Japanese Researchers Aim to Replace the Internet

Gary writes "Japanese communications minister Yoshihide Suga said Friday that Japan will start research and development on technology for a new generation of network that would replace the Internet, eyeing bringing the technology into commercial use in 2020. The envisaged network is expected to ensure faster and more reliable data transmission, and have more resilience against computer virus attacks and breakdowns."

Comments

Doesn't this already exist?

[morgan_greywolf]

Doesn't this already exist? I mean, seriously, how many parallel projects do we need to do the same thing?

Re:Doesn't this already exist?

[Anonymous Coward]

Agreed. This is totally redundant, and there's no reason to do it - just like other companies writing operating systems when Windows Vista was being developed.

Wait, bad example...

Re:Doesn't this already exist?

[MightyYar]

I don't see anything wrong with trying different approaches to the same end. Perhaps they disagree with compromises or design decisions that were made with Internet 2.0?

Re:Doesn't this already exist?

[machine of god]

As many as it takes to get one that's free of private interests.

Re:Doesn't this already exist?

[Anonymous Coward]

Internet 2.0 and Web 2.0 are different things.

Internet 2.0 - New infrastructure for the net.
Web 2.0 - My web site is shit, filled with AJAX and contains no content.

Re:Doesn't this already exist?

[lheal]

Unless they figure out how to ensure redundancy, they will have reinvented the wheel. The reason the Internet is unreliable is that the last two nodes on the graph have only one connection. Why do we have only one ISP, and why do ISPs only have one upstream provider? Economics. Let's see them solve that one.

Furthermore, we've been about to implement IPv6 for years now.

Even furthermore, their ultra-secure shiny modern internetwork will still have to connect to the kludgy 1980's rustbucket the rest of us use on our Windows-based computers, which means it will be pwned in a few minutes just like the original.

It's the Silver Bullet Syndrome. They think they'll invent a secure network, when all they'll be doing is achieving a bit of obsecurity.

Re:Doesn't this already exist?

[Oswald]

My fear is that it's a perfect example. By 2020, the current internet will have a level of lock-in that makes Windows look disposable. "Faster" and "safer" will have a tough time overcoming "empty".

Re:Doesn't this already exist?

[mikael]

The internet is built over a series of seven layers - the .

The idea of splitting everything into layers is so that any one system could be changed without having to totally rewrite everything else - if you want to replace your dial-up modem with a wi-fi card, all you have to do is replace the drivers. If your ISP wants to replace their router network with an ATM network that's easily done without affecting you. If someone came along with a better router management protocol, that's easily done.

The original Internet did have redundancy and resistance against breakdown built in. Unfortunately, many network companies found it cheaper simply to route separate logical networks along one connection, rather than have multiple and completely separate connections. Thus, we end up with a hard-wired minimum spanning tree network, that fails as soon as one link goes down.

Let them go ahead with this idea, but by the time they complete their literature survey, they will probably find out there is very little that they need to change.

Re:Doesn't this already exist?

[bockelboy]

The Internet 2 is a consortium maintains a high-speed backbone across the US; the costs are subsidized by the government so universities can communicate each other at 10Gbps rates without having to go out to the commercial Internet. A small portion of the funding goes to some middleware projects.

However, most NSF-funded networking projects use the I2 as their testbed, but they're not necessarily a part of the I2. For example, GENI - the US effort to redesign internet protocols from the ground up - will run in parallel with I2. GENI is the US counterpart to this Japanese effort (although it's hard to tell from the light-on-details article).

Re:Doesn't this already exist?

[marcello_dl]

This is totally redundant, and there's no reason to do it - just like other companies writing operating systems when Windows Vista was being developed...

Wait, bad example...

Of course it is. You called Vista an operating system.

Operating systems make computers work, vista makes Gates rich.

Re:Doesn't this already exist?

[Retric]

I know this is /. but did you read the article you linked?

Noting actually uses the OSI model it's just an abstraction to help people understand how networking works. The Internet uses the TCP/IP http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TCP/IP_model model of Application, Transport, Network, and Data link layers.

