Journal articles on the topic 'TCP/IP (Computer network protocol) Computer network protocols. Computer algorithms'

This paper presents a protocol to support hard real-time traffic of end-to-end communication over non real-time LAN technology. The network is set up with nodes and switches, and real-time communication is handled by software (protocol) added between the Ethernet protocols and the TCP/IP suite. The proposed protocol establishes a virtual circuit based on admission control and manages hard real-time traffic to bypass the TCP/IP stack. This makes considerably reduce the dwell time in the nodes, and increase the achievable data frame rate. After the bypassing, traffic schedule is performed according to dynamic-priority EDF algorithm. The work does not need any modifications in the Ethernet hardware and coexists with TCP/IP suites, and then the LAN with the protocol can be connected to any existing Ethernet networks. It can be adopted in industrial hard real-time applications such as embedded systems, distributed control systems, parallel signal processing and robotics. We have performed some experiments to evaluate the protocol. Compared to some conventional hard real-time network protocols, the proposed one has better real-time performances and meets the requirements of reliability for hard real-time systems.

<p class="Abstract">To accomplish increasing real time requirements, user applications have to send different kinds of data with different speeds over the internet. To effectuate the aims of the computer networks, several protocols have been added to TCP/IP protocol suite. Transport layer has to implement emerging techniques to transfer huge amount of data like multimedia streaming. To transmit multimedia applications, one of the suitable congestion control mechanisms in transport layer is TCP Friendly Rate Control Protocol (TFRC). It controls congestion based on its equation. To get more smoothed throughput, intermediate nodes (like Routers. etc.) have to use suitable procedures in all real time situations. To eradicate the level of congestion in the network, we introduce enhanced Holt-Winters equations to RED queue management algorithm and applied to TFRC. The simulation results have shown that this strategy reduces packet loss and increases throughput.</p>

Routing in the newer generation of network transmission methods may be performed at various levels of the IP stack such as datagram, TCP stream, and application levels. It is important in the use of these methods to compute the routes that minimize the end-to-end delays for the specific routing mechanism. We formulate an abstract network path computation problem, the dynamic quickest path problem, to encompass a number of message forwarding mechanisms including circuit switching, Internet Protocol, and their variations. This problem deals with the transmission of a message from a source to a destination with the minimum end-to-end delay over a network with propagation delays and dynamic bandwidth constraints on the links. The available bandwidth for each link is specified as a piecewise constant function. We present for each message forwarding mechanism or mode an algorithm to compute a path with the minimum end-to-end delay for a given message size. Our algorithms with suitable network restrictions have polynomial time complexity in the size of the network and total number of segments in the bandwidth list.

Multihomed smart gas meters are Internet of Things (IoT) devices that transmit information wirelessly to a cloud or remote database via multiple network paths. The information is utilized by the smart gas grid for accurate load forecasting and several other important tasks. With the rapid growth in such smart IoT networks and data rates, reliable transport layer protocols with efficient congestion control algorithms are required. The small Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) stacks designed for IoT devices still lack efficient congestion control schemes. Multipath transmission control protocol (MPTCP) based congestion control algorithms are among the recent research topics. Many coupled and uncoupled congestion control algorithms have been proposed by researchers. The default congestion control algorithm for MPTCP is coupled congestion control by using the linked-increases algorithm (LIA). In battery powered smart meters, packet retransmissions consume extra power and low goodput results in poor system performance. In this study, we propose a modified Fast-Vegas-LIA hybrid congestion control algorithm (MFVL HCCA) for MPTCP by considering the requirements of a smart gas grid. Our novel algorithm operates in uncoupled congestion control mode as long as there is no shared bottleneck and switches to coupled congestion control mode otherwise. We have presented the details of our proposed model and compared the simulation results with the default coupled congestion control for MPTCP. Our proposed algorithm in uncoupled mode shows a decrease in packet loss up to 50% and increase in average goodput up to 30%.

The objective of the paper is to develop new block matching Motion Estimation (ME) algorithm using hybrid search patterns along the direction of best match. The search efficiency for sequences with fast motions and high resolutions is improved by proposing New Cross Diagonal-Hexagon Search (NCDHS) algorithm which involves a novel multi half-hexagon grid global search pattern and a cross diagonal-hexagon local search pattern. The new search pattern enables the proposed algorithm to perform better search using 9.068 search points on an average, to obtain optimal motion vector with slight improvement in quality. This inturn reduces ME Time upto 50.11%, 47.12%, 32.99% and 43.28% on average when compared to the existing Diamond Search (DS), Hexagon Search (HS), New Cross Hexagon Search (NHEXS) and Enhanced Diamond Search (EDS) algorithms respectively. The novelty of the algorithm is further achieved by applying the algorithm proposed for live streaming application. The NCDHS algorithm is run on two MATLAB sessions on the same computer by establishing the connection using Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) /Internet Protocol (IP) network. The ME Time obtained is 14.5986 seconds for a block size 16x16, is less when compared to existing algorithms and that makes the NCDHS algorithm suitable for real time streaming application.

The rapid evolution of computer networks, increase in the number of Internet users, and popularity of multimedia applications have exacerbated the congestion control problem. Congestion control is a key factor in ensuring network stability and robustness. When the underlying network and flow information are unknown, the transmission control protocol (TCP) must increase or reduce the size of the congestion window to adjust to the changes of traffic in the Internet Protocol (IP) network. However, it is possible that a software-defined approach can relieve the network congestion problem more efficiently. This approach has the characteristic of centralized control and can obtain a global topology for unified network management. In this paper, we propose a software-defined congestion control (SDCC) algorithm for an IP network. We consider the difference between TCP and the user datagram protocol (UDP) and propose a new method to judge node congestion. We initially apply the congestion control mechanism in the congested nodes and then optimize the link utilization to control network congestion.

This paper presents a functional generator controlled by Internet. We describe a computer-system architecture, a block diagram of generator and working algorithms. The remote control is realized by computer networks and using the TCP/IP protocols. For that purpose is used "Customer-Server" architecture. The software algorithms is based on Linux operating system Apache web server, MySql database, HTML and PHP languages.

AbstractThe bridge protocol (Address Resolution Protocol) ARP, integrating Ethernet (Layer 2) and IP protocol (Layer 3) plays a vital role in TCP/IP communication since ARP packet is the first packet generated during any TCP/IP communications and they are the first traffic from the host. In the large data center, as the size of the broadcast domain (i.e., number of hosts on the network) increases consequently the broadcast traffic from the communication protocols like ARP also increases. This paper addresses the problem faced by Layer 2 protocols like insecured communication, scalability issues and VM migration issues. The proposed system addresses these issues by introducing two new types of messaging with traditional ARP and also combat the ARP Cache poisoning attacks like host impersonation, MITM, Distributed DoS by making ARP stateful. The components of the proposed methodology first start the process by decoding the packets, updates the invalid entry made by the user with Timestamp feature and messages being introduced. The system has been implemented and compared with various existing solutions.

