The Internet in Honoverse

SharkHunter wrote:Come to think of it, maybe the MAlign should have rethought their plans once the streak drive capability became available, and used that added speed to dominate the "information carrying trade" -- also allowing them to dominate and even dismember the SL via "disinformation wars". A lot cheaper and less risky than pissing off Manticore militarily, that is for dang sure.

The problem with that is that they wanted to keep the streak drive a secret so that they'd have a surprise advantage when the fighting broke out. If they started using it on commercial couriers, they'd have to either limit themselves to the same hyper bands as everyone else's ships or accept that everyone would quickly realise that their ships were covering distances faster than they should have.

Dafmeister wrote:

SharkHunter wrote:Come to think of it, maybe the MAlign should have rethought their plans once the streak drive capability became available, and used that added speed to dominate the "information carrying trade" -- also allowing them to dominate and even dismember the SL via "disinformation wars". A lot cheaper and less risky than pissing off Manticore militarily, that is for dang sure.

The problem with that is that they wanted to keep the streak drive a secret so that they'd have a surprise advantage when the fighting broke out. If they started using it on commercial couriers, they'd have to either limit themselves to the same hyper bands as everyone else's ships or accept that everyone would quickly realise that their ships were covering distances faster than they should have.

No, they could still have used it secretly. In fact, they would have wanted to keep it secret. If they can get financial and economic data faster than anyone else, they could dominate financial markets. They would have to be careful to hide their activities, with lots of cutouts. If they were not too greedy, and used the advance information to give themselves only a slight edge on the competition rather than buying and selling in huge lots that would be noticed, they could have built up an economic powerhouse that could control the galaxy.

SWM wrote:

Dafmeister wrote:The problem with that is that they wanted to keep the streak drive a secret so that they'd have a surprise advantage when the fighting broke out. If they started using it on commercial couriers, they'd have to either limit themselves to the same hyper bands as everyone else's ships or accept that everyone would quickly realise that their ships were covering distances faster than they should have.

No, they could still have used it secretly. In fact, they would have wanted to keep it secret. If they can get financial and economic data faster than anyone else, they could dominate financial markets. They would have to be careful to hide their activities, with lots of cutouts. If they were not too greedy, and used the advance information to give themselves only a slight edge on the competition rather than buying and selling in huge lots that would be noticed, they could have built up an economic powerhouse that could control the galaxy.

To maximise the rapid flow of information, the Alignment would need to use multiple wormhole bridges, many of which have been seized by Operation Laocoon.

Based on the information from Dr. Simoes, the RMN should be aware of the streak drive's existence. Therefore, even if diplomatic/courier traffic is allowed passage, ONI should be able to track the movements of individual vessels over a longer period of time and be able to identify which ones are travelling too quickly. And then slap a 'detain and board on sight' order on them.

Unless the Alignment boats are ordered to cruise between termini at "normal" speed, only employing the streak capability at the start and end legs, of course.

Also, ONI could probably go through historical records from astro control platforms of seized termini and come up with an initial list of targets.

munroburton wrote:To maximise the rapid flow of information, the Alignment would need to use multiple wormhole bridges, many of which have been seized by Operation Laocoon.

Based on the information from Dr. Simoes, the RMN should be aware of the streak drive's existence. Therefore, even if diplomatic/courier traffic is allowed passage, ONI should be able to track the movements of individual vessels over a longer period of time and be able to identify which ones are travelling too quickly. And then slap a 'detain and board on sight' order on them.

Unless the Alignment boats are ordered to cruise between termini at "normal" speed, only employing the streak capability at the start and end legs, of course.

Also, ONI could probably go through historical records from astro control platforms of seized termini and come up with an initial list of targets.

An interesting possibility, now that Manticore has control of so many termini, and has reason to believe the Streak drive exists.

As devil's advocate, the Alignment could also create multiple ship registrations and switch between them, to prevent that kind of discovery. But we don't know that they have taken that precaution.

