DARPA Aims to Redo the Internet Protocol 389
Xaleth Nuada writes "The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's (DARPA) is looking to redo the entire Internet Protocol. With the DoD increasingly adopting network-centric warfare the shortcomings in the current IP have become resoundingly clear. Everything works fine for static hardwired networks. But not for dynamic wireless ones. The benefits for your average geek? How about REAL wireless networking? Easier network set-up? Increased wireless security protocol? Increased reliability in sending information?" Don't forget massive incompatibility and upgrade hassles. :)
DODgy by name and nature ? (Score:5, Interesting)
On the other hand, given how slowly IPv6 is making its way into the wider world, we probably don't have too much to worry about for the time being!
Simon
Re:DODgy by name and nature ? (Score:5, Funny)
Seriously, if they are going to rework it they better do something about the SPAM.
Protocols vs Spam (Score:3, Informative)
Re:DODgy by name and nature ? (Score:3, Informative)
IP's job is not to know anything about the data it's transmitting. IP specifically disavows any knowledge of what it's carrying in fact, as it's ONLY concern is moving datagrams from one place to another.
That's the beauty of an n-tier system of protocols. One protocol says "okay, I do this and nothing else - you want something else, it's your responsibility to do it, not mine". For example, IP doesn't care if a datagram gets lost. In fact, IP doesn't even require an ICMP message to go back in the event
Re:DODgy by name and nature ? (Score:5, Insightful)
While governments in general are guided by the will-to-power, militaries (at least the US military) are fairly well driven by readiness and victory. It doesn't seem likely that they would create such a vulnerable technology.
Re:DODgy by name and nature ? (Score:5, Insightful)
If the purpose of this redesign is to better allow the armed forces to communicate on the battlefield, I highly doubt that they will embed snooping and tracing into the protocol. The military takes great pains to ensure that thier communications are kept secure, and having a secret backdoor in their entire communication system (no matter who controls it) is not something they would tolerate.
Re:DODgy by name and nature ? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:DODgy by name and nature ? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:M16s (Score:4, Interesting)
--Mike---
Re:DODgy by name and nature ? (Score:5, Insightful)
They're talking about creating a networking standard we could all use to build our own networks. The specs will be open, like AES. (Or, do you believe that AES has some backdoor that lets the US military decrypt your private bits?)
I don't see any similiarity with GPS. That's a military controlled network of hardware, on which, we civilians are allowed to tag along. It's not public or commercial in any way. Nobody had any illusions about that, well, except maybe you.
-ave
Re:DODgy by name and nature ? (Score:4, Funny)
If it does, my wife will be pretty upset - she believes she's the only one with access to my private bits.
If it's true, the US military better look out - never underestimate the power of a jealous woman with PMS.
Re:DODgy by name and nature ? (Score:3, Insightful)
As much as some people here who aren't american complain about us being involved in world matters (whether we should or shouldn't), I think that is just as important that they not muck in ours! If you want John Kerry as Prez, then come over here, become a citizen and VOTE! Elsewise, you are politely reminded that this is not your democracy, it is ours.
I tend to agree that the US shouldn't be mucking around overseas for the most part, but I don't th
Re:DODgy by name and nature ? (Score:5, Insightful)
It is in the DoD's self interest to make a communications protocol be as resilient and secure as humanly possible. Secure and reliable communications are the cornerstone of the modern military. A built-in insecurity in a comm system can and will be exploited by an adversary just as readily (if not more so) as an unintentional one.
Re:DODgy by name and nature ? (Score:5, Funny)
Replacing Von Neuman & OSI Model??? (Score:5, Interesting)
It sounds to me more like some general had a brief introduction to computing theory, but didn't relate it to any real current technology.
The alternative to Von Neuman (Code and Data in the same memory) is to have code and data in seperate memory areas. This makes it very difficult to make computers where the code can change. Sure, there's no buffer overflows, but there's no security patches either. It might be fine for embedded devices, but I'll not have it on my desktop. The Page (or Segment) executable flag of more modern memory management units does the job fine, without all the hassle.
The OSI model is already not used anywhere except to compare proposed network models to; it's way too complex.
He talks about replacing packet switching so that messages are delivered on time & with certainty. Presumably he means some kind of virtual circuit switching, but he also talks a lot about constantly shifting ad-hoc networks. Circuit switchinfg & ad-hoc networks don't mix well. You have to know what the path is going to be before you can reserve it. It's probably better to just turn on the QoS and AH already implemented in IPv6.
Post Von Neuman (Score:5, Interesting)
Map the cells in the state tables to appear as conventional RAM to the host, and reprogramming becomes as easy as a memory write. Bad cell?, just route around it. The fact that it's all state driven allows you to build an automated rerouter almost trivially.
post Von Neuman computers are going to be wicked fast, if they can build IO to keep up with them.
--Mike--
Re:DODgy by name and nature ? (Score:3, Informative)
arf (Score:5, Funny)
I read that as:
"Don't forget about the sudden explosion of extended-temp jobs flooding the market as the Internet decides to change over..."