Information-Centric Networking (ICN) has recently emerged as a prominent candidate for the Future Internet Architecture (FIA) that addresses existing issues with the host-centric communication model of the current TCP/IP-based Internet. Named Data Networking (NDN) is one of the most recent and active ICN architectures that provides a clean-slate approach for Internet communication. NDN provides intrinsic content security where security is directly provided to the content instead of communication channel. Among other security aspects, Access Control (AC) rules specify the privileges for the entities that can access the content. In TCP/IP-based AC systems, due to the client-server communication model, the servers control which client can access a particular content. In contrast, ICN-based networks use content names to drive communication and decouple the content from its original location. This phenomenon leads to the loss of control over the content, causing different challenges for the realization of efficient AC mechanisms. To date, considerable efforts have been made to develop various AC mechanisms in NDN. In this article, we provide a detailed and comprehensive survey of the AC mechanisms in NDN. We follow a holistic approach towards AC in NDN where we first summarize the ICN paradigm, describe the changes from channel-based security to content-based security, and highlight different cryptographic algorithms and security protocols in NDN. We then classify the existing AC mechanisms into two main categories: Encryption-based AC and Encryption-independent AC . Each category has different classes based on the working principle of AC (e.g., Attribute-based AC, Name-based AC, Identity-based AC). Finally, we present the lessons learned from the existing AC mechanisms and identify the challenges of NDN-based AC at large, highlighting future research directions for the community.

What is now called the Internet started out as a small number of federally funded Department of Defense (Advanced Research Project Agency, or ARPA) supercomputers networked together to share information. In order to guarantee data transmission between these nodes, this network (ARPANET) shared a common set of protocols that was designed to allow for high speed and reliable transfer. This protocol suite is TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol). Most microcomputers now have a TCP/IP implementation available (e.g., MacTCP) and can, therefore, join the millions of computers that have access to the plethora of resources on the Internet. The Internet is not a static set of nodes, not a limited number of library holdings, not a one-directional paradigm of data transmission. Rather, it is a vibrant and absorbing setting that can foster new learning environments, or enrage educators with its diverse commands, lack of direction, and tenuous consistency.

The usage of wireless sensors has become widespread for the collection of data for various Internet of Things (IoT) products. Specific wireless sensors use optical fiber technology as transmission media and lightwave signals as carriers, showing the advantages of antielectromagnetic interference, high sensitivity, and strong reliability. Hence, their application in IoT systems becomes a research hotspot. In this article, multiple optical fiber sensors are constructed as an IoT detection system, and a Transmission Control Protocol (TCP)/Internet Protocol (IP) communication stack is used for the sensor module. Furthermore, design of gateway module, data server, and monitoring module is established in order to run the data server in the Windows system and communicate across the network segments. Furthermore, the optical fiber sensor is connected to the development board with WiFi, meanwhile considering the optical fiber wireless network’s congestion problem. The fuzzy logic concept is introduced from the perspective of cache occupancy, and a fiber sensor’s network congestion control algorithm is proposed. In the experiment, the IoT detection system with multiple optical fiber sensors is used for water level detection, and the sensor’s real-time data detected by the User Interface (UI) are consistent with the feedback results. The proposed method is also compared with the SenTCP algorithm and the CODA algorithm, and it was observed that the proposed network congestion control algorithm based on the fuzzy logic can improve network throughput and reduce the network data packet loss.

As one of the candidates for future network architecture, Information-Centric Networking (ICN) has revolutionized the manner of content retrieval by transforming the communication mode from host-centric to information-centric. Unlike a traditional TCP/IP network, ICN uses a location-independent name to identify content and takes a receiver-driven model to retrieve the content. Moreover, ICN routers not only perform a forwarding function but also act as content providers due to pervasive in-network caching. The network traffic is more complicated and routers are more prone to congestion. These distinguished characteristics pose new challenges to ICN transmission control mechanism. In this paper, we propose an effective transmission scheme by combining the receiver-driven transport protocol and the router-driven congestion detection mechanism. We first outline the process of content retrieval and transmission in an IP-compatible ICN architecture and propose a practical receiver-driven transport protocol. Then, we present an early congestion detection mechanism applied on ICN routers based on an improved Active Queue Management (AQM) algorithm and design a receiver-driven congestion control algorithm. Finally, experiment results show that the proposed transmission scheme can maintain high bandwidth utilization and significantly reduce transmission delay and packet loss rate.

In this paper, development and implementation are presented of a client software package for remote process control. The proposed software is based on a client-server model under an Intranet architecture. The architecture is proposed for a telecontrol system of a real process, which includes the possibility of integrating I/O devices with data networks based on open protocols such as TCP/IP. This protocol allows the implementation of control systems using a low-cost alternative. Also, the Smith predictor is revised for remote control applications over an Ethernet network. Some experiences on a laboratory pasteurization plant are addressed to show both developed controllers and architecture performance.

In recent times, secure communication protocols over web such as HTTPS (Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure) are being widely used instead of plain web communication protocols like HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol). HTTPS provides end-to-end encryption between the user and service. Nowadays, organizations use network firewalls and/or intrusion detection and prevention systems (IDPS) to analyze the network traffic to detect and protect against attacks and vulnerabilities. Depending on the size of organization, these devices may differ in their capabilities. Simple network intrusion detection system (NIDS) and firewalls generally have no feature to inspect HTTPS or encrypted traffic, so they rely on unencrypted traffic to manage the encrypted payload of the network. Recent and powerful next-generation firewalls have Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) inspection feature which are expensive and may not be suitable for every organizations. A virtual private network (VPN) is a service which hides real traffic by creating SSL-protected channel between the user and server. Every Internet activity is then performed under the established SSL tunnel. The user inside the network with malicious intent or to hide his activity from the network security administration of the organization may use VPN services. Any VPN service may be used by users to bypass the filters or signatures applied on network security devices. These services may be the source of new virus or worm injected inside the network or a gateway to facilitate information leakage. In this paper, we have proposed a novel approach to detect VPN activity inside the network. The proposed system analyzes the communication between user and the server to analyze and extract features from network, transport, and application layer which are not encrypted and classify the incoming traffic as malicious, i.e., VPN traffic or standard traffic. Network traffic is analyzed and classified using DNS (Domain Name System) packets and HTTPS- (Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure-) based traffic. Once traffic is classified, the connection based on the server’s IP, TCP port connected, domain name, and server name inside the HTTPS connection is analyzed. This helps in verifying legitimate connection and flags the VPN-based traffic. We worked on top five freely available VPN services and analyzed their traffic patterns; the results show successful detection of the VPN activity performed by the user. We analyzed the activity of five users, using some sort of VPN service in their Internet activity, inside the network. Out of total 729 connections made by different users, 329 connections were classified as legitimate activity, marking 400 remaining connections as VPN-based connections. The proposed system is lightweight enough to keep minimal overhead, both in network and resource utilization and requires no specialized hardware.

