Slashdot Mirror
DARPA Aims to Redo the Internet Protocol
Xaleth Nuada writes "The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's (DARPA) is looking to redo the entire Internet Protocol. With the DoD increasingly adopting network-centric warfare the shortcomings in the current IP have become resoundingly clear. Everything works fine for static hardwired networks. But not for dynamic wireless ones. The benefits for your average geek? How about REAL wireless networking? Easier network set-up? Increased wireless security protocol? Increased reliability in sending information?" Don't forget massive incompatibility and upgrade hassles. :)
DARPA takes aim at IT sacred cows
By Joab Jackson
GCN Staff
ANAHEIM, Calif.--Now that the Defense Department is embracing network-driven warfare, it is taking a hard look at radically improving, or discarding altogether, some fundamental computer and network architectures.
Flaws in the basic building blocks of networking and computer science are hampering reliability, limiting flexibility and creating security vulnerabilities, program managers said this week at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's DARPATech conference.
Among the IT holy grails that DARPA wants to see revamped are the Internet Protocol, the seven-layer Open Systems Interconnection model--which defines how devices communicate on today's networks--and the von Neumann architecture, the basic design style underpinning almost all computers built today.
Many military commanders have been slow to adapt IT for critical tasks because they sense the equipment is unreliable, said Col. Tim Gibson. He is a program manager for DARPA's Advanced Technology Office, which is leading efforts to radically redefine computer architecture.
"You go to Wal-Mart and buy a telephone for less than $10 and you expect it to work," Gibson said. Yet people usually do not expect the same of their computers. "We don't expect computers to work, we expect them to have a problem."
"If a commander expects a system to have a problem, then how could they rely upon it?" Gibson said.
Gibson cast some of the blame on the packet-based nature of Internet Protocol, which was not designed for foolproof delivery of messages. The protocol cannot guarantee delivery of e-mail, for instance.
"The packet network paradigm probably needs to change," Gibson said. "I'm not advocating throwing out the Internet Protocol completely, but we must absolutely have some mechanism for assigning network capabilities to different users and that capability has to scale to large numbers of devices automatically. The commander wants to be able to send a message and have it delivered, completely, accurately and on time."
Another limitation with the IP approach is the inability to dynamically build networks. The military wants to quickly set up ad hoc networks.
"Static networks are no good for tomorrow's battlefield, because everything will move around all the time," Gibson said. "What we need is dynamic scalability. Today's networks are stationary and have a static infrastructure that provides service to static end-nodes. Moving the node outside its standard service area requires reconfiguring something. Moving infrastructure always means reconfiguring something."
As a result, DARPA wants to fund development of new protocols or enhancements to the existing IP that will allow nodes, such as computers, to automatically sign on to networks in their vicinity.
Another aspects of the networking that DARPA wants to revise is the seven-layer OSI stack, long held as the basic foundation for building network protocols.
The OSI model was not designed for wireless communications devices, said Reggie Brothers, a DARPA program manager.
"The OSI model served us pretty well for the stable, predictable world of wireline communications," Brothers said. "Mobile networks are nothing like that. They are unpredictable and highly variable. We need to think of different layers of the stack to relate to one another directly, like a mesh, instead of one level up to the next."
The increased complexity of the network stack would let nodes enter a network quickly and without human intervention, Brothers said.
The von Neumann architecture will also come under scrutiny from DARPA.
"It is time to ask the harder questions about the ways of computer architecture we've been using for the past 30 years. Is it time to scrap the von Neumann architecture?" asked Anup Gosh, program officer for the Advanced Technology Office.
This architecture, which defines the basic essential parts of
Gibson cast some of the blame on the packet-based nature of Internet Protocol, which was not designed for foolproof delivery of messages. The protocol cannot guarantee delivery of e-mail, for instance.
Who is this guy really? Thats not what IP is for - foolproof delivery of packets is handled by connection-orientated protocols like TCP. Sure, it might not get the *right away*, but the flexibility of packet based routing is something that has made networks as reliable as they are today (despite the huge amount of moaning that people do about them).
Mind you, as people have pointed out before, IPv6 has been waiting in the wings for a while now, and a military request for change might be the kind action needed to kick other people into gear.
802.11 is a wireless add on to IP. What they are talking about here is a protocol that is built with wireless in mind, not an add on. Dynamically changing where you are connected comes to mind (the signal from this tower/satelite is stronger now) as well as tracking location. Before everyone put on their tinfoil hats keep in mind this is the military; they have a legitimate desire to know where their troops are. Which isn't to say that other branches of the government would use it for something different.
Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)
M O/ BAA04-11/Grant.html
Federal and Non-Profit Funding Opportunities
http://www.fedgrants.gov/Applicants/DOD/DARPA/C
* Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) 04-11 Control Plane;
* Closing Date: 12 January 2005;
* Full Proposals for First Selection: 09 March 2004;
* POC: COL Tim Gibson, DARPA/ATO;
* Funding: $1-6 Million depending on application
* Program Objectives and Description: The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Advanced Technology Office (ATO) is soliciting proposals under this BAA for an Internet Control Plane protocol (hereafter called the Control Plane Program). The purpose of the Control Plane Program is improving end-to-end Transmission Control Protocol and Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) wide-area network performance between the Continental United States (CONUS) operating base and forward deployed tactical units. The technology the program seeks to develop is the ability of individual hosts (end-points) to learn essential characteristics about the network path between themselves and their transmission partners.
* Eligibility: Unrestricted
It's time to go back to basic networking class...
The OSI Networking Model is a 7-layer system that can be used interchangably, layers run on top of each other... for example, HTTP specifies that it use TCP which wraps around IP over any physical protocol. It doesn't care if you're using WiFi or a hardwired connection.
So, what this is saying is that IPv4, and even IPv6 are protocols that were written with wires and not wireless in mind. There are tweaks that can be made to the next version of the Internet Protocol and maybe even TCP and UDP to make them work better when on wireless without giving too much up when used on a wired physical link. This is the process of figuring out what changes should be made for next time.
They could mean ad hoc wireless networking. If they are looking for something that could help them communicate in the field, ad hoc wireless networking has great applications for them--basically, an ad hoc network does not have predefined hosts, access points, or what have you. Every node in the network communicates with the nodes around it (they could be a mixture of some wireless nodes and some wired nodes). There is no predefined leader, but the nodes themselves pick which nodes will act as temporary leaders to keep routing information, among other things. There are many different algorithms for determining these leaders, and the leaders can be changed if necessary due to nodes moving, entering an area, or leaving an area.
More information can be found here (Google's html version here.)
I am clearly fatter than you.
Sheesh, RTFA. They're talking about a new protocol layer for use by the military. Combat-deployed wireless networks aren't "the Internet".
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
Don't forget existing ad-hoc routing protocols that work fine with IPV4 or IPV6, like
dynamic source routing (dsr)
destination sequenced distance vector (dsdv)
temorally ordered routing (tora)
ad-hoc on demand distance vector (dsdv)
comparison paper
Some of these are even used in reasonably large real world networks.
-jim
Here's a copy:
DARPA takes aim at IT sacred cows
By Joab Jackson
GCN Staff
ANAHEIM, Calif.--Now that the Defense Department is embracing network-driven warfare, it is taking a hard look at radically improving, or discarding altogether, some fundamental computer and network architectures.
Flaws in the basic building blocks of networking and computer science are hampering reliability, limiting flexibility and creating security vulnerabilities, program managers said this week at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's DARPATech conference.
Among the IT holy grails that DARPA wants to see revamped are the Internet Protocol, the seven-layer Open Systems Interconnection model--which defines how devices communicate on today's networks--and the von Neumann architecture, the basic design style underpinning almost all computers built today.
Many military commanders have been slow to adapt IT for critical tasks because they sense the equipment is unreliable, said Col. Tim Gibson. He is a program manager for DARPA's Advanced Technology Office, which is leading efforts to radically redefine computer architecture.
"You go to Wal-Mart and buy a telephone for less than $10 and you expect it to work," Gibson said. Yet people usually do not expect the same of their computers. "We don't expect computers to work, we expect them to have a problem."
"If a commander expects a system to have a problem, then how could they rely upon it?" Gibson said.
Gibson cast some of the blame on the packet-based nature of Internet Protocol, which was not designed for foolproof delivery of messages. The protocol cannot guarantee delivery of e-mail, for instance.
"The packet network paradigm probably needs to change," Gibson said. "I'm not advocating throwing out the Internet Protocol completely, but we must absolutely have some mechanism for assigning network capabilities to different users and that capability has to scale to large numbers of devices automatically. The commander wants to be able to send a message and have it delivered, completely, accurately and on time."
Another limitation with the IP approach is the inability to dynamically build networks. The military wants to quickly set up ad hoc networks.
