An entry with a Bang! - A BT roundrobin II

[JonBerry]

Originally Posted by Peter2005

Or whether it is going to have to be a joint investigation with the Combine. It going to be seen quick that the sabotage either happened on their watch or soon afterwards.

This will also give the DC a firsthand view into the methods of the GDI/CSN. Logical, rational, evidentiary (is that even a word?), and very, very, VERY thourough(sp again).

[Magni]

Short request: Could anyone name the two pages with my last story segments? My PC just crapped out (I'm typing on my Laptop) and I don't really have the time atm to go searching for them. And they're not in the story thread yet, either.

[walkir]

http://forums.spacebattles.com/showp...ostcount=18415 & http://forums.spacebattles.com/showp...ostcount=17770

[Magni]

Thanks.

[evilauthor]

A partially written post. Will continue after lunch.

G6 Office, GDI ANTCOM Headquarters
Port Krin, Antallos
Periphery
12 May 2008/3023

“Okay, people, listen up,” Major Michelle Steinberg said to the small group of individuals in front of her. She was in charge of maintaining all of the Brigade’s internal and external communications equipment from the tactical radios to the computer networks used to pass digital paperwork every which way. The people in front of her from the lowliest Private to the civilian contractors helped her do that. “The most recent supply run from Earth brought us some new equipment to play with. Among them is this, the AN/F-0005BB-X wireless modem.”

Steinberg held up a plain looking, plastic box. There were the usual indicator lights, a CAT-5 port, a pair of terminals for hooking up twisted pair wire, and a pair of stumpy looking antenna. And of course, it was liberally swathed in red SECRET stickers. Only the power port looked off, being of much heavier duty construction than was typical for electronics equipment.

No one looked impressed. A few of her people even looked downright bored.

“What I am about to tell you people will not leave this room,” Steinberg went on. “It has been classified Top Secret with Need to Know Only, and outside this room, only a very few members of the command staff – and not even all of them – know. Are clear on this?”

“Yes, ma’am.” “Understood.” “Crystal!”

“Alright, this modem connects up to the standard servers. It is a half duplex, no ack transmitter/receiver using time slotted transmission windows to avoid data collisions between incoming and outgoing messages,” Steinberg began. “Its bandwidth is limited to only 14.4 kbps, meaning that messages will be limited to text only emails. And its transmission range is roughly,” Steinberg paused dramatically, “three hundred lightyears.”

That got her people’s complete, undivided attention.

[DakkaMania]

How big is the IS in the mining uninhabitated systems? Within 250 lightyears of Sol are 250,000 stars, although it will have changed with the new position. Would it then be possible to start producing jumpships with the mobile yards to create a limited Von Neumann industry?

[evilauthor]

Originally Posted by DakkaMania

How big is the IS in the mining uninhabitated systems? Within 250 lightyears of Sol are 250,000 stars, although it will have changed with the new position. Would it then be possible to start producing jumpships with the mobile yards to create a limited Von Neumann industry?

As near as I can tell, they don't mine uninhabitable worlds at all, barring a few exceptions like the Mica Majority.

[JonBerry]

Originally Posted by evilauthor

A partially written post. Will continue after lunch.

I thought we were hold off on giving CEarth the Black Box for a while? Less than 6 months from the BB recovered on Antallos to be shipped back to Earth, reverse engineered, and new ones being built and sent back to Antallos for testing? That seems pretty quick. to build an improved model.

[kingdragon]

Originally Posted by JonBerry

I thought we were hold off on giving CEarth the Black Box for a while? Less than 6 months from the BB recovered on Antallos to be shipped back to Earth, reverse engineered, and new ones being built and sent back to Antallos for testing? That seems pretty quick. to build an improved model.

Although if that was a thing they snuck in while everyone was looking at the armorless tanks, that might explain a bit.

[Warringer]

Make it two years and you got a deal.

And reduce it to K-1 level...

[evilauthor]

Originally Posted by JonBerry

I thought we were hold off on giving CEarth the Black Box for a while? Less than 6 months from the BB recovered on Antallos to be shipped back to Earth, reverse engineered, and new ones being built and sent back to Antallos for testing? That seems pretty quick. to build an improved model.

6 months? Hmm, I may have to adjust my dates a bit. How does an extra year sound?

[evilauthor]

Originally Posted by Warringer

Make it two years and you got a deal.

And reduce it to K-1 level...

It was supposed to be K-0 level...

What bit rate would be K-1 level? Did we ever get a consensus on that?

Also need a transit time for BB messages going to/from Earth from/to Antallos. Distance is about 240 light years.

[Warringer]

Based on the list Ed provided, the K-0 model got a range of 100ly, the K-1 200ly and the K-1A 450ly.

http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo...eat=directlink

[walkir]

Originally Posted by evilauthor

A partially written post. Will continue after lunch.

Not bad, but it's a RJ45-port if you want to be technical. You can of course call it an Ethernet port, too.

[Warringer]

And the twisted pair terminals are generally RS232 serial ports. Through these days they are mostly replaced by USB outside if industrial appliances.

[vIsitor]

The part about it being "liberally swathed in red SECRET stickers" was a nice touch. I wonder who in the Intel Department was the funny guy?

And what does "no ack" mean?

[walkir]

I just looked it up, RJ45 is commonly used, but wrong. Just call it an Ethernet port, no one cares anyway.

Edit: an ACK is a data package that says the sent package has reached his destination. TCP(/IP) uses this mechanism.

[evilauthor]

Originally Posted by Warringer

Based on the list Ed provided, the K-0 model got a range of 100ly, the K-1 200ly and the K-1A 450ly.

http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo...eat=directlink

Oh good God! At 10 ly/day, it'll take a month for a transmission to reach Earth. The command circuit's faster than that!