Industry 4.0 focuses on continuous interconnection services, allowing for the continuous and uninterrupted exchange of signals or information between related parties. The application of messaging protocols for transferring data to remote locations must meet specific specifications such as asynchronous communication, compact messaging, operating in conditions of unstable connection of the transmission line of data, limited network bandwidth operation, support multilevel Quality of Service (QoS), and easy integration of new devices. The Message Queue Telemetry Transport (MQTT) protocol is used in software applications that require asynchronous communication. It is a light and simplified protocol based on publish-subscribe messaging and is placed functionally over the TCP/IP protocol. It is designed to minimize the required communication bandwidth and system requirements increasing reliability and probability of successful message transmission, making it ideal for use in Machine-to-Machine (M2M) communication or networks where bandwidth is limited, delays are long, coverage is not reliable, and energy consumption should be as low as possible. Despite the fact that the advantage that MQTT offers its way of operating does not provide a serious level of security in how to achieve its interconnection, as it does not require protocol dependence on one intermediate third entity, the interface is dependent on each application. This paper presents an innovative real-time anomaly detection system to detect MQTT-based attacks in cyber-physical systems. This is an online-semisupervised learning neural system based on a small number of sampled patterns that identify crowd anomalies in the MQTT protocol related to specialized attacks to undermine cyber-physical systems.

Pervasive technology is an important feature in smart home appliances control. With pervasive technology, the user is able to discover and control every device and each service without initialization configuration and setup. Since single-board computer often used in smart home appliances, combining pervasive technology and microcomputer/single-board computer will be important to be applied and make a possibility to create a smart home system based on the requirement of it users that will be beneficial for the smart home users and the developers. This paper proposed a design of pervasive discovery, service, and control system for smart home appliances by integrating Raspberry Pi, UPnP protocols, and Xbee that able to control an RGB LED services such as switching, dimming, change color and read a temperature sensor as an example in smart home appliances. This paper enriched the raspberry Pi GPIO function to be able to control via TCP/IP network with UPnP protocol and receive information from a temperature sensor node via Xbee communication. Service control time is measured with UPnP round trip time by subtracting HTTP response arrival with HTTP request time. GPIO processing time measured at the application level by counting a timer that starts before GPIO process and ended after GPIO successfully executed.

Intrusion Detection Systems are important for protecting network and its resources from illegal penetration. For 802.11network, the features used for training and testing the intrusion detection systems consist of basic information related to the TCP/IP header, with no considerable attention to the features associated with lower level protocol frames. The resulting detectors were efficient and accurate in detecting network attacks at the network and transport layers, but unfortunately, not capable of detecting 802.11-specific attacks such as de authentication attacks or MAC layer DoS attack. IDS systems can also identify and alert to the presence of unauthorized MAC addresses on the networks. The IDS is based a novel hybrid model that efficiently selects the optimal set of features in order to detect 802.11-specific intrusions. This model for feature selection uses the information gain ratio measure as a means to compute the relevance of each feature and the k-means classifier to select the optimal set of MAC layer features that can improve the accuracy of intrusion detection systems while reducing the learning time of their learning algorithm.

Nowadays, many people will be used internet that for their work, communication, education, economic and organization necessary that is used today. Network address translation (NAT) is a method of remapping an IP address space into another by modifying network address information in the IP header of packets while they are in transit across a traffic routing device. A network is a system of hardware and software, put together for the purpose of communication and resource sharing. A network includes transmission hardware devise to interconnect transmission media and to control transmissions and software to decode and format data. The Internet protocol suite is the computer networking model and set of communications protocols used on the Internet and similar computer networks. Knowledge on how the internet is able to communicate with internet users is a mystery to some people. Internet communication need to be TCP/IP protocol which means that TCP is Transmission Control Protocol, or what is sometimes simply used to refer to Internet Protocol, is the basic unit for communication on the internet. This can also be applied to private internet, like Ethernet and so on. Despite TCP and IP being used interchangeably, there is a slight difference between the two in relation to the roles they play IP is directly responsible for obtaining internet addresses and then it is the work of TCP to deliver the data obtained to the addresses achieved by IP. TCP/IP provides end-to-end connectivity specifying how data should be packetized, addressed, transmitted, routed and received at the destination. This paper aim is described operation and models of TCP-IP suite in data communication network.

In our present technological age, most manual and semi-automated tasks are being automated for efficient productivity or convenience. In particular, industrial sites are rapidly being automated to increase productivity and improve work efficiency. However, while networks are increasingly deployed as an integral part of the automation of industrial processes, there are also many resultant dangers such as security threats, malfunctions, and interruption of industrial processes. In particular, while the security of business networks is reinforced and their information is not easily accessible, intruders are now targeting industrial networks whose security is relatively poor, wherein attacks could directly lead to physical damage. Therefore, numerous studies have been conducted to counter security threats through network traffic monitoring, and to minimize physical loss through the detection of malfunctions. In the case of industrial processes, such as in nuclear facilities and petroleum facilities, thorough monitoring is required as security issues can lead to significant danger to humans and damage to property. Most network traffic in industrial facilities uses proprietary protocols for efficient data transmission, and these protocols are kept confidential because of intellectual property and security reasons. Protocol reverse engineering is a preparatory step to monitor network traffic and achieve more accurate traffic analysis. The field extraction method proposed in this study is a method for identifying the structure of proprietary protocols used in industrial sites. From the extracted fields, the structure of commands and protocols used in the industrial environment can be derived. To evaluate the feasibility of the proposed concept, an experiment was conducted using the Modbus/TCP protocol and Ethernet/IP protocol used in actual industrial sites, and an additional experiment was conducted to examine the results of the analysis of conventional protocols using the file transfer protocol.

