[extropy-chat] Internet is a work in progress

Giu1i0 Pri5c0 pgptag at gmail.com
Tue Sep 21 10:19:45 UTC 2004


Internet is a work in progress

Researchers try to find ways to increase speed, fight security problems

By Anick Jesdanun / Associated Press

http://www.detnews.com/2004/technology/0409/19/a11-277552.htm

NEW YORK - Thirty-five years after computer scientists at University
of California, Los Angeles linked two bulky computers using a 15-foot
gray cable, testing a new way for exchanging data over networks, what
would ultimately become the Internet remains a work in progress.

University researchers are experimenting with ways to increase its
capacity and speed. Programmers are trying to imbue Web pages with
intelligence. And work is under way to re-engineer the network to
reduce spam and security troubles.

All the while threats loom: Critics warn that commercial, legal and
political pressures could hinder the types of innovations that made
the Internet what it is today.

Stephen Crocker and Vinton Cerf were among the graduate students who
joined UCLA professor Len Kleinrock in an engineering lab Sept. 2,
1969, as bits of meaningless test data flowed silently between the two
computers. By January, three other "nodes" joined the fledgling
network.

Then came e-mail a few years later, a core communications protocol
called TCP/IP in the late '70s, the domain name system in the '80s and
the World Wide Web - the second most popular application behind e-mail
- in 1990. The Internet expanded beyond its initial military and
educational domain into businesses and homes around the world.

Today, Crocker continues work on the Internet, designing better tools
for collaboration. And as security chairman for the Internet's key
oversight body, he is trying to defend the core addressing system from
outside threats, including an attempt last year by a private search
engine to grab Web surfers who mistype addresses.

He acknowledges the Internet he helped build is far from finished, and
changes are in store to meet growing demands for multimedia. Network
providers make only "best efforts" at delivering data packets, and
Crocker said better guarantees are needed to prevent the skips and
stutters common with video.

Cerf, now at MCI Inc., said he wished he could have designed the
Internet with security built in. Microsoft Corp., Yahoo Inc. and
America Online Inc., among others, are trying to retrofit the network
so e-mail senders can be authenticated - a way to cut down on junk
messages sent using spoofed addresses.

Among Cerf's other projects: a next-generation numbering system called
IPv6 to accommodate the ever-growing armies of Internet-ready wireless
devices, game consoles, even dog collars. Working with NASA, Cerf is
trying to extend the network into outer space to better communicate
with spacecraft.

But many features being developed today wouldn't have been possible at
birth given the slower computing speeds and narrower Internet pipes,
or bandwidth, Cerf said.

"With the tools we had then, we did as much as we could reasonably
have done," he said.

While engineers tinker with the Internet's core framework, some
university researchers looking for more speed are developing separate
systems that parallel the Internet. That way, data-intensive
applications like video conferencing, brain imaging and global climate
research won't have to compete with e-mail and e-commerce.

Think information highway with an express lane.

Some applications are so data-intensive, they are "simply impractical
to do on the current Internet," said Tracy Futhey, chairwoman of the
National LambdaRail. The project offers for its members dedicated
high-speed lines so data can "get from point A to point B and not have
to contend with the other traffic."

LambdaRail recently completed its first optical connection from San
Diego to Seattle to Pittsburgh to Jacksonville, Fla. Work on
additional links is planned for next year.

Undersea explorer Robert Ballard has used another network, Internet2,
to host live, interactive presentations with students and aquarium
visitors from the wreck of the Titanic, which he found in 1985.

The Internet's bandwidth can carry only "lousy" video and "can't
compete with looking out the window," Ballard said. But with
Internet2, "high-definition zoom cameras can show them the eyelids."

Internet2, with speeds 100 times the typical broadband service at
home, is limited to selected universities, companies and institutions,
but researchers expect any breakthroughs to ultimately migrate to the
main Internet.

While Internet2 and LambdaRail seek to move data faster and faster,
researchers with the World Wide Web Consortium are trying to make
information smarter and smarter. Semantic Web is a next-generation Web
designed to make more kinds of data easier for computers to locate and
process.

Consider the separate teams of scientists who study genes, proteins
and chemical pathways. With the Semantic Web, tags are added to
information in databases describing gene and protein sequences. One
group may use one scheme and another team something else; the Semantic
Web could help link the two.

Ultimately, software could be written to process the data and make
inferences that previously required human intervention. With the same
principles, searching to buy an automobile in Massachusetts will also
incorporate listings for cars in Boston.

Change doesn't come easily, however. For instance, the IPv6 numbering
system was deemed an Internet standard about five years ago, but the
vast majority of software and hardware today runs on the older IPv4,
which is running out of room.

And the Internet faces general resistance from old-world forces that
want to preserve their ways of doing things: Companies that value
profit over greater good. Copyright holders who want to protect their
music and movies. Governments that seek to censor information or spy
on its citizens.



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