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Vint Cerf Says No To IPv7, Yes To InterPlanetary Web
jbrodkin writes "IPv6 is here, but what's up with IPv7? Nothing, says Vint Cerf. While one day there may be another new Internet Protocol, work is not happening on it now. 'At the moment there doesn't seem to be any incentive for inventing yet another one,' he said in an interview. However, he contends that 2011 will be a Big Year for his pet project, the extraterrestrial 'InterPlanetary Internet.' The 'Bundle' network protocols will be tested in space and standardized to 'make them available to all the space-faring countries.' As they are used with more spacecraft, 'we can literally grow an interplanetary network that can support both man and robotic exploration.'"
IPv6 is not mainstream yet, and probably still won't be for a while longer. Considering that IPv6 solves the problem of limited addresses in an increasingly networked world, which was and still is the driving force for the migration from IPv4, immediate R&D into the next standard just seems unnecessary. Plus, with how big of a headache IPv6 has been, who can honestly blame 'em for not wanting to think about it for a while.
vos nescitis quicquam, nec cogitatis quia expedit nobis ut unus moriatur homo pro populo et non tota gens pereat.
In his novel A Fire Upon the Deep, Vernor Vinge's vision of a galactic internet was basically Usenet newsgroups writ large. Once the web took off, he got a lot of flak for that seemingly outdated vision, but perhaps he's right. As easy as real-time communication is nowadays to people around the globe, once the internet moves into space, the incredible latency of long-distance communications could return us to a series of groups and threads that one logs into periodically, downloads en masse, and reads locally.
When will it be made available to all space-faring peoples of other planets and to civilizations that live between the stars?
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
... IPV9 already around. ;)
I can see the headlines now: "Botched Re-Entry Caused By Distracted Astronaut!" with the byline reading "LOL Cats Pwn NASA".
"I hope you know how very lucky you are to know me, because I am so incredibly incredible."
Interstellar Internet: http://www.analogsf.com/0607/interstellar.aspx - "One of the most original, believable, thoroughly thought-out, and utterly fascinating visions ever of what interstellar contact might really be like." â" Stanley Schmidt, Editor of Analog magazine
"One thing led to another ⦠soon I was pondering a comm network that functioned across the light-years. And, we homo saps being a tad competitiveâ"about interstellar cyber attacks..... Herewith, a few of Lernerâ(TM)s Laws for Artificially Intelligent Trade Agents:
1. Agents run only inside mutually agreed upon containment: the sandbox. The sandbox protects: - a. The secrets of the agent from the locals. - b. The local infosphere from the agent.
2. Sandbox code is fully disclosed and fully agreed upon across the interstellar community. (ETsâ"one more argument for open source software!)
3. Access to/from the interior of a sandbox is only by messages.
4. An agent, its software entirely proprietary to its patron species, is transmitted encrypted across interstellar space. - a. It unwraps itself inside a sandbox provided by the host species. - b. It self-destructs, its secrets undisclosed, if the purported sandbox deviates in any way from expectations.
5. Trade waresâ"intellectual propertyâ"travel encrypted between solar systems, and are unwrapped in secrecy by the sequestered AI agent. Goods are sold (or not) and bought (or not) as the agent negotiates within its authorized-from-home parameters.
6. Agents buy and sell information using the host speciesâ(TM) banking system. Credits not spent locally may be transmitted, securely encrypted, between solar systems."
Information wants to be expensive AND wants to be free. So you have Value vs. Cheap distribution fighting each other.
You don't need Vint Cerf to conclude this.
If there isn't an active IETF Working Group on the subject, the chances of getting a "IPv6Next" (which I think might actually be IPv9) within the next decade are pretty small.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Sandbox code is fully disclosed and fully agreed upon across the interstellar community
Which means anyone can hack up a modified sandbox which will steall all the agent's secrets. The agent, of course, can't 'self-destruct' since I made a copy before I put it in there.
This whole thing is just another form of DRM, and any alien species which relies on it will find its agents on Bittorrent within a few days.
Delay / Disruption Tolerant Internet (DTN) is still at the Research Group stage. It's really more about replacing TCP than the Internet (UDP will work just fine in space), and has received some criticism (pdf download), ironically mostly centered around how it breaks the end-to-end principle.
While there is now an SIS-DTN green book (a necessary step for general deployment on space missions), and initial tests in space are positive, these things move so slowly that I think it's going to be a while before this is generally deployed in space.
Of course there is incentive to work on the next generation of protocols. It's basic R&D and a drive to not sit on your laurels.
This is not about merely having more addresses, but also in dealing with issues like dual or multi-homed routing (last I heard IPv6 dual-homing was still in progress.)
When comparing the pace of innovation in other areas, the glacial pace of IPv4 to IPv6 is actually kind of disturbing. The fact that there is no work going on for developing what might be next is even more so.
Consider a situation where a corporation asks for government funding to develop a deep-packet-inspection system for IPv6 for purposes of monitor and/or censorship. How much more likely is the funding to occur if everyone knows IPv6 is going to be around for decades without replacement? (Of course, many would no doubt fund some level of effort. but if 'IPvX was just around the corner', the investment levels and time frame to develop would be smaller.)
This announcement screams "The network is a sitting duck!" -- things are no longer moving forward. We need to continue to see innovation and change and improvements in this area to keep expanding the frontiers/edges of the network into new technologies and to keep being a moving target.
Personally I think we should worry about rebuilding the TCP/IP stack from the ground up, instead of worrying about anything else at the moment. At least once IPv6 is in.
Om, nomnomnom...