Okay, looking at the chart, it looks like the K1 is the absolute minimum performance necessary before a BB is ever put on Antallos, and that still needs a repeater somewhere en route. Transmission speed to cover 240 ly is just under 10 days, so it would faster for the sender only if the command circuit is still charging to jump in the sender's direction.

And as always, the bandwidth capacity of each one is absolutely meaningless. 2 pages in what time period? What kind of data is being transmitted, text or picture? If picture, what resolution?

Frankly, I'm thinking 14.4 kbps might be overly pessimistic.

Anyway...

G6 Office, GDI ANTCOM Headquarters
Port Krin, Antallos
Periphery
12 May 2010/3025

“Okay, people, listen up,” Major Michelle Steinberg said to the small group of individuals in front of her. She was in charge of maintaining all of the Brigade’s internal and external communications equipment from the tactical radios to the computer networks used to pass digital paperwork every which way. The people in front of her from the lowliest Private to the civilian contractors helped her do that. “The most recent supply run from Earth brought us some new equipment to play with. Among them is this, the AN/F-0005BB-X wireless modem.”

Steinberg held up a plain looking, plastic box. There were the usual indicator lights, a CAT-5 port, a pair of terminals for hooking up twisted pair wire, and a pair of stumpy looking antenna. And of course, it was liberally swathed in red SECRET stickers. Only the power port looked off, being of much heavier duty construction than was typical for electronics equipment.

No one looked impressed. A few of her people even looked downright bored.

“What I am about to tell you people will not leave this room,” Steinberg went on. “It has been classified Top Secret with Need to Know Only, and outside this room, only a very few members of the command staff – and not even all of them – know. Are clear on this?”

“Yes, ma’am.” “Understood.” “Crystal!”

“Alright, the BB-X modem connects up to the standard servers. It is a half duplex, no ack transmitter/receiver using time slotted transmission windows to avoid data collisions between incoming and outgoing messages,” Steinberg began. “Its bandwidth is limited to only 14.4 kbps, meaning that messages will be limited to text only emails. And its transmission range is roughly,” Steinberg paused dramatically, “three hundred lightyears.”

That got her people’s complete, undivided attention.

“I know what you’re thinking,” Steinberg went on. “Yes, the BB-X is based on what the Sourcebooks call a ‘black box’. It can transmit and receive a faster than light signal that is completely undetectable outside of anyone else having similar equipment. If the Sourcebooks are right, it’s possible the Federated Suns and Lyran Commonwealth have this technology too, which means they might be able to pick up on us using it if they have their own black box. By the same token, our intel people are going to see if they can use our modem to eavesdrop on the FedSuns.

“In any case, if the Secret stickers weren’t enough to give you the clue, all outgoing transmissions via the BB-X will be limited to official command-level message traffic automatically encrypted using standard protocols. Also, if anyone without Need To Know ever steps into the server room, the BB-X is just another example of high tech out of many here with nothing special about it. Got it, people? Any questions? Yes, Delgado?”

“Why isn’t the BB-X black?”

[walkir]

I just hope it isn't as screamingly orange as an airplane black box.

Cat-5 is a type of cable.

[evilauthor]

Originally Posted by Warringer

And the twisted pair terminals are generally RS232 serial ports. Through these days they are mostly replaced by USB outside if industrial appliances.

Military comm equipment still includes terminals for phone wire... because sometimes all you have to create a connection is a roll of phone wire and no phone connectors. You basically strip the wire to bare the copper and stick the copper into the terminals.

Originally Posted by walkir

I just looked it up, RJ45 is commonly used, but wrong. Just call it an Ethernet port, no one cares anyway.

I wanted to avoid too many technical terms, but this'll work too.

Edit: an ACK is a data package that says the sent package has reached his destination. TCP(/IP) uses this mechanism.

It's also thoroughly useless if it takes the receiver hours or even days (weeks?!) to receive the transmission. No way is the sending equipment going to hold the message in buffer for that long in case the receiver needs a retransmit.

[evilauthor]

Originally Posted by walkir

I just hope it isn't as screamingly orange as an airplane black box.

White plastic box. Covered in red Secret stickers. It's basically designed to blend in with all the other electronic crap you find in a server room. And trust me, standard equipment in a military server room often uses "off the shelf" civilian equipment and could get quite eclectic looking even BEFORE you run cabling everywhere.

Cat-5 is a type of cable.

Yep. Cat-5 is the minimum used for wired LANs. Cat-3 is phone line, but is usually called something else, "twisted pair" for example.

[walkir]

Originally Posted by evilauthor

It's also thoroughly useless if it takes the receiver hours or even days (weeks?!) to receive the transmission. No way is the sending equipment going to hold the message in buffer for that long in case the receiver needs a retransmit.

IRL "store and forward" is exactly what's planned. In our case, good old UDP might do the job.

[walkir]

Originally Posted by evilauthor

It's basically designed to blend in with all the other electronic crap you find in a server room. And trust me, standard equipment in a military server room often uses "off the shelf" civilian equipment and could get quite eclectic looking even BEFORE you run cabling everywhere.

Spies don't even know where to start looking. Sometimes I'm still confused and I worked in a data center since 2006. (If mostly after someone installed the AIX/Oracle/SAP on it and without touching the actual hardware)

[Warringer]

So, considering that the K-0 weights about 10kg, why not put it into a 2U 19" rack case?

That way it can seamlessly integrated into a bog standard 19" rack with all the other equipment and would not be out of place at all.

[walkir]

Originally Posted by Warringer

So, considering that the K-0 weights about 10kg, why not put it into a 2U 19" rack case?

That way it can seamlessly integrated into a bog standard 19" rack with all the other equipment and would not be out of place at all.

Put it between two blade centers and a few heatsink units and no one will notice it, yes....