Bravo Nathan and very well said - thank you for sharing this, especially: >> the incredible accomplishments of network engineers are totally unacknowledged and misunderstood I concur that technical topics don't get a lot of adequate, nuanced coverage. Meanwhile our (second?) Gilded Age seems to be missing three important things as well - which would be great if more people took the time to listen/seek to understand re: network engineering and IT operations. *1. Listen with Curiosity, Seek to Understand* *2. Avoid Reducing Issues into Binary Positions * *3. Walk a Mile In the Other Person's Shoes* ... here's to helping bridge the gaps! https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/importance-communication-especially-on-going-david-bray-phd -d. On Wed, Oct 25, 2023 at 9:27 AM Nathan Simington via Nnagain < nnagain@lists.bufferbloat.net> wrote: > Branching from Dave's thread because I don't want to get into the > politics, but I would like to very strongly endorse Dave's remarks about > how the incredible accomplishments of network engineers are totally > unacknowledged and misunderstood (e.g., note the public policy emphasis on > line speed over all else.) As such, I'd like to solicit the members of this > list to suggest some of the greatest accomplishments in network engineering > that you've never seen properly acknowledged or appreciated. I'd like to > promote and discuss them in speeches and papers to help get more sunlight > on them. > > *0. Let's get network engineering some applause, please!* > Both recent and historical accomplishments are welcome. I just want to > help get more people thinking about what a difference network engineering > has made to everyone's lives! All technologies, personalities and > accomplishments welcome! > > Beyond this specific thing, in terms of public discourse, I'd love to get > more opinions about how to communicate to the public about the tech > underpinnings of the world we live in now, and I'd love comments on how to > discuss and promote any of these topics: > > *1. Infrastructure advances* > It would generally do a lot of good if the public were to think of "tech" > less as purely the consumer-facing side and more in terms of fundamental > architecture and infrastructure. For example, there's really no point > talking about "AI" in the public-facing aspect of end-user LLM experiences > without first looking at how the cost of compute and transit has gone > through the floor compared to 15 years ago or so. I can't even disentangle > all the drivers, but they must include at least: > > - New uses for GPUs driving advances and slashing prices in GPU tech > - Vast advances in back-end cloud (to pick one company, > Sawzall/Lingo/GFS/Colossus plus associated datacenters is almost invisible > to the public, and I have no idea what's powering Chinese AI back-ends) > - Nuts-and-bolts development in ML/data science that are eroding the > fuzzy boundary between ML done as a planned, discrete query by an expert > over a small, curated dataset and ML as a quasi-autonomous system not > requiring expert queries, given authority over physical devices, doing its > own ingestion, etc -- "a sufficiently large difference in quantity is > itself a difference in quality" > > This stuff is particularly worth asking about because we are now at least > 30 years into what I think of as "pervasive networked personal computing," > now in wireless and appified form, and I think the public experiences this > as just advances that "happen by themselves" in the ordinary course without > seeing the jags in the step functions underwriting the apparent smooth > curve of progress. > > *2. Security in real-world systems* > Getting hacked used to mean losing data, having devices bricked, maybe > getting co-opted into a botnet, etc. Now it's a lot scarier, because we are > increasingly surrounded by always-on, always-connected devices whose > security infrastructure is a black box and which may be trusted with > controlling physical equipment. It's bad enough if your household > appliances are phoning home (where?) with your credit card number. It's a > whole new level of scary if there are possible APTs in the power grid and > whoever manufactured the IOT modem in a transformer is about 8 degrees of > separation from the grid operators. Even if there's no malice intended, > modern grid balancing is a new level of challenging because you may have > multiple sources of generation with immense moment-by-moment fluctuations > in inbound generation, etc., and that's just one category, leaving > groceries, ports, financial markets, building security, whatever replaces > positive train control (PTC) down the road, vehicular autonomy, industrial > operations, etc. to one side... > > Panic reactions are one thing, but it would be more productive for the > public to think about what their expectations are for how to react to these > new capabilities and challenges and then demand that the policy sector > cashes this out into new standards by consulting with technologists. I > would therefore love advice on what you think the public needs to know. > Maybe some kind of public forum that could get press or a white paper that > could get written up in an op-ed? > > On that note, in addition to (or instead of) commenting on this posting, > please consider commenting on the US Cyber Trust Mark proceeding now open > at the FCC (comments close November 10th, commenting link here: > https://www.fcc.gov/ecfs/search/docket-detail/23-239). If you'd like to > talk about this off-list, please drop me a line at NS@fcc.gov. I'll let > you know in advance if anything you want to say requires