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GENI To Replace Internet, Gets $12M Funding
Postglobalism writes "A massive project to redesign and rebuild the Internet from scratch is inching along with $12 million in government funding and donations of network capacity by two major research organizations. Many researchers want to rethink the Internet's underlying architecture, saying a 'clean-slate' approach is the only way to truly address security and other challenges that have cropped up since the Internet's birth in 1969."
Other challenges, indeed. Such as surveillance, "trusted" computing, IP "protection", etc.
The new internet will be locked down much tighter, I am certain.
They need to ditch this open, uncontrollable Internet for something the governments have more control over.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
For better or worse, I think that we're stuck with what we've got. We'd really be better off improving the Internet we have (DNSSEC, end-to-end encryption on all protocols by default, PKI for the masses) than redesigning it from the ground up.
Even if they had 12 billion dollars, it wouldn't scratch the surface of the cost of recreating the Internet.
This new version of the wheel offers an anti-bubblegum coating, side curtain airbags to protect it from damage during a crash, and laser-etched tread for maximum efficiency. Seriously, why use tires when you can have a shiny new set Wheels 2.0?
And all were abysmal, expensive failures. The marketplace can be extremely conservative at times.
If it's a completely redesigned internet, will it have IPv6?
A new architecture means there are thousands of things to be worked out and fixed before it can get to the same level as the current implementation. Think a decade or two, with significant funding (think billions).
Systems that evolved are often not ideal or perfect, but they do work. Iterative evolution is important, because sometimes it's just not feasible to design something.
It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
Be yourself no matter what they say
>trying to redesign the Internet's protocols from scratch isn't necessarily a bad idea
Very true. We'd be foolish to blindly freeze our technology in the 20th century.
But whatever redesign shakes out of this might be worse. The US government is funding this with the intention to improve security.
It may not be the users' security they have in mind.
I'm just surprised that apparently all it takes is $12 million to do it.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
I'm not saying, by any means, that our present internet is perfect, it isn't, but I am inclined to view any attempt to rebuild it from scratch with grave suspicion. We got lucky the first time, since the academics managed to build something worthwile before the regulators, incumbents, and other vultures took notice. That will not be the case this time. All too often, when somebody says that the internet is broken, they are talking about minor little details like its peer-to-peer structure, relative openness, and concentration of intelligence at the edges of the network, not performance of TCP-IP over high-latency connections or similar.
That's what they will have to do if they want at least a chance at surviving - provide a public gateway.
And the libertarian geekdom is actually not interested in this project to survive, because if it does, the governments will eventually push us there, where they will have all those things like internet user IDs and other funny stuff that the only the privacy concerned have bad dreams about today...
TFA basically boils down to this single statement: "We've got money and some shiny toys to play with, wheee!!!!". It doesn't say anything about what their long-term intentions are specifically. I for one reserve judgement on the issue until I see something more concrete -- with the exception that I agree that nothing of any real substance will come of this for at least a decade.
And in this case, there are tons of temporary fixes all over the Internets.
I'm gonna go out on a limb here, and guess this 'new' more 'secure' internet will not allow for any type of anonymity, and more ease of tracking who says what and when in a more easily searched and archived format...both for government AND corporations.
After all, the current internet, for some reason, seems not to have been designed with big business commerce nor strict government control. Something that obviously (rolls eyes) needs to be fixed the 2nd time around.
I mean...the nerve of people getting on a system, where every computer is a peer, and can publish their thoughts willy-nilly and interconnect in ways not expressedly sanctioned by our government officials that obviously know what's better and safer for us.
Not to mention how it is often used now to closely monitor and poke fun at said officials...
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
There was an old joke in the Soviet Union that there were only four channels on television. The first three were all news and the forth was a KGB agent waving his finger and saying, "No, no, no! Change the channel back!"
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Eh? Spending on welfare (TANF) is a very small part of the budget, $16.5 billion. At a population of 301 million, that's $54.80/year/person, fifteen cents a day per person. The base defense budget - not including war funding - is more than $481 billion, $1598/person/year, $4.38 per day per person. U.S. military spending makes up the bulk of world military spending. We could cut ours in half and still enormously outspend all potential adversaries.
