Vint Cerf Says No To IPv7, Yes To InterPlanetary Web 108
jbrodkin writes "IPv6 is here, but what's up with IPv7? Nothing, says Vint Cerf. While one day there may be another new Internet Protocol, work is not happening on it now. 'At the moment there doesn't seem to be any incentive for inventing yet another one,' he said in an interview. However, he contends that 2011 will be a Big Year for his pet project, the extraterrestrial 'InterPlanetary Internet.' The 'Bundle' network protocols will be tested in space and standardized to 'make them available to all the space-faring countries.' As they are used with more spacecraft, 'we can literally grow an interplanetary network that can support both man and robotic exploration.'"
IPv7? Good lord, why ever.. (Score:4, Insightful)
IPv6 is not mainstream yet, and probably still won't be for a while longer. Considering that IPv6 solves the problem of limited addresses in an increasingly networked world, which was and still is the driving force for the migration from IPv4, immediate R&D into the next standard just seems unnecessary. Plus, with how big of a headache IPv6 has been, who can honestly blame 'em for not wanting to think about it for a while.
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I think IPv64 should be sufficient enough...........
Re:IPv7? Good lord, why ever.. (Score:5, Funny)
Why go with IPv64 when IPv9 [ietf.org] is already perfectly suitable for the task ?
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Short-sighted foolishness!
I propose doom for all unless we immediately move to IPv16. Those sub-atomic particles aren't going to go without at least a mole of addresses each on MY watch!
Re:IPv7? Good lord, why ever.. (Score:5, Funny)
How about networking multiple worlds? What about when we learn to colonize Mars, and other solar systems?
IPV6 has plenty enough IP addresses for a single galaxy. We might need to rethink it once we have colonised another galaxy, but the million-year ping times would be a bit annoying anyway.
Re:IPv7? Good lord, why ever.. (Score:5, Funny)
...but the million-year ping times would be a bit annoying anyway.
Pfft. You know, as an AOL subscriber, it's not very often I get to call somebody else a weenie.
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Until we develop fibre holes capable of pushing packets across the galaxy in 100ms.
That's a lot of R&D just to silence an AOL zealot.
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> but the million-year ping times would be a bit annoying anyway.
Nah... subspace channels are much faster than the speed of light. I have seen it being used in many situations...
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You are forgetting that ST Voyager moved a long distance, many quadrants, in just an instant after leaving deep space nine. This is the foundation of the show. In ST, they do not understand everything yet...
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Nah, it wasn't in the latter years of the show, it was in season 1, maybe season 2 disk 1. I just started to watch all episodes lately and I am at season 2 disk 2 right now and they already have contacted the alien scientist in the alpha quadrant. I am pretty sure it was in season 1. The scientist was talking to them from the past, he promised to deliver their message home in the future but Voyager records showed that he died before he could.
Not the best ever show I have ever watched I have to admit. I am R
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Hey, since you seem to know a bit, is 7 of 9 going to show up in ST Voyager or was 7 of 9 in another series ?
Damn, I hope she was in Voyager ;-) Belona Tores, or whatever her name his is my preferred female character ex aequo with 7 of 9 if she is indeed going to appear in ST Voyager.
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many quadrants
They precisely one quadrant over. There's only four: Alpha Quadrant, Beta Quadrant, Delta Quandrant, and Gamma Quadrant. (You know, "quad" means four?). It's pretty much one fourth of the galaxy sliced in four equidistant places for some arbitrary reason for all I know.
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Well, speaking in order of magnitude, we are almost half way there with IPv6:
"Two approximate calculations give the number of atoms in the observable universe to be close to 10^80."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Observable_universe [wikipedia.org]
The number of IPv6 addresses is:
2^128 or 3.4×10^38
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you should clarify that you mean half way on a logarithmic scale. .5*10^80 would be half-way.
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FYI: That's exactly what "speaking in order of magnitude" means.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Order_of_magnitude [wikipedia.org]
http://www2.pvc.maricopa.edu/tutor/chem/chem151/metric/magnitude.html [maricopa.edu]
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It is indeed. I call fail on my part :)
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How about networking multiple worlds? What about when we learn to colonize Mars, and other solar systems?
IPV6 has plenty enough IP addresses for a single galaxy. We might need to rethink it once we have colonised another galaxy, but the million-year ping times would be a bit annoying anyway.
Nothing that a couple of well configured NAT routers can't manage.
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Some are hoping for a magical IPv7 that would magically 'just work' with IPv4 without any messy backwards compatible issues. None of those understand the problem, but assume there must have been *some* way to do it without losing our quad-dotted addresses or rewriting or recompiling a single thing. Like 'why not just raise the limit on the numbers from 255 to a thousand or something?' or 'just add another dot-number at the end'.
