DNS Inventor Predicts Future of the Internet 281
afra242 writes "BBC News has an interesting article which discusses what Dr Paul Mockapetris, the creator of DNS, thinks about what the Internet will be in the near future. He states that currently, we are in the Bronze Age of the Internet and phones will be phased out completely, to be replaced by web addresses."
Bronze Age? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Bronze Age? (Score:5, Funny)
Mod Parent Up (Score:2)
Yes that was part of the double entendre. But you see, if you read the Wikipedia page about the Beaker people, you'll see that Slashdotters really are much like them, in contrast to other groups around at the time.
Re:Mod Parent Up (Score:2, Funny)
It would certainly satisfy my Dungeons&Dragons fantasies...
NSFW!!! (Score:2)
(So does browsing Slashdot for that matter...)
Re:Bronze Age? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Bronze Age? (Score:2, Funny)
if I had MOD points, you would get all of them!
Re:Bronze Age? (Score:2)
Re:Bronze Age? (Score:2, Insightful)
He's predicting what already exists! (Score:5, Insightful)
The father of DNS and a scientist working at a DNS management company believes that everything will be controlled by a DNS-like system, absolutely unbelievable!
We have these things called bookmarks... People rarely remember web-addresses as it is. I know that entirely too many people believe their entire "Internet" is their homepage (while working for ATTBI during the @Home changeover I *personally* received several calls from concerned people that their Internet was gone and replaced by this "ATT BY" thing as their homepage had changed from home.excite.com to www.attbi.com). I would venture to say that most people get their information from a handful of sites and don't bother to remember much other than google.com or yahoo.com. I know that I get most of my information from a handful of remembered sites and I consider myself a bit more Internet savvy than the average user.
"It is quite possible that phone numbers will have disappeared and people will just use menus off their phone. I don't think there is particular value in having them."
He theorizes something that already exists! So instead of bookmarks for phone numbers we have these things called address books. You look up someone's name in there and you click on it. It dials. Absolutely brilliant. Thanks for showing us the way!
He's no longer a visionary. He's just pretending to be one. What he did for us changed the Internet from the start. This article on the other hand means nothing as it already exists in popular form.
Re:He's predicting what already exists! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:He's predicting what already exists! (Score:3, Interesting)
No matter what happens there will always be the "first to adopt" and those that hang on to their set ways forever.
Addressbooks, bookmarks, speed-dial whatever you want to call it are already replacing the standard way of dialing phones. It's nothing "visionary" by putting numbers to names like DNS (something like adding lines to your hosts file
Re:He's predicting what already exists! (Score:3, Insightful)
While this may seem true, the evidence just isn't there to support your claim. If that statement were true, we'd have people using hand-crank powered cars right along side the new hybrid ones. Simple preferences can be and are replaced by innovation. Though it doesn't happen overnight. I still know of businesses that don't use computers. Eventually those who are set in their ways die (I'
Re:He's predicting what already exists! (Score:2)
Yeah and your point is what? Eventually people will stop entering in the phone numbers by hand manually and will all use address books. The people that didn't adopt used them forever and died thus ending their ability to use them.
realities today/tradeoffs/technology (Score:3, Interesting)
I can remember when the teachers made us turn in our slide rules before tests.
Man, I wish I still had mine, alon
Re:realities today/tradeoffs/technology (Score:3, Interesting)
Overall, methinks progress is actually made, even though it's about 5 visible steps forward and 4 invisible steps backwards.
I'm old enough to remember when college physics was strictly a sophomore course with calculus as a co-requisite. Reason being that a year of college level math was required prior to attempting calculus. Nowadays, high schools are offering pre-calc and even calculus, so there is at least some improvement, at least in some areas.
How did the ancient Egyptians build
Re:He's predicting what already exists! (Score:2, Interesting)
(Not to say that DNS is a crap hack, but just that perhaps it is, and perhaps if the creator thought so, then perhaps something would change. I'll stop covering my ass now. :P)
Re:He's predicting what already exists! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:He's predicting what already exists! (Score:2)
Re:He's predicting what already exists! (Score:4, Interesting)
Eventually, I bet you'll be able to pick up a "phone", say "New York City, Michael Joseph Smith and Mary Ellen Smith", and have it connect you.
