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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. :)
Im a former Marine myself, and I fondly remember what a nightmare it was just trying to get everyone to have the same crypto loads for existing voice communications hardware. Im really curious as to how they propose to keep the network secure. On the other hand, the possible benifits are huge. Distributed sensor networks in particular could be revolutionized by this.
"Hand me the bullet-shooty-thing and a box of little hurts" -Overheard on a USMC Rifle range
It seems more likely that DARPA would create a protocol free from built-in snooping for fear that such a feature could be used by the enemy.
While governments in general are guided by the will-to-power, militaries (at least the US military) are fairly well driven by readiness and victory. It doesn't seem likely that they would create such a vulnerable technology.
Please, anything that's not encumbered by *anybody's* IP patents.
I'd like to point out that the internet your using right now came from DARPA doing the same thing in the 70's. If you don't want an internet that runs on protocols initially devised by the US military then you better unplug now.
The purpose of language is communication, If the idea is clear the grammar ain't important
I think you might be wandering into tin-foil-hat land here.
They're talking about creating a networking standard we could all use to build our own networks. The specs will be open, like AES. (Or, do you believe that AES has some backdoor that lets the US military decrypt your private bits?)
I don't see any similiarity with GPS. That's a military controlled network of hardware, on which, we civilians are allowed to tag along. It's not public or commercial in any way. Nobody had any illusions about that, well, except maybe you.
-ave
...or maybe not.
DARPA and the military aren't interested in rebuilding the internet, they are interested in rebuilding IP.
They want to rebuild IP because they have a need for a better system. They need secure, reliable, ad hoc networking so that battle groups can communicate with each other.
These are private WANs. Not the Internet! The Military is not going to send real time battlefield data across the public internet, and real time battlefield data is what this thing is all about. The military launches and rents satellites for that sort of thing, they don't send it across uunet.
When they create a WAN, they have to have some mechanism to talk. Right now it might be IP, but in the future they want it to be something else. Something better for THEM.
The US Military couldn't care less if the rest of the world, or the internet itself, started to use whatever they come up with.
As far as those attacking technical limitations, when they started working on the original internet I'm sure everyone was saying, "Fault tolerant distributed networking with dynamic routing? That's impossible, why are they bothering" The point of DARPA is to do science and advance the field beyond current knowledge.
They may succeed, and they may fail. But they shouldn't just not try.