The Next Net

Qa32 wrote to give a heads up on a BBC article discussing the IETF's plans for the future, including information on VoIP, IPv6, and security concerns. From the article: "Given the net was designed for the whole community, it has done well to reach millions. If you want to reach the whole population, you have to make sure it can scale up."

Comments

Mass media distribution

[thundercatslair]

IPv6 is nothing, it was just created because we are running out of IP addresses quickly. The future as I see it is mass distribution of media. Instead of running out and buying movies you could download the whole dvd and watch that.

Re:Mass media distribution

[mboverload]

First we need download speeds that are even close to our Asian neighbors.

It is pathetic that even poor people in South Korea have lines for 20 bucks a month at 25 mbps. America the leader in tech? I beg to differ.

Re:Mass media distribution

[arturov]

A step in the right direction, but the speed is still quite low compared to other more developed countries.

Only if you gauge a country's level of development by starcraft player density.

Re:Mass media distribution

[Hogwash McFly]

Quit trying to compare two vastly different situations just to bash the US

You know, not every negative observation about the United States is an attempt to jump on the 'US Bashing' bandwagon.

Re:Mass media distribution

[Doc Ruby]

What about the Korea-sized swath from DC, through Philly and NYC, to Boston? It's pretty densely populated with rich media consumers. Why not just in NYC, where only 10% of the fiber is even lit, and we're among the richest, hungriest media consumers on the planet? Could it be that broadband providers are limited by their bizmodel, defined by the regulations they lobby incessantly to retain? That their lazy management is more interested in the low-hanging fruit of overcharging for pay-per-view of the movies they own, rather than opening up the infrastructure to competition from every shop with real broadband, or P2P?

Just make sure...

[advocate_one]

you keep patents out of the standards... Microsoft have been trying to stick one in for the basic premises of IPv6... and surprise, surprise... they were also involved in the standards committee...

Those familiar with the meetings of the IETF as the committee hammered out the IPv6 IP address discovery system told eWEEK.com that Microsoft was actively participating in those discussions back in late 1997 and early 1998. Microsoft left the meetings and filed a patent for work on which there already existed numerous RFCs (requests for consensus)--basically the legislation that runs the Internet.

Wow! think of all them IP addresses.

[pg110404]

I believe IPv6 has something like 50 addresses for every square foot of land on the earth.

That's amazing. Soon we'll be able to wire up our entire house and everything from the fridge to the alarmclock would be accessible from the internet.

I only hope if it gets to that, nobody can hack into my microwave when I'm cooking my dinner, or someone hacking into my alarm clock and messes with the settings.

If microsoft does good on their desire to control it all, they'd better finally have some reasonable measure of security. I wouldn't want to wake up to find out some low life got to my hot water heater and turned it off because of a buffer overflow vulnerability.

OMG HE MADE TEH AL GORE FUNNY!!1eleven

[daniil]

Seriously, mate, this joke is so old it's about time it was put out of its misery (as it's no longer funny) and bury it under three miles of solid rock (otherwise, the stench would be unbearable).

Re:IPv6 is a hack

[irix]

IANA hasn't been handing out class A blocks "like tap water" for a long time. Sure, some organizations have too many addresses, but these were mainly organizations that pioneered the IP network and were handed these netblocks very early on.

As an AC pointed out in an earlier response, NAT is the hack, not IPv6. It breaks end-to-end connectivity, and you have to jump through lots of hoops to get many protocols to work correctly. NAT was a measure that slowed the need for IPv6, but it didn't remove it.