"Static networks are no good for tomorrow's battlefield, because everything will move around all the time," Gibson said. "What we need is dynamic scalability. Today's networks are stationary and have a static infrastructure that provides service to static end-nodes. Moving the node outside its standard service area requires reconfiguring something. Moving infrastructure always means reconfiguring something."
As a result, DARPA wants to fund development of new protocols or enhancements to the existing IP that will allow nodes, such as computers, to automatically sign on to networks in their vicinity.
Another aspects of the networking that DARPA wants to revise is the seven-layer OSI stack, long held as the basic foundation for building network protocols.
The OSI model was not designed for wireless communications devices, said Reggie Brothers, a DARPA program manager.
"The OSI model served us pretty well for the stable, predictable world of wireline communications," Brothers said. "Mobile networks are nothing like that. They are unpredictable and highly variable. We need to think of different layers of the stack to relate to one another directly, like a mesh, instead of one level up to the next."
The increased complexity of the network stack would let nodes enter a network quickly and without human intervention, Brothers said.
The von Neumann architecture will also come under scrutiny from DARPA.
"It is time to ask the harder questions about the ways of computer architecture we've been using for the past 30 years. Is it time to scrap the von Neumann architecture?" asked Anup Gosh, program officer for the Advanced Technology Office.
This architecture, which defines the basic essential pa
Actually, the cause of spam can largely be sought in faulty protocols. SMTP doesn't verify who you are, so spammers are very difficult to trace. If this were changed, I think there would be a lot fewer spammers.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
Its interesting to me that DoD is targeted in this way (ie, we can't trust DoD, DoD = Big Brother, etc). This is a little OT, but this is just wrong headedness. Replace DoD with perhaps CIA, or the administration, or the military industrial complex (which is the industry that feads of the DoD teat) and I'd agree. But DoD, and the services especially are the last place youd find the neo facist attitudes that lead to a big brother world. This is of course my opinion, but having worked in many areas of DoD, and with many high ranking soldiers, I was always pleased at how enlightened and compassionate these people are.
is the IP address still fixed-length?
Yes, at 128-bits. Variable-width addresses would bog down routers, because now they have to parse the length out of the packet. With fixed-width addreesses, it's just an XOR and bit shift, or maybe an lookup in an array of bytes (depending on what the implementers did their work). 128-bits is absurdadly huge (on the order of the number of atoms in the universe), so nobody worries about running out.
"there are sixteen trillion addys, but my entire workplace gets one - why?"
IPv6 ISPs are required to give each customer an entire subnet to themselves (a /48, IIRC). That gives you 2**80 addresses to play with--several powers more than there are available IPv4 addresses.
Is the god-awful port-numbering system still there?
Ports are handled by higher-layer protocols, like TCP or UDP. Neither IPv4 or IPv6 have an concept of what a port is. I imagine, though, that a string-based port system would be too computationally expensive on high-traffic hosts and routers.
Not a typewriter
IP's job is not to know anything about the data it's transmitting. IP specifically disavows any knowledge of what it's carrying in fact, as it's ONLY concern is moving datagrams from one place to another.
That's the beauty of an n-tier system of protocols. One protocol says "okay, I do this and nothing else - you want something else, it's your responsibility to do it, not mine". For example, IP doesn't care if a datagram gets lost. In fact, IP doesn't even require an ICMP message to go back in the event that, say the TTL hits zero (the gateway that notes the 0 TTL "may" send an ICMP message back noting that the datagram timed out). TCP, on the other hand, doesn't worry about how to transmit the data. But one thing it does is keeps track of the datagrams that are sent and resends them if they get lost or mangled on the wire.
Alito: A vote for Alito is a punch in the eye to put that bitch back in her place!
Try seemlessly switching between access points, while maintaining a connection to another server. You can't because with IP you are assigned an address based on your upstream provider which can't float from network to network. If you are using an application protocol like HTTP you don't notice that much because you open a new connection everytime you request a page. But if you are using something like ftp or streaming video, you drop connection when switching access points and thus IP addresses.
I can see a lot of military applications for a true wireless protocol. In fact most all of miltary applications I can think of would require it to work reliably.
Now that I have read the article, I finally concluded it's full of shit. I'll break it down bit by bit:
... the seven-layer Open Systems Interconnection model''
..."''
``Among the IT holy grails that DARPA wants to see revamped are
Well, they can't. It's just a model, an abstraction. It's not like networks are actually built by looking at the OSI model and carefully following it. It's more like you build your network infrastructure and protocols, and then the OSI model says that you can call your wires the physical layer, the software that does something with the network the application layer, etc.
