Early Internet Pioneer Claims The Internet Is Broken... But Oh Look, He's Selling The 'Solution'

from the marketers-dream dept

Wed, Jul 15th 2009 9:10am — Mike Masnick

If I announced tomorrow that some key technology in widespread use today was fundamentally broken, but (oh yeah) that I was selling a solution that would fix it all, don't you think most reporters would first try to track down an independent third party to find out if what I was saying was actually true? Apparently not all reporters feel that way. So take it with a grain of salt when PC Authority writes a gushing article about how one of the internet's original designers, Larry Roberts, claims the internet is fundamentally broken. Roberts has been pushing this line for a while, and it's rather important to note that this is part of the marketing campaign for his company, which is trying to sell a "solution" to the problem. Yet PC Authority focuses entirely on the idea that the internet is broken, checks with no other third party, and only mentions at the very, very end of the article that Roberts' company just happens to be trying to sell a solution. Whether or not you believe Roberts' claims, you would think that a reporter wouldn't put what seems like a blatant press release and pitch it as a news article without at least getting some third party opinions.

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team

Filed Under: infrastructure, internet, larry roberts

27 Comments

If you liked this post, you may also be interested in...

Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread

ChurchHatesTucker (profile), 15 Jul 2009 @ 9:22am

What?
"If I announced tomorrow that some key technology in widespread use today was fundamentally broken, but (oh yeah) that I was selling a solution that would fix it all, don't you think most reporters would first try to track down an independent third party to find out if what I was saying was actually true? "

Why on earth would I think that? Press-release 'journalism' has been the norm for as long as I can remember.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
RD, 15 Jul 2009 @ 9:37am

Um...
"Whether or not you believe Roberts' claims, you would think that a reporter wouldn't put what seems like a blatant press release and pitch it as a news article without at least getting some third party opinions."

Wha...? What news have YOU been reading the last 5+ years?? This is ALL the news is anymore, everyone is in everyone's pockets. So many "news" articles are just paper-thin whitewashes of press releases or "Favorable" articles thinly disguised as "news."
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
- Greg, 15 Jul 2009 @ 10:42am
  
  Re: Um...
  You forgot about the smear campaigns...
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
John Doe, 15 Jul 2009 @ 9:46am

Wait for the bloggers...
The bloggers will be along shortly to get to the facts.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
- Anonymous Coward, 15 Jul 2009 @ 11:58am
  
  Re: Wait for the bloggers...
  But bloggers can't fact check because they aren't journalists. You need four years of schooling & 10 years running coffee around before you gain the ability to do an Internet search to verify information.
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
Anonymous Poster, 15 Jul 2009 @ 9:46am

"you would think that a reporter wouldn't put what seems like a blatant press release and pitch it as a news article without at least getting some third party opinions."

And yet, here we are.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Dark Helmet (profile), 15 Jul 2009 @ 10:04am

And?
This seems perfectly reasonable to me. FYI, if you have ANY ILLNESSES WHATSOEVER, feel free to take my snake oil, which cures everything that you surely have, since most people's bodies are broken. It's got the Rockefeller name on it, so you know it's.....er....good.

Love and kisses,

William "Wild Bill" Rockefeller
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
everydayjoe, 15 Jul 2009 @ 10:13am

Confusion or bait?
Mike,

A reporter? This sounds to me more like the modern definition of a "journalist," which is synonymous with "advocate."

I hope this helps.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Comboman, 15 Jul 2009 @ 10:28am

Why limit to the internet?
Replace "internet" in the above article with any other fashionable topic and it still works. "Businessman claims the economy is broken...but oh look, he's selling the solution", "Environmentalist claims the climate is broken...but oh look, he's selling the solution". Take everything you read with a barrel of salt.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
nraddin (profile), 15 Jul 2009 @ 10:28am

get over it
Honestly nothing is going on here that doesn't happen in the 'press' all the time now. Caveat Emptor, and do your own research.