Re:IPv7? Good lord, why ever.. (Score:5, Informative)
You can express IPv6 adresses with quad-dotted notation if you wish, going way over the 255 limit. The truth is that it is the underlying number of bytes in an IP packet header that matters.
IPv6 addresses range is 0.0.0.0 to 4294967295.4294967295.4294967295.4294967295
2^128 or 3.4×10^38 addresses.
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Something with extensible addressing would have been nice, like phone numbers with international area code / national area code / local number, but with an open ended number of divisions. You could refer to stuff on your lan with a single number, possibly within your corporate network with 2 numbers, and so on. When we need to start routing traffic off the planet just prefix another number on there - 1 for Earth, 2 for Mars, etc. A full address might take the form of:
planet / country / ISP / customer / netw
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It sounds like a lot of processing to me... not the kind that would swamp your PC while connecting to emule, but one that could be harmful to the backbone routers.
A fixed length means you can design hardware specifically oriented to it, way faster than software.
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It sounds like a lot of processing to me... not the kind that would swamp your PC while connecting to emule, but one that could be harmful to the backbone routers.
Maybe. I was kind of thinking the opposite though... the address tables would be much smaller than IPv4 because you only need to route between levels, and you could do that in hardware by examining the first few bytes of the address. IPv6 has much the same idea but with a fixed length address.
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While at it, why not XML based IP packets with XML parsers in the routers to route every packet ?
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Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Back to Usenet? (Score:5, Funny)
As easy as real-time communication is nowadays to people around the globe, once the internet moves into space, the incredible latency of long-distance communications could return us to a series of groups and threads that one logs into periodically, downloads en masse, and reads locally.
Of course given the time delays between solar systems, you could start a flame war that your great-great-grandchildren would have to finish.
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you could start a flame war that your great-great-grandchildren would have to finish
Oh that still happens now... metaphorically. Hell if religion was a flame war, that is, then [(great-)^N]great-grandchildren N is an element of {n | n an element of Z+}, our era, is still continuing it!
Proxies in order? (Score:2)
I'm guessing that Squid would be a must-have on the interplanetary web!
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Via relativistic collisional habitat damage?
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Anything adapted for seriously high latency will probably look a lot more like today's broadcast media: If your ping times are measured in years, waiting for an ack from the remote host, or asking for a corrupt packet to be re-sent are going to be somewhere between painful and useless. As with broadcast, the sender will just have to generate a signal that the receiver can reconstruct without further communication, and pack
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Usenet and the underlying UUCP protocol were designed around propagation times measured in hours to days. They'll work just fine inside the solar system, while the problems with interstellar use stem from the social expectations layered on top of it rather than from the technology itself.
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Has there been a net partition or what?
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We are, after all, limited by the speed of light.
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Because git is the only DVCS?
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Within the solar system, you're talking probably an hour at most (round-trip, unless we colonize Jupiter or something). So yea, instant communication is out, but it's still fairly quick. You could post to slashdot and have your comments appear while the story is still on the front page. I'd imagine popular content will be mirrored by service providers, unpopular content will need to be requested - provider pulls it into the mirror, drops it a while later - for the user, they try to load it, get a page sayin
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First from MARS!
Now seriously, the big "but" to those number is that sometimes the planet you wan to talk to is behind that big, yellow thing. Did you factor that in?
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Ah, no I did not. But couldn't you perhaps establish some kind of station to bounce the signal off of that wouldn't add more than a small percentage (i.e., 5 minutes or so) to the transit time?
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Why would there be temperature swings? The sun doesn't have a dark side and you wouldn't want a communications platform to turn very quickly anyway or be near anything else that could block line of sight to it. Just put a sunshade on one side of the platform that can withstand high temperatures -- 450C is no hotter than my soldering iron -- or am I missing something?
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I think so - the fact that Mercury rotates very slowly.
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Why is putting a platform on or orbiting Mercury useful? It's not inhabited and it isn't always in the right place around the sun, sometimes it's going to be behind (or in front of) the sun at the same time as the thing you're trying to communicate with. You'd need a constellation of sun-orbiting satellites so there was always at least one in the right relative position.
Is it that you want the satellites near a magnetosphere? That kind of almost makes sense.
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I was referring to your point about temperature swings and the dark side. Tidal locking and all that.
As to it not working when Mercury is in (or close to) conjunction with Earth and/or Mars, a fair point - but not mentioned in my reply or your previous post, so completely irrelevant to your rant.
Finally, I never advocated putting the station on Mercury - a far more sensible choice would be to put a satellite in an orbit out of the ecliptic - I just pointed out why your snide remark about temperature swing
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Except Anonymous didn't actually suggest putting the relay on Mercury, they suggested putting it in an orbit near Mercury's. I was hoping you had a reason for assuming the relay would be on Mercury besides failure of reading comprehension, but I guess not.