Conservative politicians like to conflate "entitlements" all together, which includes not just welfare but medical spending (prices for which are driven up by the for-profit model and by drug patents, both of which are made possible by government action), veterans affairs and military retirement payments (which should be properly counted under defense), and Social Security spending.
The NSF's budget is $6.065 billion, $20.15/year/person, about five and a half cents a day per person.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
"It's really easy to talk like that, but look at CB verses Ham Radio. The Internet we have today is like CB radio...anyone can transmit and receive. CB radio has its advantages and disadvantages"
While I agree with you in theory, in practice we know corporations are going to do their damnest to lock it down and be able to block and censor and "black out" websites they don't like. They HATE the fact that information is free, they want to enclose the last commons which is infinite (information, ideas, etc), we can't let these pieces of capitalist shit have it. (no offense to other capitalists who genuinely believe in freedom of information)
With the regulation came improved communications
I don't understand how a regulated internet is going to improve communications.
Samsung took back my unlocked bootloader because Google wants me to rent movies. They're both evil.
Your lack of paranoia disturbs me..
Government is all about power, and seeking more power. Power is zero sum, if you get more power I loose some. (hehe rhymes)
Business is all about money, which fortunately is not zero sum since the government can print more.
If there is a to be a new internet and Governemtn and Business are to design it, there will be a taking of power and profit for them.
No paranoia.. just proven agenda.
I think a better analogy is that the Internet is the medium, and CB is like IRC. But if you want a more regulated chat, well, you can find those on the Internet too. There's room for both on the same network.
It's not just the government who would love to restrict our speech, but corporations as well. Imagine if the Internet had built in systems to keep people from saying anything negative about MegaCorporation X. Imagine if the Internet's basic systems kept you from posting music online that you wrote, performed, and owned the copyrights to because the Recording Industry wanted to control all online music. Imagine if the Internet were turned into "TV 2.0" where you were able to watch what the big companies put out and interact the way they said you could. (Of course, small players are allowed in. All they would need to do is pony up the huge entrance fees. Can't afford it? Too bad.)
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
It will improve approved communications, non-approved communications like P2P, anonymous posting, and exposing the rich and powerful's shortcommings, negative comments about our corporate overlords, ect... will obviously not be allowed. That will free up bandwidth for approved communications, improving their speed and reliability.
I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it!
Consider this... if it's setup such that a server can be 100% sure about who it's communicating with, then we could probably come close to eradicating spam and malware... ...and whistle-blowers and rape/abuse victims and critics of totalitarian governments and anyone else who may just want to discuss a controversial or taboo topic anonymously.
Bingo! We have a winner! The way I look at it is this: Would YOU trust THIS government,with the FISA dodging,retro immunity,warrantless wiretapping,etc to design ANYTHING that wouldn't log everything you did and everywhere you went?
That is why we need to hang onto the current Internet with our dying breath,because I can GUARANTEE you that anything that comes along to replace it with be so Big Brother friendly it might as well have the "Big Brother is watching you" logo pop up on connection. The power mad rule the land and there is no way they'll allow any kind of new network that doesn't have their goals in mind.
Can you imagine if it was easy to find out who posted what and make it(and possibly them) disappear? No Abu Ghraib scandal,no photos or videos out of Iraq that wasn't "The winning of hearts and minds",etc. The Internet would end up like that old joke from Airplane II "Today a 4 alarm fire made way for GLORIOUS new tractor factory!". Because that is all we would get:spin. You might be able to say "Brand X sucks,you should buy Brand Y!" but that is about as far as you would get to dissent. Personally,I'm still waiting for them to pull the "We have to block teh eveil kiddy pr0n and its awful child pr0nograhers!" and give us a great US firewall that just happens to block wikileaks,The Pirate Bay,and lots of other undesirable sites "by accident". But as always this is my 02c based on what I see on our news every day,YMMV
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
The problem with that is, who decides what information is correct? Right now Wikipedia has an open-air discussion method for hashing that out, and for people who decide that it reaches the wrong conclusions, they can start their own wiki (like the creationist Conservapedia) and even have permission to copy much of the content. I don't see what the advantage would be to replacing that system with some form of centralized control, regardless of who the central authority would be.