Decoded.ORG: Copywrite Anthony David Armstrong

1 October, 08:08 pm
Mood:
Music:

Well nothing much has been happening since the latest re-design, so as they say, no news is good news! To keep upto date on my day to day life (or month to month life based on the amount I update it) please check out the BLOG link below. If you have any questions or want to get in touch, leave me a message/comment and I’ll get back to you when I can!

Name: Anthony David Armstrong
Age: 23
PGP Key: MIT PGP Server

Education: BSc Cybernetics from The University Of Bradford
Current Status: Completing MSc Computing
Position: IT Role
Past Employment: Intel Corporation UK LTD (Internship)
Position: Technical Web Developer / Technical Project Manager

Having had a taste for the IT industry during my Placement year at Intel Corporation, I feel I have learned a great deal about working within teams to provide positive project outcomes. Working in a multitude of international teams on a daily basis to provide high cost deliverables has shown me the importance of communication, organisation and team work, while also allowing me to push my own skills to the limits in a supportive environment. I would like to further this experience and growth by pursuing a career based around IT solutions, technical project management and web development/design. My preferred job would allow me to deepen my existing skills and experience in the areas of technical project management where I am able to use my own skills to benefit the project. Having experience working with daily, weekly and monthly deadlines, I believe I can greatly enhance the working environment with my drive and enthusiasm and my keen interest in problem solving. I aim to increase my knowledge of digital electronic design, project management and enhance my existing skills in these areas.

Overall Design: Anthony David Armstrong
Preferred Resolution: 1280×1024 Full Screen*
Javascript Effects: mootools
Background Image: Jennae Design

The website is designed and maintained to allow me to air my views and thoughts on every day life and from time to time as a show piece to prospective employers. I will be adding information on my various university projects as well as my personal blog to keep those who care updated.
If you have any questions or concerns about the content of this website, please send me an email or leave a comment on my blog!

*some features will not show on lower resolutions

Concept Background
The project concept is based on current darknets, however the network infrastructure and supporting features were originally created for a very specific purpose. An open source project named OSSE (Open Source Space Engine) [9] required a network and server design which would allow a large number of clients persistent connection to an online virtual world without the need for a large server equipment. As the project is open source and is run by a number University Of Bradford graduates, it was felt that the community of users would be the best medium to run the world. The specific requirements are outlined below:

• Persistent World
• P2P Network Infrastructure
• Security
• Distributed Computing
• Cross Client Validation
• Limited Server Usage

The engine is being designed to allow a large virtual world to be created, maintained and run by the users inhabiting it. Each action taken within this virtual world must be validated against a set of pre-defined game rules before any client action is taken, and this validation must occur in real time. The proposed solution was to build a peer to peer darknet infrastructure which would sit below the game engine processing the network connections and client interactions. The diagram at the bottom of this section gives an overview of how the network infrastructure would perform the needed tasks and is explained in the passage below.

The three coloured areas of the diagram represent areas of virtual space, and each client© within virtual space is connected in a hive or grid like format (as shown in the blue section). Each area of virtual space is maintained by the clients occupying that space at the time, so any action that occurs within this area must first be validated between each member of the hive and then processed, at which point the resulting action will be passed back to the clients for actioning.

• Once a client performs an action within game, this action is sent to every client within the currently connected hive.
• Each client then validates this action against a protected (digital signature) rule set created by the game’s developers.
• If the action validates correctly, a passing response is sent to every client so the game may update. The leading client (F) sends this information back to a common web based database server for storage (indicated by the blue lines).
• If the action does not validate, then an approximate action response is sent to all clients as above. This approximate action is the likely outcome of the action attempted but does not breech any of the pre set validation rules.

Should a client move from one segment of virtual space to another, it is the hive leader’s responsibility to make sure each client node in the hive is aware as well as informing the tracking server and new hive of the situation. Every hive connection is managed by a tracking server which has a log of each user’s IP address, public encryption key, username, password and current location in virtual space. When a client is attempting an initial connection to the game, or is moving to a new hive the following actions take place.

• The client sends the tracking server a username and password
• The tracking server verifies this information, stores the IP address of the client at the time of connection and passes that information (along with the public encryption key) to the hive leader controlling the area of virtual space in which the client is attempting to join (indicated by the red lines).
• Each member of the hive is then given the IP address and public key of the connecting client and a connection is formed.

Each of these separate hives is connected via the flagged leader, allowing them to remain as secure as possible and still provide the needed computing, validation and cross cluster communication.

1 October, 08:15 pm
Mood: Happy (but tired)
Music: None (soon to be WOW theme music!)

So yeah! Bradford is no more, but despite me thinking that university was over, I have decided that I can’t get enough of the place and have gone back to studying.. I’ve just begun a Masters in Computing at the University of Gloucestershire which as far as I can tell will be a doddle to complete! Although I have yet to get into the rough of things yet.. Lets hope there is something interesting in the future!

Nothing much else is going on, life is pretty dull here, nothing really major to report!

The new place is really nice, no problems (other than the rent being horribly high!) and nothing going on that I could really comment on.. Wow.. how boring is my life?

Guess that’s all for now!