PS: The internet has redundancy as a mesh of networks even if many of those networks have single point's of failure. On second as you speak with such conviction on subjects you know little about you might belong on /. Welcome to the party.

Re:Doesn't this already exist?

[somersault]

Yep. The only question is - do you want the network to function like The Matrix, or be more along the lines of Ghost in the Shell?

Re:Doesn't this already exist?

[NickFortune]

By 2020, the current internet will have a level of lock-in that makes Windows look disposable.

You're going to have to explain that one a little, I'm afraid. "Lock in" doesn't just mean "used by a lot of people". The term, "vendor lock in" to use the full term, is where a single company controls a protocol and abuses that control to force price hikes, unnecessary upgrades and arbitrary restrictions upon its customers.

But I don't think TCP/IP (the protocol that underlies the Internet) is owned by anyone as such, so it's not like we're going to get forced to pay more for a protocol "upgrade". Nor could some hypothetical owner force us all to use any such upgrade - so there's no fear there.

As for arbitrary restrictions, the Internet already lets you run any protocol you can devise over TCP/IP without the need for permission or approval. That may change if the anti-net-neutrality crowd start a program of aggressive traffic shaping, but that's hardly likely to be improved by a new proprietary Internet; more likely we'll see DRM on every hop, and no new usages permitted without a five year committee process.

So, to summarise: please explain how can we have any meaningful lock in on the internet, and (assuming this to be possible), please also explain how this would be bad.

Re:Doesn't this already exist?

[teh_chrizzle]

please explain how can we have any meaningful lock in on the internet, and (assuming this to be possible), please also explain how this would be bad.

i think the parent post is referring vendor lock-in, specifically provider lock in.

if you have no real choice in who provides your internet access you have take what they give you or choose to live without internet access. with all of the shenanigans (filtering, capping, throttling, etc.) that american telcos and cablecos have threatened to pull (or are actively pulling) thanks to the lack of competition in the residential broadband market, perhaps a non-american competitor to the internet as most americans know it is just what the doctor ordered.

with that said, if they really wanted to impress me they would make such a network accessible from the US.

Re:Doesn't this already exist?

[NickFortune]

if you have no real choice in who provides your internet access you have take what they give you or choose to live without internet access.

Point taken. However, that's not a shortcoming of the way the internet is currently designed. If I wanted to get a second phone line, I could open an account with a second ISP and have two gateways into my home LAN. That would take a little more vendor support for the average user, but there's nothing in the current implementation preventing such a usage.

I do appreciate that most areas in the US don't have much in the way of competition between providers (I'm in the UK) and I understand the concern that an ISP monopoly or duopoly may prove just every bit as abusive as a vendor with a widely used proprietary format. But in the ISP case, the flaw is not in the design of the internet itself. Reinventing the infrastructure is not going to solve the anti competitive nature plans of some large carriers, and at best it will only provide a feature that we already have.

perhaps a non-american competitor to the internet as most americans know it is just what the doctor ordered.

mmmm... but how are you going to access it? Unless someone feels like laying dedicated fiber across the Pacific, surely you'd end up accessing it via the Internet anyway? In which case, look for your local ISPs to traffic-shape and/or surcharge it to death before they let it become a viable competitor.

Re:Doesn't this already exist?

[FireFury03]

The term, "vendor lock in" to use the full term, is where a single company controls a protocol and abuses that control to force price hikes, unnecessary upgrades and arbitrary restrictions upon its customers.

I think you've gone a bit too far with that definition. Vendor lock-in is just where a single company controls a protocol and no third parties can use it in an unrestricted way.

The company doesn't have to abuse this position - the mere fact that you _have_ to use that company's services constitutes vendor lockin, even if they are the best services in the world.

An example might be something like MSN - even though the protocol is fairly well known (through reverse engineering), and you can pick and choose your client software, the design of the MSN network *requires* you to use the central MSN servers if you want to participate in the MSN network (i.e. there is vendor lockin since you are required to use a specific vendor's services). Compare to XMPP, which is decentralised by design - you can pick and choose what server you use (and even run your own server) and still talk with people elsewhere on the XMPP network who are using different servers and clients.

