Scrapping the Internet and Starting Over

[ManyQs]

I happened upon a quote from Rutgers professor Dipankar Raychaudhuri: “It’s sort of a miracle that it continues to work well today.”

That’s not really an eye-catcher, and I’m not so sure I agree, but what followed sure did catch my eye:

“Dipankar Raychaudhuri is a Rutgers University professor who is overseeing a federal research project to look at whether the Internet needs to be completely scrapped and started over.”

A federal research project to look at whether the Internet needs to be completely scrapped and started over. Just how in the world would that be possible!?

Eventually I found this site, http://www.winlab.rutgers.edu/pub/Index.html

And then found the following, http://www.winlab.rutgers.edu/pub/docs/nsf-grants-2006.html

National Science Foundation (NSF) Grants awarded to WINLAB faculty (2006)

Title: Collaborative Research: NeTS-FIND: Postcards from the Edge: A Cache-and-Forward Architecture for the Future Internet.
Staff: Prof. Roy Yates (PI), Prof. D. Raychaudhuri (Co-PI), Dr. Sanjoy Paul (Co-PI)
Length: 09/01/2006 - 08/31/2009

Title: Collaborative Research: NeTS-FIND: CogNet - An Experimental Protocol Stack for Cognitive Radio Networks and Its Integration with the Future Internet.
Staff: Prof. D. Raychaudhuri (PI), Prof. N. Mandayam (Co-PI), Prof. Predrag Spasojevic (Co-PI)
Length: 09/01/2006 - 08/31/2009

Title: NeTS-FIND: A Geometric Stack for Location-Aware Networking.
Staff: Prof. Marco Gruteser (PI), Prof. Rich Martin (Co-PI)
Length: 09/01/2006 - 08/31/2009

The text describing the link for the information above is as follows:
WINLAB Faculty awarded NSF research grants totaling more than $2.6 Million, including three future Internet (FIND) grants.

I’m not sure if FIND is what was being referred to as “a federal research project to look at whether the Internet needs to be completely scrapped and started over”, but it’s the best I’ve been able to find so far.

That is all the background I can come up with.

My question and reason for this thread is whether you think the Internet can be replaced?

If you think so, just how in heaven’s name do you think it would be possible?

[ManyQs]

A fellow forumer/forumite posted an article on the subject, so I suppose it's appropriate to provide a link here.

http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=27720.0

[OrangeCrate]

A fellow forumer/forumite posted an article on the subject, so I suppose it's appropriate to provide a link here.

http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=27720.0

Double posting happens here on occasion. People often scan the titles of the threads, and miss the fact that the subject matter is already there.

No offense is meant. Personally, I saw yours first, and read it. Thanks for posting the links, very interesting.

 

[ManyQs]

I was actually going to just post the research project titles I had in my post over to the new one and delete my own post, but couldn't find a delete button for my initial post. I like that other thread title better than the one I used. More concise and to the point. But when I couldn't find a way to delete my post I figured that very informative article should go here as well just in case someone didn't notice that thread.

Same-topic threads don't bother me, but I reckon the Mod Squad doesn't much care for it.

Since I first ran into this info, though, I've been wondering if the general public (Net public) is going to be allowed to read any of the results of the studies. I'm especially interested in how the ultra-techies think they can create a Net that is more secure.

I mean, the bad guys always seem to come up with ways around any and all attempts to stop them. Just what could make any difference? Even if the whole thing were "started over"?

I think some of the super-techies here at here at avast! might have some thoughts about this supposed "enhanced security rebuild" of the(a) Net, but I suppose everyone is too busy making a living to give it too much consideration and then post here just to satisfy my curiosity, which is all it really is at my end when you get right down to it. I can contribute absolutely zero to the research, but I find it very interesting.

I also wonder if these ultra-techies who teach at universities would be better at addressing these security issues than the super-techies who work day in and day out in the trenches at companies like avast! fighting the bad guys. I wonder if some of that research money might not be better spent by including the nuts-and-bolts folks. The hard research in those university research projects is frequently done by students of the professors whose names go in the credits for the final results. Are those students any better than the folks here at avast? I suspect not.

Oh boy, I've gotten really carried away here, haven't I? Sorry about that all.

[DavidR]

There is no delete button for your posts, only the Mods have that facility, you are only able to Modify/Edit your post.

I doubt the moderators are unduly concerned about a few more duplicates here and there. Not to mention there is additional information from links to other sources in this topic.

My personal feeling, it will be a monumental task if and when they ever decide to undertake it. There is much talk of www 2 or ww2 which many are concerned will become some ouber web but only for the big players with the rest stuck in www land.