And I just... (Score:5, Funny)
IPv7 (Score:5, Funny)
Maybe I'm just watching too much anime...
Re:IPv7 (Score:4, Interesting)
The scary thing is, the underlying concept there is actually plausible. Think about the similarity between human social connections and the connections between neurons in the brain. You're not aware of being part of a collective consciousness called humanity, but the individual cells in your head aren't aware of being part of a larger consciousness either.
You have to wonder how many things we consider "miracles" or extreme luck could really be actions of a larger entity which can influence groups of people as effortlessly as you can flex your fingers.
Re:And I just... (Score:4, Informative)
is the IP address still fixed-length?
Yes, at 128-bits. Variable-width addresses would bog down routers, because now they have to parse the length out of the packet. With fixed-width addreesses, it's just an XOR and bit shift, or maybe an lookup in an array of bytes (depending on what the implementers did their work). 128-bits is absurdadly huge (on the order of the number of atoms in the universe), so nobody worries about running out.
"there are sixteen trillion addys, but my entire workplace gets one - why?"
IPv6 ISPs are required to give each customer an entire subnet to themselves (a /48, IIRC). That gives you 2**80 addresses to play with--several powers more than there are available IPv4 addresses.
Is the god-awful port-numbering system still there?
Ports are handled by higher-layer protocols, like TCP or UDP. Neither IPv4 or IPv6 have an concept of what a port is. I imagine, though, that a string-based port system would be too computationally expensive on high-traffic hosts and routers.
Oops... I just learned something (Score:3, Informative)
Thanks for the lesson.
--Mike--
Re:And I just... (Score:3, Insightful)
2. You have just described the Sun RPC portmapper, which has been shown to be a bad idea. You have just advertised what your host offers, and made it extremely difficult (with current firewalling techniques) to allow a given service from the outside, as it may be
Re:And I just... (Score:3, Interesting)
Yes, actually. Very few modern conflicts are fought by a single country on a given side, and interoperability is the name of the game amongst allies. In a recent (well, last 10 years) conflict, Supply issues meant that one of the forces on our side ran very low on ammunition. Other allied armies stationed in the same place had a surplus, but because of incompatibilities they were of no us
Re:And I just... (Score:3, Insightful)
Protocol 7? (Score:4, Funny)
Keeps me in work! (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah man, but massive incompatability and upgrade hassles are what keep some of us employed! GO DARPA!
Re:Keeps me in work! (Score:4, Funny)
You know there's this thing called linux that will make your life easier.
tis a joke people get a life
Roll out date? (Score:5, Funny)
And when will this new Internet Protocol be rolled out...
shortly after IPv6 adoption?
I don't see Satan reaching for his winter parka just yet...
Re:Roll out date? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Roll out date? (Score:2)
Re:Roll out date? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Roll out date? (Score:4, Informative)
A little searching would show you what really happened. There are many, many sources available, this one is from salon.com (http://dir.salon.com/tech/col/rose/2000/10/05/go
Gore never claimed to have "invented" the Internet. What he said was: During my service in the United States Congress I took the initiative in creating the Internet.
Several of the people who could claim to have "invented" the Internet, or key pieces of its protocols -- in particular, Vinton Cerf and Robert Kahn -- are out there on the Net today defending Gore, asserting that he was the politician in Washington who took the "initiative" to support the Net in its early days.
It took social engineers as well as software engineers to build the Net. And that may be why the response to Gore's original statement was so savage: Not because his claim was a lie, but because it was a truth that a lot of people today are trying to forget or bury.
The Internet didn't spring full-blown out of some scientists' heads, nor did it just grow, like some techno-Topsy powered by the mysterious magic of the marketplace. It emerged from the world of government-subsidized university research, and every step of the way along its passage from academic network to global information infrastructure was shepherded by the state. As the Net's parent, the government didn't do everything right; but it managed to nurture the network through its youth -- then get out of the way once it was mature enough to move out of its parents' digs and shack up with private industry.
Libertarians and conservatives are uncomfortable admitting this. Their vision of Net history is a stirring saga of markets overwhelming states, technological imperatives vanquishing stifling bureaucracies and free information "routing around" government blockages. There's some truth in this vision -- but it's only part of the story.
Libertarians typically believe that the government can't do anything right, and they prefer to forget or ignore the part government has played in the Net's triumph. Giving Gore credit means admitting the government's role; distorting and mocking his claims helps deny it.
Other key benefits (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Other key benefits (Score:5, Insightful)
That gives as much as it takes. If it's harder to by anonymous online, then that also means it's going to be easier to locate and disable the access of spammers and pedophiles.
Accountability tools are very good things when properly applied. The hard part is making sure they're not abused.
Military != Law Enforcement (Score:3, Insightful)
The military wants secure and reliable communications, period. From a military standpoint, it might be nice to monitor your adversaries, but not if it means that your adversa
Re:Other key benefits (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Other key benefits (Score:4, Insightful)
"[W]e must absolutely have some mechanism for assigning network capabilities to different users...."
Which is synonmous with "removing network capabilities from".
They know they want to restrict certain classes of users from being able to produce services and restore the imbalance of controlled producers and restricted consumers.