But I don't think TCP/IP (the protocol that underlies the Internet) is owned by anyone as such, so it's not like we're going to get forced to pay more for a protocol "upgrade".

Well, you might be inherently forced to upgrade. When content moves to IPv6, you will need to upgrade to IPv6. The real difference here is that it isn't a single vendor forcing you to upgrade to make more money - when you need to upgrade you can pick and choose which vendor to upgrade to.

So, to summarise: please explain how can we have any meaningful lock in on the internet, and (assuming this to be possible), please also explain how this would be bad.

I think the original poster should've said "lock in" rather than "vendor lock in". There _is_ lock-in associated with the internet since that's where a lot of content is. If you want to visit Wikipedia, for example, you have to do that using HTTP over TCP over IPv4 - you can't do it using IPv6, or over Internet2 or any other network technology without some kind of gatewaying between them (probably at the application layer). Thus, you are locked in to IPv4.

This is one of the reasons why IPv6 isn't gaining ground very quickly - the server owners don't see the point in supporting IPv6 since none of the end users support it. The ISPs and end users don't see the point in supporting it since none of the server owners support it. It's a chicken-and-egg situation - why switch to IPv6 when all the content is available on IPv4 anyway?

Re:Doesn't this already exist?

[Kadin2048]

Not to put words in the GP's mouth, but there are a few transport-layer protocols that I've come across which go in different directions from TCP and UDP.

There is a list over at Wikipedia, although I don't know if it's really close to exhaustive.

A lot of them are aiming for some sort of middle ground between TCP and UDP. They want the statelessness of UDP but some of the congestion-control and error correction of TCP, but without having to reinvent the wheel by building their own error-correction on top of UDP on a per-application basis. Others are just low-overhead versions of TCP, which were probably a lot more appealing when network and computing resources were less abundant.

Some other protocols seem like pretty straightforward attempts to patent, proprietize, and replace TCP: e.g. Venturi Transport Protocol. Others seem more well-intentioned, but look like solutions seeking problems, or buzzword-compliant* attempts to please everyone with one product.

The only one that seems particularly interesting is SCTP, which is an IETF proposed standard for a protocol that's similar to TCP but allows the transmission of multiple simultaneous streams of data, within one connection. That seems like it might be useful.

* I couldn't resist quoting this description of XTP, which sounds like it was copied and pasted from a Dilbert strip:

XTP was designed to provide a wide range of communication services built on the concept that orthogonal protocol mechanisms can be combined to produce appropriate paradigms within the same basic framework. Rather than using a separate protocol for each type of communication, XTP's protocol options and control of the packet exchange patterns allow the application to create appropriate paradigms.

Re:Doesn't this already exist?

[treeves]

Don't be a sour plum! Oh, sorry.

Re:Doesn't this already exist?

[NickFortune]

That's assuming there is more than 1 ISP around where you live. Which is not always true. Especially if you need more than basic service (i.e. higher bandwidth). Besides, spying on you can be mandated for all ISPs (it already is in some countries, no?), so having a "choice" won't change much anyway. Next up is mandated filtering, also for all ISPs.

Yes. However, these are mainly political issues not technical ones. If your ISPs have been allowed to form a cartel, if the government mandates ISP level surveillance - both political.

A redesigned from scratch Internet won't help with these issues at all, because the problems are not technical ones and any new protocol will be subject to the same issues.

On the other hand, a redesigned Internet could make matters a lot worse in this regard, since it provides an opportunity for things like patent encumbered protocols and on-by-default filtering of unregistered or encrypted protocols.

That's not to say that the problems you mention are not serious: just that you seem to be looking in the wrong place for a solution.

Re:Doesn't this already exist?

