Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cornell!biar!trebor
From: trebor@biar.UUCP (Robert J Woodhead)
Newsgroups: comp.society.futures
Subject: Re: Electronic Newspapers
Message-ID: <547@biar.UUCP>
Date: 8 May 89 14:17:17 GMT
References: <2331.246511D1@isishq.FIDONET.ORG>
Reply-To: trebor@biar.UUCP (Robert J Woodhead)
Organization: Biar Games, Inc.
Lines: 70

In article <2331.246511D1@isishq.FIDONET.ORG> Doug.Thompson@p101.f162.n221.z1.FIDONET.ORG (Doug Thompson) writes:
>Phone speeds are comparable to ethernet,with 38 Kbaud transmission of text 
>being possible over voice grade lines today, 19200 BAUD being common. How do 
>you think all this news ends up on your computer for you to read? All of it 
>(here anyway) comes in over the 19.2 Kbaud modems at night. 

I'd like to make one point about speed.  It's important to recognise that for
any particular site on Usenet (or any future national news/discussion network)
the amount of information coming into the site is 100 to 1000 times greater
than the information being originated by the site.

Therefore, if I were going to be setting up a nationwide network, I'd do it
as an advanced form of X*PRESS.  Use a comsat to broadcast the news, repeating
it so that if you are tuned in for, say, 6 hours every 3 days, you'll be
guaranteed of getting all the messages.  Next, set up a modem network (ala
Usenet) or even a central 800 number (ala UUNET) for the sending of messages.

Then, anyone with a cable network / sat dish and a converter box (cheap!)
could get news cheaply.

What about mail?  Well, it may not be appropriate for mail to be broadcast,
due to the higher amount of traffic.  However, there are some possible
advantages; one being, with broadcasting, you can get your mail _anywhere_
you can listen in to the broadcast.  Another problem with mail is that when
you are broadcasting it, you don't want people to listen in.  The way you fix
this is with a public key encryption scheme.  For example, we might extend
Reply To: lines as follows:

Reply-To: trebor@biar.UUCP (Robert J Woodhead)
Public-Key-A: 823478921347823487912349872347249823524859827520193841237412398
Public-Key-B: 784538905723423485823742872857240958240958432095832409583240958
Public-Key-C: 457348573457324587342895732589374258372458166128239209243588238
...

In other words, each mail or news message contains the public key of the
sender, so if you want to send a private message, you have the key needed to
encrypt it.

When you receive mail, your software sends a message through the network to
the central broadcaster (using public key verification methods so the 
broadcaster knows it is you) saying "I got this message; you don't need to
broadcast it anymore."  If the server doesn't get this message within 48
hours of the first broadcast, it broadcasts a "not received" message back
to the sender.

One other method for mail (in order to increase the information density of
the channel).  When you want your mail, you phone up the broadcaster and
say, "Is there is any mail for me?", to which the server replies "No",
"Yes, but we can send it over this phone line in less than a minute, here
it is" or, if the caller has indicated it can listen in to broadcasts,
"Yes, but there is a lot; it will be broadcast on channel X at
time Y for Z seconds, repeated on X1 at Y1 for Z1, and again at X2 at Y2
for Z2, go listen for it"

What happens when our sat data channel is fully saturated?  Multiple channels,
of course (The audio subcarrier of a sat channel can hold many different
channels, all running at perhaps 9600 baud or more?).  In this situation,
what you do is have one channel be the Index channel.  What it broadcasts
is a running index of what is upcoming on the other channels, say, in the
next half hour or so, giving the message headers of each message.  So your
software can say "Oh, I don't have this message in comp.society.futures,
I'd better tune in to it in 134 seconds and listen for 2 seconds.  And note
that, just like your mail, you can call and request the broadcaster send a
message or messages you missed.

Comments?
-- 
Robert J Woodhead, Biar Games, Inc.  !uunet!biar!trebor | trebor@biar.UUCP
"The lamb will lie down with the lion, but the lamb won't get much sleep."
     -- Woody Allen.