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NSF Ponders New And Improved Internet
diorcc wrote to mention a Wired article about a NSF Project that could completely rebuild the Internet as we know it. From the article: "The National Science Foundation is backing a major initiative that could lead to a completely new internet architecture, with built-in security measures and support for ubiquitous sensors and wireless communications devices, among other things. The Global Environment for Networking Investigations, or GENI, will include a research grant program to fund new architectures and an experimental facility, which has not yet been planned in detail."
Let's name it "Internet 2!"
So in other words, this is just an experimental research facility with possible long-term finds that may impact the future direction of interneworking.
To rebuild the internet is insane. To slowly change the direction we are building it is more likely.
Maybe we could even call it... Internet2!
Like the current http protocol?
perpetually dwelling in the -1 pits
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Well if they don't have sufficient funds, then the project is doomed to failure!
Didn't we already give them hundreds of millions of dollars, and trust that they'd deliver the "New and Improved Internet" to us with Internet2? I know I2 is doing a lot of good for a bunch of universities, medical centers and corporations, all of which therefore are getting their N&INet (NII) to contribute to their hugely profitable enterprises, subsidized at taxpayer expense. Where is the delivery of I2 to the rest of us, who pay for it, who need it, who represent most of the American economy (foreigners are welcome to ride for free, as usual ;)? Why should we give them even more money, when they just got paid to learn they can get paid not to share it with us?
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From what I read of the article, it didn't seem that the NSF wanted to rebuild the internet, just experiment with a new way of making the internet. It's even being connected to two other pseudo-internets, Internet2 and LambdaRail.
Really? Why? http://www.salon.com/tech/col/rose/2000/10/05/gore _internet/index.html
"built-in security measures"
What type? What makes them think someone cannot bypass what they will produce, I see integration as a bad thing... unless it is practical stuff, things that should be implemented out of common sense... (e.g. server daemon messages being shown through telnet)
Cheers
They're rebuilding the internet to make it more secure, eliminate spam, virus, spoofing and so on.
Bad News:
Initiative will use Microsoft programming techniques as its foundation.
:-) :-)
{just joking}
.. and it will be the best funded network EVER, what with all those 36 dollar fees they've been taking from me nightly.
oh.. gotta go deposit my check to get back out of the red.
** "It's not my job to stand between the people talking to me, and the ones listening to me." -- Pego the Jerk
Grandparent poster was joking. The Gore internet quote has been discussed to death and no-one brings it up with any degree of sincerity anymore.
Human, may I surf your mind?
O'WONDERWe're working on it.
If it had a version of napster running on it that the RIAA couldn't disrupt or bust people for using it might even get some use.
Sure they helped give us some nukes to kill a wraith ship but I still think they're bad.
Hell I didnt even know they had a internet.
Didn't GEnei die a few years ago?
How can they improve the internet, now that Google has peaked?
There was an old McKinsey article that talked about "Strategic Incrementalism" back in the 80s. Idea was that with a clear vision, one could tweak the way to "good enough".
While there are intrinsically very ugly problems in client and server software right now, it seems that "Little Science" is displaced by "Big Science" (viz, NSF) in addressing incremental substantive improvements in security and availability for the Internet masses.
So, for example, as valuable as a *waving hands* non IP infrastructure blah blah might well be... there could be greater good achieved with work on secure computing environments, strong authentication, one time pad encryption methods and etc.
As a very dear friend of mine was fond of saying "if you want security, pull up your own shorts".
So, while big honkin backbone and new architectures are and will be very important, some think time at the "big level" regarding applications architecture and services would, likely, produce faster returns and shorter implementation times.
Verizon: Latin for "poor rural service".
The current Internet doesn't need replaced or fixed.
In other words... IPv6?
quidquid latine dictum sit altum videtur.
He's pissed?
Imagine UNATCO!
Maybe I'm drifting off topic here, but how can this internet thing simultaneously be new and improved? If it's improved, it existed before. If it's new, it didn't.
Unknown host pong.
Will it have hookers and blackjack?
