[11129] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Re: Re[2]: Two-way Internet service from Continental Cable?
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Karl Denninger)
Tue Mar 22 07:31:44 1994
From: karl@mcs.com (Karl Denninger)
To: steve@nsf.gov (Stephen Wolff)
Date: Tue, 22 Mar 1994 01:16:23 -0600 (CST)
Cc: com-priv@psi.com, schoff@psi.com
In-Reply-To: <Pine.3.07.9403211127.K3941-b100000@mon.cise.nsf.gov> from "Stephen Wolff" at Mar 21, 94 11:12:27 am
> > > >Two-way amplifiers on the cable. It lets them do essentially ethernet
> > > >over cable.
> > > Yup -- actually I heard 4 ethernets over a 6MHz cable channel.
> > >
> > > But I was disappointed with the pricing. 100$/month for metro access (read
> > > other CCTV customers) 125$ for internet access. However, this is just
> > > for ONE computer in your home. If you have a little subnet running at
> > > home (now -- let's see now, how many of us are there), the price jumps
> > > to 1K$/month for routing stuff.
> > >
> >
> > Are you surprised by this? Further, there is a problem with this setup --
> > you are on a broadband connection, which means it effectively <is> an
> > Ethernet -- that is, you are sharing the wire from the repeater to the house.
> >
> > This means that you're working with a shared MAC arrangement, and thus the
> > <actual> bandwidth you can expect is not really the entire thing. The
> > level of engineering is very, very important, as well as how and when they
> > decide to split areas to have more segments.
>
> If it's a shared medium, how difficult is it for a moderately capable one
> of PSI's customers on the cable to listen in on what some other customers
> are saying? Presumably it's slightly more difficult than hanging a
> Sniffer on a vampire tap, but I wonder what safety mechanisms PSI has to
> prevent their customers from wiretapping each other?
>
> -s
I would hope that there is reasonably strong encryption (at least DES) in
the decoders. If not, then this is DEFINITELY something I wouldn't want to
be telnetting through!
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Karl Denninger (karl@MCS.COM) | MCSNet - Full Internet Connectivity (shell,
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