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NSF Ponders New And Improved Internet

Posted by Zonk on from the can-this-one-deliver-soda-over-ip? dept.

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."

2 of 153 comments (clear)

  1. Strategic Incrementalism by ngr8 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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".
  2. Trusted Network Connect by tepples · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.