WHEN THE INTERNETS MOURN ITS FATHER

Paul Baran; April 29, 1926 – March 26, 2011.

TIMELINE

In 1961, at the height of the Cold War, an engineer named Paul Baran was said to have sold the idea of a failure-resistant communications method called packet switching to the US Department of Defense. But because of bureaucratic roadblocks at AT&T and the Pentagon, it wasn't until the 1970s that the technology was finally adopted as the foundation architecture of the Arpanet - the precursor to the Internet. Paul Baran conceived the Internet's architecture at the height of the Cold War. Forty years later, he says the Net's biggest threat wasn't the USSR - it was the phone company.

As of the time when he approached AT&T with the idea to build his proposed network, Paul’s invention was so far ahead of its time that in the mid-1960s, AT&T insisted it would not work and refused to advance any move about it. AT&T repeatedly said his idea wouldn’t work, and wouldn’t participate in the Arpanet project.

In 1959 he joined Rand, which had been established in 1946 to do military research for the US Air Force. In the early 1960s, while working at the RAND Corporation in Santa Monica, Calif., Mr. Baran outlined the fundamentals for packaging data into discrete bundles, which he called “message blocks.” The bundles are then sent on various paths around a network and reassembled at their destination. Such a plan is known as “packet switching.” Mr. Baran’s idea was to build a distributed communications network, less vulnerable to attack or disruption than conventional networks. By the late 1950s, RAND Corporation , was at the centre of nuclear politics and strategy. An issue of great concern at this time was the vulnerability of US military communications to a nuclear strike from Russia. If the command-and-control network was destroyed, the ability of the US to retaliate would be threatened.

Baran invented a futuristic solution to this problem in the form of a network held together by scores of small computers. Messages would be passed ("like a hot potato") from one computer to the next towards its destination. Even if the network was massively damaged, the message would still get through. Another innovation was to chop all messages into small blocks so that they would not be delayed by long messages clogging the network. The blocks would arrive at their destination in a random order via different routes, and the computer at the destination end would reconstitute the original messages from the individual blocks.

In a series of technical papers published in the 1960s he suggested that networks be designed with redundant routes so that if a particular path failed or was destroyed, messages could still be delivered through another. “Paul wasn’t afraid to go in directions counter to what everyone else thought was the right or only thing to do,” said Vinton Cerf, a vice president at Google who was a colleague and longtime friend of Mr. Baran’s.

However, it was not until 1969, that the Defense Department’s Advanced Research Projects Agency built the Arpanet, a network that used Mr. Baran’s ideas, and those of others. The Arpanet was eventually replaced by the Internet, and packet switching still lies at the heart of the network’s internal workings.

BIO.

Paul Baran, was a Polish American engineer who was a pioneer in the development of computer networks. He was one of the three earliest researchers of packet switching techniques, and went on to start several companies and develop other technologies that are an essential part of the Internet and other modern digital communication. He was born in Grodno, Poland (which is now in Belarus) on April 29, 1926.He was the youngest of three children in a Jewish family, with the Yiddish given name "Pesach".

His family moved to the United States in 1928,by settling in Boston and later in Philadelphia, where his father, Morris "Moshe" Baran (1884–1979), opened a grocery store. He graduated from Drexel University in 1949 (then called Drexel Institute of Technology), with a degree in electrical engineering. He then joined the Eckert-Mauchly Computer Company, where he did technical work on UNIVAC models, the first brand of commercial computers in the USA. In 1955 he married Evelyn Murphy

Baran would later received the Franklin Institute's 2001 Bower Award and Prize for Achievement in Science, his latest in a string of prestigious honors from professional organizations including the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE), the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), and NEC. Over a lifetime of quietly sustained achievement as inventor and entrepreneur, Baran cofounded the Institute for the Future and created a series of successful companies -Cabledata Associates, Packet Technologies, Metricom, Interfax, and Com21 - based on technologies he developed. As corporations like Cisco acquired his businesses, Baran's inventions went mainstream: His discrete multitone technology is at the heart of DSL, and his developments in spread spectrum transmission are essential to the ongoing wireless explosion.