3D Printing Tips and Tricks at Zheng3.com
The current version has clearly been a complete failure. Maybe if they start over from scratch, this Internet thing will actually become popular.
If it had a version of napster running on it that the RIAA couldn't disrupt or bust people for using
What problem do the major North American record labels have with the Napster Music Store?
It could use IPv6, but "built-in security measures" makes me think of Trusted Network Connect. Imagine if you needed a Trusted Platform Module plus an approved, unmodified operating system plus an approved, unmodified dialer program that verifies the "integrity" of your machine just to get an IP address. Some analysts claim that most major cable and DSL ISPs are likely to require TNC by 2015.
simply track every transaction on the internet and allow law enforcement to invade and abuse it whever they will it...
Considering we can break anything we make, no matter what is done, it comes down to this.
giving access to personal and private information to other humans...
May as well just start installing gps tracking and personal data recording chips in all humans...
Then it really won't matter what internet or other future tech we make use of.
Of course included is a punishment system of shock therapy and AI second guessing what you do to stop you from doing anything on the list of things not to do..... A list created by a few faulty humans of course....
The point is, there is nothing we can build that we cannot break.
Making this whole "better internet" just a carrot to get the donkey to move...... in circles.
In related news, industry analysts have examined the expected content of this "new & improved" web, and have decided to call it the "National Science Foundation Web", or "NSFW" for short. When asked for comment, an official replied "finally, the Internet will have a name that accurate reflects the majority of its content."
If you believe everything you read, you'd better not read. - Japanese proverb
...in Swedish. I wonder if the name was chosen on purpose?
Just an interesting tidbit brought to you by a random Swede.
NSF? NSF what? Not safe for what? Not safe for work? Not safe for eyes? Not safe for consumption?
All I'm seeing here is NSF Ponders and I'm not even sure what a Ponder is and what wouldn't be safe for it.
These safety bulletins are getting severely lacking here on Slashdot these days.
I personally am waiting for the internet like in the Megaman Battle Network games. I want a PET! =)
Speaking is NOT communication
...think terrorists when they saw NSF?
Bastij terrorists
And mod GP's child Redundant while you're at it.
The internet currently relies on heavily congested backbones that are very vulnerable in regards to outages, attacks, etc. What is needed urgently is a modern mesh-based decentralized internet infrastructure which would offer redundancy and increase average access speed because of multiple available routes between any two points.
Everything I have seen about it so far is really very ugly.
First off, there are a number of major challenges facing the Internet. The ones that spring immediately to mind are security, management, and availability. To see some of these, compare the Internet to the (good parts of) the telephone network. 911 emergency phone service has roughly 99.99% availability; the Internet is an order of magnitude worse. You can't get a virus over the phone lines, and it's very difficult to create a botnet of 100,000 people to DDoS, say, a hospital's telephone system. Now, that ignores many of the good things about the Internet -- you can create and run fabulous applications that the network designers never envisioned, etc., at least, if you're not running behind a NAT. ;)
But wouldn't it be nice to have a network that had the best of all worlds? A network that cost 1/10th as much to manage as it does today? A network where your parents didn't call you up frequently and ask, "It says it couldn't find my DHCP server - what's wrong??" A network where you didn't resort to weird (but clever) hacks like traceroute to try to diagnose problems? Where Scott Richter couldn't create a spam-blasting army of drones? I use Vonage, and I had to dial 911 a few weeks ago to report a fire at the apartment across the street. During part of the conversation, I couldn't hear the operator well enough to understand the questions she was asking. It was a frightening and educational experience.
One of the most important parts of this program is that it's encouraging researchers to not feel constrained to fit into the current design, and is looking at ways to get that deployed in a way that it can gateway to or run on top of the current Internet. There's a big difference between this program and the Internet2, IPv6, etc. It's both higher risk and (hopefully!) higher reward. Internet2 was pretty much "Internet + faster links + some focused researchy bits"; it got co-oped early on because it provided lots of bandwidth to big science, and was too entrenched to try radical new things that (gasp!) might break. GENI is research + interfaces to allow early adopters -- like, say, slashdotters -- to make use of its services. The idea of creating an infrastructure that can safely be used simultaneously for testing out new research prototypes at all levels and running production versions of those services that succeed is a powerful notion that will give GENI a big edge over prior attempts.
