Tag: us government

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In The News Tech (General)

Grace Hopper For #TheNew10 Dollar Bill

Grace Hopper
Since the Treasury Department announced they will be redesigning the $10 bill and featuring a woman on the front, it got me thinking. While more obscure, Grace Hopper is the ideal candidate.

Lets go through her qualifications:

  • Attained the rank of United States Navy rear admiral. A rare feat for a woman (the first was Alene Duerk).
  • Active in the service between 1943–1966, 1967–1971, 1972–1986 for a total of approx. 41 years of service. Including during WWII.
  • Notable achievements in her field had a large influence on shaping the her industry as well as the nation as high level programming languages accelerated computer proliferation through business and eventually personal use:
    • Wrote the first compiler.
    • Invented COBOL, which is still in use over 50 years later and it’s predecessor .
  • She’s the one responsible for the term “bug” being used to describe a defect in software.
  • Responsible for some badass quotes like “It’s easier to ask forgiveness than it is to get permission.”
  • And lastly… diseased (technically relevant).

Per the Treasury Dept. website:

…The person should be iconic and have made a significant contribution to — or impact on — protecting the freedoms on which our nation was founded.

I think a Navy veteran buried in Arlington National Cemetery with full military honors meets the qualifications as much as anyone who walked the face of this earth.

So to summarize, she’s a female veteran who climbed the ranks of the Navy who quite literally invented her field and launched and industry that’s reshaping her country and the world even years after she passed away. I’d say that’s worth $10.

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Networking Politics

U.S. Government Goes IPv6

I didn’t even realize, but the mandate to go IPv6 has passed for the U.S. Government. Not that it really mattered anyway. Until consumer devices ship IPv6 ready and enabled, and ISP’s start rolling out IPv6, this is just an exercise is what will hopefully save work later on.

Seems most Government websites I’ve checked so far that are IPv6 are using CDN’s to provide IPv6 connectivity. I’m betting behind the scenes it’s all IPv4 still.

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Funny Space

Attach Orbiter Here

Attach Orbiter Here Note: Black Side Down

Attach Orbiter Here Note: Black Side Down

Attach Orbiter Here
Note: Black Side Down

NASA is known as a pretty bureaucratic organization with lots of CYA procedures. But this is just a great little joke hidden up above one of the Boeing 747’s used to ferry the Shuttles when they land somewhere other than Kennedy Space Center.

It’s not just software engineers embedding Easter eggs in their work.

[Via: Wikipedia]

Categories
Networking Politics

Nobody Is Using IPv6

Arbor Networks found that almost nobody is using IPv6 (a peak of 0.012% to be exact). Not exactly shocking.

This is due to a chicken or the egg problem:

  • ISP’s don’t give out IPv6 addresses because the majority of their customers can’t handle it. Modern operating systems support IPv6, but these days most people use broadband routers, which only support IPv4. As a result most can’t use IPv6.
  • Hardware vendors that make routers and switches often don’t support IPv6 to keep costs low, and performance high. It’s not needed since most ISP’s don’t support it anyway, and that doesn’t look like it’s about to change anytime soon.

There are however a few ISP’s that have experimented with IPv6.

Of course another issue is that most websites don’t use IPv6, but I think that’s the easiest to fix. Since most servers are hosted in data centers with expensive routers that could be upgraded. Nobody bothers because it’s not much more than a novelty. Servers themselves use modern operating systems that can easily support IPv6.

So what will change this? A massive government push. Something along the lines of Digital TV transition. It would need to do the following:

  • Specify a date after which all hardware and software sold must be IPv6 compatible.
  • Specify a date after which all ISP’s with more than X customers, or a certain bandwidth level must support IPv6.

Unlike the Digital TV transition, there’s no real push to kill IPv4, so it wouldn’t be so bad if it died a natural death like Gopher and just became antiquated and disappeared. DTV is different since the space freed up can be auctioned for large sums of money, which is the real incentive for the switch anyway.

Will it happen? I doubt it.

The Olympics is available via IPv6 (more info here). China has a better IPv6 plan since their growing population means they see the need for more IP space. Not to mention the US has a much higher allocation than China.

The DoD as well as the US Government in general has been moving to IPv6, but they have yet to make any real push for the private sector.

Until the US Government realizes a push is necessary it’s not going to happen. To bad. I’d love to point a domain name at a toaster. I’d love even more to get rid of NATs, since they are a nightmare for software to work with.