According to Gerald Estrin, who was Mr. Baran’s adviser, said Mr. Baran was the first student he ever had who actually went to the Patent Office in Washington to investigate whether his master’s work, on character recognition, was patentable. “From that day on, my expectations of him changed,” Dr. Estrin said. “He wasn’t just a serious student, but a young man who was looking to have an effect on the world.”

DEATH

Baran died in Palo Alto, California at the age of 84 on March 26, 2011.He died due to complications from lung cancer. Upon his death James Thomson, the president of RAND stated that "Our world is a better place for the technologies Paul Baran invented and developed, and also because of his consistent concern with appropriate public policies for their use.”One of the fathers of the internet, Vinton Cerf, stated that "Paul wasn't afraid to go in directions counter to what everyone else thought was the right or only thing to do," According to Paul Saffo, Baran also believed that innovation was a "team process" and he didn't seek credit for himself. On hearing news of his death, Robert Kahn, co-inventor of the Internet, said: "Paul was one of the finest gentlemen I ever met and creative to the very end."

In recent years, the origins of the Internet have been subject to claims and counterclaims of precedence, and Mr. Baran was an outspoken proponent of distributing credit widely.

“The Internet is really the work of a thousand people,” he said in an interview in 2001. “The process of technological developments is like building a cathedral,” he said in an interview in 1990. “Over the course of several hundred years, new people come along and each lays down a block on top of the old foundations, each saying, ‘I built a cathedral.’ “Next month another block is placed atop the previous one. Then comes along an historian who asks, ‘Well, who built the cathedral?’ Peter added some stones here, and Paul added a few more. If you are not careful you can con yourself into believing that you did the most important part. But the reality is that each contribution has to follow onto previous work. Everything is tied to everything else.”

Baran ,In addition to his son, David, of Atherton, Calif.,is survived by three grandchildren; and his companion of recent years, Ruth Rothman.



RIP

Pakistan's Sex Trade: May You Never Be Uncovered

I was initially drawn to exploring the prevalence of prostitution under Islam in 2001 after encountering impoverished Afghan widows in the refugee camps of the North-West Frontier Province in Pakistan. It was shortly after 2001 when I had been invited by The Brooke to join in their efforts to document the Afghan refugees fleeing to Pakistan across the Hindu Kush mountain range, frequently carried on the backs of their horses and donkeys.

A prostitute

After 9/11 happened, as a fellow New Yorker, I became determined to deepen my understanding of the Muslim world and its culture. The only way to understand was to get my butt over there. If these women, who have no means to support their children, were forced to sell their bodies, how would they find clients if they were not allowed to walk outside alone and without being covered in Burkas? I was told repeatedly that prostitution did not exist in Islamic countries such as Pakistan.

A prostitute in a courtyard window

It took four years of research before I was finally introduced to Ms. Lubna Tayyab, the founder of SHEED Society -- at the time a very small, community-based organization. Lubna, a beautiful round woman with an infectious laugh and eyes that sparked of life, was born and raised in the community.

A Prostitute and her madam

She initially told me that entering the brothels would be impossible for a photographer. The women would never agree to be photographed, since in addition to being shunned by society, they risk being arrested and severely punished for their actions.

A prostitute with her family

Lubna also had my personal security in mind. But she agreed to introduce me to Madams and prostitutes passing by the office where she has provided women with free condoms and HIV/AIDS/STI education since 1995. I felt I would at least be able to interview some of them to get a better sense of who they were, what their lives were like, and learn how prostitution works in this deeply conservative, Muslim society.
What followed was three weeks of twelve to fifteen hour days of tea-drinking, waiting for the women to pass by. They would arrive either with their children or accompanied by a Madam.