IPV7 so passé (Score:2)
... IPV9 [ietf.org] already around. ;)
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Actually, IPv9 is called TUBA. No, really [youshotthe...sman.co.uk]. And IPv7 is TP/IX. During the IP next generation discussions, Jon Postel allocated each a number. Vint surely knows this.
The Internet...IN SPAAAAAAAAACE! (Score:2)
I just read this story in Analog Science Fact and (Score:2)
Interstellar Internet: http://www.analogsf.com/0607/interstellar.aspx [analogsf.com] - "One of the most original, believable, thoroughly thought-out, and utterly fascinating visions ever of what interstellar contact might really be like." â" Stanley Schmidt, Editor of Analog magazine
"One thing led to another ⦠soon I was pondering a comm network that functioned across the light-years. And, we homo saps being a tad competitiveâ"about interstellar cyber attacks..... Herewith, a few of Lerner
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Sandbox code is fully disclosed and fully agreed upon across the interstellar community
Which means anyone can hack up a modified sandbox which will steall all the agent's secrets. The agent, of course, can't 'self-destruct' since I made a copy before I put it in there.
This whole thing is just another form of DRM, and any alien species which relies on it will find its agents on Bittorrent within a few days.
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Point 6 is also funny.... doing electronic banking with money from other planetary systems. Wow!
Even monopoly money is worth more, at least you can use it to play monopoly or burn it to get some heat.
No IETF WF, No IETFv7 (Score:2)
You don't need Vint Cerf to conclude this.
If there isn't an active IETF Working Group [ietf.org] on the subject, the chances of getting a "IPv6Next" (which I think might actually be IPv9) within the next decade are pretty small.
How long before... (Score:2)
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Theoretically possible, in practice the 1/2 hour roundtrip time to mars may make things a bit difficult and more controllable... maybe to the moon with 1 s roundtrip time
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DTN (Score:3)
Delay / Disruption Tolerant Internet (DTN) is still at the Research Group [irtf.org] stage. It's really more about replacing TCP than the Internet (UDP will work just fine in space), and has received some criticism [google.com] (pdf download), ironically mostly centered around how it breaks the end-to-end principle.
While there is now an SIS-DTN green book [ccsds.org] (a necessary step for general deployment on space missions), and initial tests in space are positive [intersys-lab.org], these things move so slowly that I think it's going to be a while before this is generally deployed in space.
So much for R&D and innovation -- (Score:2)
Of course there is incentive to work on the next generation of protocols. It's basic R&D and a drive to not sit on your laurels.
This is not about merely having more addresses, but also in dealing with issues like dual or multi-homed routing (last I heard IPv6 dual-homing was still in progress.)
When comparing the pace of innovation in other areas, the glacial pace of IPv4 to IPv6 is actually kind of disturbing. The fact that there is no work going on for developing what might be next is even more so.
Co
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IPv6 dual-homing was still in progress.
I had IPv6 BGP with PI space in late 2006, so... uh...
I'll also add two comments concerning stagnation of technology. 1) MAC Addresses haven't changed in a long time. Yet Ethernet continues to advance, from coax to twisted pair, wireless, and fiber and from a bus to hubs then switches and now L3 switches. (although where are my end-to-end Jumbo Frames already?). A capable foundation does not hinder innovation. 2) Globally unique addresses in applications are the key. Returning the Internet to its mid-90s
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You seem to miss my point. It is not about everyone having their own IP address. (Which is really kind of silly when you think about it. We have a broken system where IP address == reachability.) It's about continuing R&D and innovation. Saying "Oh, well, this is good enough! Let's stop thinking." is not a great position.
I do not care if there are enough IPv6 addresses to last until the end of the universe. The address space is not the issue.
Would people adopt IPv6 faster if it resulted in everyon
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Remaining against IPv4 may be against both our interests and while adopting IPv6 may be in your (commercial) interest, it is against my long term interest because I wish to continue to see the networking technologies evolve. If everyone moves into an IPv6 network and continues to be fixated on having their own IPv6 address (and continuing to embed them into protocols (like SIP, bleah)), then it will be even harder to move on to new technologies.
You are confusing peer-to-peer with IP addressing -- this is a
Okay... (Score:2)
Personally I think we should worry about rebuilding the TCP/IP stack from the ground up, instead of worrying about anything else at the moment. At least once IPv6 is in.
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The right time to do that was 11 years ago. Now, we need IPv6.
About TCP, you are very much free to try something else. Replacing or upgrading that part is nowhere near as painful.
ip++ (Score:3)
URGENTT REQEST FOR ASISTANSE (Score:3)
Confidential Business Proposal
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We are now ready to transfer the fund intergalactically and that is where you come in. It is important to inform you that as civil servants, we are forbidden to operate a foreign account; that is why we require your assistance. The total sum will be shared as follows: 70% for us, 25% for you and 5% for local and international expenses incidental to the transfer.