[teh_chrizzle]

Reinventing the infrastructure is not going to solve the anti competitive nature plans of some large carriers, and at best it will only provide a feature that we already have.

i'm certainly quite skeptical of any research project with such a lofty goal, and the point of my post was to clarify what i took to be the parent post's idea of vendor lock in, which you identified (correctly so, in my opinion) as a business/implementation problem rather than a technical one. i am certainly not a nascent-japanese-rival-to-the-internet fanboy.

i know absolutely nothing about the japanese project that the article is about, but the idea of another, different global inter-network is not immediately invalid. this specific project may very well prove to be invalid, but in the abstract, the idea of such a research project is (at least in my opinion) interesting.

research into another global inter-network, using the lessons learned from previous implementations and focusing on current and emerging technologies that may not have been available when the internet itself was initially designed (or re-designed) might deliver a faster, more efficient, and/or more reliable inter-network. it might. it might also prove that the design of the internet today is the best that is technologically possible. that's the beauty of research projects.

from my very limited understanding of TCP/IP, routing, and the internet itself, i have gathered that the internet was designed from a sort of "worst case scenario" point of view. it is meant to tolerate and work around slow, unreliable, and possibly hostile links first, and to deliver bits quickly second. what would it be like if we designed the internet today, but with a more "optimistic" approach? i don't know if it would change anything, or if it's even possible, but it would cool to find out.

we have established that the commercial implementation of the internet is not always true to the technological "intent" of it's creators. what would the net be like if the technology behind it "understood" the tendency (maybe even the inevitability) of businesses to put profits ahead of service? i don't know if it would change anything, or if it's even possible, but it would be cool to find out.

but how are you going to access it? Unless someone feels like laying dedicated fiber across the Pacific, surely you'd end up accessing it via the Internet anyway? In which case, look for your local ISPs to traffic-shape and/or surcharge it to death before they let it become a viable competitor.

i have no idea how one would access it, which is why i, being the myopically self centered creature that i am, would not be impressed with the idea of an internet competitor unless it was accessible to me in the US.

perhaps what is needed (if indeed anything is needed at all) is not a new and separate internet, but a kind of ad-hoc inter-network of peers that is isolated and possibly insulated from the internet, like some sort of giant darknet. as for how one makes those networks accessible on a global scale, i don't know how that would work, but i think it would be freakin' awesome.

Re:Doesn't this already exist?

[mikael]

Yes, I did - I've also worked on networking products (network probes and LAN analyzers). Even had one of those protocol charts above my desk, so I've got a good idea of how "the tubes work".

The Japanese have always had these grand computer initiatives (the last couple were "The TRON project", and Fifth Generation computing (AI, Expert Systems, Automated Learning).

The TRON project was an attempt to have computers be able to have a standard communication protocol:


First, there is the problem of reliability. Has your Internet service provider's server every gone down unexpectedly? Is it shut down regularly for maintenance causing you to lose access to the Internet? Have you ever sent an e-mail message that was never received by the person to whom you sent it? Has a person to whom you sent an e-mail message ever written back saying the header was received but there was no message attached to it? In the case of most people, the answer to these questions is "yes." But in comparison, loss of telephone service is now an extremely rare occurrence that happens mainly due to natural disasters. When it's a result of an error by the telephone company, all hell breaks loose and large-scale rebates have to be paid out to placate angry customers. ...
Of course, there are very understandable reasons why the Internet has its loyal supporters. Most importantly, the fact that governments don't control the Internet means it can give a voice to people or groups of people certain governments would like to suppress. So in that sense, it is of immense cultural importance. Another important feature of the Internet is that it is still "open technologically," so anyone can become a player without paying royalties or worrying about a lawyer from a large software company walking through the door with a ultimatum to either sign a highly unfavorable contract or have access to the Internet denied. However, in the final analysis, even the hard core fans of the Internet have to admit that when it comes to underlying technologies, the Internet is lacking in many areas.

Fortunately, there are other global network development efforts under way in addition to the Internet. One of these is the TRON Hypernetwork (in technical parlance, the highly functional distributed system [HFDS]), a vast, high-performance, real-time hypernetwork of innumerable open and closed subordinate networks based on the TRON total architecture that is being planned for computerizing human living spaces and human work environments in the 21st century. This hypernetwork is in the process of being built around a central framework of real-time servers and digital exchanges based on the Central and Communication TRON (CTRON) architecture, one of the first tasks of which is to support today's Internet protocols.


Looks like this is another attempt to revamp the TRON project (which also had its own networked CPU).

