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Internet on the ISS?



 
 
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  #11  
Old August 24th 05, 07:53 PM
Ian Stirling
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John Doe wrote:
nmp wrote:

Hello, a bit of triviality if you don't mind,

I know that ISS crew have internet facilities on board, they can exchange
e-mail with their families and such. What I would like to know is how
(un)restricted their access to the internet and the Wild Wild Web actually
is. Like, would they be able to read this newsgroup?

snip
NASA would be crazy to allow outlook to be used on the station if it
could receive emails from the internet. (think viri).


Why?
I don't see a risk in a VPN from the ground, to personal laptops,
without IRDA/wifi (so there is no chance of them talking to other
laptops on station).
As long as it's bandwidth limited, so a virus can't jam the link, where
is the risk?
This would be solely a "personal stuff" laptop.
  #12  
Old August 24th 05, 09:24 PM
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Back in 2002, I had a hit on my web tracker from "tdrs.nasa.gov" - - is
there really an internet connection via TDRS, or is that some NASA IT
guy being funny with router names?

  #13  
Old August 25th 05, 01:11 AM
J. Porter Clark
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writes:

The last I heard, the TCP/IP capability on ISS does not allow
the crew to surf the web. The crew desires this capability,
of course, but it is thought to be too risky.


Now web surfing *is* a capability I would've assumed already aboard the
ISS. Can we assume the "risks" to surfing - at least to NASA - include
the possibility of web-born worms, viruses, or malware? Or just that
some astronaut's going to embarrass the agency by running up charges at
rumprangers.com?


When I was briefed on OCA, the clear implication was that they
were afraid of worms, viruses, etc.

I have to say that, on ISS and Shuttle, there are other
pitfalls, such as Ku-band coverage dropouts for several minutes,
typically, every orbit. Applications that need a long-running
TCP connection will find that difficult. My home ISP has had
periods of time when network dropouts followed a pattern about
like that. During those times, even web surfing--which doesn't
require long-lived connections--was frustrating. Works for a
little while, then unexpectedly quits.

If it's either of those, I find it hard to believe that with all their
expertise, NASA couldn't dedicate even one ThinkPad on ISS to allow
surfing, with its network controls and filters, firewalls, and
anti-virus software managed from the ground, in precisely the sort of
way most corporate networks are now protected.


It sounds feasible to me, too, but they are an attractive
target, and paranoia breeds easily in that environment. The
question asked by management is always, "What's the worst that
could happen?"

Consider this analogy: Would you want the computers that control
and monitor your local nuclear power plant to have any ability
to exchange data--even if only by floppy-swapping--with a
computer used for casual web surfing? (It's not the greatest
analogy, but it's as good as I can think of right now.)

--
J. Porter Clark
  #14  
Old August 25th 05, 03:18 AM
John Doe
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having a laptop dedicated to internet access on station.


Laptops have been known to fail. They move software to another laptop,
and/or move the hard drive
to another laptop.

Because of the danger that the internet laptop would be infected, in the
event that they woudl need to use it for real software, they would have
to zap the drigve clean and re-install from scratch.

Furthermore, because that laptop would be isolated from the nasa stuff,
its management could not be done from the ground, so the crew would have
to spend much time dealing with virus infections so common on the
windows nasa insists on using.
  #15  
Old August 27th 05, 12:59 AM
Ian Stirling
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nmp wrote:
Op Wed, 24 Aug 2005 18:53:37 +0000, schreef Ian Stirling:

John Doe wrote:
nmp wrote:

Hello, a bit of triviality if you don't mind,

I know that ISS crew have internet facilities on board, they can
exchange e-mail with their families and such. What I would like to
know is how (un)restricted their access to the internet and the Wild
Wild Web actually is. Like, would they be able to read this newsgroup?

snip
NASA would be crazy to allow outlook to be used on the station if it
could receive emails from the internet. (think viri).


Why?
I don't see a risk in a VPN from the ground, to personal laptops,
without IRDA/wifi (so there is no chance of them talking to other
laptops on station).
As long as it's bandwidth limited, so a virus can't jam the link, where
is the risk?
This would be solely a "personal stuff" laptop.


Right, this is very much what I would like them to have. I really think it
would enhance "quality of life" up there.

BTW you could still make Wifi safe enough, with logically separated
networks for "personal stuff" laptops and "serious stuff" laptops. And of
course, Wifi would be a great pleasure to have on board a space station.


Most wifi cards are logically capable of snooping on other traffic,
as well as pretending to be other nodes.
I wouldn't want the 'play' network to be logically accessible - maybe
802.11a and 802.11b (5/2.4Ghz) and cards that can't operate on each
others frequency.
  #16  
Old August 27th 05, 01:01 AM
Ian Stirling
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John Doe wrote:
having a laptop dedicated to internet access on station.


Laptops have been known to fail. They move software to another laptop,
and/or move the hard drive
to another laptop.

Because of the danger that the internet laptop would be infected, in the
event that they woudl need to use it for real software, they would have
to zap the drigve clean and re-install from scratch.

Furthermore, because that laptop would be isolated from the nasa stuff,
its management could not be done from the ground, so the crew would have
to spend much time dealing with virus infections so common on the


Of course it could - it just couldn't be managed over the same net as
the others, it'd need to go over the private link.

If I was going, I'd be quite happy taking up my 1.1Kg linux laptop -
even making the harddrive RO.
  #17  
Old August 28th 05, 05:26 PM
steve
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On Sun, 21 Aug 2005 02:59:03 +0000, Jim Oberg wrote:

Even with existing systems, at least once a computer virus DID establish
itself via the ISS email system.


So why are they using MS(NBC) software?
  #18  
Old September 21st 05, 03:11 PM
Henry Spencer
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In article ,
Ami Silberman wrote:
The real problems with using internet protocols out of the box is that they
are not set up for SATCOM, much less deep space communications. TCP, for
example, starts out with small packets and short time outs to wait for
acknowledgements.


Actually, TCP itself was designed from the start to be usable over
satellite links -- the Arpanet (ultimate ancestor of today's Internet)
included satellite links pretty much from the start. But existing TCP
*implementations* are rarely configured for that.

Deep space is another story entirely. Time delays of many minutes call
for very different approaches.
--
spsystems.net is temporarily off the air; | Henry Spencer
mail to henry at zoo.utoronto.ca instead. |
  #19  
Old September 21st 05, 08:45 PM
m
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tcp ip over geostationary satellite works fine.I use it everyday.Here in
Europe are many (relatively cheap)providers.So the implementation to the ISS
would be no problem if not done yet


  #20  
Old September 22nd 05, 07:28 PM
Derek Lyons
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"m" wrote:

tcp ip over geostationary satellite works fine.I use it everyday.Here in
Europe are many (relatively cheap)providers.So the implementation to the ISS
would be no problem if not done yet


I invite you consider the difference between a geostationary bird and
a LEO bird.

D.
--
Touch-twice life. Eat. Drink. Laugh.

-Resolved: To be more temperate in my postings.
Oct 5th, 2004 JDL
 




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