[OT] Re: fork bomb:the come back

James R Bruce (bruce+@andrew.cmu.edu)
Tue, 28 Dec 1999 14:32:39 -0500 (EST)


Excerpts from internet.computing.linux-kernel: 28-Dec-99 Re: fork
bomb:the come back by Stephen Frost@mail.snowm
> There was a Coke machine at a university somewhere that would
tell you
> how many cans and whatnot were left at one point or another, I seem to
recall.
> Yes, over the internet (Or that may have been arpanet, not sure. :) ).

That would be Carnegie Mellon's CS department coke machine. Sadly, it
has been disconnected. There is a coffee machine online now however:
mrcoffee.res.cmu.edu

I think the general argument trying to be made is that there are a lot
of machines that are not, and will never be, connected to the internet.
The exact numbers don't matter, but it is worth noting that improvements
that only apply to non-connected machines can still be quite useful to
many.

I would still guess that most embedded systems aren't connected to the
internet; for every new machine on the internet, there's probably two
more new ones that aren't; The sheer number of computers in other words,
is growing faster than the number online. Also, a lot of such systems
are networked but not connected to the outside world; since they tend to
be proprietary and often trusted (e.g. they lack internal security).

- Jim Bruce

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