Re:Doesn't this already exist?

[The One and Only]

What you need to understand is the Japanese culture. They always start kind of "world domination" plans. Where is the 5gen computer? Forget it. Japanese are good in making plans, plans that are absolutely tough and a bit over the top.

Like what, starting a naval war with the United States?

Re:Doesn't this already exist?

[teh_chrizzle]

The "Internet" is protocols and servers and routers. But the problems you've describes are about the wire - and you'll have to use that same wire to connect to any other network, unless you want to spend a lot of money, anyway.

excellent point. very well said. whatever rivals the internet may have to transcend wires.

Well, I think it would be a lot easier to censor, a lot more vulnerable to pharming attacks, less resistant to inter-ISP squabbles where one decides to drop the other's packets, and you'd still have the problem that the "last mile" would be in the hands of either your local phone company or cable TV co, with all the problems that implies.

it's sad, but probably true. the two possible research projects i mentioned (the optimistic internet and the pessimistic internet) are responses to the two basic dooms-day scenarios for the internet. the "descent into gridlock and chaos" scenario is the preferred scare tactic of the filtering/capping/throttling crowd. the "TV with a buy button" scenario is the preferred propaganda tool of the innovation/free speech/privacy crowd. if there were sufficient competition in the market, both scenarios would be laughable. unfortunately there is no such competition, and neither side will be happy until they get what they want.

that means that either the control crowd (AT&T) wins, the internet becomes just like TV or radio (owned and controlled by corps and the govt.) and one or more darknets appear in protest, OR the freedom crowd (google) wins, the net returns to the good old days of 2001, and one or more parallel networks appear to deliver sanctioned content at speeds the internet only dreams of (like cable telephone service today). either way, new parallel nets have to be built to appease both camps.

the only real questions then become which camp will keep the name "internet", who will build "zie darknets", and what will the control camp call its darknets if it loses control of the legacy internet?

the third scenario, the "imaginary third pipe" dream (powerlines, muni-fiber, muni-wifi, high-speed mobile data) is another possibility, but i am not confident that a third entrant will appear any time soon. building a competitor to the internet takes the kind of motivation that only the need for vengeance can provide.

Japanese porn!

[WPIDalamar]

I guess the next wave of the internet will be based around much freakier porn than today's internet.

Re:Japanese porn!

[pakar]

RJ45 plugs forcing their way into a USB port? :)

Who's gonna pay for that?

[BibelBiber]

The thing i snobody wants to pay for it. Compare this to the AOL and CompuServe networks that were available for a long time. Competing with the free internet. They don't exist anymore. Just because anybody who owns it can put restrictions on you. It's not gonna work.

Re:Who's gonna pay for that?

[Lumpy]

You are completely ignoring what everyone is thinking.

how much DRM are they gonna shovel onto this thing? The current Internet setup is near perfect because of it's flaws. It is why it took off like a bat out of hell. "fix it" like these researchers and corperations want it and it will be Cable TV. Bland and icky.

They want to shove so much DRM into the internet as well as have all your packets signed by your information, etc...

I have a suggestion for the researchers, give up now, it will be a failure. good god look at how long ipV6 has been around and it is still being ignored. I think I read my 100th article about how we are running out of IP addresses that was worded identically to the one I read in 1999.

New Japanese internet

[iwankalot]

I bet this is going to be the same as the old one, except that all the addresses will comply to the following syntax: pika.youraddresshere.chu

Re:That's good and all, but...

[iamdrscience]

Yes, but unfortunately, because it's Japanese, all genitalia will be censored with mosaic pixelations. :(

Re:hmm

[dsginter]

Did anyone else picture an ethernet cable jammed into a can of Folgers when they read th title?

We've secretly replaced Yoshi's 100Mbit internet connection with Folgers Crystals. Let's see if he notices!

Sure, you all laugh at the Japanese

[circletimessquare]

Once upon a time, France had complete domination of network information communication thingies.

France probably laughed too, a big gutteral Gaulic laugh: "Silly Americains, think you can replace the Minitel? I fart in your general direction!"

Replace it with what?

