Rebuilding the Internet

[Phi for All]

I spotted this article about scrapping the existing Internet and rebuilding it to address concerns that weren't in existence when it first began. Much of it's architecture has been a cobbling-together process and many feel that we could do better with a complete restructuring.

 

In a way, the original intent was not unlike building a beautiful house in a small community where there is little need for security. Everyone knows each other and trusts each other. But then the community grew very quickly and soon the beautiful home has a completely different look and purpose and now, rather than continue to fix the leaks and locks it might be better to build something more suited to current needs and then bulldoze the old house once you've finished the new one.

 

What do you think? Can this be done effectively? With all the new players in the market can everyone have what they want from Internet 2?

[Sayonara]

When you see Leonard Kleinrock getting the lion's share of the airtime, and Vint Cerf's thoughts on the matter reduced to a sound-bite that obviously originally had a "but..." on the end of it, it is difficult to not immediately think "agenda pushing".

 

I don't believe there is likely to be a new form of internet architecture that allows both freedom of information exchange, but also heightened security and stability. Defences against spammers and hackers should stay on nodes at the lowest level, where they belong, and not become part of the infrastructure (if that is even achievable, which I think is a bit far-fetched seeing as software intervention can't keep up).

 

Infrastructure-based security would be an international regulatory nightmare, and it would open up data to government and corporation snooping, misuse, and even extortion.

 

To me, this whole thing smacks of "we didn't realise how much freedom we would be handing to the people who aren't in charge".

 

I bet Pandora would have liked a rethink as well.

[bascule]

I think a transition to IPv6 is possible. It will require much more powerful core routers though (with 128-bit addresses an address can't fit in a CPU register)

 

Beyond that, good luck. The Internet infrastructure is "good enough", and now there's billions invested in it.

[Sisyphus]

It's not really clear from the article what's being proposed. What would a "rebuilding" entail?

[Dak]

correct me if i'm wrong, but isn't the very idea of 'replacing the internet' somewhat daft?

 

I mean, the internet is a connection of many different networks. if you want to improve the 'underlying archetecture' (assuming they mean the whole server/packet-switching/gateway/blah-de-blah stuff), surely all you have to do is update the individual networks that constitute the internet? this doesn't have to be anything radicle: just update one, leave it connected to the other networks, and, if it works well, the other networks will eventually come around to the design innovations and upgrade their hardware as well.

 

 

or if they're talking about the way that networks inter-connetc, i still don't see why that'd have to be done in one go? I mean, different networks allready use different inter-connection techniques (i think)...

 

I mean, the internet is inherently upgradable and modifyable... why you ever have to specifically re-build the internet, rather than just your part of it?

 

having said that, it's allways confused me that other networks (TV, teletext, phones, text messages, etc) aren't more hooked up to the internet. i know there are more-or-less 'gateways' that allow you to access, say, teletext from the internet, and iirc C4 are switching their teletext services to XML to accomodate internet gatage, but i don't see why all data networks aren't all interconnected in a groovy, non-lame way, so that you can access them all from one-another (eg, SFN from the tv's teletext via a gateway, if neccesary, or the C4 teletext pages more eloquently from the net)

[insane_alien]

while they're at it they could lay down a lot more fibre and put tv through it. think of getting any tv channel anywhere in the world. how awesome would that be.

 

bascule, don't the big internet hubs use things with 128-bit processors already anyway?

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

The biggest problem with Internet security is the daft people on the end of the Internet connection, not the network itself.

[bascule]

bascule, don't the big internet hubs use things with 128-bit processors already anyway?

 

I really doubt it. The core routers are all doing IPv4 routing, so there's no need for a 128-bit processor. Also, 128-bit general purpose processors don't really exist yet:

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/128-bit

 

There are currently no mainstream general-purpose processors built to operate on 128-bit (16 octets) integers or addresses, though a number of processors do operate on 128-bit data. System/370, made by IBM, could be considered the first rudimentary 128-bit computer as it used 128-bit floating point registers. Most modern CPUs such as the Pentium and PowerPC have 128-bit vector registers used to store several smaller numbers, such as 4 32-bit floating-point numbers. A single instruction can operate on all these values in parallel (SIMD). They are 128-bit processors in the sense that they have 128-bit registers and in some cases a 128-bit ALU, but they do not operate on individual numbers that are 128 binary digits in length.