The transfer is risk free on both sides. I am an accountant with the Spaceball Galactic Energy Corporation (SGEC). If you find this proposal acceptable, we shall require the following documents:
(a) your banker's name, telephone, account and fax numbers.
(b) your private telephone and fax numbers —for confidentiality and easy communication.
(c) your letter-headed paper stamped and signed.
Alternatively we will furnish you with the text of what to type into your letter-headed paper, along with a breakdown explaining, comprehensively what we require of you. The business will take us thirty (30) Spaceball days to accomplish.
Please reply urgently.
Best regards
Sgt. First Class Philip C. Asshole
Spaceball Intergalactic Fleet
Spaceball Galactic Energy Corporation
Interplanetary NTP (Score:2)
IPv11 ... (Score:2)
Most IPs only go up to 10 . . . so mine, which goes up to 11, is better . . .
Not needed (Score:2)
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If I'm understanding you correctly, then the eight and ninth chevrons are just packet header extensions?
We need subspace communications first. (Score:1)
Something other than TCP.. (Score:2)
/*
* [...] Note that 120 sec is defined in the protocol as the maximum
* possible RTT. I guess we'll have to use something other than TCP
* to talk to the University of Mars.
* PAWS allows us longer timeouts and large windows, so once implemented
* ftp to mars will work nicely.
*/
(Comment from an old version of tcp.c)
What IPV6 isn't good enough? (Score:2)
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You mean we need enough IP address so every person on the planet can have a different IP address for every atom in their body?
IPv6 already provides that many, and much much more.
For each person alive on the planet today, man, woman and child, there are as many IP addresses in the IPv6 Address Space as there are atoms in a metric ton of carbon.
Get it right the first time. (Score:3)
Humans have demonstrated time and time and time again, that they are lazy and reactionary for the most part.
The transition to ipv6 is going to be absolutely huge, I'm sure everyone here doesn't need to be told about the complexities of it.
As far as I'm concerned and I feel I'm probably right, once we go to ipv6, we won't see another protocol implemented in our lifetimes (I'm in my early 30's) period, nada - not gonna happen.
The bigger the internet becomes, the older it becomes and the more devices attached, the more difficult changing the protocol is. It's already going to be a nightmare, don't expect this will get easier.
This is like one day telling all Americans "Sorry, no more 110v - we're moving to 240v power" - it's a pretty monumental task.
So to get to my point, if ipv6 doesn't do what we need or would 'like' it to do, sorry to say but tough shit, someone should have thought of that earlier, because it's going to be here to stay... - of course if you want to see a somewhat faster transition to ipvXX? then just wait until we are completely out of ipv6 addresses, we will then likely transition quicker... I'm sure they won't last long!
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This is like one day telling all Americans "Sorry, no more 110v - we're moving to 240v power"
Most North American households can already do 240 volt, 60 hertz electricity. If you look in the back of a residential electrical panel you'll generally see two bus bars. If you take a voltage reading between those bus bars (make sure the multimeter is set on volts and not amps or you'll smoke your leads) you'll get somewhere between 220-240 volts, depending on your distance from the utility transformer and various other factors. We've got, for the most part, three wires going to every outlet (lighting or r
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"Humans have demonstrated time and time and time again, that they are lazy and reactionary for the most part."
Humans have demonstrated time and time and time again that they spend way too much time disparaging their own kind in a fit of self-hate.
Favorite line (Score:3)
Speaking about Sir Tim Berners-Lee's project for 'semantic web', now called 'deep linking':
Yes, I suppose inventing HTTP might qualify as a 'past success.'
Obviously it's a joke - Cerf himself has had some successes, or at least un-failures, himself, I hear.
Welcome (Score:3)
I for one welcome our new InterPlanetary Internet overlords.
Am I really going to click the Post button on this one? Ugh!
Naturally... (Score:1)
Eiri Masami hasn't invented it yet.
v7 (Score:2)
Proof positive that Darth Cerf really belongs in space.
Work is going on on v7, but we're not letting those v6 assholes that fucked everything up near it. One day you'll buy a device and it'll just work and it won't be v4 or v6.
First to market wins. Oh and by "to market" I mean "works WITH the current network".
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You mean LSN?
We should do it like with the Windows Versions... (Score:2)
Always Skip one....
The use case for Bundle is mobile phones (Score:2)
Forget about interplanetary networking, the primary use case for the Bundle protocol is peer to peer networking of mobile phones over WIFI or Bluetooth. Bypassing the telcos, ISPs, governments etc.
If Bundle was already installed on most phones, the Egyptian (and US) governments would be unable to turn off the network.
Regardless of the cost (Score:2)
Vint Cerf would say no to anything that did not uphold the grandiose new IPv6 design to which he has hitched his wagon, regardless of the cost to mere mortals.