It's not that the device you use will have a database itself. It will probably use something similar to DNS Servers to resolve your words to an address.
Re:He's predicting what already exists! (Score:4, Insightful)
Sorry but that's not going to work, ever.
Re:He's predicting what already exists! (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:He's predicting what already exists! (Score:2, Insightful)
That is just stupid.
Re:He's predicting what already exists! (Score:2)
Not even if it comes back with a list of streets that each possible answer would be on, like when you call directory assistance?
Quick, think of your best friend's name. Now, quickly, think of the name of the street your best friend lives on.. Couldn't do it? I didn't think so. I don't even know what steet my DAD lives on, and I visit him regularly. I know how to navigate to it but I've never paid attention to the name.
The only way this would work is if it comes back and says "John Smith, about 6 f
Re:He's predicting what already exists! (Score:2, Funny)
I'm guessing that you're not in charge of the Christmas card list then?
Re:He's predicting what already exists! (Score:3)
Calling from a phone? It'll detect "voice communication requested" and connect you to the person's phone or to their currently-running instance of Netmeeting.
Sending a text message? It'll detect it as such and send it to wherever that person has indicated they want text messages to go.
Device independence
Re:He's predicting what already exists! (Score:3, Interesting)
Personally, I would like to see us continue to use phone numbers, but I'd like to see a standard for phones and other devices to load them from a web page. That way you could provide someo
Re:He's predicting what already exists! (Score:2)
Re:He's predicting what already exists! (Score:2)
Not if they call you first!
Soon phones will be able to distribute their numbers through IR or wifi or some such crap. Personally, I'm looking forward to this.
Re:He's predicting what already exists! (Score:5, Interesting)
Just internet.
That is a *big* difference from what exists today. Sure, to the average consumer, it will work roughly the same way, but in actual fact, it will be an entirely different puppy.
Re:He's predicting what already exists! (Score:2)
Re:He's predicting what already exists! (Score:3, Interesting)
What I'm talking about (and Dr Mockapetris from the way I'm reading the article) is a telephone that is not on the existing telephone network and is instead a node on the Internet.
If there are companies out there making telephones that are connected to the internet, and not the telephone network, I would *really*
Re:He's predicting what already exists! (Score:2, Informative)
So the grandparent poster was correct, all this tech already
Re:He's predicting what already exists! (Score:3, Funny)
You mean there is more to the internet than Slashdot?
Re:He's predicting what already exists! (Score:5, Interesting)
I think you fail to understand the kind of shift that will happen when international dialing codes and area codes simply go away. When you can rely on underlying systems like DynDNS married to a directory system that will allow you to plug a SIP phone anywhere, get a DHCP address - register to a directory server - and start taking calls immediately. Or what will happen when cellular providers go IP behind the scenes.
His insight that Domain Naming services tie it all together is quite important. Despite what you think.
Do you work for Microsoft? (Score:3, Informative)
I think you fail to understand the kind of shift that will happen when international dialing codes and area codes simply go away. When you can rely on underlying systems like DynDNS married to a directory system that will allow you to plug a SIP phone anywhere, get a DHCP address - register to a directory server - and start taking calls immediately. Or what will happen when cellular providers go IP behind the scenes.
His insight that Domain Naming services tie it all together is quite important. Despite w
Kids, don't let your parents... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Kids, don't let your parents... (Score:2)
And? (Score:3, Insightful)
And web addresses will be replaced by? What after IPv6?
Re:And? (Score:2)
Re:And? (Score:2)
Phones phased out? (Score:5, Interesting)
That might seem a little overly ambitious, but phone service itself for sure will probably go to something all digital. I use Vonage right now and would never switch back. POTS is a last great holdout on the analog to digital conversion.
Of course there are still a good many other poor countries who have such a dated infrastructure that will insure that POTS sticks around a while.
Re:Phones phased out? (Score:2)
So what? (Score:5, Insightful)
Prediction 1: He wants web addresses to replace phone numbers.
Isn't this pretty much already happening now? With the advent of cell phones and even home phones that allow phone book storage, this already happens. There are people that don't even remember their HOME phone number because they always pull it from the menu on their cell phone, or use voice-activated dialing.