<p align="center"><strong><em>Abstract <br /></em></strong></p><p><em>Computer vision is an image processing by a computer to obtain information from image captured through the camera generally used in real-time application. This paper reports on the results of research conducted on computer vision system designed to be able to recognize the image number (0-9) and mathematical operators (addition (+) and subtraction (-)) in a card number figures. Computer vision system designed in this study consists of a camera on the android phone that used to captured images on the card number and the computer that has artificial neural network perceptron algorithm in identifiying images. Both components of the computer vision system are connected wirelessly through the TCP/IP Protocol. At the training stage of Perceptron ANN, 10 samples for each number and mathematical operators are used. Computer vision system built in this study also have several image processing techniques such as greyscalling, thresholding, cropping and resizing. This techniques is used to filter the information from the images captured by camera in order to get the adequate and smaller image to be processed by ANN Perceptron. Stages of testing performed three times. First testing is given picture numbers 0-3, second testing is given picture number 4-7 and third testing is given number 8-9, addition symbol and subtraction symbol. Based on testing result, system built are able to recognize 10 from 12 image rendered with a success rate of 83.33%.</em></p><p><strong><em>Keywords</em></strong><em> : Computer vision, perceptron, card number</em></p><p><em> </em></p><p align="center"><strong><em>Abstrak <br /></em></strong></p><p><em>Computer vision merupakan proses pengolahan citra oleh computer untuk mendapatkan informasi dari citra yang ditangkap melalui kamera yang umumnya digunakan pada aplikasi waktu nyata. Tulisan ini melaporkan tentang hasil penelitian yang dilakukan tentang sistem computer vision yang dirancang untuk dapat mengenali gambar angka (0-9) dan operator matematika(penjumlahan (+) dan pengurangan (-)) pada permainan kartu angka. Sistem computer vision yang dirancang pada penelitian ini terdiri dari kamera pada ponsel android yang digunakan untuk menangkap gambar pada kartu angka dan komputer yang memiliki algoritama Jaringan Syaraf Tiruan Perceptron dalam melakukan identifikasi gambar. Kedua komponen sistem computer vision tersebut dihubungkan memlaui jaringan wireless melalui protocol TCP/IP. Pada tahapan pelatihan JST perceptron, digunakan 10 sample citra untuk masing – masing angka dan operator matematika yang akan dikenali oleh sistem. Pada penelitian ini juga dilakukan tahapan pemrosesan citra sebelum diolah oleh JST Perceptron baik dalam tahapan pelatihan maupun pada saat sistem dijalankan. Tahapan pengolahan citra yang digunakan pada penelitian ini adalah greyscalling, thresholding, cropping dan resizing. Hal ini dilakukan untuk menyaring informasi pada citra yang ditangkap oleh kamera agar didapatkan citra yang berukuran kecil dengan informasi yang lengkap untuk diproses oleh JST Perceptron. Pada saat sistem diuji coba, diberikan 4 deret kartu angka di depan kamera. Pada pengujian pertama diberikan gambar angka 0-3, pengujian kedua diberikan gambar angka 4-7 dan pada pengujian ketiga diberikan angka 8-9 serta gambar operator penjumlahan dan pengurangan. Berdasarkan pengujian yang dilakukan, sistem computer vision yang dirancang mampu mengenali 10dari 12 gambar yang diberikan dengan tingkat keberhasilan sebesar 83.33%.</em></p><p><strong><em>Kata Kunci </em></strong><em>: computer vision, perceptron, kartu angka</em></p>

Background: The smart grid communication network is constructed with three tiers namely, Home Area Networks (HANs), Neighborhood Area Networks (NANs) and Wide Area Networks (WANs). These networks function with various communication protocols like table protocol, on-demand protocol, Wi-Fi, Zigbee, Z-Wave, Wi-MAX, GSM, LTE, Cognitive Radio Networks. The network interconnection is heterogonous and all appliances have to communicate through the IP gateways. A large amount of data is collected from various sensors placed in different locations. The analytics on large data- “big data” is essential because these data were used to organize and plan an efficient control and management of the smart home including secured data exchange in different sectors. Objective: This paper investigates broadly on data rate, channel bandwidth, power consumption, and a coverage range of both wired and wireless communication technologies used in residential buildings. Besides, a literature survey on optimization algorithms with various constraints to manage home appliances through scheduling is included. The paper also discusses the communication standards along with security and privacy requirements for smart metering networks. Conclusion: Discussion on IEEE standards for both wired and wireless communication protocols. Gives direction to identify the suitable communication technique through mathematical model for computing the communication channel bandwidth. Comparison of various optimization algorithms with multiple constraints in HEMS to achieve the minimum electricity cost and user comfort (with and without Renewable Energy Sources). From the investigation on both wired and wireless networks, the wireless communication networks (Zig-Bee & Wi-Fi) are mostly preferred to use in HAN because of more reliability and low cost. Zigbee is the most appropriate technology used for data transmission between the individual appliances and smart meters. Wi-Fi is a suitable technology for controlling and monitoring appliances because of its high data rate.

Background:: Domain Name System (DNS) is considered the phone book of the Internet. Its main goal is to translate a domain name to an IP address that the computer can understand. However, DNS can be vulnerable to various kinds of attacks, such as DNS poisoning attacks and DNS tunneling attacks. Objective:: The main objective of this paper is to allow researchers to identify DNS tunnel traffic using machine-learning algorithms. Training machine-learning algorithms to detect DNS tunnel traffic and determine which protocol was used will help the community to speed up the process of detecting such attacks. Method:: In this paper, we consider the DNS tunneling attack. In addition, we discuss how attackers can exploit this protocol to infiltrate data breaches from the network. The attack starts by encoding data inside the DNS queries to the outside of the network. The malicious DNS server will receive the small chunk of data decoding the payload and put it together at the server. The main concern is that the DNS is a fundamental service that is not usually blocked by a firewall and receives less attention from systems administrators due to a vast amount of traffic. Results:: This paper investigates how this type of attack happens using the DNS tunneling tool by setting up an environment consisting of compromised DNS servers and compromised hosts with the Iodine tool installed in both machines. The generated dataset contains the traffic of HTTP, HTTPS, SSH, SFTP, and POP3 protocols over the DNS. No features were removed from the dataset so that researchers could utilize all features in the dataset. Conclusion:: DNS tunneling remains a critical attack that needs more attention to address. DNS tunneled environment allows us to understand how such an attack happens. We built the appropriate dataset by simulating various attack scenarios using different protocols. The created dataset contains PCAP, JSON, and CSV files to allow researchers to use different methods to detect tunnel traffic.