 

Uses

 

* IPv6 addresses are 128 bits wide. Having a processor capable of manipulating 128-bit integers could simplify handling of IPv6 addresses, since addresses could be stored in a single register, much as IPv4 addresses are stored now. See also RFC 1924 section 7.

[Phi for All]

I have to admit that the idea of using hindsight to craft something better was appealing when I first read the article, but this got me thinking differently:

To me, this whole thing smacks of "we didn't realise how much freedom we would be handing to the people who aren't in charge".

The fact that so much information is available for the price of an internet connection is pretty amazing and the sheer power it represents is staggering. And it shrinks the world in a way that unrestricted travel can't hope to compete with.

 

What would happen if worldwide web access fostered a global community that threatened to bring the world to the brink of peace? Would arms manufacturers protest that the internet was restricting their business?

[Sisyphus]

What would happen if worldwide web access fostered a global community that threatened to bring the world to the brink of peace?

 

I wonder what would happen if unrestricted internet access was universally availible. I guess there would also have to be the (unrealistic) condition that there was a common language. Would war really be possible?

[kaos]

Quick question, why is cable able (haha that rhymes ) to deliver extremely high quality, high resolution to televisions (HD) with pretty much zero lag, yet when it sends information to a computer (just a few MB of data for example) it can be painfully slow?

 

That seems stupid to me, maybe they could give the internet more speed in the future.

[insane_alien]

Quick question, why is cable able (haha that rhymes ) to deliver extremely high quality, high resolution to televisions (HD) with pretty much zero lag, yet when it sends information to a computer (just a few MB of data for example) it can be painfully slow?

 

That seems stupid to me, maybe they could give the internet more speed in the future.

 

cable TV is one way, it just has to pump it out at one end with special hardware and the decoder at the users end is designed to pick it up.

 

internet is two way. packets must be sent both ways. this means overhead. already the bandwidth is reduced. 2nd, the cable companies will rarely sell you he full capacity of the line thats it reduced again.

3rd, your probably sharing a connection to the backbone with about 100-200 other people. this connection may or maynot(probably not) be able to handle every one of those people downloading something all at once. this reduces bandwidth again.

4th, the server at the other end might be loaded, slow, or have a rubbish connection somewhere along the line.

 

probably other things i can't think of just now as well.

[1veedo]

Cable is a lot faster than DSL though. This is presumably because dsl uses telephone lines which cant handle as much data as cable can. So in reality kaos, although w/ insane_alien's explanation above, cable IS moving around a lot of data, quickly, in the first place.

 

Btw bascule I'm using IPv6 (along w/ IPv4), as are most Linux users. IPv6 is used for a lot of internal stuff (like connecting to local applications, eg giftui -> giftd or the X server). You don't technically need 128bit registers to use IPv6.

veedo@tux:~$ ifconfig
eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:11:09:8F:E2:B2  
         inet addr:192.168.2.80  Bcast:192.168.2.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
         inet6 addr: fe80::211:9ff:fe8f:e2b2/64 Scope:Link
         UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
         RX packets:4058456 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
         TX packets:4305362 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
         collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 
         RX bytes:2379767237 (2.2 GiB)  TX bytes:2797328229 (2.6 GiB)
         Interrupt:18 Base address:0xc000 

lo        Link encap:Local Loopback  
         inet addr:127.0.0.1  Mask:255.0.0.0
         inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
         UP LOOPBACK RUNNING  MTU:16436  Metric:1
         RX packets:103482 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
         TX packets:103482 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
         collisions:0 txqueuelen:0 
         RX bytes:5174440 (4.9 MiB)  TX bytes:5174440 (4.9 MiB)

veedo@tux:~$ ip -4 addr show dev eth0
2: eth0: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP,10000> mtu 1500 qdisc pfifo_fast qlen 1000
   inet 192.168.2.80/24 brd 192.168.2.255 scope global eth0
veedo@tux:~$ ip -6 addr show dev eth0
2: eth0: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP,10000> mtu 1500 qlen 1000
   inet6 fe80::211:9ff:fe8f:e2b2/64 scope link 
      valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever

It's not connecting to the Internet, just used locally, but I was using IPv6 on gentoo not too long ago.

 

http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/ipv6.xml

[insane_alien]

yeah, i'm using IPv6 as well. some people reported turning it off speeds everything up but i haven't noticed any change(benchmarks said so) so i keep it on.