A pimp and his future investment

They would never come alone since women should not venture outdoors unaccompanied. Since so few foreigners are seen in this area, especially foreign females, some of the women appeared very hesitant upon seeing me sitting on Lubna's vinyl couch. But others found me to be like an attraction at the zoo. They curiously complimented my blue eyes, long blonde hair, fair skin -- all attributes that would be great assets

Client and undergarment

in their trade. Some arrived stoned. All of them where covered according to the
culture where anything above the ankle or a hint of a bra strap is considered vulgar and unacceptable, even among prostitutes.

Prostitute entwined with a client

The streets have no sign of the sex trade; there are no females waiting for customers on street corners -- unless one knows where to look. The wheeling and dealings takes place behind closed doors, while cell phones and Internet has only recently made prostitution in Pakistan more extensive. The stench that hits those not used to it is a mix of sweat, feces, cooking oil, rotten food, the penetrating exhaust from rickshaws, and, at times, sex.

Prostitute entwined with client(a poor rickshaw driver)

The area has a couple of streets lined with food and tea stalls, storefronts where one can hire musicians or entertainers, and shoe shops of all things. Many of the tea stalls also function as mini cinemas where kids left unattended while their mothers work and male adults watch TV while sipping milk tea and passing the long hours of boredom that unemployment creates. The rest is a complicated labyrinth of dark alleys where one easily gets lost and strangers rarely enter without the guidance of a local pimp.

At night, the dancing halls open for a few hours, providing customers with the entertainment of diluted traditional mujra and Bollywood dances for a few rupees.

The more accomplished a girl is, the more money she is paid. But hovering in corners are owners who take most of the earnings. In 2008, a judge in Lahore's high court declared the mujra dance vulgar and banned it from stages in a gesture of good will to pacify the mullahs and the Taliban.

Praying for repentance

Late one night, Pino, a Madam, wags her finger in a sign to follow her. I quickly cover my head in my hijab, the commonly used headscarf, and conceal my camera underneath. There is a certain rush mixed with fear and confusion. I am not sure where she is taking me.

A few minutes later, after being hurried through dark alleys, we enter a doorway. I follow as fast as I can, struggling up the stairs toward the second floor through complete blackness, feeling a rat brushing against my leg. A moment later, I enter a room where a TV is blaring and smoke from joints hangs heavy in the air.

A woman, surrounded by children, sits on her bed. Pino gestures for me to hurry. There is a young man, assigned by Lubna as a bodyguard and "translator." Even though his English vocabulary is extremely limited, I am glad to have him there. He tells me in a tense voice, "Picture quick, police come!" I am inside a brothel.

Posted: June 11, 2010 04:12 PM ,by Kate Orne/HuffPost Social News

Chris Brown BANNED From UK, Tour Postponed

In case you are just hearing, on the 8th of June, Chris Brown was denied entry into Britain. This bold stance of the British is not unconnected to Brown’s recent below the belt actions against Rihanna couples of months ago, most especially the battery and the eventual leaking of her nude pictures sent to Brown while their love affairs lasted. But, released on the net in an unprecedented fashion in the music industry. Nothing short of breach of trust ,the despicable pictures are hereby reproduced.

Brown
Rihanna

FROM THE RECORD,2009

Nude Rihanna photos, or what is supposedly the Barbadian pop star Rihanna, have spread around the web and around the world.
Seven pictures have been posted that show various body parts, including two close ups of what is clearly Rihanna's face




And a third photo of Rihanna head-to-knee reflected in a bathroom mirror as she takes the photo with a message of "I love you" scrawled on it.



All seven shots appear to be self taken in the same white bathroom and bedroom area and are mildly gritty.
The four shots that do NOT include Rihanna's head in them include two of a bare bottom as seen reflected in a mirror,





one of a dark lacquer-nailed hand squeezing a bottom and a photo of an undressed torso from a reflection in a mirror. One breast is pierced and pink Nike towel is flung over a shoulder hiding the other.