A rhetoric of freedom characterises much of the literature dealing with online communities: freedom from fixed identity and appearance, from the confines of geographic space, and from control. The prevailing view, a combination of futurism and utopianism, is that the lack of order in cyberspace enables the creation of social spaces that will enhance personal freedom and advance the common good. Sherry Turkle argues that computer-mediated communication allows us to create a new form of community, in which identity is multiple and fluid (15-17). Marcos Novak celebrates the possibilities of a dematerialized, ethereal virtual architecture in which the relationships between abstract elements are in a constant state of flux (250). John Perry Barlow employs the frontier metaphor to frame cyberspace as an unmapped, ungoverned territory in which a romantic and a peculiarly American form of individualism can be enjoyed by rough and ready pioneers (“Crime” 460). In his 1993 account as an active participant in The WELL (Whole Earth ‘Lectronic Link), one of the earliest efforts to construct a social space online, Howard Rheingold celebrates the freedom to create a “new kind of culture” and an “authentic community” in the “electronic frontier.” He worries, however, that the freedom enjoyed by early homesteaders may be short lived, because “big power and big money” might soon find ways to control the Internet, just as they have come to dominate and direct other communications media. “The Net,” he states, “is still out of control in fundamental ways, but it might not stay that way for long” (Virtual Community 2-5). The uses of order and disorder Some theorists have identified disorder as a necessary condition for the development of healthy communities. In The Uses of Disorder (1970), Richard Sennett argues that “the freedom to accept and to live with disorder” is integral to our search for community (xviii). In his 1989 study of social space, Ray Oldenburg maintains that public hangouts, which constitute the heart of vibrant communities, support sociability best when activities are unplanned, unorganized, and unrestricted (33). He claims that without the constraints of preplanned control we will be more in control of ourselves and more aware of one another (198). More recently, Charles Landry suggests that “structured instability” and “controlled disruption,” resulting from competition, conflict, crisis, and debate, make cities less comfortable but more exciting. Further, he argues that “endemic structural disorder” requiring ongoing adjustments can generate healthy creative activity and stimulate continual innovation (156-58). Kevin Robins, too, believes that any viable social system must be prepared to accept a level of uncertainty, disorder, and fear. He observes, however, that techno-communities are “driven by the compulsion to neutralize,” and they therefore exclude these possibilities in favour of order and security (90-91). Indeed, order and security are the dominant characteristics that less idealistic observers have identified with cyberspace. Alexander Galloway explains how, despite its potential as a liberating development, the Internet is based on technologies of control. This control is exercised at the code level through technical protocols, such as TCP/IP, DNS, and HTM, that determine disconnections as well as connections (Galloway). Lawrence Lessig suggests that in our examination of the ownership, regulation, and governance of the virtual commons, we must take into account three distinct layers. As well as the “logical” or “code” layer that Galloway foregrounds, we should also consider the “physical” layer, consisting of the computers and wires that carry Internet communications, and the “content” layer, which includes everything that we see and hear over the network. In principle, each of these layers could be free and unorganized, or privately owned and controlled (Lessig 23). Dan Schiller documents the increasing privatization of the Net and argues that corporate cyberspace extends the reach of the market, enabling it to penetrate into areas that have previously been considered to be part of the public domain. For Schiller, the Internet now serves as the main production and control mechanism of a global market system (xiv). Checking into Habbo Hotel Habbo Hotel is an example of a highly ordered and controlled online social space that uses community and game metaphors to suggest something much more open and playful. Designed to attract the teenage market, this graphically intensive cartoon-like hotel is like an interactive Legoland, in which participants assemble a toy-like “Habbo” character and chat, play games, and construct personal environments. The first Habbo Hotel opened its doors in the United Kingdom in 2000, and, by September 2004, localized sites were based in a dozen countries, including Canada, the Unites States, Finland, Japan, Switzerland and Spain, with further expansion planned. At that time, there were more than seventeen million registered Habbo characters worldwide with 2.3 million unique visitors each month (“Strong Growth”). The hotel contains thousands of private rooms and twenty-two public spaces, including a welcome lounge, three lobbies, cinema, game hall, café, pub, and an extensive hallway. Anyone can go to the Room-O-Matic and instantly create a free guest room. However, there are a limited number of layouts to choose from and the furnishings, which must be purchased, have be chosen from a catalog of fixed offerings. All rooms are located on one of five floors, which categorize them according to use (parties, games, models, mazes, and trading). Paradoxically, the so-called public spaces are more restricted and less public than the private guest quarters. The limited capacity of the rooms means that all of the public spaces are full most of the time. Priority is given to paying Habbo Club members and others are denied entry or are unceremoniously ejected from a room when it becomes full. Most visitors never make it into the front lobby. This rigid and restricted construction is far from Novak’s vision of a “liquid architecture” without barriers, that morphs in response to the constantly changing desires of individual inhabitants (Novak 250). Before entering the virtual hotel, individuals must first create a Lego-like avatar. Users choose a unique name for their Habbo (no foul language is allowed) and construct their online persona from a limited selection and colour of body parts. One of two different wardrobes is available, depending on whether “Boy” or “Girl” is chosen. The gender of every Habbo is easily recognizable and the restricted wardrobe results in remarkably similar looking young characters. The lack of differentiation encourages participants to treat other Habbos as generic “Boys” or “Girls” and it encourages limited and predictable conversations that fit the stereotype of male-female interactions in most chat sites. Contrary to Turkle’s contention that computer mediated communication technologies expose the fallacy of a single, fixed, identity, and free participants to experiment with alternative selves (15-17), Habbo characters are permitted just one unchangeable name, and are capable of only limited visual transformations. A fixed link between each Habbo character and its registered user (information that is not available to other participants) allows the hotel management to track members through the site and monitor their behavior. Habbo movements are limited to walking, waving, dancing and drinking virtual alcohol-free beverages. Movement between spaces is accomplished by entering a teleport booth, or by selecting a location by name from the hotel Navigator. Habbos cannot jump, fly or walk through objects or other Habbos. They have no special powers and only a limited ability to interact with objects in their environment. They cannot be hurt or otherwise affected by anything in their surroundings, including other Habbos. The emphasis is on safety and avoidance of conflict. Text chat in Habbo Hotel is limited to one sixty-one-character line, which appears above the Habbo, floats upward, and quickly disappears off the top of the screen. Text must be typed in real time while reading on-going conversations and it is not possible to archive a chat sessions or view past exchanges. There is no way of posting a message on a public board. Using the Habbo Console, shorter messages can also be exchanged between Habbos who may be occupying different rooms. The only other narratives available on the site are in the form of official news and promotions. Before checking into the hotel, Habbos can stop to read Habbo Today, which promotes current offers and