you to file an "ex > parte" statement so that you don't have to worry about going on the record > unintentionally. This is a fantastic opportunity for the network > engineering and computer security communities to air their concerns in a > federal forum in a way that may bind the federal government going forward. > > *3. The future isn't evenly distributed* > Talking to a friend who does industrial devops reminded me of this > fantastic postmortem on healthcare.gov's rollout: > https://lobste.rs/s/igt4ez/10_year_anniversary_healthcare_gov. Obviously > I don't need to tell the career professionals this, but tech advances don't > necessarily propagate, and if they do, it may be at radically different > rates between different countries, companies, sectors... (If I needed a > reminder of this, I recently had to upload DICOM files to a hospital using > a terrible Java applet that was obviously written so long ago that it only > wanted to upload from CDs, i.e., at a time when you wouldn't have spent > hard disk space on DICOMs. I eventually managed to "persuade" it that a > flash drive was a CD.) > > This ties into points 1 and especially 2, because if we want the full > social benefits of all the advances modern engineering has accomplished, we > need to get people in "nontraditional" sectors thinking about the benefits > of the communications and controls capabilities that are now on the table. > Everyone should be asking why we aren't doing ML to reduce the cost and > energy consumption for making breakfast cereal, totally pedestrian stuff > like that; if the answer is juice isn't worth the squeeze, that fine, but > that's going to run on a delay because, as the healthcare.gov example > shows, high-value new practices may be invisible to a sector that would > definitely benefit from them. > > Sorry for the very lengthy post, and as they say on the artist formerly > known as Twitter, "my DMs are open." And thanks for everything you all do! > > All the best-- > Nathan > > On Tue, Oct 24, 2023 at 3:22 PM Dave Taht via Nnagain < > nnagain@lists.bufferbloat.net> wrote: > >> On Tue, Oct 24, 2023 at 11:21 AM the keyboard of geoff goodfellow via >> Nnagain wrote: >> > >> > ➔➔https://twitter.com/BrendanCarrFCC/status/1716558844384379163 >> >> Leaving aside the rhetoric, I believe the majority of these claims on >> this part of his post: >> >> https://twitter.com/BrendanCarrFCC/status/1716884139226329512 >> >> to be true. Any one question this? >> >> I do wish that he showed upload speeds, and latency under load, and, >> acknowledged some mistakes, at least, and did not claim perfect >> success. Also individual states had stepped up to institute their own >> rules, and I would love to see a comparison of those stats vs those >> that didn´t. >> >> The COVID thing I am most fiercely proud of, as an engineer, is we >> took an internet only capable of postage stamp 5 frame per sec[1] >> videoconferencing to something that the world, as a whole, relied on >> to keep civilization running only 7 years later, in the face of >> terrible odds, lights out environments, scarce equipment supplies, and >> illness. ISPs big and small helped too - Their people climbed towers, >> produced better code, rerouted networks, and stayed up late fighting >> off DDOSes. People at home shared their wifi and knowledge of how to >> make fiddly things on the net work well, over the internet - >> >> Nobody handed out medals for keeping the internet running, I do not >> remember a single statement of praise for what we did over that >> terrible time. No one ever looks up after a productive day after a >> zillion productive clicks and says (for one example) "Thank you Paul >> Vixie and Mokapetris for inventing DNS and Evan Hunt(bind) and Simon >> Kelly(dnsmasq) for shipping dns servers for free that only get it >> wrong once in a while, and then recover so fast you don´t notice" - >> there are just endless complaints from those for whom it is not >> working *right now* the way they expect. >> >> There are no nobel prizes for networking. But the scientists, >> engineers, sysadmins and SREs kept improving things, and are keeping >> civilization running. It is kind of a cause for me - I get very irked >> at both sides whining when if only they could walk a mile in a >> neteng´s shoes. I get respect from my neighbors at least, sometimes >> asked to fix a laptop or set up a router... and I still share my wifi. >> >> If there was just some way to separate out the ire about other aspects >> of how the internet is going south (which I certainly share), and >> somehow put respect for those in the trenches that work on keeping the >> Net running, back in the public conversation, I would really love to >> hear it. >> >> [1] Really great talk on networking by Van Jacobson in 2012, both >> useful for its content, and the kind of quality we could only achieve >> then: https://archive.org/details/video1_20191129 >> >> > -- >> > Geoff.Goodfellow@iconia.com >> > living as The Truth is True >> > >> > _______________________________________________ >> > Nnagain mailing list >> > Nnagain@lists.bufferbloat.net >> > https://lists.bufferbloat.net/listinfo/nnagain >> >> >> >> -- >> Oct 30: >> https://netdevconf.info/0x17/news/the-maestro-and-the-music-bof.html >> Dave Täht CSO, LibreQos >> _______________________________________________ >> Nnagain mailing list >> Nnagain@lists.bufferbloat.net >> https://lists.bufferbloat.net/listinfo/nnagain >> > > > -- > Nathan Simington > cell: 305-793-6899 > _______________________________________________ > Nnagain mailing list > Nnagain@lists.bufferbloat.net > https://lists.bufferbloat.net/listinfo/nnagain >