[jollyreaper]

Whatever they replace it with has got to be a) self-aware b) housed in a really cool-looking robotic body c) flail phallic, cybernetic tentacles on command and d) be preoccupied with conquering neighboring nations and cowering schoolgirls. I predict it will be called EcchiNet. Nuclear war and terminator endoskeletons to come later.

Japanese version?

[Yvan256]

The american internet is made of a series of tubes, right? Well, then we can guess that the Japanese version will be a series of tentacles.

Costs

[peterpi]

Great. We can ask them how much it's going to cost

Re:I remember the last time

[iamdrscience]

TRON has been a ridiculous success being one of, if not the most popular embedded operating systems in the world, meaning that it probably has more devices running it than the number of PCs running Windows/MacOS/Linux/etc. combined. Sure, I think it would be difficult to argue that it has changed "the whole face of computing", but really, is that anything to scoff at? I mean, how many technologies are there that have?

Re:Yes, but Ask Slashdot: how much will it cost?

[morgan_greywolf]

The original cost of building the Internet was doubtlessly in the billions, maybe in the trillions of dollars. But such cost wasn't spent by one entity. The Internet was built with private/public partnerships and building it was a boon to the early computing industry. Entire empires were built with Internet dollars -- think UUNet, BBN, AT&T, Al Gore (kidding!) and others who created the Internet.

My point is that the cost is shared throughout the economy and actually builds wealth instead of destroying it.

NSF is already doing this

[Danathar]

http://www.nsf.gov/cise/cns/geni/

"With support from the Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE), researchers are working together to design a bold new research platform called GENI, the Global Environment for Network Innovations. As envisioned, GENI will allow researchers throughout the country to build and experiment with completely new and different designs and capabilities that will inform the creation of a 21st Century Internet."

Not likely to work

[Sycraft-fu]

The problem that all these people who want to replace things like e-mail or the Internet run in to is the whole thing that makes these technologies great is interoperability. The great thing about the Internet is that you hook in to it anywhere and barring your ISP or government having blocks up, you can talk to everything. You can switch ISPs, areas of the world, devices, etc it all doesn't matter. It's not like we didn't have networks before the Internet, what we didn't have was a network that everyone and everything could work on.

So if you are going to replace it, you have to do it with something that works with the Internet. I am not going to sign on to a new network, no matter how good you say your technology is, if I can't access what's already out there. Of course a big part of what people want to do when creating a new standard is to cut off the problems that the old standard had, and thus it becomes incompatible and thus isn't workable.

I mean the problem with a new e-mail system isn't designing one that's resistant to spam. That's easy. The problem is designing one that is resistant to spam but not incompatible with existing, unsecure, e-mail. You aren't going to get people to switch otherwise. It doesn't do me any good to have a spam proof technology if all the people who need to contact me don't also use that.

Same deal with the Internet at large. I don't care how cool your new network is, if it doesn't provide me with access to everything on the Internet, and give everyone on the Internet access to servers I run, then it really isn't very useful to me.

Really, the Internet, for all its flaws, is here to stay for a long time I think. It's not that we couldn't do better, it's that we aren't willing to redo everything from the ground up and switch over. Same shit with plenty of other things. With modern technology, a HVDC power grid might be a better system than what we have. However that's not what we have, and we aren't going to replace what we do have entirely, so we keep adding to the existing system. The Internet is much harder given that you are talking about a network that spans the whole world (and that you actually can convert AC to DC and back).

It's a nice thought that "Hey, let's just tear down all this crap and rebuild it right, based on the better knowledge we have now," but it usually isn't at all practical in reality.

Re:Yes, but Ask Slashdot: how much will it cost?

[Anonymous Coward]

how do I type a Japanese URL when the internet protocols only see ASCII Characters ?
Ever see a URL that didn't use ASCII charachters ?

Japan will need to convert their Japanese specific URLs to some type of Gateway that communicates with the required internet protocols to be able to communicate with the rest of the world ?
That is a monumental if not impossible task

Do they realize that the rest of the world internet isn't going to change for Japan ?

