Researchers explore scrapping Internet

Researchers explore scrapping Internet

news.yahoo.com

NEW YORK - Although it has already taken nearly four decades to get this far in building the Internet, some university researchers with the federal government's blessing want to scrap all that and start over.

The idea may seem unthinkable, even absurd, but many believe a "clean slate" approach is the only way to truly address security, mobility and other challenges that have cropped up since UCLA professor Leonard Kleinrock helped supervise the first exchange of meaningless test data between two machines on Sept. 2, 1969.

(visit the link for the full news article)

Scrap the Internet, and start with a clean slate?

Federal government's blessing?

Better security?

Or more controls over free speech, and content?

news.yahoo.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

[edit on 14-4-2007 by UM_Gazz]

Just another way, for us to be told what to do, on the internet......

Isnt bad enough they have CCTV watching everymove we make, now they want to control who goes on the internet...... Pathertic if you ask me....

So much for free speach or freedom off expression

This will never happen as there are too many businesses that rely solely on the internet for income. Plus who would give these so called "researchers" the right for control over the biggest technological advance in years.

The internet cannot be shut down. How would one go about shutting it down?



[edit on 4-14-2007 by CPYKOmega]

Originally posted by CPYKOmega
Plus who would give these so called "researchers" the right for control over the biggest technological advance in years.

They could be in part some of the original researchers who first helped create the Internet as we know it now. And remember, they do have the blessing of the federal government, which means mega grants, so money should not be a problem for these researchers, and do we know how deeply the government is really involved in this new research?

One can only speculate what this new Internet will be like.

I heard about this a few months ago,it seems some officials are in favour of replacing the internet with 'internet 2 'where only government approved 'licensed' websites can operate.
Sounds unbeleivable but then precision propaganda/media manipulation/ conditioning the masses seems to occur more and more these days.

I don't believe the that the current Internet or its content will be deleted, but when the new Internet takes over, everything changes, how you access information, websites, etc. will most definitely change, and I would a imagine that a lot of content under the potential restrictions of the new Internet will be found to be hopelessly inaccessible due to technological issues of course.

Will they control content?

Who knows, we'll just have to wait and see.

This won't happen.. yes internet 2 might launch as the new internet but this one will just stay where it is..

The internet is a network of computers, with protocols etc in place.
As long as people keep serving stuff in this fashion and people keep wanting to be here, then providers to hook up will be here (demand vs. supply). And if it really got so bad providers stopped providing mass access to 'the internet' you can still grab an old modem dial up to someone who has a pc connected to more pc's and acts as a server (the essence of internet) you still have all this.

An AboveTopSecret community at the very very very worst could still thrive in a sort of BulletinBoardSystem.. old skool... whis is by itself where Bulletin Boards/Forums originated anyway.. so it's back to the roots in the very worst case.

But again I don't think internet will be replaced... like replacing an os or something.. it's not that type of 'thing'.
I think it will continue to evolve.
And still even if that would happen.. nothing is stopping anyone from having html etc. files on a disk, a server daemon in place. And noone can prevent you from using an 'outdated' 'old fashioned' browser that can still read html to view that collection of files aka website.
Long as you can download files you can view a website (which is downloading files)

My 0.0013 cents (I'm not sober, it's saturday!!!!!!!!!!)

Agree with others that the e-commerce aspect alone is basically what would prevent the Internet as we know it to be scrapped. The article indicates that newer networks could possibly run in parallel with the Net. My thoughts and the article also state that newer protocols would definitely be an asset and are forthcoming (IPv6) to deal with existing limitations. More and more I think we will see converged applications (ie. Google office) whereby users will have remote access to what are traditional locally installed apps. Of course this won't be ideal for all situations. Obviously all the current stakeholders (business, government, education, law enforcement, etc) would all want to see their role expanded. Even if a newer Internet were formed there would always be an underground element and that's a good thing

brill

[edit on 14-4-2007 by brill]

Even if the Internet 2 was developed... hackers would find a way to connect for free. We all know hackers are smarter then anyone.

Naturally they couldn't wipe out the Internet in one swoop. But they could easily force a progressive migration. The best way would be through the end user link. It took about 10 years for broadband access to become common place. The next step will be something similar to gigabit fiber to each endpoint. Such a migration could easily be dependent on "current" network access, i.e. Internet 2. These things take time, as can be seen by the late Telenet.

