Neowin.net

The great debate whether or not MSN Messenger 6 build 0263 is "fake" is over this evening on the net. A day of MSN Messenger 6 leaks and general fun has sent everyone dizzy. A source close to Neowin has confirmed this build to be real but missing a US installer.

What this means is that if you decide to run such a build on your system you're stuck with a language you may not understand. You can replace the msglang.dll in the MSN Messenger DIR with an older version and you'll have your nice English language back again.

According to the source who wanted to remain anonymous this build was compiled on 3/6/03 at 15:28:14. As digital signatures in files are near impossible to edit sucessfully we can confirm the build is real.

Please note: Microsoft have requested that no links to Messenger 6 are to be posted here at Neowin so please respect our decision not to post links. Please don't post any links or request links. Thank you.

Screenshot: Previous Messenger 6 Screenshots

TCP breaks down large files into small packets of about 1500 bytes, each carrying the address of the sender and the recipient. The sending computer transmits a packet, waits for a signal from the recipient that acknowledges its safe arrival, and then sends the next packet.

If no receipt comes back, the sender transmits the same packet at half the speed of the previous one, and repeats the process, getting slower each time, until it succeeds.

This means that even minor glitches on the line can make a connection very sluggish. Because Fast TCP uses the same packet sizes as regular TCP, the hardware that carries messages around the net will still work. The difference is in software and hardware on the sending computer, which continually measures the time it takes for sent packets to arrive, and how long acknowledgements take to come back.

This reveals the delays on the line, giving early warnings of likely packet losses. The Fast TCP software uses this to predict the highest data rate the connection can support without losing data.

Since the packets are the same size as those used in TCP, none of the equipment along the internet itself will have to be modified, and no new hardware will be needed on computers receiving the data.

The first practical test of Fast TCP took place in November at a supercomputing conference. Researchers from Caltech, Stanford and CERN near Geneva in Switzerland, sent data 10,000 kilometres from Sunnyvale, California, to CERN at an average rate of 925 megabits per second. Ordinary TCP managed just 266 megabits per second on the same routes.

By ganging 10 Fast TCP systems together, the researchers have achieved transmission speeds of over 8.6 gigabits per second, which is more than 6000 times the capacity of ordinary broadband links.