He will get an Intra net or Jap net at best Not an Internet

The internet and its protocols are based on ASCII
  A second internet that can accept Japanese URL's ?
Such can only work in Japan no?. In that case the whole thing already exists in every county, it's called an intranet , now with that, they are free to use whatever languages , protocols and fix ups they wish, but they cannot communicate with the internet protocols without ASCII? How can they call it an Internet ? the Internet is based on English characters called ASCII, Without worldwide acceptance of Japans methods, How can hey possibly get an internet?

Unless I'm wrong, Examine any valid URL, ever see Characters other than ASCII English that was a valid internet URL?
A Japaneses Internet that requires ASCII to intercommunicate with the rest of the world?
How?

Re:Yes, but Ask Slashdot: how much will it cost?

[marcello_dl]

Replacing the internet is not possible. Either everybody switches overnight, or there is a period where these new networking tech/protocols must communicate with the old ones. So they essentially become part of the internet, nevermind it won't share the TCP/IP stack. Besides, a compatibility layer is needed for existing internet apps.

Re:Yes, but Ask Slashdot: how much will it cost?

[janrinok]

So, you think that the fact that the internet today cannot cope with anything other than the ASCII character set is a good thing? How about if someone tries to solve the problems that obviously don't affect you, but do affect many other nations on this planet. You know, like having things in a language that they can understand, using characters that appear on their keyboards. True, you might not want to access those sites, but many people who live in those countries probably will.

Why will they need a gateway? Perhaps they will be quite content with, say, the whole of Japan being able to access Japanese sites in their native language. They might not care whether you can access them. Indeed, if you insist on sticking to the ASCII character set you will be limited to lots of content that you simply cannot understand because you believe that everyone should speak the same language as yourself. The Japanese might be very pleased to capture their own market yet still be able to access your internet when it suits them. Sure, if they want site to be available internationally they will have to keep a URL based on the ASCII character set because, Internet 2, which is being developed in the US, is not addressing the problem of other alphabets. It seems in the west to be a case of sod them, they don't matter. And when someone else tries to address the problem the attempt is mocked as being a duplication of effort. It isn't. Nobody in the west is looking at the problem AFAICT.

And what is to say that their research will not identify a better way of building some part of the internet as we know it? Not all the best ideas originate in one country. Perhaps they will solve a particular problem that will benefit everyone, using whatever internet they care to use, in whatever language they choose. It might not, but that doesn't mean that it shouldn't be done. After all, going to the moon achieved nothing in and of itself, but there have been numerous spin-off benefits and inventions that resulted from going down that path.

Many countries have internet access that is far advanced from that found in many parts of the USA. Perhaps they would like to keep it that way.

Re:Yes, but Ask Slashdot: how much will it cost?

[Mathonwy]

erm?

Ok, I admit that networking isn't my strongest suit. But... am I missing something? What do you mean "the fact that the internet cannot cope with anything other than ascii"? The internet is just a protocol for routing information from point A to point B. That information is stored in bytes. By all means correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think there is anything language-specific about those bytes.

Are you confusing "the internet" with "the web"? Web pages do assume (by default at least) an ascii encoding, I believe. But that's not something that needs to be solved by changing the internet, that's something you could fix just by modifying browsers. Which, surprise surprise, is something people have already done. Heck, for that matter, what's up with your original premise, that they want to "have things in a language that they can understand, using characters that appear on their keyboards"? Most Japanese web sites ARE in japanese... Most web browsers DO support unicode encoding...

Are you possibly just talking about the URLs themselves? They don't have unicode support I guess, although that's something that could [I think?] be handled just by supplying a unicode-enabled custom DNS?

Don't get me wrong, research is generally a good thing overall, and as you point out, who knows what useful things they'll come up with along the way. But most of your reasons for why reinventing the internet might be a good idea, ring hollow to me. That, and the tone of your post feels like you have a specific bone to pick with either one of the previous posters, or possibly just with america in general?