I'm not so sure I follow. Google has become so successful because of their search technology. With billions of webpages and websites, and probably even more billions of phone numbers, how is that going to help? It's still tough to find web addresses with easy to remember names these days. Atleast with Google it makes it much easier.
Prediction 2: Access for all, Security
Wasn't this already introduced a couple years ago? Since the advent of broadband, it has been the goal of changinging everything over to that and giving access to all. However, I think it's something that is going to happen a lot sooner than we think, thanks in part to wi-fi. Wi-fi is becoming increasingly popular with everyone these days from hotels, cafes, even in parks. Thankfully, he did point out that security needs to be tightened up before a lot of this goes mainstream.
Correct... This is more than likely going to be the next big explosion on the net (behind searching of course). But I just wish it would actually happen in the right order. Get the security practices down, then introduce access for all, but make sure they can understand it first.
Re:So what? (Score:2)
I can more see this sort of technology becomming more prevalent than web addresses or numbers to remember. Online directories that get downloaded to your device or to a quasi-future DNS server. You state the name of the person/place you want to reach and you're there in a heartbeat. It's really similar to DNS if you think about it -- matching
Yeah! (Score:5, Insightful)
But seriously, isn't it already that way? I only know two phone numbers: my cellphone and my normal phone. If I want to call someone I just look up their name in my "phonebook" on my cell or phone and I click "call". So in some way we already have the thing he talks about. You could consider the phonebook function in modern phones as an equivalent to a local "hosts" file.
Re:Yeah! (Score:5, Funny)
I predict your first calls on these will be from spammers.
Dumping phone numbers (Score:5, Interesting)
As of right now, I just share my contact list between my phone and my pda. I think the future is convergence. I'm waiting for the ideas to make my life simpler now.
Re:it's official (Score:4, Interesting)
The headlines were instantly familiar: Linux will rule the world! Star Wars! Oh, and Debian 2.0.
Check it out, it's pretty interesting.
Already the Future (Score:5, Interesting)
Personally, I think companies are already doing similar things like Apple's XGRID.
GroupShares Inc. [groupshares.com] - A Free and Interactive Stock Market Community
In the FUTURE... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:In the FUTURE... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:In the FUTURE... (Score:2, Interesting)
I believe we should all come out of the hype for a second and stop to think whether we are doing things the Right Way(TM). The Internet is not meant to replace everything else, including phones, TVs, light switches and fridges. It was designed with versatility in mind, sure, but the very philosophy behind it teaches us not to attempt to cover all conceivable tasks with a single tool. Talk about "monocultures"...
"One use, one protocol", remember that thing? It think it does apply to this situation, even th
Re:In the FUTURE... (Score:5, Funny)
Lets just hope they're not as stingy with "upload bandwidth" as they are now
Re:In the FUTURE... (Score:2)
Re:In the FUTURE... (Score:2)
Re:In the FUTURE... (Score:2)
Of course the cable goes down in a storm before my frickin' satellite tv. Damnit.
How about... (Score:2, Interesting)
Everybody has a little key-holder with a fingerprint reader. Just let somebody push his finger to add him to your contacts. Furter information about the person is stored online.
If I invented DNS... (Score:2, Insightful)
Lets think about this. This is the guy that saw the Internet (or what became the Internet) and decided that the one thing this wonderful new decentralized network needed was a highly centralized system for mapping host names to IP addresses - thus eventually creating all the problems we are now experiencing with ICANN [icannwatch.org]?
And we should respect his opinion why?
Re:If I invented DNS... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:If I invented DNS... (Score:5, Insightful)
And we should respect his opinion why?
I suppose you'd gouge your eyes out with a plastic fork and bathe in acid if you were Eric Allman--and I perish to think of what you'd do if you were Tim Berners-Lee. After all, these guys are ultimately responsible for creating the systems that are so horribly abused by spammers, scammers, and pornographers, right? What weight could their words possibly carry today?
