Vice over IP - the ins and outs of it

No, this isn't about Eliot Spitzer.....its about Grauniad journalist Jemima Kiss noting this morning that she:

"Just mistyped 'vice-over' IP. That's a whole different business to VOIP, I'm thinking".

(Heck, I thought the Grauniad only recruited Journos that couldn't spell ). Not like the perfect prose we use on Broadstuff of course

She posted that on Titter, by the way......

Anyway, a moments thought confirms she is right....unlike VoIP, for a starter Vice over IP is not a free service. Not only that, but the relationship is seldom peer to peer, usually its a client-server one (though it can be a one or even many to many, or other menage a trix).

(Peer to Peer Vice over IP is apparently handled by YouPorn)

Handshaking can occur at the beginning and end of the transaction, but is not mandatory. It would also seem that certification is typically eschewed, and security is a matter of commercial, not policy, negotiation. (A trend we think will come into VoiP by the way).

The actual period the client is connected to the server varies, and multiple connections can be made via a variety of interfaces, but the noise to signal to ratio typically increases until the connection is dropped, but this is not a hard and fast rule.

We are also fairly clear that the client and server operate a-synchronously, in that clients typically believe they are able to maintain the connection for longer than the server records usually show, and most servers prefer thick to thin clients.

Now Jemima claims she is porne to typos, eg writing things like "No cuntry for old men", but we can't possibly put that in a pubic blog like this.....