``Many military commanders have been slow to adapt IT for critical tasks because they sense the equipment is unreliable''
Well, that's their judgment, but what does it have to do with the Internet protocol?
``"We don't expect computers to work, we expect them to have a problem."''
I guess many people do, but I don't. I buy my computer and expect it to work. If it doesn't, I'll return it and get a working one or my money back.
``Gibson cast some of the blame on the packet-based nature of Internet Protocol, which was not designed for foolproof delivery of messages. The protocol cannot guarantee delivery of e-mail, for instance.''
Right he is. Reliability is in TCP, and this is why most application protocols build on TCP. The unrealiability of IP is there on purpose, so we don't have the overhead of TCP when it's not needed, and that if we come up with a better alternative to TCP, we can use that instead without having to throw away IP. Conversely, we can exchange IPv4 for IPv6 and implement TCP on top of that. It's called modular design, and generally considered a Good Thing.
``"The packet network paradigm probably needs to change," Gibson said. "I'm not advocating throwing out the Internet Protocol completely, but we must absolutely have some mechanism for assigning network capabilities to different users and that capability has to scale to large numbers of devices automatically. The commander wants to be able to send a message and have it delivered, completely, accurately and on time."''
Ok, fine, so you need a real-time protocol. I can see how that wouldn't work with IP's best-effort (read: unreliable) delivery, without further guarantees. However, there is nothing in IP that says it _has_ to lose packets. If you find a way to guarantee timely delivery of packets (my bet is that you can't), then you can layer IP on top of that. Of course, you don't _have_ to use IP, but if you opt for a different protocol, that doesn't mean that I have to drop IP too.
``Another limitation with the IP approach is the inability to dynamically build networks. The military wants to quickly set up ad hoc networks.''
I don't think that's true. Just like there is nothing in IP that _prevents_ guaranteed delivery, there is nothing in it that prevents building dynamic networks, either.
``"... Moving the node outside its standard service area requires reconfiguring something.
Yes, necessarily. However, the implication seems to be that IP somehow cannot handle this. Again, there is nothing in IP to prevent this. You could simply broadcast a message to discover nearby access points, and attach to the one with the strongest signal. Periodically, or when the signal gets weak, you broadcast again.
``As a result, DARPA wants to fund development of new protocols or enhancements to the existing IP that will allow nodes, such as computers, to automatically sign on to networks in their vicinity.''
Like ZeroConf? That would be a Good Thing. More power to them.
``The von Neumann architecture will also come under scrutiny from DARPA.''
I won't comment on that. I don't know what exactly the Von Neumann architecture is, and besides it is off-topic in my discussion on network protocols.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
Thanks for the lesson.
--Mike--
Harvard Architecture was first, command and data operate in a parallel address location ;)It's simpler to program, harder to abstract... ;) Perhaps a return to ARP forwarding routers and a low level system based on MAC address alone, no more ISO/OSI TCP/IP based stack... everyone's on my LAN... cool... lol he he he =)
Von Neumann Architecture has inherent design problems like fetch/execute cycle needing to access several memory segments to execute most single instructions (the root of buffer overflow problems.) Anyhow, the next protocol to rule supreme will be a wireless based one, probably very similar to current routing protocols and based on GPS location
I know this "Al Gore created the internet" joke was meant as a mindless throw-away, but it is so emblamatic of the dark side of our culture of elitist sarcsam that I'm going to waste Karma here by trying to correct it.
r e_internet/index.html) ... ...
...
A little searching would show you what really happened. There are many, many sources available, this one is from salon.com (http://dir.salon.com/tech/col/rose/2000/10/05/go
Gore never claimed to have "invented" the Internet. What he said was: During my service in the United States Congress I took the initiative in creating the Internet.
Several of the people who could claim to have "invented" the Internet, or key pieces of its protocols -- in particular, Vinton Cerf and Robert Kahn -- are out there on the Net today defending Gore, asserting that he was the politician in Washington who took the "initiative" to support the Net in its early days.
It took social engineers as well as software engineers to build the Net. And that may be why the response to Gore's original statement was so savage: Not because his claim was a lie, but because it was a truth that a lot of people today are trying to forget or bury.