Heck, why respect Donald Knuth's opinion? After all, many of the topics covered in The Art of Computer Programming are essential to address harvesters, zombie DDoS applications, and every single worm and virus ever written. Or Alan Turing--that man has, like, zero credibility, seeing as if it wasn't for him, we probably wouldn't even have ICANN, k1dd13s, spam, hackers, et cetera!
Re:If I invented DNS... (Score:2)
(I can imagine some decentralized p2p-based DNS, but there would still need to be some sort of
Re:If I invented DNS... (Score:3, Insightful)
Allllll those problems. Like, what, that the system was able to scale from 250 hosts in 1982 to 1,000,000 in 1992 to 171,000,000 in 2002 -- and it WORKED? Oh man, these guys were IDIOTS!
Right.
Strange.. (Score:3, Interesting)
But this bloke does have some ideas. And did invent DNS. So I guess that makes it ok.
Sci-Fi written all over it (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Sci-Fi written all over it (Score:5, Funny)
"Oh, it's vee oh tee pee colon slash slash U S dot florida dot 1974 dot colon twelve colong twelve slash cryptic spawn, all one word."
"Uhh... ok, nevermind."
Re:Sci-Fi written all over it (Score:2)
I used to live in florida and my birthday is 12/12/1977...
We are not where we think (Score:5, Interesting)
Although advanced countries are at the point where most people have net access in one form or another, much still needs to be done so that every man, woman and child on the planet has it all of the time, he says.
One of the things that struck me about the media coverage about the war on Afghanistan is just how poor and primitive the majority of the people on the planet have it. There are arguably about 1-2 billion people in the G8 countries. How many other countries have running water? Indoor plumbing? Electricity? Look at the goat farmers in the middle east. Do you really think that everyone is going to have web access anytime soon?
The idea that the entire world has our standard of living is simply false.
Re:We are not where we think (Score:4, Insightful)
You're right. But so what? Just because a large group of people in the world live at a standard of living well below our own does not mean we should stop envisioning, anticipating, and planning for the next advances in our standard of living.
Re:We are not where we think (Score:3, Informative)
Actually, barely a Billion.
(source: wikipedia G8 [wikipedia.org] for the list of countries, and each country page for population)
As for how you define wealth and poverty... I could trade indoor plumbing and running water as well as a grid connection fo
Phones and the Internet (Score:5, Interesting)
Welcome to Planet Earth (Score:4, Insightful)
For your own safety... (Score:5, Funny)
Affirmation!!! (Score:4, Insightful)
Not surprising (Score:4, Interesting)
Kinda funny that this article came up when it did. Just a couple of days ago I was looking for a cheap PocketPC/Palm that had built in wireless so I could use it for messaging at home and at work. I have fond hopes that it'll do voice chat one day.
To date, I haven't exactly phased out my phone. On the other hand, I rarely use it instead of ICQ or email to chat with my friends.
Oblig. Simpsons Quote (Score:5, Funny)
Phone numbers won't dissappear because.. (Score:5, Insightful)
The biggest current trend is that everyone is switching to wireless phones. Most people don't want to carry around a phone large enough to contain a keyboard. Voice recognition works well only for words that are commonly used. For weird IP addresses, you would have to say each letter one at a time.
Imagine you meet somebody. You want to store his/her phone number your phone book on your cell phone. Which is easier? Typing 820-833-5214 or typing a 16 letter word into your 10 button keypad?
Re:Phone numbers won't dissappear because.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Phone numbers won't dissappear because.. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Phone numbers won't dissappear because.. (Score:4, Insightful)
On this chorded keypad system, I already have some preliminary ideas. The face of the phone will probably have the same 9-key keypad, or have a 8 directional rocker (kind of like a digital version of the analog controller on game systems, but shorter). The back would have three shift buttons that will change the current character selection within the current key. So, using the current T9 mapping, Index Finger (on the back) + the 2 key will give you A, Middle + 2 will give you B, and your third finger (sorry, forgot the name) + 2 will give you C. This system (thumb + three finger chords) seemed to work well for Abacus users of an older age, so it's already proven that users can input this stuff pretty fast. The only problem is to make this mainstream enough for all cellphone makers to incorporate it into the phones.