[geoguy]

I spotted this article about scrapping the existing Internet and rebuilding it to address concerns that weren't in existence when it first began. Much of it's architecture has been a cobbling-together process and many feel that we could do better with a complete restructuring.

 

In a way, the original intent was not unlike building a beautiful house in a small community where there is little need for security. Everyone knows each other and trusts each other. But then the community grew very quickly and soon the beautiful home has a completely different look and purpose and now, rather than continue to fix the leaks and locks it might be better to build something more suited to current needs and then bulldoze the old house once you've finished the new one.

 

What do you think? Can this be done effectively? With all the new players in the market can everyone have what they want from Internet 2?

 

Your metaphors are revealing: 'Leaks and locks'...'security'. No need to look at your location and know that you are an American....the United States of Paranoia.

 

the Internet: Leave it alone. It's an amorphous giant tool of creativity that has evolved over the last few years and it's very open and ever changing nature responds in months to the whims of those using it. A short time ago there was no Yahoo, or Google, Youtube, etc. the Internet meets my needs and gets better all the time.

[bascule]

Btw bascule I'm using IPv6 (along w/ IPv4), as are most Linux users. IPv6 is used for a lot of internal stuff (like connecting to local applications, eg giftui -> giftd or the X server). You don't technically need 128bit registers to use IPv6.

 

Yes, many years ago I hopped on the 6bone for the purposes of seeing the dancing KAME (KAME is an IPv6 implementation used by several different operating systems)

 

However they didn't exactly do a good job of hiding it

 

That said, my point specifically pertains to the core routers, not to leaf nodes. Address lookups in BGP routing tables will be substantially slower if the address can't fit in a CPU register, and the core routers are and have always been under considerable load. Hardware is barely improving fast enough to support the infrastructure.

 

That said, it looks like something needs to happen soon. We're running out of IPv4 addresses quickly.

[010010100100]

bascule has the right idea. The hardest part about changing or upgrading the internet is dealing with the so-called "default free" zone of the Internet. This part of the Internet, which includes most of the backbone routers and NAPs where different providers exchange traffic, contains routers that do not have default routes. In other words, they have a table of all of the CIDR address blocks for all of the networks on the entire Internet. This routing information is maintained by the BGP protocol.

[imp]

As I see it, the proposed re-vamping of the net is actually nothing more than a thinly-disguised means of extracting additional revenue from its use. imp

[ParanoiA]

What would happen if worldwide web access fostered a global community that threatened to bring the world to the brink of peace? Would arms manufacturers protest that the internet was restricting their business?

 

I think they would. One of the biggest dissappointments in the internet is the lack of support for it. For example, you can't order automobiles direct from Detroit online anymore...because the car lots threw a fit when they found out we didn't need them anymore. So instead of forcing business to change with the advancements - allowing the market to adjust on it's own - we get the shaft while crybaby businessmen use the law to make us need them.

[Genecks]

Hmm, downloading from a cable would be better. I think people don't upload that much data these days. Hmm, I wonder what the possibility of using a server and a cable cord would be... Is cable internet on par with the speed of transfer from a TV network to the TV?

[Mr Skeptic]

I think a transition to IPv6 is possible. It will require much more powerful core routers though (with 128-bit addresses an address can't fit in a CPU register)

 

Beyond that, good luck. The Internet infrastructure is "good enough", and now there's billions invested in it.

 

Good enough, and as other people have noted, a "redesign" is likely to exterminate all the freedom that people don't realize they have on the net. There are powerful interests in conflict here, and no one is going to trust some schmuck to do the redesigning. About the only problem with the net is the number of IPv4 addresses, which IPv6 will fix for the foreseeable future, and NAT can crudely patch for now.

 

What does need a major revamping is the email system. Mail servers should verify that mail comes from where it says it does. And why don't people use PGP signatures?

[bascule]

See http://www.im2000.org in regard to revamping the e-mail infrastructure (a protocol created by Dan Bernstein, author of the popular qmail software). However, given present investment in the e-mail infrastructure that's unlikely to happen.

 

A more likely direction e-mail might migrate to is XMPP, i.e. the Jabber protocol

[MrSandman]

My one comment brought this back to attention, but it got deleted, crap. Yeah, imagine all the web designers like me who would have to deal with all new sorts of crap. It's bad enough having to program in html.