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### Edward Vielmetti

Edward Vielmetti has been working on the Internet since 1985 from Ann Arbor, Michigan. His background includes work on the early commercialization and privatization of the Internet. Previous conference presentations include "WYSSA means all my love, darling: A social history of the Internet from the carrier pigeon to Antarctic morse code" (UPA 2006) and "Perils and Pitfalls of Practical Cybercommerce" at (ARABANK 1996, Dubai, United Arab Emirates).

## Presenting

### Over the top networks, a history of building new systems on the wreckage of the old

New networks are often feed off of old ones, in ways that characteristically draw energy from aspects of those networks that are easy to take over and hard to defend. In this talk, I'll look at the waves of creative destruction that are unleashed when network developers find existing infrastructure that can be exploited for new ends, and the ways that commoditized networks fight back to avoid being turned into dumb pipes.

The talk will look at the history and the future of these overlay or over-the-top networks, going back three decades for stories of networks like Usenet, electronic mail, and payments networks and how they started out parasitizing existing older networks only be overtopped by other interests as file sharing, security, and identity layers of newer networks. I'll look at rules for developers of radical advances in networks and guidelines to avoid the pitfalls of unexpected dependencies and hidden traps.