And, hey, if you don't like it, you can just turn the option off. Or, you can even remove the back keypad via removing the keypad and using a different faceplate! Should NOT be a problem. Nokia should really start thinking outside the box and making useful things, instead of making stupid LED "messages in the air" type gadgets. I can imagine that this system would use no more resources than T9 predictive text.
Re:Phone numbers won't dissappear because.. (Score:3, Interesting)
Back in primitive times, I would agree with you.
I notice a lot of people using cell phones nowdays have different habits. They pick up their phone, and simply speak "Call my jerk off buddy", or perhaps "Call my mistress". Then after a few seconds, they are connected. Do dialing. No fumbling with small keypads.
There
Great (Score:2)
Great. Any the next time I lose power at my house, how will I call the power company? Or 911?
Experienced Failures (Score:4, Interesting)
GREAT!!
Maybe he is just predicting the future he wants, so that people will remember his name without having to say " - the inventor of DNS"
TRansylvania 6-5000 (et. al.) (Score:3, Interesting)
So going to web addresses from digit-based phone numbers would actually have a retro flair to it, after a fashion...
Goes without saying... (Score:4, Insightful)
I only R part of TFA, but I noticed this quote immediately. This doesn't seem like much of an insight to me. Of course we'll look back on it and laugh, isn't that how it always goes? We used to drive covered wagons pulled by horses on dirt roads. It's quaint now, but back then they were at the edge of technology. All (er... most) of us here know that the network infrastructure is weak and likely won't carry us much further in its existing state, but rest assured, we'll get there. One step at a time, that's the way it's always been.
I think I've become a technophobe... (Score:5, Interesting)
When I'm in a face to face conversation, and one of my buddies 'Jim' says "just drop me an email", I cringe. Let's see... I've got only one email address listed under 'Jim' in my handheld's address book. Was that his home email, or his work email, or his personal-but-I-can-read-this-at-work email? Damn, I don't remember, and my handheld's software didn't provide space to make such a note.
Okay, I'll give him a call and ask... no, that's his home number.. where is his cell phone number? Crap, doesn't matter... no cell phone signal. Fine, I'll just wait until I get home...
Okay, my home address book has what I need... I send off that email. Now I wait two days for him to reply. With three email addresses, you can't expect 'Jim' to check them all constantly, right?
So two days later, 'Jim' replies... but I didn't see the message. I accidentally deleted it, instead of an advertisement for Cia.lis that was one line down.
I'll call 'Jim', and see why he hasn't written me back. Hmm, his phone service tells me that 'all circuits are currently occupied'. I'm sorry, but what the hell is that supposed to mean?
Oh, ok now his phone is ringing... hmm, poor connection, I can barely understand him. Jim says he replied to me... hmmm...
Oh, there it is, in my deleted messages folder. Ahh, but my email server stripped off the attachment, fearing that zip file of fake Olsen twin porn he sent me was a virus.
I give up.
As self-serving as it might seem (the creator of DNS, who works for a DNS company, is pitching DNS as a cure-all solution), maybe he has the right idea. Let's face it, the DNS system works. And it works well enough that there is just one of them in use. You don't hear "oh, you can't get to my website, because you are using the wrong DNS system."
A single, elegant system for uniquely identifying a human being, and then routing all communications to them (phone calls, emails, instant messages), independant of the devices being used to communicate, would be great. I, for one, would welcome that.
Obviously, though, the physical and socal infrastructure is not there yet (spotty cell phone coverage, unsolicited calls and emails, unproductive business competition). We've got a long way to go.
is it me or... (Score:2, Interesting)
this might be becouse all my fellow students are IT students to, but when we arent face to face, we use instant messengers allot, where other people would use phones.
and most of us have only 1 or 2 e-mail adresses that they regulary check (and a few extra for the spam), but when we send a message, we know that we will either have a repply within minutes (when using IM)
Re:is it me or... (Score:2, Insightful)
When I was a student, I don't think I picked up a phone more than a handful of times.
But consider the environment... Most of my friends lived in the same dorm floor. If not, I'd see them in class or at whatever extracurricular activity we had in common. My girlfriend lived less than five minutes away, in another dorm. All of our classes and activities were five minutes away, at most. Thee was at least a small computer lab in almost every building. I had an ethernet conne
Not the future. (Score:4, Insightful)
"It is quite possible that phone numbers will have disappeared and people will just use menus off their phone. I don't think there is particular value in having them."