It's an exciting proposal, and a scary one. If it gets funded, it could be either the biggest success in networking since the Web, or the biggest flop.
(Disclosure- I'm a networking professor at Carnegie Mellon. This is my field, I've been involved in some of the GENI discussions, and I intend to submit funding proposals to it. I think it'll be one of the best things in years to help academic networking research have a big impact on the real world.)
As if a brief article in that paragon of journalism, Salon.com, disposes of the question.
First, the obsession with wireless everything is beyond moronic as we don't know what our present electromagnetic soup does to our cell structures and synaptic interaction as it is and we want to fill the spectrum even more at higher power levels per unit volume and area? Yeah, that's a great idea. (
Second, what has made the present Internet great is not top down planning from standards committees and government agencies, but the interplay between them, users, content providers, carriers, corporations making products for it, etc. EVERYONE has had a part to play in making the Internet what it is today. I put the idea that any one group can make a new Internet under the same heading as people who claim to have special knowledge of how the universe really works (and that everyone else is an idiot; see the self-improvement section of the local bookstore) or how to make my life perfect. Unadulterated arrogance. There's a lot of parts to be played in some as organic and differentiated as the world of the Internet.
Third, anything which puts into place inherent breakpoints for snooping for whatever reason is a bad idea. It is an automatic invasion of privacy of citizens, organizations, and corporations whether the government uses them or not. There's no rationale that can justify the infringement and outweigh the long term negatives. The name of the game should be embracing of privacy and security of the Interenet's users. Say what you want about terrorism. There's been encryption of written communication going back to ancient times on stone tablets written in code. If we sacrifice freedoms for security we end up deserving neither.
The NSF would be spending its time a little more wisely on less grandiose things.
If my grammar and spelling are off, I am [distracted/tired/careless] (take your pick)
How come I am not allowed by my IPC to have a home server? All I want is a way of not having to pay some ISP an exorbidant $$$ to host some content....there must be a way my home PC can act as a server without having to pay some ISP $$$ per month, there must be a cheaper way...
In Soviet Russia, the new and improved Internet ponders you!
Yet another way in which the govenrment can spend the money it steals from us in mass-quantities, or justify stealing more money from us. If the project is such a great idea, let it be funded by voluntary means (donations, contributions, etc), rather than by coercive involuntary means (taxes, government borrowing, inflation).
Why is it that some people think that just because they feel they have a good idea, that justifies stealing money from others, e.g., violating the property-rights of others?
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
OK, I'll bite instead of modding you troll. What the hell are you thinking? Don't you realise the internet was developed in the public sector? Those universities and medical centers are the same early-adopting testbeds that created the infrastructure to allow you to bang out your jingoistic nonsense with your one free hand today. I presume, incidentally, that you are posting this using some kind of advanced gopher client, and not HTTP, since you don't appear to have heard of that particular European invention. Likewise, presumably you're not using any GNU products (MIT), Linux, Berkeley Unix, or anything else that might challenge your pickled-in-vinegar worldview. Jeez. You are a prime idiot. No doubt you will be happy to learn that George Bush, quite possibly an idol of yours, has quietly slashed NSF funding, as part of his war on science. Presumably this will not damage the future of the Internet, however, since I am sure that a fine libertarian like you was first in line to donate his Bush tax refund check to some private Internet Reseach Trust or other.
Speak english.
Plus the set of ideas behind the JXTA protocols are beautiful. (Everyone that I know who has absorbed the protocol specification immediately turns into a zombie advocate that can't stop thinking about the cool things that they could do.) This paper is a great place to start.
The "cue the foo posts in 3, 2, 1..." posts will commence with no subsequent foo posts in 3, 2, 1...
