PDF format) talks about synergy between dCypher.net's running code for distributed processing and Process Tree's viral multi-level marketing model for recruiting computing partners. Guess they liked my writeup, because the announcement on the dCypher.net site links it as the best explanation of Process Tree's use of MLM.

  Here's a FAQ on the merger. For more discussion see the forums set up on the dCypher.net site.

Wednesday, April 12, 2000

4/12/2000 4:40:07 PM

• SSA an anonymous remailer? TBTF for 1996-09-08 marked the shuttering of the anonymous remailer anon.penet.fi. Remember that service? It would deliver your mail anonymously, unread, to anyone else, including to another anonymous account. Well, Alan Wexelblat recieved a piece of snailmail at his workplace from the Social Security Administration that put him in mind of Julf Helsingius's pioneering service.

  It was a forward of a letter from a Former Employer. FE had, apparently, sent a letter to the SSA with only my name (misspelled!) and my Social Security Number as identifiers, in a sealed envelope marked "Personal."

  The SSA then forwarded it on to me with a form cover letter (form SSA-L-65) explaining that they were forwarding it to me because the writer wanted to get in touch with me. Apparently this happens so often the government has a standard form for it!

  The form cover letter included a privacy statement asserting:

  We will not give that person your address or any other information about you. We will not tell that person whether we contacted you. It is up to you to contact that person if you choose. You do not have to tell us what you decide to do.

4/12/2000 3:57:58 PM

• Dow Jones to launch bandwidth index. TBTF for 1998-12-15 introduced two companies making a market in bandwidth, Band-X and RateXchange. The latter has now teamed with Dow Jones to publish its price index, which will go live on May 1. As the graph shows, bandwidth rates dropped precipitously when the online markets geared up; further drops can be expected as bandwidth continues down the path toward commoditization as the raw material of the Internet age.

  Here are RateXchange's press release and coverage in news.com.

  RateXchange began as a subsidiary of NetAmerica (NASDAQ: NAMI), but now the parent entity is renaming itself after the sub. Other companies making markets in bandwidth include Arbinet and Enron Communications.

  Thanks to TBTF sometime-columnist Lloyd Wood for the tip.

Sunday, April 2, 2000

4/2/2000 5:19:29 PM

• Three more from the Jargon Scout. Join together with others like yourself in a supportive environment as we learn the definitions of bizmeth, undernet, and post-economic.