Telenet was one of the first civilian networks to spawn from Darpanet, started in the 70s. It was finally shut down for good sometime around 99-2000. At least that's when I could no longer find a pad to connect to.

The same thing could be done with the Internet. It would probably take better than 20 years, but it would not be difficult at all.

My hope: government, due to the negative selection of staff (only the stupid and obedient can get a government job) will not have brain power to create a new programming language, let alone internet. We are safe, for the government is stupid.

They did it to themselves.

If they wanted to shut down the internet as we know it, they would just have to shut down all the main backbones that we all use to connect to the internet, and the majority of us would be crippled.

Also if they got to have gov't regulation over the ISP's then the vast majority of us would only be able to access the websites that they deemed acceptable.

Not to be too blunt about the navel-staring aspect of this idea, but just how is the US going to get the rest of the world to go along?

Apart from the assumed enhanced ability to control and censor the gov't is after ("the land of the free" ha!), what economic incentive would there be to scrap the entire internet infrastructure and start all over again?

Sounds like the IT version of Esperanto, with a dollop of soft fascism.

And who's paying these people to come up with these ideas anyway?

Since when was the internet owned by the USA? FFS! Pure arrogance, or am I missing something here

Whenever I hear someting about the internet, from across the pond, there is always the impliance that it is owned and policed by the USA.

[edit on 14-4-2007 by Xeros]

Originally posted by gottago
Not to be too blunt about the navel-staring aspect of this idea, but just how is the US going to get the rest of the world to go along?

Of course, we lead the way in communications technology, in all forms, including the Internet, when we make changes the rest world of the will find a way to adapt, and usually they do.

The advantage of leading the way in communications technology, and Internet infrastructure, is the great potential for information and content control, also what better way to eavesdrop on communications of potential criminals and threats, or "enemies", and trace to exact location?

Either you change and adapt to the new technologies, or you lose a vast market, for the business world, and for the common people, who may not want to adapt to the new technologies, the available Internet, and communications systems will progressively become obsolete.

Resistance will be futile.

[edit on 14-4-2007 by UM_Gazz]

One historical point that may or may not have an implied value: remember when the "Net" blew out BBS dial-ups and took over?

Some of those infrastructures are still valid, some are still active in academic circles and buisness.

When the "clean-sheet-new-Net" hits might there not be some legacy assets that might have some esoteric uses of opportunity for we "dusty-shelf" types? Hmmm.

I like "scrap" stuff, I think.

Vic

Originally posted by Xeros

Whenever I hear someting about the internet, from across the pond, there is always the impliance that it is owned and policed by the USA.

[edit on 14-4-2007 by Xeros]

Probably because its development comes from research involving the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency in the U.S. of A.

Basically, the way globalization works, who ever gets big at first with a good idea, will maintain sort of a monopoly, sort of. Companies can come and go as competition grows. In order for competition to succeed, they need to come up with a better idea than the one who has the "monopoly", that is faster, more reliable, makes more money, basically appealing. For example, Abovetopsecret.com seems to be ahead of the game in it's area of competition. Any other site that may come out of the ruble with the same idea like ATS.com most likely will not succeed in overthrowing ATS.com's apparent dominance. If it were to come out with a new feature that ATS.com does not have, they have a chance at taking on ATS.com because they do not have this new feature and it is appealing, fast, reliable, and makes more money (traffic..). What ATS has is it's serious approach to it's content. And that is very appealing. This relates in the sense that the internet is the leading source of spreading information all over the world. It is like a big company. Monopolies in different areas of business may know this. If I were a multi-billion dollar corporation, one of my strategies would be to "influence" competition, and content in the internet as to prevent smaller companies from becoming a threat and improve my product and business over all, and in every aspect. Honestly though, I can see a control of the internet being done. Look at what Microsoft has started doing with it's new operating system. And I'm pretty sure a lot of us use Microsoft products.

Woah, woah. Before yelling about how it's going to kill freedom and whatnot, what exactly is it that they want to do?

UM Gazz,

Absolutely. The internet is the thorn in Achilles' heel for the US, the genie that got out of the bottle. I'm sure it's driving the PTB simply mad. Just look at how 9/11 has gone viral just for one example. Freely available, uncensored information--the horror, the horror.

But this just can't work, it's pie in the sky. (Sorry to riddle this post with cliches, but really, it's prima facae a ridiculous proposition).

It says much more about what the US gov't wishes it could do with the internet than what it actually can do to dismantle it.