You're a retard. I never claimed the US invented everything on the Internet. The browser I use, though, like most people's browsers, is largely an American invention - mostly the work of NCSA (Mosaic) and Netscape (Silicon Valley). And so much of GNU, as you pointed out (MIT, Berkeley, etc) is American in origin. Though there's certainly lots of foreigners contributing excellent work: often better than their American counterparts.
So what? I'm not talking about any of that. I'm talking about Internet2, the subject of this discussion. Just like the Internet, I expect my taxes and government to support research to produce Internet2, and to share it with the world. But instead, my taxes and government are subsidizing corporate testbeds for Cisco and Nortel, as a weak protest in another response correctly identified.
You're riding your little hobby horse furiously, but backwards. I hate Bush, as I often make perfectly clear in many ways on Slashdot. My demand that public investment in R&D return results to the public, rather than just to the corporate recipients (who bribe^Wcontribute to Bush to perpetuate the status quo) is EXACTLY THE OPPOSITE OF YOUR DEMENTED DRIVEL.
I don't know what crossed nerve, exactly, I triggered in your broken little brain. But my post merely demanded that we get more return from our public investment. Which your own post seems to agree with. So get your head out of your ass and stop flaming me. Because you're just making our rational shared position look bad with your obnoxious, deranged handwaving. If only there were an Internet2 here already that could block you from polluting it with ass-backwards posts like that one.
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Your posts quite simply proves that there is some truth about the stereotype of Americans that watches too much Fox "News".
Which part? "Though there's certainly lots of foreigners contributing excellent work: often better than their American counterparts"?
I defy you to find anything like the Fox News pap in my posts. Unless you're going by your own Pravda, which tells you that somehow America didn't invent the Internet. All you've got is the stereotypical jealous response to any leader, whether a European disease or otherwise, that denies our achievements by finding fault with our pride in them. I could go on about the cultural defects of so many countries, that America doesn't usually share, which keep them bogged down in backbiting rather than innovation. But that would detract for the useful work I'm doing. Take a cue from us, and get on with proving something positive about your own country, before you start attacking the achievements of others.
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If they equate "security" to DRM, then I am calling fud, lol.
~Kevin
" In Soviet Russia, the new and improved Internet ponders you!"
I think it is time to change that tag to:
"In Soviet America the new and improved Internet ponders you."
And they won't be kidding. How exactly different are the old Soviet model and the new American security state, other than corporations being largely autonomous?
Hmmm, sounds like the current POTS system. In the end, the internet will turn into another controlled network of the telcom companies and governments of the world from the current state of a maintained but uncontrolled system.
Savior the moment while it lasts fellas.
BRILLIANT!
Dear GENI,
I'm so glad to finally meet you, here are my three wishes:
1. internet > google2 | sell google2 google
2. rm -rf microsoft
3. rm -rf hurricane.katrina
Thanks!
Will it have the recent Evil Bit?
Why you keep claming that the great softwares are American? The browsers do exist just because someone at Europe brought up the HTML idea. And most of your free software, although born at USA, is developed by 'foreigners'. Almost any multimedia project (xine, vlc, mplayer) is hosted outside USA, because of those freaky patents. The same patents laws that Europe refused to swallow. I wouldn't doubt if you argued that Linux is an American invention.
And, IIRC, the other countries that joined the Internet 2 haven't done it for free. They had to build their own networks: they just link to the USA, like Internet (1). It's not a free ride, a kidda of favour you guys do to the next the door's countries. Actually, it's pretty much important to the USA those long range connections: it's beachin easy to connect at GB/s for about 1000 km (compared to transatlanctic connections). Both sides of the link profit from this relationship.
I'm talking about Internet2, the subject of this discussion. Just like the Internet, I expect my taxes and government to support research to produce Internet2, and to share it with the world. But instead, my taxes and government are subsidizing corporate testbeds for Cisco and Nortel, as a weak protest in another response correctly identified.
It's too bad your own posts don't contain facts to back up your random walks through rant-space. We see Internet 2 just fine here, in UC Berkeley. I do realise NYC, and the east coast in general, is a little backward when it comes to these things.
I hate Bush, as I often make perfectly clear in many ways on Slashdot.