Rihanna was in New York all of last week, starting with Monday's Vogue-sponsored Met gala, in her first public appearances since the Grammy-eve fracas with then-boyfriend Chris Brown.



Late Friday her record label reportedly got involved and sent out a letter to a website that published the pics demanding that they be removed, calling the photos a violation of "the Artist's rights."


Rihanna Calls Leak of Naked Pictures 'Humiliating'
By Charlotte Triggs,Tuesday December 01, 2009 11:40

Rihanna

Rihanna is speaking out about the nude pictures of her that were leaked shortly after the February confrontation with Chris Brown that left her battered and emotionally distraught.



While promoting her album, Rated R, in an interview with New York City radio station Hot 97, the singer admitted she was the woman in the naked photos, which were leaked earlier this year.

"They were for my boyfriend at the time," Rihanna, 21, said, adding, "if you don't send your boyfriend naked pictures, then I feel bad for him."



But discovering nude photographs of herself on the Internet – just weeks after a photo of her battered face also found its way online, allegedly having been leaked by the police department – the singer said, "trust me, I was [freaked out].



"It was the worst thing that could possibly ever happen to me. I just felt like my whole privacy was taken before that [with the other photo leak] and then, when that came out, I thought, 'Oh great, so now there's nothing they don't know about me and my private life,' " she said. "It was humiliating and it was embarrassing – especially my mom having to see that."

Nervous about her mother's reaction to the second photo scandal, Rihanna sent flowers before calling to break the news, just two days before Mother's Day. "I was nervous [but] when the world is against me she's always there supporting," said the singer.

Rihanna's Fierce Paris Fashion

Saving Lives

As for the mixed reaction Rihanna says she got when she finally began speaking out about her fight with Brown, 20, "It tripped me up. [People] think I have an agenda to destroy his career but that's not what it's about."

Instead, she says, she wants to help other young women who might also be the victims of domestic abuse. "I was very hesitant to ever talk about it … but there are young girls out there that need to hear this," she said. "Say what you want but we're saving lives here."

Rihanna and Hilson

And Rihanna adds that the experience has taught her how to avoid such problems down the road.

"My whole relationship with him was a learning experience. There was a lot of insecurity and a lot of control issues," she said. "In relationships in the future I know how to watch out for certain things. A lot of those were signs. I learned that in the end."

Tara Reid reveals new bikini body after botched surgery

Tara Reid is one of Hollywood's hot young actresses, having appeared in American Pie, Urban Legend and Van Wilder. In addition to her nightclub antics, she made headlines in November 2004 when pictures of her exposed nipple were beamed across the world.

However, she made more astonishing headlines when a botched cosmetic procedures shattered her confidence some six years ago, but Tara Reid looked happy to be back in a bikini in Las Vegas yesterday, June 1st.


Confident: Tara Reid at The Palms Casino Resort in Las Vegas,June 1st,2010

The American Pie actress wore a bright green string two-piece as she attended the second annual Love Festival at The Palms Casino Resort.

It's the first time Reid has stepped out in a bathing suit since doctors corrected previous surgery that left her disfigured, according to America's Us Weekly.

She went under the knife in 2004, but her joint liposuction and breast enhancement operation went drastically wrong.

-'It looked like I got completely butchered up,' she later said of her enlarged cleavage.

Ripply tummy: Reid on the beach in 2007

Tara Reid’s stomach looks to be about forty years older than the rest of her.

But she is once again comfortable in her own skin - so much so that the 34-year-old even posed for Playboy in December last year.


'I'm relaxed,' she told the publication at the time.
'I'm a young woman with confidence ... At the end of the day, I go to sleep knowing who I am.
'I'm happy with my life now, and I'd like to keep it this way.'



Reid, who has seen her career stall in recent years, is due to appear in a low-budget thriller called The Fields.



Her big break came when she played the role of Bunny in The Big Lebowski, which she followed with Cruel Intentions and then the American Pie series.
A good friend of Paris Hilton, she dated MTV DJ Carson Daly in 2000 before becoming engaged in 2001.

