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Scrap the internet and start again?
Posts
Even with a year and a half in to a networking specialist degree, I don't know enough to properly asses the merits of redoing the internet.
Hopefully someone with more experience with it will show up.
A presentation I found pretty interesting was one which included the statistic that over a 10GBps fiber link, the loss of just one packet effectively reduced the bandwidth 25% for the next 5 hours - I don't know on what mechanism this metric is based.
I definitely want to see that article. TCP/IP is built to be obscenely fault tolerant. I don't see how one packet could do that (again, limited experience
I mean, one of the flaws of IPv6 is simply that it specifies that EVERY device will have an address at the global level on the internet, which isn't exactly conducive to good security.
But is any alternative actually viable? It doesn't seem so. I'm confused and hopefully some one can clarify. What exactly is the reason for "starting over"? Beyond concerns about security what is being demanded that requires a complete overhaul?
I mean...
It works for me. And with a few more "bootstrapings" the internet will do everything I could want it to.
Anyway, the main issue is that every person, every business, everywhere, will have to upgrade everything. The cost would be almost incaculable. Too many people will claim that their Internet works fine and they don't want to buy new network equipment and download new software, and then their will be two Internets, and so forth.
What this does is keep the network from being too congested so more people can use it. However, individual connections are severely hampered by it. In the CERN case, you probably have a window that is absolutely gigantic, which gets cut to basically nothing after the lost packet, and then it takes some time to ramp it back up.
but exactly how the hell is someone supposed to even shut down the entire internet? Stop all the ISPs?
Too many characters.
Oh, I know what all that is.
I was wondering how one dropped packet could cause a 25% drop in bandwidth for 5 hours. Since No specifics were provided, I assumed he referred to a normal packet. I wanted to see this study so I could read it myself (I like internet related studies). Even with one massive packet, it's hard to believe one packet could cause that kind of drop in bandwidth for so long, unless they were testing some kind of DoS attack with a malformed packet.
#1: You need to get everyone to agree on new standards
#2: ISPs have to update their routers to use the new technology
#3: Users have to update routers and their operating systems
#4: Developers have to update their programs. Legacy programs that aren't supported will need to be provided a way to access the new internet, similar to how old programs with no security can be tunneled through SSH.
1 and 2 are relatively painless. Three takes the longest because most users don't care, or you will have trouble convincing them to take the time and spend the money to do this. Four isn't too hard, but developers can be very stubborn, especially ones in corporations.
For the most part, existing infrastructure is sufficient for a massive change. The hardest part is getting people to go along with it.
Edit: Missed some steps:
First you need to get funding to develop the standards, then you need to develop them. Then you can move to the first step in the list.
That reminds me, bittorrent better damb well work in this "new internet" if they ever get around to doing it. Otherwise there will truly be parallel Networks -- Bittorrent and Everything Else.
To replace the internet, they would at least need to match its flexibility and openness, or it would never catch on. That means allowing people to connect stuff to it that isn't approved by some certification body. Bittorrent is safe.
I know that this question is probably as dumb as the "Where is the Internet stored?" thread, but it seems like a big deal to me - as well as the wiretapping stuff.
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The "internet" is just a term for the wires, devices, and protocols used to move information from one point to the other. The information will stay right where it has since someone first came up with the idea of linking two computers together (on disks).
It's no different from a home network fundamentally. It's just bigger, and has a wider variety of stored information, and more ways of moving it around.
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The only incompatibility I can think of is the storage of e-mails, which is usually done in an application-specific format. Hopefully some standard format for storing e-mail would be adopted, and all the major applications would provide a converter.
Deja vu.
Nobody's talking about taking the entire Internet down and replacing it all at once. They're talking about guiding the development of new technologies and replacing parts of it over time, with the understanding that the eventual result will be something that looks very unlike the Internet of today.