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DNS Inventor Predicts Future of the Internet

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the i-bet-its-faster-and-has-more-nekkid dept.

afra242 writes "BBC News has an interesting article which discusses what Dr Paul Mockapetris, the creator of DNS, thinks about what the Internet will be in the near future. He states that currently, we are in the Bronze Age of the Internet and phones will be phased out completely, to be replaced by web addresses."

13 of 281 comments (clear)

  1. He's predicting what already exists! by garcia · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Now, as head scientist and chairman of Nominum, a DNS management company, he has been reflecting on how the net has grown up.

    The father of DNS and a scientist working at a DNS management company believes that everything will be controlled by a DNS-like system, absolutely unbelievable!

    We have these things called bookmarks... People rarely remember web-addresses as it is. I know that entirely too many people believe their entire "Internet" is their homepage (while working for ATTBI during the @Home changeover I *personally* received several calls from concerned people that their Internet was gone and replaced by this "ATT BY" thing as their homepage had changed from home.excite.com to www.attbi.com). I would venture to say that most people get their information from a handful of sites and don't bother to remember much other than google.com or yahoo.com. I know that I get most of my information from a handful of remembered sites and I consider myself a bit more Internet savvy than the average user.

    "It is quite possible that phone numbers will have disappeared and people will just use menus off their phone. I don't think there is particular value in having them."

    He theorizes something that already exists! So instead of bookmarks for phone numbers we have these things called address books. You look up someone's name in there and you click on it. It dials. Absolutely brilliant. Thanks for showing us the way!

    He's no longer a visionary. He's just pretending to be one. What he did for us changed the Internet from the start. This article on the other hand means nothing as it already exists in popular form.

    1. Re:He's predicting what already exists! by Randolpho · · Score: 5, Interesting

      The difference is that telephones are currently on a separate (although admittedly often concurrent) network from the internet. What he's predicting is that, rather than having area codes and phone numbers, people will have telephones that are simply computers connected to the internet with an IP (and perhaps DNS ;)) address. No long distance charges. No local telephone companies charging outrageous prices for using their network.

      Just internet.

      That is a *big* difference from what exists today. Sure, to the average consumer, it will work roughly the same way, but in actual fact, it will be an entirely different puppy.

      --
      "Times have not become more violent. They have just become more televised."
      -Marilyn Manson
    2. Re:He's predicting what already exists! by GPLDAN · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I think you don't understand what he is saying. He is talking about the elimination of the E.164 standard. There will be directory systems that underly systems like Mobile IP.

      I think you fail to understand the kind of shift that will happen when international dialing codes and area codes simply go away. When you can rely on underlying systems like DynDNS married to a directory system that will allow you to plug a SIP phone anywhere, get a DHCP address - register to a directory server - and start taking calls immediately. Or what will happen when cellular providers go IP behind the scenes.

      His insight that Domain Naming services tie it all together is quite important. Despite what you think.

  2. So what? by Mz6 · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Sheesh, what makes him such an expert on predicting the future of the Internet? Further, i'm not so sure I would call anything of what he said a prediction.

    Prediction 1: He wants web addresses to replace phone numbers.

    "It is quite possible that phone numbers will have disappeared and people will just use menus off their phone. I don't think there is particular value in having them."

    Isn't this pretty much already happening now? With the advent of cell phones and even home phones that allow phone book storage, this already happens. There are people that don't even remember their HOME phone number because they always pull it from the menu on their cell phone, or use voice-activated dialing.

    "Searching and finding people are certainly the two areas that still need to develop further, according to Dr Mockapetris, and replacing numbers with web addresses will help that, he says"

    I'm not so sure I follow. Google has become so successful because of their search technology. With billions of webpages and websites, and probably even more billions of phone numbers, how is that going to help? It's still tough to find web addresses with easy to remember names these days. Atleast with Google it makes it much easier.

    Prediction 2: Access for all, Security

    "Although advanced countries are at the point where most people have net access in one form or another, much still needs to be done so that every man, woman and child on the planet has it all of the time, he says. Permanent net connection through broadband has meant the physical infrastructure is almost there, taking us a step towards the Iron Age. "

    Wasn't this already introduced a couple years ago? Since the advent of broadband, it has been the goal of changinging everything over to that and giving access to all. However, I think it's something that is going to happen a lot sooner than we think, thanks in part to wi-fi. Wi-fi is becoming increasingly popular with everyone these days from hotels, cafes, even in parks. Thankfully, he did point out that security needs to be tightened up before a lot of this goes mainstream.

    "Part of the challenge for the net's next 21 years is to make sure people can be certain they are using the net safely. At the moment, many net users are unable to recognise if the e-mail they have been sent from their "bank" is dodgy or not. "Creating a model of when things are safe and not, will have to happen in cyberspace."

    Correct... This is more than likely going to be the next big explosion on the net (behind searching of course). But I just wish it would actually happen in the right order. Get the security practices down, then introduce access for all, but make sure they can understand it first.

    --
    Hmmm.
  3. Yeah! by jawtheshark · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Next time people ask my phonenumber I'll tell them "phone@jawtheshark.com" or if they want my cell it'll be "gsm@jawtheshak.com". Now, I'll just have to wait until the telcos comply with that scheme ;-)

    But seriously, isn't it already that way? I only know two phone numbers: my cellphone and my normal phone. If I want to call someone I just look up their name in my "phonebook" on my cell or phone and I click "call". So in some way we already have the thing he talks about. You could consider the phonebook function in modern phones as an equivalent to a local "hosts" file.