During the filming of American Pie 2 in the same year, she was badly traumatised after the engagement was called off.
She found new love this January with German internet entrepreneur Michael Axtmann and they had planned to marry in May.
However, she is said to have recently called off the wedding. See profile below;

Bio..
Tara Reid was born on November 8, 1975, in Wyckoff, New Jersey. The daughter of Tom and Donna, teachers who run a pair of day care centers, Tara was immersed into acting early on. Of Irish, Italian, French, Hungarian, and English descent, Tara may have an All-American look, but her look has always been unique enough to get her acting roles, even as a child.



Reid was romantically linked to Carson Daly starting in early 2000. Daly made a cameo appearance in, Josie and the Pussycats (also starring Reid), in which he jokes while attempting to kill Reid's character that the two could have had a romantic relationship given different circumstances. In June 2001, Reid and Daly broke off their engagement.She had previously dated Russian hockey star Sergei Fedorov. In the late 1990s, she dated actor Steve Burton and remains close to him and his family.



She briefly dated American football players Tom Brady, Jerome Bettis, Jeremy Shockey, Kyle Boller, Kevin Mawae, tennis player Mark Philippoussis, and family friend Eric Weber.



On the night of November 4, 2004, photographs surfaced of Reid from the red carpet at Puff Daddy's 35th birthday party at Cipriani's Restaurant in New York City, when her dress fell, exposing her left breast.





In October 2006, Reid acknowledged in an interview with Us Weekly that she had liposculpting. In the interview she discusses how her plastic surgery "went wrong" and also explains why she decided to have plastic surgery done, saying that her breasts were uneven and that she wanted a "six pack" for a new movie role. The
liposuction resulted in deformity. In the same interview, Reid's new plastic surgeon, Dr. Steven Svehlak, reported that he performed a procedure called a "doughnut mastopexy" to correct her original augmentation, and performed additional liposuction in hopes to even out her stomach.



On January 18, 2010 Tara's boyfriend Michael Axtmann, an internet entrepreneur from Nuremberg, proposed to her at The Little Door restaurant in Los Angeles. The couple had reportedly planned an intimate ceremony for summer 2010.



As of April 20, the wedding has been called off and her relationship with Axtmann has ended, with a representative stating; "Tara Reid has confirmed that she will not be moving forward with her May 22 nuptials."

Kendra Wilkinson sex tape; She opens up- This is 'the hardest time of our lives'

Thursday, May 27th 2010

Viewer's discretion is highly requested. Adult materials are included.



Lately, Kendra Wilkinson Baskett has been the perfect picture of a carefree new wife and blissful young mom. But OK! has learned exclusively that the reality TV star and former Playboy Playmate's wild past has come back to haunt her.

Kendra Wilkinson says she is heartbroken her ex-boyfriend could sell her sex tape.

A salacious sex tape has surfaced, and Kendra, 24, is desperately waging a legal battle to keep it from going public.

Kendra with friends @ a club

On Wednesday, May 26th Vivid Entertainment released Kendra's sex tape, which they expect to be their highest-selling sex tape ever.

Above(l-r),Kendra,former boy friend,83 years Hef,Holly,& Bridget.

Despite pre-orders for Kendra Wilkinson's sex tape hitting an all-time high for its distribution company, the reality star hopes her fans have the heart to "not press play."

A clip from the tape ,showing Kendra and Justin Frye

"It bothers me because people are going to judge me," Wilkinson says in a sneak preview of her E! Show’s season finale. "I hope to God nobody looks at me like a porn star."



Wilkinson, 24, opens up about her buzzed about sex tape that she shot at age 18 with ex-boyfriend Justin Frye, who she believed she was "going to eventually marry."



"Of course we had sex like every couple does and every now and then we would videotape it. There's a lot of couples who do that," she says, before pointing out, "At that time I wasn't a celebrity. I didn't even know I was going to become a celebrity."



