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

Posted by timothy on from the still-involves-controls-and-protocols dept.

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.

13 of 254 comments (clear)

  1. Great idea at the concept stage. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:Great idea at the concept stage. by Enry · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

    2. Re:Great idea at the concept stage. by binarylarry · · Score: 5, Insightful

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

      --
      Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
  2. Mass media takeover and destruction of 'net by Eravnrekaree · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:Mass media takeover and destruction of 'net by Em+Adespoton · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I get what you're saying, but I don't get how NDN is supposed to replace TCP/IP. Sure, it replaces many things done with UDP, and it even can do some things better than TCP, but it's not going to be replacing IPvX any time soon, just as TCP and UDP and ICMP etc. can happily co-exist.

      What I find interesting is that there's been an implementation of NDN/IP for YEARS -- it's called Freenet. Something tells me that the sponsoring groups wouldn't like to see this particular implementation be the first thing to try out their new network layer however....

    2. Re:Mass media takeover and destruction of 'net by uCallHimDrJ0NES · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I don't think we're going to stop the progression you are describing. The method by which it is achieved may not be the one being discussed by UCLA and Cisco, but it's clear now that what slashdotters call "the Internet" is doomed and has been since all of those rebellions in northern africa/mideast a couple years ago. What most end-users call "the Internet" is just getting started, but certainly the application of it is as a control and monitoring system against dissent rather than a catalyst promoting freedom of information. The point where we have some hope of rallying the population to activism is the point where content providers and governments try to do things like completely disallow offline storage media. But not before then, because the population just plain doesn't understand what they have or what is at stake.

      --
      Cloudiot: A person who does not see offsite storage as a way to lose control over access to his or her own data.
  3. Different layers by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

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

  4. Now I know why Tsinghua is involved by Taco+Cowboy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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

    --
    Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
  5. Youtube video by Van Jacobson, from 2006 on this by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    There is a talk on youtube from 2006 by Van Jacobson that describes this idea before it was called named data networking. It is really neat, and I am surprised that it has taken so long for somebody to actually try to implement it.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oCZMoY3q2uM

  6. I don't see this as so horrible by sirwired · · Score: 5, Informative

    I could totally see the two networks running simultaneously. It's completely accurate that TCP/IP sucks for mass content delivery; it's gigantic waste of bandwidth. And for point-to-point interaction this protocol would be massively inefficient.

    But why can the two protocols not run on top of the same Layer 2 infrastructure?

  7. This is BAD. Very very BAD. by EmagGeek · · Score: 5, Interesting

    In a nutshell, this is applying DRM to all of your connection attempts. You will only be able to make connections that are "authorized" by TPTB.

    No more free and open networking.

  8. Magnet Links by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Since every single goddamned one of you has used magnet links, you should be comfortable with the idea of requesting objects rather than discussions with particular hosts. Taking this idea and running with it is NDN. It's an excellent network research subject.

    It facilitates caching, multipathing... with some more work perhaps network coding to get close to the min-cut bound. Bittorrent is super successful because it's all about the content. Let's give a similar protocol a chance at changing the net.

  9. This looks terrible. by SuricouRaven · · Score: 4, Interesting

    It looks like they started out with Content Addressible Networking, which is a great idea. Massive bandwidth savings, improved resilience, faster performance, power savings, everything you could want. But then rather than try to impliment CAN properly alongside conventional networking they went for some ridiculous micro-caching thing, over-complicated intermediate nodes that enforce usage rules, some form of insane public-key versioning system validated by intermediate nodes and generally ended up with a monstrosity.

    CAN is a great idea. NDN is a terrible implimentation of CAN. The main selling points include having DRM capability built into the network itsself, so if you try to download something not authorised for your country the ISP router can detect and block it. A simple distributed cache would achieve the same benefits with a much simpler design.

    There's the core of a great idea in there, burried deep in the heap of over-engineered complexity that appears designed not to bring benefits to performance but rather to allow ISPs to readily decide exactly what content they wish to allow to be distributed and by whome. This thing is designed to allow the network devices to transcode video in real time to a lower bitrate - putting that kind of intelligence in the network is insane!