activities, and HabboHood Happenings, which offers safety tips, information about membership benefits, jobs (paid in furniture), contest winners, and polls. According to Rheingold, a virtual community can form online when enough people participate in meaningful public discussions over an extended period of time and develop “webs of personal relationships” (Virtual Community 5). By restricting communication to short, fleeting messages between individual Habbos, the hotel frustrates efforts by members to engage in significant dialogue and create a viable social group. Although “community” is an important part of the Habbo Hotel brand, it is unlikely to be a substantial part of the actual experience. The virtual hotel is promoted as a safe, non-threatening environment suitable for the teenagers is designed to attract. Parents’ concerns about the dangers of an unregulated chat space provide the hotel management with a justification for creating a highly controlled social space. The hotel is patrolled twenty-four hours a day by professional moderators backed-up by a team of 180 volunteer “Hobbas,” or guides, who can issue warnings to misbehaving Habbos, or temporarily ban them from the site. All text keyed in by Habbos passes through an automated “Bobba Filter” that removes swearing, racist words, explicit sexual comments and “anything that goes against the “Habbo Way” (“Bad Language”). Stick to the rules and you’ll have fun, Habbos are told, “break them and you’ll get yourself banned” (“Habbo Way”). In Big Brother fashion, messages are displayed throughought the hotel advising members to “Stay safe, read the Habbohood Watch,” “Never give out your details!” and “Obey the Habbo way and you’ll be OK.” This miniature surveillance society contradicts Barlow’s observation that cyberspace serves as “a perfect breeding ground for both outlaws and new ideas about liberty” (“Crime” 460). In his manifesto declaring the independence of cyberspace from government control, he maintains that the state has no authority in the electronic “global social space,” where, he asserts, “[w]e are forming our own Social Contract” based on the Golden Rule (“Declaration”). However, Habbo Hotel shows how the rule of the marketplace, which values profits more than social practices, can limit the freedoms of online civil society just as effectively as the most draconian government regulation. Place your order Far from permitting the “controlled disruption” advocated by Landry, the hotel management ensures that nothing is allowed to disrupt their control over the participants. Without conflict and debate, there are few triggers for creative activity in the site, which is designed to encourage consumption, not community. Timo Soininen, the managing director of the company that designed the hotel, states that, because teenagers like to showcase their own personal style, “self-expression is the key to our whole concept.” However, since it isn’t possible to create a Habbo from scratch, or to import clothing or other objects from outside the site, the only way for members to effectively express themselves is by decorating and furnishing their room with items purchased from the Habbo Catalogue. “You see, this,” admits Soininen, “is where our revenue model kicks in” (Shalit). Real-world products and services are also marketed through ads and promotions that are integrated into chat, news, and games. The result, according to Habbo Ltd, is “the ideal vehicle for third party brands to reach this highly desired 12-18 year-old market in a cost-effective and creative manner” (“Habbo Company Profile”). Habbo Hotel is a good example of what Herbert Schiller describes as the corporate capture of sites of public expression. He notes that, when put at the service of growing corporate power, new technologies “provide the instrumentation for organizing and channeling expression” (5-6). In an afterword to a revised edition of The Virtual Community, published in 2000, Rheingold reports on the sale of the WELL to a privately owned corporation, and its decline as a lively social space when order was imposed from the top down. Although he believes that there is a place for commercial virtual communities on the Net, he acknowledges that as economic forces become more entrenched, “more controls will be instituted because there is more at stake.” While remaining hopeful that activists can leverage the power of many-to-many communications for the public good, he wonders what will happen when “the decentralized network infrastructure and freewheeling network economy collides with the continuing growth of mammoth, global, communication empires” (Virtual Community Rev. 375-7). Although the company that built Habbo Hotel is far from achieving global empire status, their project illustrates how the dominant ethos of privatization and the increasing emphasis on consumption results in gated virtual communities that are highly ordered, restricted, and controlled. The popularity of the hotel reflects the desire of millions of Habbos to express their identities and ideas in a playful environment that they are free to create and manipulate. However, they soon find that the rules are stacked against them. Restricted design options, severe communication limitations, and fixed architectural constraints mean that the only freedom left is the freedom to choose from a narrow range of provided options. In private cyberspaces like Habbo Hotel, the logic of the market rules out unrestrained many-to-many communications in favour of controlled commercial relationships. The liberating potential of the Internet that was recognized by Rheingold and others has been diminished as the forces of globalized commerce impose their order on the electronic frontier. References “Bad Language.” Habbo Hotel. 2004. Sulake UK Ltd. 15 Apr. 2004 http://www.habbohotel.co.uk/habbo/en/help/safety/badlanguage/>. Barlow, John Perry. “Crime and Puzzlement.” High Noon on the Electronic Frontier: Conceptual Issues in Cyberspace. Ed. Peter Ludlow. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT P, 1996. 459-86. ———. “A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace.” 8 Feb. 1996. 3 July 2004 http://www.eff.org/~barlow/Declaration-Final.html>. Galloway, Alexander R. Protocol: How Control Exists after Decentralization. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT P, 2004. “Habbo Company Profile.” Habbo Hotel. 2002. Habbo Ltd. 20 Jan. 2003 http://www.habbogroup.com>. “The Habbo Way.” Habbo Hotel. 2004. Sulake UK Ltd. 15 Apr. 2004 http://www.habbohotel.co.uk/habbo/en/help/safety/habboway/>. Landry, Charles. The Creative City: A Toolkit for Urban Innovators. London: Earthscan, 2000. Lessig, Lawrence. The Future of Ideas: The Fate of the Commons in a Connected World. New York: Random, 2001. Novak, Marcos. “Liquid Architecture in Cyberspace.” Cyberspace: First Steps. Ed. Michael Benedikt. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT P, 1991. 225-54. Oldenburg, Ray. The Great Good Place: Cafés, Coffee Shops, Community Centers, Beauty Parlors, General Stores, Bars, Hangouts and How They Get You through the Day. New York: Paragon, 1989. Rheingold, Howard. The Virtual Community: Homesteading on the Electronic Frontier. New York: Harper, 1993. ———. The Virtual Community: Homesteading on the Electronic Frontier. Rev. ed. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT P, 2000. Robins, Kevin. “Cyberspace and the World We Live In.” The Cybercultures Reader. Eds. David Bell and Barbara M. Kennedy. London: Routledge, 2000. 77-95. Schiller, Dan. Digital Capitalism: Networking the Global Market System. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT P, 1999. Schiller, Herbert I. Culture Inc.: The Corporate Takeover of Public Expression. New York: Oxford UP, 1991. Sennett, Richard. The Uses of Disorder: Personal Identity & City Life. New York: Vintage, 1970. Shalit, Ruth. “Welcome to the Habbo Hotel.” mpulse Magazine. Mar. 2002. Hewlett-Packard. 1 Apr. 2004 http://www.cooltown.com/cooltown/mpulse/0302-habbo.asp>. “Strong Growth in Sulake’s Revenues and Profit – Habbo Hotel Online Game Will Launch in the US in September.” 3 Sept. 2004. Sulake. Sulake Corp. 9 Jan. 2005 http://www.sulake.com/>. Turkle, Sherry. Life on the Screen: Identity in the Age of the Internet. New York: Simon, 1997. Citation reference for this article MLA Style McGuire, Mark. "Ordered Communities." M/C Journal 7.6 (2005). echo date('d M. Y'); ?> <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0501/06-mcguire.php>. APA Style McGuire, M. (Jan. 2005) "Ordered Communities," M/C Journal, 7(6). Retrieved echo date('d M. Y'); ?> from <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0501/06-mcguire.php>.

