Worth Reading 090926

9 September 2026


 


Information is not meaningful simply because it exists or because it is improbable. It becomes meaningful only if there exists a system that can interpret it and use it to perform a function.

 


At first glance, asking whether Internet Exchange Points (IXPs) make the Internet faster may seem almost provocative at a peering forum. Surely the answer is simply ‘yes’?

 


If you’re dealing with industrial protocols, you’ll certainly have seen Modbus packets in your network. But what are these packets used for, and what data do they contain?

 


Yet I have become increasingly concerned that, in the case of IPv6, we are evaluating the technology almost entirely from the perspective of what it allows networks to do, while giving insufficient attention to what it may allow network operators, corporations and governments to do to their users and if the benefits outweigh the risks.

 


The future of fast food was supposed to look something like this: walk into a restaurant, place an order, and watch a robot assemble your pizza with machine-like precision.

Worth Reading 090126

1 September 2026


 


The central question is therefore not whether AI should be regulated. It should. The question is what happens when regulation itself becomes a bottleneck to technological progress.

 


Does AI increase or reduce technical debt? Join Johna Johnson and John Burke as they discuss how to make strategy in environments in which AI fuels untrammeled growth in enterprise complexity–but also points the way to automated optimization (and concomitant technical debt reduction).

 


Red Hat published a benchmark analysis on June 15, 2026, that puts numbers behind a question occupying many IT departments.

 


Recent industry momentum behind open AI models reflects a growing recognition that openness is essential for accelerating innovation, broadening participation, and strengthening the global AI ecosystem.

 


In this episode of PING, APNIC Chief Scientist Geoff Huston and I discuss how the DNS behaves during a ‘cold start’, when a resolver’s cache contains no data from previous queries.

Worth Reading 082926

29 August 2026


 


The term “content delivery network” reflects the technology’s original value proposition.

 


Sam Altman released ChatGPT for free in late 2022. Many users fell in love both with it and Altman’s argument that artificial general intelligence could be achieved through scaling. T

 


If you work around data centers and high-density builds, you have probably heard the term “Multi-Core Fiber” thrown around.

 


Ask yourself these questions, assuming you have a serious medical condition and your doctors are going to be using GenAI to scan your images and test results to discover the breadth and depth of your condition and to recommend treatment.

 


Maybe adoption is low not because people don’t believe DNSSEC is useful, but because turning it on and keeping it on is still genuinely harder than it should be.

Hedge 317: AI Tools and Coding

28 August 2026


 
How effective are AI tools–even agentic AI tools placed into a system–at building and testing software? Derick Winkworth and Donald Sharp Join Russ to discuss various projects they’ve worked on using AI tools, lessons they’ve learned, and how developers can make effective use of AI.

Hedge 316: AI Governance

20 August 2026


 
Deploying AI for AI Ops, or even just for general use in your network, is very simple–but we often forget that these kinds of new technologies need to be governed. From privacy through cost, operators need to decide how to govern their AI deployments to control costs, ensure accuracy, measure productivity, and make certain these systems are being used effectively. Colin Cosgrove joins Russ and Tom to look at AI governance.

Worth Reading 081526

15 August 2026


 


I am not a security researcher, and I have never been to Georgia. Yet within a few hours, using AI tools and nothing but public records, I was able to reconstruct the order in which 1.5 million ballots were cast in Georgia’s May 2026 primary–98.9% of the in-person ballots.

 


In profession after profession, GenAI is beginning to perform many of the tasks that traditionally served as training grounds for newcomers.

 


What’s the manifestation of the fallacy in the current case? Thinking that a system that is great at a certain kind of math problem is great at all math, great at science or even quite possibly great at everything.

 


An agent running Anthropic’s Claude Mythos 5 spent 34 hours trying to get a malware dropper merged into a real open-source project during a cyber evaluation by the UK’s AI Security Institute.

 


This week, DuckDuckGo is filing an amicus brief in the appeal of a federal court decision that Google unlawfully maintained a monopoly in the general search market in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act.

Hedge Classics 17: Strong Opinions Loosely Held

14 August 2026


 
Strong opinions loosely held? This is probably not as good of an idea as it seems. Instead of producing confidence, it might produce overconfidence. Michael Natkin joins Tom and Russ to discuss the problems with this mantra.

Worth Reading 081026

10 August 2026


 


There is an interesting fight within the leadership of U.S. AI companies. It is between the supporters of open-source AI and those driven to oppose open-source AI.

 


A Chinese man accused by the communist authorities of having committed “economic crimes” figured that he could evade the long reach of the country’s police state by hiding out in plain view: in a stadium packed with 60,000 people listening to a pop concert.

 


The J2SW Prefix Advertisement Checker, my 3rd application in the network series, checks the exact prefix against live routing data and reports the origin ASN seen by RIPE RIS collectors.

 


A growing number of drivers are pushing back against increasingly tech-heavy vehicles, saying they prefer the simplicity of a

 


The IETF does not launch rockets, or design spacecraft, or even work on radio systems and spectrum assignment, but it has been engaged in the standardisation of communications protocols used to communicate with these spacecraft. Here’s a few topics that were presented at IETF 126.

Worth Reading 080826

8 August 2026


 


Would you work differently if you knew every keystroke was being saved, every website logged, every idle minute counted against you?

 


Everything I read about the AI industry leads me to think there will be an AI crash.

 


I designed this to help with different BGP communities and configuring them on your routers.

 


It’s commonly believed that when selecting between a number of routes for the same address prefix, a BGP speaker will select the route with the shortest AS Path.

 


There is an interesting fight within the leadership of U.S. AI companies. It is between the supporters of open-source AI and those driven to oppose open-source AI.

Hedge 315: Engineering Psychology

7 August 2026


 
We often talk about “human infrastructure” in network engineering–but what does this mean, and how do we help engineers “produce” while helping them to flourish as individuals? Catherine Hicks joins Tom and Russ to discuss the psychology of software engineering, and how the lessons learned apply to network engineering.
 
https://media.blubrry.com/hedge/media.blubrry.com/hedge/content.blubrry.com/hedge/hedge-315.mp3
 
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You can find Catherine’s new book on the psychology of software engineering here.
If you would like to follow Catherine’s writing in this area, including the impact of AI on work, you can find her blog here.
You can connect with Catherine on LinkedIn.