You Won't Recognize the Internet in 2020 421
alphadogg writes "As they imagine the Internet of 2020, computer scientists across the country are starting from scratch and re-thinking everything: from IP addresses to DNS to routing tables to Internet security in general. They're envisioning how the Internet might work without some of the most fundamental features of today's ISP and enterprise networks. Their goal is audacious: To create an Internet without so many security breaches, with better trust and built-in identity management. Researchers are trying to build an Internet that's more reliable, higher performing and better able to manage exabytes of content. And they're hoping to build an Internet that extends connectivity to the most remote regions of the world, perhaps to other planets. This high-risk, long-range Internet research will kick into high gear in 2010, as the US federal government ramps up funding to allow a handful of projects to move out of the lab and into prototype. Indeed, the United States is building the world's largest virtual network lab across 14 college campuses and two nationwide backbone networks so that it can engage thousands – perhaps millions – of end users in its experiments."
Re:Anonymous Coward (Score:4, Informative)
The question is will a government-funded internet make big-brother-ing easier?
I believe that the government (at least in the U.S.) funded the original Internet.
Re:What crap (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Their goal is audacious? (Score:3, Informative)
You can do all that with pseudonymity. You get an identity, but it does not need to be the same as your real one.
Re:Get real (Score:3, Informative)
Hey, I would just like to see encryption techniques switch over to one of the methods that have been mathematically proven unbreakable instead of continuing to rely on the primes method which still has that Riemann hypothesis staring at it.
There are no techniques that have been mathematically proven unbreakable (one time pad excepted). You are thinking of quantum encryption, which requires hardware.
For pedants, yes quantum physics is a mathematical construct, but they are relying on actual physical particles conforming to these rules - which is still under debate. Quantum uncertainty in our universe could be part of a deterministic system in higher dimensions.
Re:Remember the (Score:1, Informative)
His books are actually titled "Emerald Eyes" "The Long Run" and "The Last Dancer". They're also very hard to find in print, but can be found here http://immunitysec.com/resources-dkm.shtml [immunitysec.com]
Re:Anonymous Coward (Score:5, Informative)
And Al Gore actually had a lot to do with changing the Internet from being a few universities, government agencies, and big businesses into a tool that gazillions of people use. Say what you will about his other political stances, but he deserves quite a bit of credit for his work in the Senate that makes it clear he thought the geeks had a very good thing going.
i2 (Score:3, Informative)
This high-risk, long-range Internet research will kick into high gear in 2010
Eh? What do you mean we've tried this before?
Re:How about some digital cash? (Score:3, Informative)
Ha? You are talking about prepaid cash cards. They exist for a while now. A lot of places in the USA no less, like Walgreens (as Mom and pop as you get), sell them, and visa logoed cards too. slysoft uses it for their **aa averse customers for example.
Re:What other planets? (Score:3, Informative)
Being at another planet doesn't necessarily require landing on its surface, though this might be hard to imagine for surface-dwellers. There's been lots of speculation about building floating cities on Venus: the city would float on the dense atmosphere. Something similar could be done for gas giants; at a certain altitude, the gravity would probably equal Earth's. Human habitats could also exist in orbit around other planets or moons. And even on Mercury, people could live underground.
But yes, in the near term, Mars is the only really viable planet for landing on with our current technology. However, the Moon is probably an even better bet, since it's so close, and would be more useful for things like mining or solar energy collection, and has more gravity than probably most other moons and dwarf planets (like Ceres) in our system. Plus, as long as we're constrained by lightspeed, surfing the net from the Moon wouldn't be that bad, with a lag time of only a few seconds or so, compared with Mars with a lag time of 30 minutes.
Re:Their goal is audacious? (Score:1, Informative)
We should do away with the concept that having more than one identity is some kind of deception.
But it is deception. In fact that's the whole fucking point of having multiple identities: to keep each identity untainted by the activities of the other identities, so that screwing up with one identity doesn't harm the reputation of the other identities.
Re:What other planets? (Score:3, Informative)
Luna is one of the original seven planets...
Re:Security starts at the ends (Score:4, Informative)
Actually, it's not the whole system that has to be inviolate, just the kernel. There are projects to produce a provable L4 microkernel, for example. This would allow the user to have a machine that they could then trust to only give away resources they chose.
Don't confuse a locked down kernel with a locked down computer. With the current OS selections you have, it's not possible to make a distiction, but it doesn't have to be this way. The problem boils down to the default permissive environment that we're all used to thinking and modeling our systems on top of. Capability based systems are a default deny environment, but you are free to give away as much as you want to a program of your choice.