I drink so much vegetable juice, IPV8
Confidential Business Proposal
Having consulted with my colleagues and based on the information gathered from the Intergalactic Spaceball Chambers Of Commerce And Industry, I have the privilege to request your assistance to transfer the sum of $47,500,000.00 (forty seven million, five hundred thousand Spacebucks) into your accounts. The above sum resulted from an over-invoiced contract, executed, commissioned and paid for about five years (5) ago by a foreign contractor. This action was however intentional and since then the fund has been in a suspense account at The Central Bank Of Planet Spaceball Apex Bank.
We are now ready to transfer the fund intergalactically and that is where you come in. It is important to inform you that as civil servants, we are forbidden to operate a foreign account; that is why we require your assistance. The total sum will be shared as follows: 70% for us, 25% for you and 5% for local and international expenses incidental to the transfer.
The transfer is risk free on both sides. I am an accountant with the Spaceball Galactic Energy Corporation (SGEC). If you find this proposal acceptable, we shall require the following documents:
(a) your banker's name, telephone, account and fax numbers.
(b) your private telephone and fax numbers —for confidentiality and easy communication.
(c) your letter-headed paper stamped and signed.
Alternatively we will furnish you with the text of what to type into your letter-headed paper, along with a breakdown explaining, comprehensively what we require of you. The business will take us thirty (30) Spaceball days to accomplish.
Please reply urgently.
Best regards
Sgt. First Class Philip C. Asshole
Spaceball Intergalactic Fleet
Spaceball Galactic Energy Corporation
Don't forget the layered protocols: http://www.cis.udel.edu/~mills/ipin.html
Most IPs only go up to 10 . . . so mine, which goes up to 11, is better . . .
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
With IPv6 extension headers, it's entirely possible to, without requiring a whole new protocol, create an extended form of IP address... perhaps using the extension header to contain routing information to send the packet outside of the origin solar system, and using the normal 128 bits for all local traffic.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
...and the countdown to astronauts being arrested for space piracy begins. Let's face it, sitting up there with nothing to do AND having internet??? OF COURSE they will be some pirating space fairers!!! Just ask the **AA.
Of course by then they will probably have a 5mb bandwidth cap like the rest of us...
A 960,000 millisecond ping on the sun would just time out.
/*
* [...] Note that 120 sec is defined in the protocol as the maximum
* possible RTT. I guess we'll have to use something other than TCP
* to talk to the University of Mars.
* PAWS allows us longer timeouts and large windows, so once implemented
* ftp to mars will work nicely.
*/
(Comment from an old version of tcp.c)
[ ]Half Empty [ ]Half Full [x]Twice as big as it needs to be
You mean we need enough IP address so every person on the planet can have a different IP address for every atom in their body?
Did you know 80 to 90% of the moderators on slashdot wouldn't recognize a troll even if one dragged them under a bridge.
Humans have demonstrated time and time and time again, that they are lazy and reactionary for the most part.
The transition to ipv6 is going to be absolutely huge, I'm sure everyone here doesn't need to be told about the complexities of it.
As far as I'm concerned and I feel I'm probably right, once we go to ipv6, we won't see another protocol implemented in our lifetimes (I'm in my early 30's) period, nada - not gonna happen.
The bigger the internet becomes, the older it becomes and the more devices attached, the more difficult changing the protocol is. It's already going to be a nightmare, don't expect this will get easier.
This is like one day telling all Americans "Sorry, no more 110v - we're moving to 240v power" - it's a pretty monumental task.
So to get to my point, if ipv6 doesn't do what we need or would 'like' it to do, sorry to say but tough shit, someone should have thought of that earlier, because it's going to be here to stay... - of course if you want to see a somewhat faster transition to ipvXX? then just wait until we are completely out of ipv6 addresses, we will then likely transition quicker... I'm sure they won't last long!
Speaking about Sir Tim Berners-Lee's project for 'semantic web', now called 'deep linking':
Yes, I suppose inventing HTTP might qualify as a 'past success.'
Obviously it's a joke - Cerf himself has had some successes, or at least un-failures, himself, I hear.
Point 6 is also funny.... doing electronic banking with money from other planetary systems. Wow!
Even monopoly money is worth more, at least you can use it to play monopoly or burn it to get some heat.
Why can't
You mean we can finally see naked pictures of triple-breasted whores from Eroticon 6?
we use IPv7 now
it's pretty much IPv6, but the headers contain porn
saves bandwidth
I for one welcome our new InterPlanetary Internet overlords.
Am I really going to click the Post button on this one? Ugh!
Plant a tree in a developing country.
Eiri Masami hasn't invented it yet.
Proof positive that Darth Cerf really belongs in space.
Work is going on on v7, but we're not letting those v6 assholes that fucked everything up near it. One day you'll buy a device and it'll just work and it won't be v4 or v6.
First to market wins. Oh and by "to market" I mean "works WITH the current network".
Need Mercedes parts ?
Always Skip one....
comes from Uranus. We need to get some deep space repeaters near Uranus.
I'm guessing that Squid would be a must-have on the interplanetary web!
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
Forget about interplanetary networking, the primary use case for the Bundle protocol is peer to peer networking of mobile phones over WIFI or Bluetooth. Bypassing the telcos, ISPs, governments etc.
If Bundle was already installed on most phones, the Egyptian (and US) governments would be unable to turn off the network.
Deleted
security is damn awful and that they require you to be wide open like that is just govts trying to be assholes
what they should have done is add a 255 to the mix and allow one per country
you'd effectively have enough for all the 186 nations of the earth at the current level of ipv4 and you can pass out firmware to have done it
BUT NO lets screw everyone over and make them moron windows users even more vulnerable
i don't even
Vint Cerf would say no to anything that did not uphold the grandiose new IPv6 design to which he has hitched his wagon, regardless of the cost to mere mortals.
Have you got your LWN subscription yet?