SWM wrote:An interesting possibility, now that Manticore has control of so many termini, and has reason to believe the Streak drive exists.

As devil's advocate, the Alignment could also create multiple ship registrations and switch between them, to prevent that kind of discovery. But we don't know that they have taken that precaution.

That might just make them stand out even more. To mind comes the Marianne, aka Golden Butterfly. Simply changing the transponder code won't cut it against the kind of examination imposed by a fully resourced ONI investigation looking at all available recorded emissions and signatures from those ships.

munroburton wrote:

SWM wrote:An interesting possibility, now that Manticore has control of so many termini, and has reason to believe the Streak drive exists.

As devil's advocate, the Alignment could also create multiple ship registrations and switch between them, to prevent that kind of discovery. But we don't know that they have taken that precaution.

That might just make them stand out even more. To mind comes the Marianne, aka Golden Butterfly. Simply changing the transponder code won't cut it against the kind of examination imposed by a fully resourced ONI investigation looking at all available recorded emissions and signatures from those ships.

That's an awful lot of recordings to examine. Not impossible, but a rather big data management problem.

SWM wrote:

munroburton wrote:To maximise the rapid flow of information, the Alignment would need to use multiple wormhole bridges, many of which have been seized by Operation Laocoon.

Based on the information from Dr. Simoes, the RMN should be aware of the streak drive's existence. Therefore, even if diplomatic/courier traffic is allowed passage, ONI should be able to track the movements of individual vessels over a longer period of time and be able to identify which ones are travelling too quickly. And then slap a 'detain and board on sight' order on them.

Unless the Alignment boats are ordered to cruise between termini at "normal" speed, only employing the streak capability at the start and end legs, of course.

Also, ONI could probably go through historical records from astro control platforms of seized termini and come up with an initial list of targets.

An interesting possibility, now that Manticore has control of so many termini, and has reason to believe the Streak drive exists.

As devil's advocate, the Alignment could also create multiple ship registrations and switch between them, to prevent that kind of discovery. But we don't know that they have taken that precaution.

Or use multiple real ships. Conventional ships on milk runs through wormholes relay information packets to and from offices on nearby planets. They in turn hand them off to streakers for further carriage.

Joat42 wrote:

oyohan wrote:I was just thinking what the internet would be like in the honoverse.

why? because i'm analyzing analytics and need a break and i saw somebody post a fan banner of the RMN and it had "www.trmn.org"

"www, that's not correct."

Your method with the URL's isn't very intuitive and it makes the handling of URL's inconsistent. A person in Manticore and a person in Sol should both use http://www.google.com and the server-framework should transparently keep track of what is a local resource and what is a remote resource (with a last update timestamp). The user would then be able to switch between local/remote/latest known versions.

Keeping everything in sync is still going to be a bitch though.

This actually is a problem that has been addressed in real life; look up Cerf's "InterPlaNet" project. An Internet cannot be maintained on two-way handshake protocols across greater than planetary-scale distance: surface and near orbit, in other words, due to speed of light delay. Even Apollo style FTL only mitigates this to a minor extent; an FTL transceiver net would allow Earth's Internet to link with Luna's, but not Manticore's with Sphinx's. A ten second delay is tolerable on HD but murder to a packet switcher.

Beyond orbit, networking will work on Store-And-Forward protocols. The actual method of transmission is irrelevant (another layer, in info speak). It will work as well for laser relays, radio links, Apollo FTL relays, or hyper couriers. The message bounces from node to node, strategically bouncing through transmission means according to preprogrammed schedules (known distances between planets, or the regular Sol-Sigma Draconis mail run).

Addressing therefore takes into account the Balkanization of networks by planet. Addressing to a Mandarin's email might be:

{ikolkotsov@state.solleague.gov}%earth.sol.solleague

Want to email the Harrington Clinic?

