Hedge 302: Communications in Biological Systems

17 April 2026


 
What does biology have to do with computer networks? Much more than you might think. Communications systems, after all, need to solve the same problems–and they often use the same kinds of tools. In this episode of the Hedge, Emily Reeves and Joe Deweese join Russ and Tom to talk about a recent paper comparing computer communications to biological communications.

Worth Reading 041326

13 April 2026


 


Tech leaders hoping AI might help save money and improve efficiency in IT infrastructure should know that only 28 percent of use cases fully succeed and offer return on investment (ROI).

 


The best strategy in the world won’t succeed if a team falters operationally. But what is operational excellence, and what does it take to acquire it

 


Industry analysts are using the word convergence as shorthand for competition that bundles cell service with broadband. Convergence is the newest strategy that replaces the traditional bundling strategy of selling a package of broadband, cable TV, and voice.

 


Leaving aside my discovery that YouTube videos on the Naturalistic Fallacy are branded by female cleavage (???), we move on to the two problems embedded in statements I hear by articulation and by implication in the public discourse: “We must cultivate trust in AI,” and “AI acquiescence is inevitable.”

 


Most engineers don’t think about securing TCP itself. We rely on the applications riding on top of the network. When you run routing protocols or long-lived control sessions across untrusted or shared infrastructure, TCP becomes part of your attack surface whether you planned for it or not.

Best of the Hedge: Episode 30, Network Fundamentals

10 April 2026


 
What are networking fundamentals, and why are they important? Join us for this repost of a classic Hedge discussion with Ethan, Eyvonne, Tom, and Russ.

Worth Reading 040626

6 April 2026


 


Stanford researchers are warning that using AI chatbots for personal advice could backfire. The problem isn’t just accuracy, it’s how these systems respond when you’re dealing with complicated, real-world conflicts.

 


During the APNIC Routing Security Special Interest Group (SIG) session at APRICOT 2026 / APNIC 61, APNIC and LACNIC presented a case study of a Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) hijack that combined a technical attack with social engineering.

 


It is widely believed that all BGP routers within an Autonomous System (AS) must be connected in a full iBGP mesh, or, when this becomes impractical, that route reflectors or confederations must be used. However, a full mesh is not always necessary, and in some scenarios it may even be undesirable.

 


The skies are quickly filling with communications satellites. Following is a short list of the many ventures that have or will soon be launching large numbers of broadband satellites.

 


In early demos, the system looked impressive. It could summarize logs, explain configuration issues, and suggest possible fixes. Instead of digging through internal docs, the answers were coming back in seconds. For a while, it really felt like this system was going to work as expected.

Worth Reading 040426

4 April 2026

 


What appears as double extraction at the operator level becomes something larger and more serious at the level of the state. It becomes sovereignty inversion.

 


Major memory makers have already sold all the kit they can make this year, creating shortages and price increases.

 


It’s fading from our collective memory, but almost thirty years ago the global IT industry was gripped by Y2K fever.

 


What do you get when you combine Big Tech, a Bill Clinton fixer, Davos, the architect of the Hunter Biden laptop disinfo, and “Artificial Intelligence”? The biggest heist in world history.

 


Stop blaming the GPUs! Your AI feels slow because data is getting stuck in traffic. Fix the “supply chain” to keep those tokens flowing.

Hedge 301: SONiC

3 April 2026


 
What’s the deal with SONiC? Is it easy to build and use, or hard? Is it something you should be looking at? Jeff Doyle joins Russ and Tom to look at the SONiC operating system, ecosystem, and deployment.

Worth Reading 032826

28 March 2026


 


This document provides DNS deployment guidelines to secure the DNS protocol and infrastructure, mitigate misuse or misconfiguration, and provide an additional layer of network security as part of a zero trust and/or defense-in-depth security risk management approach.

 


However, eBPF has not seen similarly widespread adoption in other types of networked applications, such as web servers and databases. In this blog post, we argue that this gap stems from limitations in the current eBPF architecture — specifically, the kernel runtime, APIs, and compiler toolchain.

 


Time and again, I see people begging for companies with deep pockets to fund open source projects. I mean, after all, they’ve made billions from this code. You’d think they could support the code’s creators and maintainers. It would be only fair, right?

 


The weird, rare, surprising patterns that make data rich slowly get smoothed out when an AI model trains on outputs from a previous model.

 


In the previous note, the claim was not that the registry layer merely imposes visible fees or administrative inconvenience. The claim was more precise. The first extraction occurs when a scarce, transferable, revenue-enabling resource is kept institutionally discounted through non-asset rhetoric, conditional recognition, and friction around transfer and use

Hedge 300: Solving Injection Attacks

26 March 2026


 
It’s episode 300, and it’s roundtable time. In this episode, Tom, Eyvonne, and Russ talk about how systems can be designed to prevent injection attacks, and then the perennial unpleasantness of layoffs.

Worth Reading 032526

25 March 2026


 


For organizations in telecommunications, financial services, healthcare, and public infrastructure, the driver for running inference at the edge is not to reduce milliseconds. It is because the data cannot legally leave the building, the country, or the jurisdiction.

 


Internet number resources are not political property. They are operator-held assets embedded in functioning networks.

 


Just over half of U.S. teens say they have used chatbots for help with schoolwork, and 12% say they’ve gotten emotional support. More teens think AI will be positive for them than negative

 


You’ll use AI and like it too – if you work for PwC. Paul Griggs, US chief executive of the global professional services giant, has made clear there is no room at the corporation for AI skeptics.

 


For some time, I have been looking after a routing analysis report called the “CIDR Report”. Here I’d like to explain the reasons for this report, and what is in the report and share some thoughts as to its usefulness today to the Internet routing community.

Worth Reading 032326

23 March 2026


 


The ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer), a machine that profoundly reshaped computing, marked its 80th anniversary on 15 February 2026. ENIAC was a technological leap that laid the foundation for the modern computing revolution and eventually transformed nearly every aspect of society.

 


During the APNIC Routing Security SIG session, held at APRICOT 2026 in Jakarta, the community heard about six applications of Resource Public Key Infrastructure (RPKI) to the problem of secure Internet routing.

 


There is no doubt that automation offers benefits such as speed, accuracy, reliability, and efficiency, and goes far beyond simple configuration management tasks, including resource provisioning. However, it may not be a good fit for every infrastructure environment. One must evaluate and compare the pros and cons before adopting automation.

 


Meta’s Ray-Ban smart glasses are a privacy nightmare, with footage of naked people, sensitive information, and violent acts captured and seen by Meta’s AI and an army of employees.

 


MOSAIC ditches lasers for cheap MicroLEDs and medical imaging fiber, cuts cabling energy by up to 50%, and already fits in a standard transceiver after a proof-of-concept with MediaTek.