UCLA, CIsco & More Launch Consortium To Replace TCP/IP

alphadogg writes Big name academic and vendor organizations have unveiled a consortium this week that's pushing Named Data Networking (NDN), an emerging Internet architecture designed to better accommodate data and application access in an increasingly mobile world. The Named Data Networking Consortium members, which include universities such as UCLA and China's Tsinghua University as well as vendors such as Cisco and VeriSign, are meeting this week at a two-day workshop at UCLA to discuss NDN's promise for scientific research. Big data, eHealth and climate research are among the application areas on the table. The NDN effort has been backed in large part by the National Science Foundation, which has put more than $13.5 million into it since 2010.

Comments

Great idea at the concept stage.

[Anonymous Coward]

Just don't expect anyone to early adopt except the usual hypebots and yahoos. We can't even get rid of IPv4 and you want do replace TCP entirely.

Re:Great idea at the concept stage.

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

Yeah. And replace UNIX, too. You know? Like Plan 9 and Windows NT.

I ain't holdin' my breath.

Re:Great idea at the concept stage.

[Enry]

This. There's likely trillions of dollars invested in IPv4 that is going to be around for decades. Consider the Internet like highways and train track widths - we're stuck with it for a very long time.

Re:Great idea at the concept stage.

[binarylarry]

You know some kind of ill conceived "content protection" is going be built into this protocol.

Re:Great idea at the concept stage.

[TheGratefulNet]

citation needed.

I disagree strongly that 'ipv4 hardware' (huh? what IS that, btw? does this imply that ipv6 is not in 'hardware'? how strange to describe things) is not up to modern network speeds. if anything, they can outrun any intermediate link in the chain from you to some random website. wan is still the slow part and always will be; but unless you truly get 1gig speeds to your door, your hardware will be more than enough for anything wan-based.

I truly have no idea where you got this info from, but you are as wrong as could be.

Re:Great idea at the concept stage.

[mark-t]

You can do that with ipv6 anyways.. and without even bothering with NAT. home devices can be assigned addresses in a local range, and will not be accessible from outside any more than if they were NATted, since IP's in such ranges are explicitly designed by the protocol spec to not be routable. As long as your cable modem adheres to the spec, there is no danger of accessing it from the outside any more than if it were behind a NAT.

Of course, in practice, I expect some kind of NAT solution will be in fairly wide use even in IPv6 anyways, since there will be no lack of use cases where you do not want your device to generally have a globally visible IP and be visible to the outside, but you may still have occasion to want to make requests of services in the outside world, using a local proxy to route the responses to those requests directly to your local IP, even though you do not have a global IP, much like NAT currently operates. This can also be solved by utilizing a global IP and configuring a firewall to block inbound traffic to that IP unless it is in response to a specific request by that device, but this is generally less convenient to configure properly than using a NAT-like arrangement.

Notwithstanding, at least with IPv6, the number of IP's is large enough that every device that anyone might ever want to have its own IP actually can... instead of only satisfying the about 70 or 80% of users, like ipv4 does.

Not a chance

[gweihir]

Despite a few decades of research, TCP/IP is still the best thing we know for the task at hand. Yes, it is admittedly not really good at it, but all known alternatives are worse. This is more likely some kind of publicity stunt or serves some entirely different purpose.

Re: Not a chance

[MightyMartian]

TCP/IP has the singular advantage that it is deeply entrenched, runs on a vast number of devices from supercomputers right down to single-chip computers. Is it perfect? Absolutely not, but it's a proven technology.

I'm sure in the fullness of time it will be replaced, or at least subsumed into some better protocol, and maybe this initiative will be the one that produces its successor... or not. I think TCP/IP is going to be with us for a very long time.

Re:Not a chance

[thegarbz]

Despite decades of research the horse and cart are still the best thing we know for the task at hand. Yes, it's admittedly not really good, but all the known alternatives are worse. This is more likely some kind of publicity stunt or serves some entirely different purpose.

Your statement as shown can be applied to the internal combustion engine, or any other technology. Rejecting any change out of hand without consideration is incredibly sad, if not dangerous to our species future prospects. Yes it's important to take everything with a grain of salt, but everything should be at least considered. It only takes one successful change to have a dramatic impact and improve the lives of many.

This goes for all technology, not just this specific problem.

Mass media takeover and destruction of 'net

[Eravnrekaree]

This is basically designed to bring the old big media, broadcast ways to the internet. Hence, to basically destroy the Internet, allowing for mass reproduction of centrally created Corporate content, where independant voices are locked out. The protocol is designed for that, mass distribution of corporate created, centrally distributed content to an ignorant, consumption only masses which are treated with disdain and objects of manipulation by the elite. This is to bring big media and the stranglehold they had for so many years on information the public has access to back.

With the Ipv6 transition needed its time to focus on that rather than on this plan to destroy the internet and turn it into the digital equivalent of 100 channels of centrally produced, elite controlled, one way cable television programming designed to psychologically manipulate and control a feeble and dim witted public.

No thanks and get your #%#% hands of my internet.

Re:Mass media takeover and destruction of 'net

[Melkman]

Luckily I don't see this attempt to turn internet into TV taking off. They really seem to see it as an alternative to IP instead of a service running on top of it like the web. IP6 is a really small change compared to it and look at the snales pace with which that is being rolled out.

Different layers

[Anonymous Coward]

They are also funding a study to replace roads with run-flat tires. Oh, right, different layers.

Now I know why Tsinghua is involved

[Taco Cowboy]

I was puzzled with the involvement of Tsinghua University of China with this thing

After reading your comment it starts to make sense

The China Communist Party needs to regain control of the Internet (at least inside China), that explains why they endorse this new scheme so much

Corporate Inertia

[Penguinshit]

Unfortunately, as we learned from the debacle of cellular communications, corporate inertia will either squash this or slow gestation until it's stillborn. There is a substantial investment in the current technology of TCP/IP and it still works "just good enough". This change in network would require installation of a twin network alongside the current, with slow adoption in the consumer side. That would be very expensive to build and maintain over numerous financial quarters and thus no MBA-centric company would ever do it in current corporate culture. This takes long-term thinking in a quarter-to-quarter environment. Thus it won't happen for a very long time.

So, tell us what we really want to know?

[Anonymous Coward]

How is this going to harm the everyday Internet user? I imagine at the very least it will make it more difficult for two random internet users to connect to each other, because all connections will probably have to be approved by Verisign or some other shit like that.

Remember folks, the age of innovation is over. We are now in the age of control and oppression. Everything "new" is invented for one purpose and only one purpose - to control you more effectively.

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