I have to admit to not paying much attention to either as it is something totally out of my control and will ultimately be left with whatever I can get. Hell I can't even get broadband well not any reliable or guaranteed service quality over 256 kbps and perhaps not that much (too far from the tel exchange). There are UK infrastructure upgrade plans but that is years away. I would imagine that any new Internet may require infrastructure changes also and not just technical changes.

[ManyQs]

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That warning I got about the topic not being posted in for at least 20 days was cute. Actually, it's been a lot more than even 200 days. I haven't been around in a bit.

But the topic is still very much one that could generate some comments, no?

Has anybody kept up with this project to create a new Net?

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[DavidR]

But the topic is still very much one that could generate some comments, no?

Has anybody kept up with this project to create a new Net?

Obviously not as it died a natural death not contributions for 20 months a smidgen over 20 days.

I haven't as and when it gets close then perhaps there will be more media interest, so until then I guess this topic will go into a deep slumber.

[ManyQs]

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Well, now that I've got my mind wrapped around this subject again I decided to do a bit of checking. Lo and behold a recent NY Times article popped onto my radar screen. And it is mighty interesting.

Link and center paragraphs:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/15/weekinreview/15markoff.html

Do We Need a New Internet?

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What a new Internet might look like is still widely debated, but one alternative would, in effect, create a “gated community” where users would give up their anonymity and certain freedoms in return for safety. Today that is already the case for many corporate and government Internet users. As a new and more secure network becomes widely adopted, the current Internet might end up as the bad neighborhood of cyberspace. You would enter at your own risk and keep an eye over your shoulder while you were there.

“Unless we’re willing to rethink today’s Internet,” says Nick McKeown, a Stanford engineer involved in building a new Internet, “we’re just waiting for a series of public catastrophes.”

That was driven home late last year, when a malicious software program thought to have been unleashed by a criminal gang in Eastern Europe suddenly appeared after easily sidestepping the world’s best cyberdefenses. Known as Conficker, it quickly infected more than 12 million computers, ravaging everything from the computer system at a surgical ward in England to the computer networks of the French military.

Conficker remains a ticking time bomb. It now has the power to lash together those infected computers into a vast supercomputer called a botnet that can be controlled clandestinely by its creators. What comes next remains a puzzle. Conficker could be used as the world’s most powerful spam engine, perhaps to distribute software programs to trick computer users into purchasing fake antivirus protection. Or much worse. It might also be used to shut off entire sections of the Internet. But whatever happens, Conficker has demonstrated that the Internet remains highly vulnerable to a concerted attack.

“If you’re looking for a digital Pearl Harbor, we now have the Japanese ships streaming toward us on the horizon,” Rick Wesson, the chief executive of Support Intelligence, a computer consulting firm, said recently.

The Internet’s original designers never foresaw that the academic and military research network they created would one day bear the burden of carrying all the world’s communications and commerce. There was no one central control point and its designers wanted to make it possible for every network to exchange data with every other network. Little attention was given to security. Since then, there have been immense efforts to bolt on security, to little effect.

“In many respects we are probably worse off than we were 20 years ago,” said Eugene Spafford, the executive director of the Center for Education and Research in Information Assurance and Security at Purdue University and a pioneering Internet security researcher, “because all of the money has been devoted to patching the current problem rather than investing in the redesign of our infrastructure.”

In fact, many computer security researchers view the nearly two decades of efforts to patch the existing network as a Maginot Line approach to defense, a reference to France’s series of fortifications that proved ineffective during World War II. The shortcoming in focusing on such sturdy digital walls is that once they are evaded, the attacker has access to all the protected data behind them. “Hard on the outside, with a soft chewy center,” is the way many veteran computer security researchers think of such strategies.

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Some very interesting thoughts in that article. I suppose the "ticking time bomb" Conficker is being discussed in another thread, right?

Anyway, it looks like some folks think a "new" Net is needed. But we trade off our "anonymity and certain freedoms". I'm not so sure those "freedoms" aren't already being taken away in the name of "anti-terrorism".

And I think it's a bit much to use the analogy of "Pearl Harbor" and "Japanese ships". That doesn't seem very nice. Especially for a liberal paper like the NY Times.

Anyway ...

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[ManyQs]

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"Quietly slide it underneath" is possible? The end of this summer? Anybody heard about this before reading it here?

At Stanford, where the software protocols for original Internet were designed, researchers are creating a system to make it possible to slide a more advanced network quietly underneath today’s Internet. By the end of the summer it will be running on eight campus networks around the country.

This article makes it far too easy to slide off-topic, I'm afraid. But maybe the Moderation Team can allow us a little freedom here?

For example, when is it "trivial" to hijack another person's computer?

Proving identity is likely to remain remarkably difficult in a world where it is trivial to take over someone’s computer from half a world away and operate it as your own.

That sure wouldn't be trivial to me.

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