Did he forget what his DNS is even based on? no matter how many layers of indirection he places on top of the current system, you can't replace the fact that people need to be identified uniquely in one way or another. If he believes a person can be remembered more easily by myphone@whatever.com (or whatever other convention he uses other than phone numbers) he still misses the point on how we obtain these names/numbers in the first place.
When reading this article, i've tried to forget the fact that he has his own DNS management company now, yet his inisistence on building an "alternative" phone-numbering infrastructure and using his clout of being "the father of DNS" only hints that he really has no new "vision" of the future and is trying to profit on whatever soon-to-be-outdated technology he happened to invent.
DNS certainly helped the internet grow enourmously.. but if you think about it now, its really not needed as much any more other than advertising.
Alternative forms of gathering your bookmarks/phone contacts/unknowns is the future.
That reminds me...remember RealNames?! (Score:3, Informative)
They claimed that they would be MORE IMPORTANT than DNS, and that getting the right "RealName" was key to having a successful website. They kept coming around to my employer at the time (a Big Media company) trying to convince them to pay top $$$ for RealName keywords before "someone else" did.
Thankfully, they went out of business, and DNS is still here!
Calling from My Home (Score:2)
How it might work (Score:2)
We are? (Score:5, Funny)
We are? Well, *somebody* needs to pony up 1000 food and 800 gold to get us into the Iron Age. I wanna build a Wonder, here!
Chris Mattern
Re:We are? (Score:2)
(I really should quit cheating, but it's just so darned fun! Single-player mode only, so don't get your dander up about online cheaters...)
No net access, no phone? (Score:2)
Better yet, how about Al Q toasting a couple key locations and taking out all internet service/phone service for the whole country? We wouldn't be able to call 911, *OR* get any pr0n.
What prediction? (Score:3, Insightful)
issue web-address at birth? (Score:3, Funny)
He taught me networking... (Score:4, Interesting)
One of the things I remember most, was his acronym for the OSI model: "All Professors Should Teach Networking Like Paul" so your could remember this [rhyshaden.com]. Of course, a lot has changed since then, but I was lucky to get a head start on it all -- thanks Paul!
Another cool thing about this class was that Marshall Rose was a fellow student. He's written a few RFCs [networksorcery.com] since then.
-ch
Obligatory Simpsons Quote (Score:5, Funny)
Wiggum: How big of a monkey?
Re:Forget the Bronze Age of the Internet (Score:5, Insightful)
Not really. Many people in the world are certainly very poor (though I'm still not sure if they've got it as bad as those living 2000 years ago), but modern technology has an influence even in the poorest countries. WHO vaccines for polio, malaria etc have reached even the most godforsaken countries of Africa, resulting in a considerable increase (something close to doubling, IIRC) in life expectancy in poor countries over the past hundred years. Poor people also often have access to modern materials to build their shacks, modern crossbred seeds for their little farms, etc. Of course, the influence of technology is not entirely positive --- it would be better if the warlords didn't have machine guns --- but I'm just saying that comparing today's poor countries with the Bronze Age isn't accurate.
What good is ubiquitous Internet connectivity to a people that are comparatively primitive?
It does sound silly at first sight to give wireless Internet access to people in abject poverty, but I think it would actually do them a lot of good. Imagine if we could distribute cheap Internet access stations to the poor --- they would have instant access to a giant wealth of information and education. Many people in poor countries have not had any primary education, and don't even know things that we consider incredibly basic and obvious. For example, they might not know that boiling water helps to kill germs and prevent disease, or that sex communicates AIDS. One of the most popular and important books in the world is a little UN booklet distributed in Africa that explains such basic concepts (I don't remember what it was called); it's been said that that booklet has saved thousands of lives.
The Internet would also help them to read about such things as politics and democracy, which would help reform the bad regimes in the poor parts of the world (which are a primary cause of poverty). Finally, better communication systems would assist them with making their own businesses. I think that one of the best things we can do for the poor is to provide them with access to more information.