GENI To Replace Internet, Gets $12M Funding 295
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? (Score:5, Insightful)
Other challenges, indeed. Such as surveillance, "trusted" computing, IP "protection", etc.
The new internet will be locked down much tighter, I am certain.
Translation: (Score:5, Insightful)
They need to ditch this open, uncontrollable Internet for something the governments have more control over.
Inertia (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
12 Million? (Score:5, Insightful)
Wheels 2.0 (Score:4, Insightful)
Intel tried to get away from x86 three times (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Two Questions: (Score:3, Insightful)
Arrogance (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Re:Won't ever happen (Score:3, Insightful)
>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.
Re:Just what I wanted! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Other challenges? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yep, that is *all* this is about; control. The existing Internet is just a big huge classic WAN. They want to replace it with something they can lockdown, enforce DRM, and control.
I have a bad feeling about this. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Other challenges? (Score:5, Insightful)
Cable TV to which we will be allowed to contribute by supplying 'user content' for them to exploit (subject to the content being approved).
They want to replace the internet with something where they have control and the only control we have is the remote.
Re:Just what I wanted! (Score:4, Insightful)
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 doesn't really say anything! (Score:5, Insightful)
Ain't nothing more permanent that a temporary fix (Score:2, Insightful)
And in this case, there are tons of temporary fixes all over the Internets.
Re:Stronger, Harder, Deeper, Faster (Score:5, Insightful)
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...
Re:The Internet (orwellian version) (Score:3, Insightful)
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!"
Re:Ok I understand the problems of our current set (Score:4, Insightful)
Eh? Spending on welfare (TANF) is a very small part of the budget, $16.5 billion. [cwla.org] 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. [globalsecurity.org] 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 [nsf.gov], $20.15/year/person, about five and a half cents a day per person.
Re:Stronger, Harder, Deeper, Faster (Score:5, Insightful)
"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)
Re:Stronger, Harder, Deeper, Faster (Score:5, Insightful)
With the regulation came improved communications
I don't understand how a regulated internet is going to improve communications.
Re:I hear a limb cracking (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Re:Inertia (Score:3, Insightful)
We are improving what we have, it's called IPv6. Faster, lower latency, less load on routers, better address assignment, and connection-level encryption.
Re:Other challenges? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Stronger, Harder, Deeper, Faster (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Re:Stronger, Harder, Deeper, Faster (Score:3, Insightful)
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.)
Re:Stronger, Harder, Deeper, Faster (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Stronger, Harder, Deeper, Faster (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Stronger, Harder, Deeper, Faster (Score:2, Insightful)
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.