Since gaining notoriety as Hugh Hefner's former girlfriend and star of E!'s "Girls Next Door," Wilkinson is now dealing with the recent release of "Kendra Exposed," her sex tape that Frye recently sold.



Now a wife to Philadelphia Eagles receiver Hank Baskett and a mom to their baby boy, Wilkinson says she is angry at her ex for attempting to tarnish her reputation.



"It broke my heart because how can you do that when I have a baby?" she asks. "I have a kid. I have a husband. It just sucks."



As the tape goes public, Wilkinson says her husband is standing by her side.

"He's doing a good job because he's understanding," she explained. "He's like, 'Kendra, we just have to hold our heads high because, yeah, we're going to get attacked, but we can't run. We have to hold hands and walk through this and face this fact.'"



She adds, "It's going to be really hard. It's going to probably be the hardest time of our lives."
Sex tape



In May of 2010, a video recording of Wilkinson having sex in 2005,with an unidentified man surfaced in . The recording was acquired by Vivid Entertainment, who plans to distribute the tape as "Kendra Exposed". Wilkinson is contesting the release, and threatened to sue should it be released.



RadarOnline reported that in 2008, Wilkinson herself set up a company called "Home Run Productions LLC," in which she made several attempts to sell sex tapes.Sources have reported that Wilkinson is being paid $680,000, as well as splitting profits with Justin Frye, the man in the video.

kendra in-girls-next-door

Not only does Kendra Wilkinson have multiple sex tapes that she tried to sell, but she is featured in these tapes with multiple partners, Radaronline.com has discovered through new documents. No word on whether the partners were spread out one per tape.



The porn company Vivid Entertainment has obtained the sex tapes Kendra made when she was 18 and is threatening to distribute them. Kendra has sued to stop that from happening even though she formed a company to sell the tapes herself in 2008. At that point she had left the Playboy Mansion, where she had been one of Hef's multiple partners, and was engaged to Hank Baskett. The sale of the tapes never went through.

In the tape, Kendra is seen dancing nude and having sex with her high school boyfriend, Justin Frye. Kendra is now married to Hank Baskett and they have a baby boy.

Kendra has reportedly already gotten a $680,000 paycheck for the tape's release and stands to collect 50 percent of the profits. A source tells Radaronline.com that Hank is not upset about the tape or her decision to cash in on it. Her payday includes 50 percent of sales of the sex tape, and her partner in the tape has already pocketed $100,000 for selling it to Vivid, a source told Radar.

HOW THE TAPE CAME TO BE

Kendra’s partner that revealed the tape is Justin Frye, now 28, a mixed martial arts fighter (see pix below) who started dating Kendra when she was in high school. They broke up soon after Kendra graduated, when she moved into the Playboy mansion.

Kendra and partner that revealed the tape-Justin Frye,now 28,a mixed martial arts fighter.

Radar reports that Kendra and Frye shot several sex tapes together while they were dating and Kendra left the tapes behind when she moved out.
"Justin had a tripod in his bedroom for the camera and a stripper pole in the apartment," the source said. "Kendra definitely was not shy about being in these tapes. There are tapes of Kendra in really compromising positions ... doing a lot of embarrassing things."

Kendra tried to sell the tapes in 2008 but never struck a deal, and Frye recently cashed in with Vivid, leaving Kendra a cut of the profits.

Kendra Leigh Baskett(born June 12, 1985), better known by her birth name of Kendra Wilkinson, is an American television personality and glamour model. She is well known for her role on the E! reality-television show The Girls Next Door, on which her life as one of Hugh Hefner's three girlfriends was documented.



Although not a Playboy Playmate, she has appeared in three nude pictorials with her Girls Next Door costars and fellow Hefner girlfriends Holly Madison and Bridget Marquardt. Her own reality series, Kendra, debuted in June 2009.

Courtesy-OK! Magazine,HuffPost Entertainment, DAILY NEWS, ,“E!”® and E! Online®. .RadarOnline.Kendra website