Personally, my main concern with a "new" internet is the climate in which it would be born. The current internet had the benefit of being created for non-comercial use in mind, and was deliberately designed with open access in mind. It's structure is deliberately set up in a fairly idealistic way. It has a crazy-low barrier for entry if you want to put something on it. I find it fairly unlikely that a "new" internet would be as open. Corporations in Japan (or America, for that matter) are unlikely to make that mistake again, and given the current environment (again, in both japan AND america) I find it exceedingly unlikely that any new creation on that scale wouldn't be at least partially beholden to corporate interests.

(And yes, I know, our current internet's high-ideal design is steadily eroding before the face of a never-ending series of attempted power grabs by various groups. But at least it's.... taking them longer? At least such attempts are bandaids on an unfriendly design, as opposed to having the whole thing designed to be friendly to corporate control from the get-go?)

Re:Yes, but Ask Slashdot: how much will it cost?

[janrinok]

before it gets translated to their stupid characters

And that is what is wrong at the moment - people like you don't accept that there are other nations, with other languages and alphabets, and with other desires for how the internet develops. For example, changing DNS so that it can cope with other languages would enable other countries to have meaningful names in their URLs. Many of these people cannot read English - nor should they have to. So being able to use their own words, in their own language, using a native keyboard would be a great step forward for them.

Re:Yes, but Ask Slashdot: how much will it cost?

[janrinok]

I think that you answered your own comment in at least 2 places.

They don't have unicode support I guess, although that's something that could [I think?] be handled just by supplying a unicode-enabled custom DNS?

And who will develop the code that does this? Who will ensure that it can interface with the rest of the internet? Japan will, for one, because nobody looking at Internet2 appears to be looking at this problem.

Personally, my main concern with a "new" internet is the climate in which it would be born

As you and other posters have pointed out, it is quite possible that Internet2 as it is currently being developed might well include DRM requirements that are wanted by US legislation, or to make wire-tapping or surveillance easier. But the rest of the world might not want that. Japan is looking at the problem from its own viewpoint, not to meet your requirements or mine, but theirs. And if they do build their own internal network it will probably interface with the rest of the internet. That might be an ideal place to stop many viruses from entering the system. Of course, we can say that it would be impossible, so much data to check etc. Which might be why they are looking at new technology to solve that specific problem.

Redesigning the internet is not the same as doing everything again. Perhaps some parts of it are good just as they are. TCP/IP is working and doesn't need changing. But, there again, perhaps there are improvements that can be made. Maybe the Japanese can implement an improved email system that is spam resistant. Oh yes, lots of people talk about how it could be done, but who is actually doing anything about it? Again, Japan has the opportunity to look at the problem and find solutions. If the US, or Europe, or anywhere else for that matter doesn't want to use their solution that's OK. Internally, they can still use it providing that can manage the interface to the rest of the internet. That might be one of the outcomes of the research. How about looking at the technology to maximize the use of the existing bandwidth so that we can have internet TV without the internet grinding to a halt? Or finding new ways of caching data in numerous locations so that each web page does not require so much data to come from a single source to update itself? Perhaps a P2P system so that the load is shared. All these problems could be solved without having to change the underlying structure but it still requires research to find the answers.

My previous post was not intended as being anti-US, but the first series of comments did nothing but criticise Japans efforts. "A duplication of effort", "Unneeded", "Its not broken". But from another country's viewpoint it might well be possible to improve it, and current studies in the US do not seem to be looking at the problem from a foreign viewpoint. And if its going to change and require, eventually, new technology and hardware, then Japan would like to be in at the ground floor rather than having to play catch-up with US companies.

The article does not suggest that everything has to change, but changes are necessary if the internet is to be as useful in 50 years hence as it is today. That is what I understand the Japanese initiative to be about.

Re:Yes, but Ask Slashdot: how much will it cost?

[janrinok]

The 'http://' and '.cn' are not Chinese characters - they are ASCII. I'm not sure how a DNS server in, say, Iceland would cope with receiving URLs written purely in Chinese, Russian, Korean and Arabic. The easy answer is that the current specification requires 'http://' and '.cn' to be written in ASCII. But to many around the world, those characters are as meaningless to them as the Chinese characters are to me. That is why there is still room for the system to be improved so that any language can be used without recourse to ASCII. Doesn't the fact that Slashdot won't even accept the URL underline this point?