{doctoralison@harringtonclinic.org}%sphinx.manticore.skm

(The approval for changing the assigned top-level domain for Her Manticoran Majesty's possessions is still in committee, somewhere in Los Angeles on Old Earth.)

Some people are less formal, of course.

{berry@zilwicki.gov}%torch.torch

No reason to assume that Google will survive 2000 years into the future. Companies fail all the time y'all.

Anyhow the man.google.com suggestion (in the snipped part of the OP) likely fails the test of availability, in that if google.com is in use at the time of the expedition funding/Jason's departure, the Mannerheim expedition will likely have picked it up ages ago ... that is if they weren't too late also.

catfishncod wrote:

oyohan wrote:I was just thinking what the internet would be like in the honoverse.

why? because i'm analyzing analytics and need a break and i saw somebody post a fan banner of the RMN and it had "www.trmn.org"

"www, that's not correct."

Joat42 wrote:Your method with the URL's isn't very intuitive and it makes the handling of URL's inconsistent. A person in Manticore and a person in Sol should both use http://www.google.com and the server-framework should transparently keep track of what is a local resource and what is a remote resource (with a last update timestamp). The user would then be able to switch between local/remote/latest known versions.

Keeping everything in sync is still going to be a bitch though.

This actually is a problem that has been addressed in real life; look up Cerf's "InterPlaNet" project. An Internet cannot be maintained on two-way handshake protocols across greater than planetary-scale distance: surface and near orbit, in other words, due to speed of light delay. Even Apollo style FTL only mitigates this to a minor extent; an FTL transceiver net would allow Earth's Internet to link with Luna's, but not Manticore's with Sphinx's. A ten second delay is tolerable on HD but murder to a packet switcher.

Beyond orbit, networking will work on Store-And-Forward protocols. The actual method of transmission is irrelevant (another layer, in info speak). It will work as well for laser relays, radio links, Apollo FTL relays, or hyper couriers. The message bounces from node to node, strategically bouncing through transmission means according to preprogrammed schedules (known distances between planets, or the regular Sol-Sigma Draconis mail run).

Addressing therefore takes into account the Balkanization of networks by planet. Addressing to a Mandarin's email might be:

{ikolkotsov@state.solleague.gov}%earth.sol.solleague

Want to email the Harrington Clinic?

{doctoralison@harringtonclinic.org}%sphinx.manticore.skm

(The approval for changing the assigned top-level domain for Her Manticoran Majesty's possessions is still in committee, somewhere in Los Angeles on Old Earth.)

Some people are less formal, of course.

{berry@zilwicki.gov}%torch.torch

Using the Streak Drive to manipulate fiancial and news markets would take some very carefull footwork and caution. Sure, getting there first and feeding the info/instructions to your agents in-place lets you set up any number of things, BUT if you are not careful, someone is going to notice that X "quite often" seems to be acting one what seems to be early information about some event/s that happen elsewhere. Do that a couple of times in stock trading and people are going to get curious about just how X made some very interesting trades days before the word of something that then causes a stock to shoot up arrives though Regular Channels.

You would need to fairly widely spread the accounts (and the nominal owners of those accounts) so that the same person or company was not making some really good calls in advance of the regular news.

Not quite so much of a problem on couriers who are bringing in military or political information to your networks or just orders. When a ship shows up and there is no regular schedule against which people in the industry (shipping, astro control, anything else) could notice that P ship seems to be making (consistently) a shuttle or trade route run several days to several WEEKS faster than any other ship, that will bring curiosity. Ships with no particular schedule - "tramp freighters" courier ships with no set route, private ships (Ms.Abrovonova- sorry, spelling- for instance) who are not tied in with any regular routine- can show up, transact business (and drop/pick up information) and move on to real or fictional destinations and not have anyone notice they are extraordianaly fast over inter-stellar distance. Streak drive -until it becomes noticed by places like Mancticore- would not only get information back to Darius faster, it will badly throw off estimates of where the ship has been given the times at places it is discovered where it has been