The Internet didn't spring full-blown out of some scientists' heads, nor did it just grow, like some techno-Topsy powered by the mysterious magic of the marketplace. It emerged from the world of government-subsidized university research, and every step of the way along its passage from academic network to global information infrastructure was shepherded by the state. As the Net's parent, the government didn't do everything right; but it managed to nurture the network through its youth -- then get out of the way once it was mature enough to move out of its parents' digs and shack up with private industry.
Libertarians and conservatives are uncomfortable admitting this. Their vision of Net history is a stirring saga of markets overwhelming states, technological imperatives vanquishing stifling bureaucracies and free information "routing around" government blockages. There's some truth in this vision -- but it's only part of the story.
Libertarians typically believe that the government can't do anything right, and they prefer to forget or ignore the part government has played in the Net's triumph. Giving Gore credit means admitting the government's role; distorting and mocking his claims helps deny it.
The article makes sense if you think in terms of CS (computer science) instead of IT. The IP protocol is what he's talking about, and it has all the problems he describes (both version 4 and 6).
From a consumer, there are some room for improvement (not just needed for military). Think of the headaches of wireless VOIP, mesh networking, p2p, etc. yes they all work, but there are workarounds due to the fixed node-to-node setup of IP. A lot of cool things could be made a lot easier by thinking outside the box a bit now that we've gained experince from the old model. there are tons of projects being thought up which have to tackle the IP nature of networks. If the low-level protocol handled a lot of it already, we could have those projects up and running and then some.
I'd love a protocol that didn't rely on a centralized DB of addresses to allow stuff to talk. That's one of the first things IP demands. How about networks routing based on data the nodes provide? That's just one idea of a different type of network...
AB HOC POSSUM VIDERE DOMUM TUUM
You can't make a TCP connection if you're spoofing your IP unless you've managed to take over a router or two, and then you're not really spoofing anymore, you're just hijacking an IP.
"Verbing weirds language." -- Calvin
You used revenant in your sentence. I had to look it up to see what it meant. Then, after a long absence my memory returned.
First -
/.), back in June 2003 the DoD already mandated that IPv6 would become THE standard for DoD information systems (note; NOT the Internet). The DoD Global Information Grid will be IPv6 compliant by 2008 and all products procured by the DoD will be IPv6 compliant and will not support IPv4. This is a good thing for the DoD and could potentially be a good thing for the Internet because of the end-to-end security designed in IPv6. Tin foil hatters need not worry - the DoD does not listen in on your pr0n surfing packet traffic in IPv4 now, they certainly won't with IPv6 (it would indeed have to be a VERY slow analysis day at NSA, too).
For those with a short attention span (pretty much all of
Second -
The DoD has always recognized the need for fast and secure wireless communications in the battle space. The DoD needs have always boiled down to these basic requirements -
Real time, on time, reliable, and secure.
Note that TCP/IP does not always guarantee real time or on time but is reliable in delivery. Security? IPv4 was not really designed with security in mind - rather, the idea was to ensure that the information arrived intact to be reassembled.
The real problem is the wireLESS systems that are stove-piped into the GIG. Battlefield bandwidth is still a problem with most field radios (SINCGARS and EPLRS) that transferring large amounts of data is a slow process on a battlefield that requires up to the minute information. This is the real reason that the USMTF and JVMF messages still exist in this day and age. Field radios were designed with vocomms in mind, not pumping large data formats across FH channels with limited bandwidth. Mind you, these radios must operate in extreme conditions on a battlefield, so an 802.11b/g card won't cut it in terms of broadcast power nor encryption standard with WEP.
So, if your bandwidth is limited, you must either make the messages smaller and have less overhead, or make the OSI stack smaller and with less injected junk in the frame. Either way, the newer C4I systems are using more up-to-date formats and tools to get information to and from the battle commanders and the soldiers.
While the interview is light on details, there is more information available online.
Don't forget how the system works. Darpa basically hands out money for research into areas it finds interesting. Coincidently, I've been involved for a short time in a research project dealing with exchanging present day IP (mostly the heavyweight gorilla listening to the name TCP) with smaller, more adaptable alternatives.
Two projects in this field that I've heard of
are
the knowledge plane and
application private networks
The basic idea, AFAIK, is to do away with the one size fits all model of networking and replace it with a more adaptive lego-like stack. For this to work you need information on the state of the network in order to build your optimal dynamic stack. A possible source for this might be the discussed knowledge plane. Also, actual micro-protocols need to be created and some sort of decision making system must be in place (APnets). Shameless plug of my own work
here.
I don't know of other projects, but if Darpa has opened its wallet for this cause you can expect many other universities to have similar initiatives underway.