SUN Microsystems JINI counter IOS
JINI like Java will take off considering the facts that it's basically free and portable across many platforms and OSs. This will potentially have a hugh impact on proprietary network embedded system such as IOS. Why? because as network systems and servers with Jini technology become more powerful and portable most of the network functions such as forwarding and interior routing will come free in those systems. In addition, as network funtionality filters down to common devices, internetworking with them will gradually push out proprietary network systems from the open mkt. Looking furrher ahead, this may be one very significant contribution that change the landscape of the network gorilla's playground. imo.
February 08, 1999, Issue: 1047
Section: Semiconductors
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Portability and privacy
Loring Wirbel
Two topics have occupied my thoughts since my return from the ComNet show in Washington. The first concerns the appropriate way to network embedded devices; here, Sun Microsystems Inc.'s Jini technology plays counterpoint to the Cisco Internetwork Operating System (IOS) efforts I talked about in the last column (see Jan 25, page 34). The other centers on privacy concerns.
Jini's code compactness is a powerful argument for using it as a distributed-computing method for systems networked across a room or around the world, providing more straightforward capabilities than a full TCP/IP stack in the service of a simple embedded task. At the recent Sun Java/Jini Colorado Day, the director of worldwide Java practice for SunService, Mark Bauhaus, made a strong case for Jini's serving as the protocol glue for systems that would advertise resources generically, without the overhead of a true LAN.
Jini networks offer reasonable security as well; the latest version provides all Java features, and the next release will expand the authority-delegation capabilities.
But at Jini's unveiling in the Bay Area last last month, Sun chief executive Scott McNealy got defensive when journalists asked about Jini and privacy. "Get real," McNealy snapped, "there is no privacy."
McNealy's tone might have been combative, but at least he uttered a truth to which few privacy experts are willing to own up these days. Even consumers who try to opt out of junk-mail and spam lists may find that global marketeers can data-mine rich veins of information on their personal habits. Outside of the corporate world, the National Security Agency and similar institutions keep tabs on all our communications.
The upshot of the vast capability arrayed against the individual is that one should advocate privacy as a theoretical goal while practicing absolute transparency in personal behavior, under the assumption that privacy simply does not exist. That is a reality with which everyone from money-launderers to our president had better come to terms. And it's what McNealy no doubt meant.
Intel was the target of a boycott call last month when it was revealed that the Pentium III did not make protection of privacy the default case in the hardware. And lightweight networking protocols are bound to be scrutinized diligently by the likes of the ACLU.
As for me, I'll be paying more attention to the memory miserliness of the protocol. Privacy for the individual and privacy for the appliance disappeared in the real world a long time ago.
Copyright ® 1999 CMP Media Inc. |
