RE: [PAPER] Juggling with packets: floating data storage

["Alun Jones" <alun@texis.com>]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Wojciech Purczynski [mailto:cliph@isec.pl] 
> Sent: Monday, October 06, 2003 4:00 AM
> 
>   A real juggler would focus on a different kind of outsourced data
>   processing, one that is much closer to his domain of expertise. Why,
>   distributed parasitic data storage, of course. - What if I write
>   a single letter on every orange, and then start juggling? I can then
>   store more orange-bytes than my physical capacity (the number of
>   oranges I can hold in my hands) is! How brilliant... But, but, would
>   it work without oranges?

Of course, a real network engineer would remind you that you face two
immediate problems regarding this technique:

1. [UDP] Jugglers don't usually have to deal with oranges suddenly
disappearing in midflight, or being duplicated.
2. [TCP] Jugglers don't have to hold onto a copy of their thrown orange
until such time as the catching hand lets them know that it's been caught.

Yes, networks can be used as storage, and in the very early days of
computing, "storage" was essentially a delay line with an amplifier -
whether this was an oscilloscope with an array of light sensors, or a coil
of wire, etc.  This is roughly similar to the proposal under discussion.
Protecting network-borne data from corruption and loss is not a trivial
problem.  Good luck.

Alun.
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