    --
    Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
    1. Re:Yeah! by tanguyr · · Score: 5, Funny

      Next time people ask my phonenumber I'll tell them "phone@jawtheshark.com" or if they want my cell it'll be "gsm@jawtheshak.com". Now, I'll just have to wait until the telcos comply with that scheme ;-)

      I predict your first calls on these will be from spammers.

      --
      #!/usr/bin/english
  4. Dumping phone numbers by Zugot · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I understand the thought of dumping phone number and mapping them names in the future. I just don't think DNS or DNS like directory is what is needed.

    As of right now, I just share my contact list between my phone and my pda. I think the future is convergence. I'm waiting for the ideas to make my life simpler now.

    --
    -- Bryan
  5. We are not where we think by nebaz · · Score: 5, Interesting

    From the article:
    Although advanced countries are at the point where most people have net access in one form or another, much still needs to be done so that every man, woman and child on the planet has it all of the time, he says.

    One of the things that struck me about the media coverage about the war on Afghanistan is just how poor and primitive the majority of the people on the planet have it. There are arguably about 1-2 billion people in the G8 countries. How many other countries have running water? Indoor plumbing? Electricity? Look at the goat farmers in the middle east. Do you really think that everyone is going to have web access anytime soon?

    The idea that the entire world has our standard of living is simply false.

    --
    Rhymes that keep their secrets will unfold behind the clouds.There upon the rainbow is the answer to a neverending story
  6. Re:Bronze Age? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Surely you mean this kind of Beaker person?

  7. Re:In the FUTURE... by BabyDave · · Score: 5, Funny

    The internet will replace your telephone, television, electricity, water, gas, and sewer.

    Lets just hope they're not as stingy with "upload bandwidth" as they are now

  8. Phone numbers won't dissappear because.. by menem · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The problem is the form factor of the cell phone. Cell phones typically have a numeric keypad to keep the size reasonable. The easiest way to input a phone number is to enter numbers.

    The biggest current trend is that everyone is switching to wireless phones. Most people don't want to carry around a phone large enough to contain a keyboard. Voice recognition works well only for words that are commonly used. For weird IP addresses, you would have to say each letter one at a time.

    Imagine you meet somebody. You want to store his/her phone number your phone book on your cell phone. Which is easier? Typing 820-833-5214 or typing a 16 letter word into your 10 button keypad?

  9. Re:If I invented DNS... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Time for a little history lesson. Before DNS, everyone had to submit a request to the ARPA NIC at SRI in order to get their host added to the HOSTS.TXT file. Sometimes it took weeks for the request to make it through the bureaucracy. After DNS, control of the namespace is distributed and each organization controls its own chunk without hardly ever having to deal with a central bureaucracy. Somehow you see this as a bad thing? True, there continues to be some bureaucracy (and therefore politics) surrounding the apex of the namespace (the root zone and TLDs), but DNS was still a revolutionary improvement over what preceded it, and Dr. Mockapetris has much to be proud of.

  10. I think I've become a technophobe... by RosebudLTD · · Score: 5, Interesting

    You know, after reading this something is pretty clear to me. I hate technology, in its current state.

    When I'm in a face to face conversation, and one of my buddies 'Jim' says "just drop me an email", I cringe. Let's see... I've got only one email address listed under 'Jim' in my handheld's address book. Was that his home email, or his work email, or his personal-but-I-can-read-this-at-work email? Damn, I don't remember, and my handheld's software didn't provide space to make such a note.

    Okay, I'll give him a call and ask... no, that's his home number.. where is his cell phone number? Crap, doesn't matter... no cell phone signal. Fine, I'll just wait until I get home...

    Okay, my home address book has what I need... I send off that email. Now I wait two days for him to reply. With three email addresses, you can't expect 'Jim' to check them all constantly, right?

    So two days later, 'Jim' replies... but I didn't see the message. I accidentally deleted it, instead of an advertisement for Cia.lis that was one line down.

    I'll call 'Jim', and see why he hasn't written me back. Hmm, his phone service tells me that 'all circuits are currently occupied'. I'm sorry, but what the hell is that supposed to mean?

    Oh, ok now his phone is ringing... hmm, poor connection, I can barely understand him. Jim says he replied to me... hmmm...

    Oh, there it is, in my deleted messages folder. Ahh, but my email server stripped off the attachment, fearing that zip file of fake Olsen twin porn he sent me was a virus.

    I give up.
    ...

    As self-serving as it might seem (the creator of DNS, who works for a DNS company, is pitching DNS as a cure-all solution), maybe he has the right idea. Let's face it, the DNS system works. And it works well enough that there is just one of them in use. You don't hear "oh, you can't get to my website, because you are using the wrong DNS system."

    A single, elegant system for uniquely identifying a human being, and then routing all communications to them (phone calls, emails, instant messages), independant of the devices being used to communicate, would be great. I, for one, would welcome that.

    Obviously, though, the physical and socal infrastructure is not there yet (spotty cell phone coverage, unsolicited calls and emails, unproductive business competition). We've got a long way to go.