Well excuse me for not being thoroughly familiar with your ouvre. Then again, I've seen hundreds of clone-like American idiots claiming that (a) they invented most of the modern world, (b) foreigners are freeloaders and (c) they themselves are experts on "foreign" countries, science, national funding priorities, taxes, and indeed an assortment of other areas where they've basically got a couple of weeks experience at most (but clearly feel that, since this is two weeks more than most of their compatriots, the "expert" tag is well-deserved). After the first dozen or two such clones, you kinda stop paying attention.
All I implied was that the Internet was invented by Americans, our gift to the world. You'll have to argue about your straw man, all "software", with someone else. Like whether Linux is American of Finnish. But you'd show a lot more class if you showed at least a little gratitude for the free innovations you have gotten - and that's by no means limited to the Internet.
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A hobby horse with the speed of light, a broken brain and a hearty
"Hi Yo Silver!"
The Doc Ruuuby.
"Hi Yo Silver, awaaay!"
With his retarded Indian companion Dioscorea, the deranged, handwaving masked rider of slashdot, led the flames for law and order in the early internet.
Return with us now to those thrilling, obnoxious days of demented drivel.
The Doc Ruby rides again!
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Face it, you've got a chip on your shoulder just like most people I met when I was a student at UC Berkeley. You got it all wrong, now you're flailing around looking for some credibility. Trying to get in shots about the "backwards East Coast". We don't let creeps like you into facilities like MAE East for a reason: you're loose cannons. Windmilling like that can knock loose a fiber - you're not worth the liability. Now, if your Internet2 lab were run by New Yorkers, you might have actually produced something tangible to shock the world. Instead all you've got is fog and mirrors. Paid for by our hard work, converted to taxes. Now get back to work and do something to justify your grant. That, by the way, is paying for you to spin your wheels in our country, a guest who hates his hosts. Ingrate motherfucker.
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LambaRail isn't a pseudo-internet.
it's a vital transportation system linking different areas of Black Mesa research facility. i wish NSF would get more involved with it.
A virile, young Italian gentleman was relaxing at his favorite bar in Rome, when he managed to attract a spectacular young blonde. Things progressed to the point where he invited her back to his apartment, and after some small talk, they retired to his bedroom and made love. After a pleasant interlude, he asked with a smile,"So ... you
finish?"
She paused for a second, frowned and admitted, "No."
Surprised, the young man reached for her and the love making
resumed.
This time she thrashes about wildly and there are screams of passion.
The lovemaking ends, and again, the young man smiles, and
again he asks, "You finish?"
And again, after a short pause, she returns his smile,
cuddles closer to him, and softly says, "No."
Stunned, but damned if this woman is going to outlast him,
the young man reaches for the woman again. Using the last of his
strength, he barely manages it, but they climax simultaneously,
screaming, bucking, clawing and ripping the bed sheets.
The exhausted man falls onto his back, gasping. Barely able to turn his
head, he looks into her eyes, smiles proudly, and asks again, "You finish?"
Barely able to speak, she whispers in his ear, "No! I Norwegian."
How Swede it is :).
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Hey, you know, Doc, those grants are awarded by competition, fair and square. If you don't like the fact that I out-competed Americans for ca$h, then why don't you submit a proposal and show a sketpical world what New York can do? Just one achievment on the scale of BSD Unix or the Linux kernel would be nice... instead of, ahem, whining bigtime about foreigners reaping the benefits of "your" hard graft. O & btw, I don't hate Americans; far from it. It's just that a college youth mis-spent on alt.nuke.the.USA taught me to recognise certain "types". And you're more typed than Haskell. Why don't you move on to the WW2 chorus. You know how it goes: "all be speaking German... bailed out your asses.... Turing was a fag in NHS glasses..."
I have always wondered why there is no consideration given to conserving bandwidth. If all busy sites were mirrored in every major location then all that needs to be updated is modifications to data bases. To tie up transcontinental communication services for the ten thousandth request for the same data when it could be local -- within the users city -- seems irresponsible. I notice a speed difference when school starts and all those online connections are made -- or on the weekend. Last Sunday my dialup went to 18k. I just gave up. Imagine what happens when more people add to the load. A lot of people have said to me they are getting a computer for Christmas and some of these are first timers. I believe the bandwidth dragon will be soon upon us. And yes, security needs a big assist as well.