It also turns out that the expert you would want to talk to about packet switching and flow control happens to be the guy that was already talking. The startup in question is not trying to sell a product so much as change the basic underpinnings of the internet. His plan is not to make huge amounts of money on changing a protocol and making it propriety, his plan is to help people change to a new open protocol and system that will run smoother. While his company has some plans to make money helping people with that it does not change the fact that he is correct about flow control on the internet.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
- WildSubnet, 15 Jul 2009 @ 10:46am
  
  Re: get over it
  The problem is, he's wrong. His white paper describes a method of processing packets that went out the window about 10 years ago. All modern day routers process traffic based on flows now. The first packet is examined and the subsequent packets are forwarded based on the results of the first packet. There isn't anything new or revolutionary here. Most routers in the price range of his product also offer some or all of the features he's selling.
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
- CleverName, 15 Jul 2009 @ 11:20am
  
  Re: It's not broke
  If it isn't broke, don't fix it.
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
scooter, 15 Jul 2009 @ 10:31am

Hmmm...
The actual piece of hardware looks a lot like an old bay networks 10mbit switch...I wonders.....
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Anonymous Coward, 15 Jul 2009 @ 10:33am

The internet is not broken. If it was, Al Gore would fix it.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Anonymous Coward, 15 Jul 2009 @ 10:42am

um. it's because they're doing exactly what every one of these news sites does... rewording press releases as news. some are more objective than others, but most say pretty much everything that's in the press release regardless of how lame it is.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Memphistopheles (profile), 15 Jul 2009 @ 10:57am

Techdirt reported it first
Funny:

The PC Authority article's author was practicing journalistic aggressiveness - now, PC Authority can say, "We reported it first!"

And Techdirt can say, "We reported that someone else reported on something first!"

There's nothing truly unique about the PC Authority article. They were just hurrying to have their fingers in the information pie. All journalists need something interesting to report about...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
- Dark Helmet (profile), 15 Jul 2009 @ 2:23pm
  
  Re: Techdirt reported it first
  Mmmmm, information pie....
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
Kyle Brady (profile), 15 Jul 2009 @ 10:59am

Yeah
I called him out on this too, but for a different reason. Ignoring the fact that he's selling the "solution" for the moment, is what he describes as the problem even the problem?

The answer is "no!": http://www.kyle-brady.com/2009/07/09/incorrect-base-assumptions-about-network-management/

--Kyle
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
kingstu, 15 Jul 2009 @ 11:55am

My Internet broke a few days ago. I was streaming some (clears throat) "adult" content and my computer just stopped. Thankfully, a quick restart fixed things right up...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Anonymous Coward, 15 Jul 2009 @ 12:04pm

The Internet is a proper noun and should be capitalized. The only thing broken is your English.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Sailingmaster (profile), 15 Jul 2009 @ 12:29pm

It's all just shades of
Yellow.

Most of what passes for professional journalism these days is so yellow, it should be published on old fashioned legal pads.

For those that need it explained:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_journalism
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
trollificus, 15 Jul 2009 @ 12:59pm

Surprised??
Hell, when I taught my kids how to read newspaper articles, I told them to first look in the 3rd paragraph (or later) to find out who had handed the story to the "journalist" who purportedly authored it.

Then, if they were still interested, they should research the group or individual responsible. And THEN read the story with a skeptical eye.

And they wonder why newspapers are "dying". Tchyuh.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Dohn Joe, 15 Jul 2009 @ 5:16pm

Kickbacks for All
"you would think that a reporter wouldn't put what seems like a blatant press release and pitch it as a news article without at least getting some third party opinions"

...he would (as I suspect many do) if he was getting a kickback!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Allen (profile), 15 Jul 2009 @ 7:13pm

I'm more disappointed in the IEEE. I expect more from them than some popular PC rag.

Anyone that knows anything about modern routers knows that all manufacturers rely on flows to optimise routing. This is not a new idea. Not even close. But the article contained no comparison with or even acknowledgement of competing technology. Is the Doctor's implementation fundamentally different from Cisco's, Juniper's, or any of the others'? How is it better? Who knows? Not the IEEE.

This may not have been published in one of their academic journals but some sort of critical review would have identified the fundamental flaw.

What is even more concerning is the question of whether or not the IEEE paid Dr Robertsin for his shameless plug.

PC Authority may have failed in parroting the IEEE, but the IEEE failed first
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
angry dude, 15 Jul 2009 @ 8:03pm

In other news
Mike Masnick of Techdirt is claiming that patent system is broken and he is trying to sell us a solution: T-Shirts ...

LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOTs of f****** t-shirts !!!!!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
- tech Dirt Lemming Punk, 15 Jul 2009 @ 8:39pm
  
  Re: In other news
  really ? ... A Mike T-shirt ?
  Awsome !
  
  btw, you been hiding under a rock again ?
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
Anonymous Coward, 20 Jul 2009 @ 6:21pm

What you're describing has long been common practice among television news organizations, which accept so-called VNRs from companies (and sometimes governments) and air them more or less unedited as filler segments in news broadcasts. It's basically just free advertising for the companies releasing the VNRs.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_news_release

I can't say I'm surprised to see that this practice has made the translation to paper journalism.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]