Introduction This article situates the dark as a liminal and creative space of experimentation where tensions are generative and people tinker with emerging technologies to create alternative futures. Darkness need not mean chaos and fear of violence – it can mean privacy and protection. We define dark as an experimental space based upon uncertainties rather than computational knowns (Bridle) and then demonstrate via a case study of cryptocurrencies the contribution of dark and liminal social spaces to future(s)-making. Cryptocurrencies are digital cash systems that use decentralised (peer-to-peer) networking to enable irreversible payments (Maurer, Nelms, and Swartz). Cryptocurrencies are often clones or variations on the ‘original’ Bitcoin payment systems protocol (Trump et al.) that was shared with the cryptographic community through a pseudonymous and still unknown author(s) (Nakamoto), creating a founder mystery. Due to the open creation process, a new cryptocurrency is relatively easy to make. However, many of them are based on speculative bubbles that mirror Bitcoin, Ethereum, and ICOs’ wealth creation. Examples of cryptocurrencies now largely used for speculation due to their volatility in holding value are rampant, with online clearing houses competing to trade hundreds of different assets from AAVE to ZIL. Many of these altcoins have little to no following or trading volume, leading to their obsolescence. Others enjoy immense popularity among dedicated communities of backers and investors. Consequently, while many cryptocurrency experiments fail or lack adoption and drop from the purview of history, their constant variation also contributes to the undertow of the future that pulls against more visible surface waves of computational progress. The article is structured to first define how we understand and leverage ‘dark’ against computational cultures. We then apply thematic and analytical tactics to articulate future-making socio-technical experiments in the dark. Based on past empirical work of the authors (Maddox "Netnography") we focus on crypto-cultures’ complex emancipatory and normative tensions via themes of construction, disruption, contention, redirection, obsolescence, and iteration. Through these themes we illustrate the mutation and absorption of dark experimental spaces into larger social structures. The themes we identify are not meant as a complete or necessarily serial set of occurrences, but nonetheless contribute a new vocabulary for students of technology and media to see into and grapple with the dark. Embracing the Dark: Prework & Analytical Tactics for Outside the Known To frame discussion of the dark here as creative space for alternative futures, we focus on scholars who have deeply engaged with notions of socio-technical darkness. This allows us to explore outside the blinders of computational light and, with a nod to Sassen, dig in the shadows of known categories to evolve the analytical tactics required for the study of emerging socio-technical conditions. We understand the Dark Web to usher shifting and multiple definitions of darkness, from a moral darkness to a technical one (Gehl). From this work, we draw the observation of how technologies that obfuscate digital tracking create novel capacities for digital cultures in spaces defined by anonymity for both publisher and user. Darknets accomplish this by overlaying open internet protocols (e.g. TCP/IP) with non-standard protocols that encrypt and anonymise information (Pace). Pace traces concepts of darknets to networks in the 1970s that were 'insulated’ from the internet’s predecessor ARPANET by air gap, and then reemerged as software protocols similarly insulated from cultural norms around intellectual property. ‘Darknets’ can also be considered in ternary as opposed to binary terms (Gehl and McKelvey) that push to make private that which is supposed to be public infrastructure, and push private platforms (e.g. a Personal Computer) to make public networks via common bandwidth. In this way, darknets feed new possibilities of communication from both common infrastructures and individual’s platforms. Enabling new potentials of community online and out of sight serves to signal what the dark accomplishes for the social when measured against an otherwise unending light of computational society. To this point, a new dark age can be welcomed insofar it allows an undecided future outside of computational logics that continually define and refine the possible and probable (Bridle). This argument takes von Neumann’s 1945 declaration that “all stable processes we shall predict. All unstable processes we shall control” (in Bridle 21) as a founding statement for computational thought and indicative of current society. The hope expressed by Bridle is not an absence of knowledge, but an absence of knowing the future. Past the computational prison of total information awareness within an accelerating information age (Castells) is the promise of new formations of as yet unknowable life. Thus, from Bridle’s perspective, and ours, darkness can be a place of freedom and possibility, where the equality of being in the dark, together, is not as threatening as current privileged ways of thinking would suggest (Bridle 15). The consequences of living in a constant glaring light lead to data hierarchies “leaching” (Bridle) into everything, including social relationships, where our data are relationalised while our relations are datafied (Maddox and Heemsbergen) by enforcing computational thinking upon them. Darkness becomes a refuge that acknowledges the power of unknowing, and a return to potential for social, equitable, and reciprocal relations. This is not to say that we envision a utopian life without the shadow of hierarchy, but rather an encouragement to dig into those shadows made visible only by the brightest of lights. The idea of digging in the shadows is borrowed from Saskia Sassen, who asks us to consider the ‘master categories’ that blind us to alternatives. According to Sassen (402), while master categories have the power to illuminate, their blinding power keeps us from seeing other presences in the landscape: “they produce, then, a vast penumbra around that center of light. It is in that penumbra that we need to go digging”. We see darkness in the age of digital ubiquity as rejecting the blinding ‘master category’ of computational thought. Computational thought defines social/economic/political life via what is static enough to predict or unstable enough to render a need to control. Otherwise, the observable, computable, knowable, and possible all follow in line. Our dig in the shadows posits a penumbra of protocols – both of computational code and human practice – that circle the blinding light of known digital communications. We use the remainder of this short article to describe these themes found in the dark that offer new ways to understand the movements and moments of potential futures that remain largely unseen. Thematic Resonances in the Dark This section considers cryptocultures of the dark. We build from a thematic vocabulary that has been previously introduced from empirical examples of the crypto-market communities which tinker with and through the darkness provided by encryption and privacy technologies (Maddox "Netnography"). Here we refine these future-making themes through their application to events surrounding community-generated technology aimed at disrupting centralised banking systems: cryptocurrencies (Maddox, Singh, et al.). Given the overlaps in collective values and technologies between crypto-communities, we find it useful to test the relevance of these themes to the experimental dynamics surrounding cryptocurrencies. We unpack these dynamics as construction, rupture and disruption, redirection, and the flip-sided relationship between obsolescence and iteration leading to mutation and absorption. This section provides a working example for how these themes adapt in application to a community dwelling at the edge of experimental technological