Because all that bullshit is just what fills your closet of nightmares, not mine. You got your grant, now you spew your nuke.the.USA venom at people who don't want to hear it. I'll point out that on merit, you are attending at UC Berkeley in the USA, not at a European university.
However your college prepared you to win CS grants at Berkeley, you did not invent either Unix or Linux. The people at Berkeley who did create BSD were funded in no small part by New York City, where our achievements in other fields we invest in smart people elsewhere. Without questioning their naivete in adopting stereotypes. Your college experience didn't teach you the danger of that, either - apparently, it prepared you only to spew venom on the Web, and maybe engage in one of a hundred CS projects that will likely fail, but might bear fruit on the American tab.
And you're not even good at these stereotypes you cherish. You somehow pegged me as a Bushevik, when I am anything but. Even the post on which you bit, entering this thread with the stench of rot and ironclad preconcevied notions, is a stupid rant that ignores my original demand for more public benefit from public research investment, instead crying at your own demons of reduced public investment in research. From the beginning your posting is about your fear of getting cut off from the money tit here in the US, having nothing to do with me whatsoever. You take your fears of your own inadequacies, your own stereotypes, and keep them to yourself. You frolic in a.n.t.U, then make your nest in California. You've got zero integrity, zero sense of with whom you're dealing. I'm not interested in standing in for whatever's got you spooked, so you can exercise your fantasy of playing both sides of your stereotypes, calling Turing a fag, whatever it is that's boiling inside you.
As I said, Berkeley is a good place for you, with your badly repressed inner conflicts, and need to project them on others. Just don't turn them onto a New Yorker, especially one who's already lived there, because we can spot a cracked nerd from 3000 miles away. Get back to work, because that's the only reason we're keeping you and your disgusting, childish, badly broken attitude around.
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BTW, you may not think you're a "Bushevik", but with your complaints that research isn't showing value, etc, etc, you may as well be. Research is showing value. It always has. Despite this, funding is being cut from NSF and NIH, and diverted to military spending and homeland security. This leads to a distortion of scientific priorities, e.g. towards biowarfare and away from public health, which can properly be seen as part of the massive fear-driven distortion of US priorities following 9/11. Yes, go ahead, accuse me of being driven solely by blinkered public-sector greed again; that's what you faux-libertarian nobs do best; regardless, that's the context to your comments attacking NSF. Maybe you'd like to take a pop at the UN next? In the least-Bushlike way possible, of course. See, no matter how anti-Bush you claim you are, no matter how nuanced and unique you think your particular "indignant-taxpayer" drone may sound, in the end it's indistinguishable from the chorus of similar voices on the right wing. Especially in its rampant nationalism. "But I hate Bush," you cry, oblivious to the fact that the main problem with most self-styled opponents of Bush is that they sound exactly like Bush on so many issues....
I'm guessing it'll also have ubiquitous wiretapping capability.
-Uberhund
But we did invent the Internet. And until an American invented the IMG tag, the Web wasn't useable by most people. So take a hint, and show some gratitude, instead of your jealous spite. We're not cranking out this tech for your thanks, but you could at least show some dignity when you accept our gifts.
/.
Cringe... Thank you Doc Ruby for bestowing your infinite wisdom and generosity upon us lowly non-americans!
Sure, there is a lot of great research and technology that have come out of the US, but the technologies that comprise what we call the Internet come from many different fields of research, institutions and countries.
Despite not wanting to get in to a polemic about the specifics, consider hypertext/HTML (T. Berners-Lee), CSS (W3C/Wium-Lie) etc. There are a myriad of protocols and infrastructure components that were not invented in the US that are needed to get your tripe posted to
US scientists, academics and politicians [sic] were pivotal in developing the internet, but it's only part of the story. Seriously mate get of your high horse: Your world view is embarassing.