possibilities. The theme of construction is both a beginning and a materialisation of a value field. It originates within the cyberlibertarians’ ideological stance towards using technological innovations to ‘create a new world in the shell of the old’ (van de Sande) which has been previously expressed through the concept of constructive activism (Maddox, Barratt, et al.). This libertarian ideology is also to be found in the early cultures that gave rise to cryptocurrencies. Through their interest in the potential of cryptography technologies related to social and political change, the Cypherpunks mailing list formed in 1992 (Swartz). The socio-cultural field surrounding cryptocurrencies, however, has always consisted of a diverse ecosystem of vested interests building collaborations from “goldbugs, hippies, anarchists, cyberpunks, cryptographers, payment systems experts, currency activists, commodity traders, and the curious” (Maurer, Nelms, and Swartz 262). Through the theme of construction we can consider architectures of collaboration, cooperation, and coordination developed by technically savvy populations. Cryptocurrencies are often developed as code by teams who build in mechanisms for issuance (e.g. ‘mining’) and other controls (Conway). Thus, construction and making of cryptocurrencies tend to be collective yet decentralised. Cryptocurrencies arose during a time of increasing levels of distrust in governments and global financial instability from the Global Financial Crisis (2008-2013), whilst gaining traction through their usefulness in engaging in illicit trade (Saiedi, Broström, and Ruiz). It was through this rupture in the certainties of ‘the old system’ that this technology, and the community developing it, sought to disrupt the financial system (Maddox, Singh, et al.; Nelms et al.). Here we see the utility of the second theme of rupture and disruption to illustrate creative experimentation in the liminal and emergent spaces cryptocurrencies afford. While current crypto crazes (e.g. NFTs, ICOs) have their detractors, Cohen suggests, somewhat ironically, that the momentum for change of the crypto current was “driven by the grassroots, and technologically empowered, movement to confront the ills perceived to be powered and exacerbated by market-based capitalism, such as climate change and income inequality” (Cohen 739). Here we can start to envision how subterranean currents that emerge from creative experimentations in the dark impact global social forces in multifaceted ways – even as they are dragged into the light. Within a disrupted environment characterised by rupture, contention and redirection is rife (Maddox "Disrupting"). Contention and redirection illustrate how competing agendas bump and grind to create a generative tension around a deep collective desire for social change. Contention often emerges within an environment of hacks and scams, of which there are many stories in the cryptocurrency world (see Bartlett for an example of OneCoin, for instance; Kavanagh, Miscione, and Ennis). Other aspects of contention emerge around how the technology works to produce (mint) cryptocurrencies, including concern over the environmental impact of producing cryptocurrencies (Goodkind, Jones, and Berrens) and the production of non-fungible tokens for the sale of digital assets (Howson). Contention also arises through the gendered social dynamics of brogramming culture skewing inclusive and diverse engagement (Bowles). Shifting from the ideal of inclusion to the actual practice of crypto-communities begs the question of whose futures are being made. Contention and redirections are also evidenced by ‘hard forks’ in cryptocurrency. The founder mystery resulted in the gifting of this technology to a decentralised and leaderless community, materialised through the distributed consensus processes to approve software updates to a cryptocurrency. This consensus system consequently holds within it the seeds for governance failures (Trump et al.), the first of which occurred with the ‘hard forking’ of Bitcoin into Bitcoin cash in 2017 (Webb). Hard forks occur when developers and miners no longer agree on a proposed change to the software: one group upgraded to the new software while the others operated on the old rules. The resulting two separate blockchains and digital currencies concretised the tensions and disagreements within the community. This forking resulted initially in a shock to the market value of, and trust in, the Bitcoin network, and the dilution of adoption networks across the two cryptocurrencies. The ongoing hard forks of Bitcoin Cash illustrate the continued contention occurring within the community as crypto-personalities pit against each other (Hankin; Li). As these examples show, not all experiments in cryptocurrencies are successful; some become obsolete through iteration (Arnold). Iteration engenders mutations in the cultural framing of socio-technical experiments. These mutations of meaning and signification then facilitate their absorption into novel futures, showing the ternary nature of how what happens in the dark works with what is known by the light. As a rhetorical device, cryptocurrencies have been referred to as a currency (a payment system) or a commodity (an investment or speculation vehicle; Nelms et al. 21). However, new potential applications for the underlying technologies continue emerge. For example, Ethereum, the second-most dominant cryptocurrency after Bitcoin, now offers smart contract technology (decentralised autonomous organisations, DAO; Kavanagh, Miscione, and Ennis) and is iterating technology to dramatically reduce the energy consumption required to mine and mint the non-fungible tokens (NFTs) associated with crypto art (Wintermeyer). Here we can see how these rhetorical framings may represent iterative shifts and meaning-mutation that is as pragmatic as it is cultural. While we have considered here the themes of obsolescence and iteration threaded through the technological differentiations amongst cryptocurrencies, what should we make of these rhetorical or cultural mutations? This cultural mutation, we argue, can be seen most clearly in the resurgence of Dogecoin. Dogecoin is a cryptocurrency launched in 2013 that takes its name and logo from a Shiba Inu meme that was popular several years ago (Potts and Berg). We can consider Dogecoin as a playful infrastructure (Rennie) and cultural product that was initially designed to provide a low bar for entry into the market. Its affordability is kept in place by the ability for miners to mint an unlimited number of coins. Dogecoin had a large resurgence of value and interest just after the meme-centric Reddit community Wallstreetbets managed to drive the share price of video game retailer GameStop to gain 1,500% (Potts and Berg). In this instance we see the mutation of a cryptocurrency into memecoin, or cultural product, for which the value is a prism to the wild fluctuations of internet culture itself, linking cultural bubbles to financial ones. In this case, technologies iterated in the dark mutated and surfaced as cultural bubbles through playful infrastructures that intersected with financial systems. The story of dogecoin articulates how cultural mutation articulates the absorption of emerging techno-potentials into larger structures. Conclusion From creative experiments digging in the dark shadows of global socio-economic forces, we can see how the future is formed beneath the surface of computational light. Yet as we write, cryptocurrencies are being absorbed by centralising and powerful entities to integrate them into global economies. Examples of large institutions hoarding Bitcoin include the crypto-counterbalancing between the Chinese state through its digital currency DCEP (Vincent) and Facebook through the Libra project. Vincent observes that the state-backed DCEP project is the antithesis of the decentralised community agenda for cryptocurrencies to enact the separation of state and money. 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