IPv6 (Score:2, Insightful)
Now, off to RTFA.
Re:IPv6 (Score:3, Interesting)
or so I thought, but TFAHBS (The Fine Article Has Been Slashdotted). Anyway, some more thougts:
The claim seems to be that IP isn't suitable for mobile (ad hoc?) networks. But how can it not be? Basically, the fields that matter are the destination address and the length. I think that those are necessary and sufficient for communication. Source address could also come in handy if you want to hear if something went wrong. I don't see how this would be suitable for static networks but no
REAL Wireless Networking (Score:3)
Re:REAL Wireless Networking (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:REAL Wireless Networking (Score:2, Informative)
Re:REAL Wireless Networking (Score:3, Interesting)
802.11 is a signaling protocol, and it relates to layers 1 and 2 of the OSI model. IP exists at layer 3.
As far as 'email' having assured delivery, why would you have to muck with the whole stack to do this? Just write a better email engine and client software.
The beauty of the OSI model is that you can do whatever the heck you want at any given layer, without having to change the other layers. Each layer has a specific, defined, well known input/output method (
Re:REAL Wireless Networking (Score:5, Informative)
The OSI Networking Model [freesoft.org] is a 7-layer system that can be used interchangably, layers run on top of each other... for example, HTTP specifies that it use TCP which wraps around IP over any physical protocol. It doesn't care if you're using WiFi or a hardwired connection.
So, what this is saying is that IPv4, and even IPv6 are protocols that were written with wires and not wireless in mind. There are tweaks that can be made to the next version of the Internet Protocol and maybe even TCP and UDP to make them work better when on wireless without giving too much up when used on a wired physical link. This is the process of figuring out what changes should be made for next time.
REAL Wireless Networking = ad hoc? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:REAL Wireless Networking (Score:3, Informative)
I can see a
DARPA brought us the original (Score:3, Insightful)
This could be really interesting (Score:5, Insightful)
Transport layer protocol revamp? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Transport layer protocol revamp? (Score:4, Insightful)
There are certainly some valid arguments for looking at other transport protocols (the lack of mobility features in TCP/UDP, for instance), but SMTP is not one of them since it's an application-layer protocol.
Sounds like a good idea, but.... (Score:5, Funny)
YAY! (Score:2, Insightful)
Watch congress get involved! Watch how the project ends up championed by the "experts" at Microsoft (because they pay the dough and it's the only name the congressdrones know). Watch how the whole project ends up propritary and billg forces the government to pay $50 per node. Finally.. watch how the whole system ends up unreliable... so we end up with a system that is not free, expensive, and less reliab
Oh no, my backward compatability! (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah, heaven forbid we learn from our previous attempt and start fresh. We should aspire to do like Microsoft - maintain backward compatability above all other goals. Seems to work for them, right? It certainly makes things more secure...
Re:Oh no, my backward compatability! (Score:2)
'Starting fresh' is the doom of many a project. When you have a design that basically works, there's a huge amount of carefully-won knowledge inherent in that design which you lose the instant you decide to start again.
This is probably less true in network design than software projects, but every software project I've worked on where someone decided that it made more sense to 'start fresh' has taken many, many times longer than impro
Ad-hoc networking and IPv6 (Score:3, Interesting)
Or are they just talking about IPv6? IPv6 is just that -- Internet Protocol version 6.
Article Text (Score:4, Informative)
By Joab Jackson
GCN Staff
ANAHEIM, Calif.--Now that the Defense Department is embracing network-driven warfare, it is taking a hard look at radically improving, or discarding altogether, some fundamental computer and network architectures.
Flaws in the basic building blocks of networking and computer science are hampering reliability, limiting flexibility and creating security vulnerabilities, program managers said this week at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's DARPATech conference.
Among the IT holy grails that DARPA wants to see revamped are the Internet Protocol, the seven-layer Open Systems Interconnection model--which defines how devices communicate on today's networks--and the von Neumann architecture, the basic design style underpinning almost all computers built today.
Many military commanders have been slow to adapt IT for critical tasks because they sense the equipment is unreliable, said Col. Tim Gibson. He is a program manager for DARPA's Advanced Technology Office, which is leading efforts to radically redefine computer architecture.
"You go to Wal-Mart and buy a telephone for less than $10 and you expect it to work," Gibson said. Yet people usually do not expect the same of their computers. "We don't expect computers to work, we expect them to have a problem."
"If a commander expects a system to have a problem, then how could they rely upon it?" Gibson said.
Gibson cast some of the blame on the packet-based nature of Internet Protocol, which was not designed for foolproof delivery of messages. The protocol cannot guarantee delivery of e-mail, for instance.
"The packet network paradigm probably needs to change," Gibson said. "I'm not advocating throwing out the Internet Protocol completely, but we must absolutely have some mechanism for assigning network capabilities to different users and that capability has to scale to large numbers of devices automatically. The commander wants to be able to send a message and have it delivered, completely, accurately and on time."
Another limitation with the IP approach is the inability to dynamically build networks. The military wants to quickly set up ad hoc networks.
"Static networks are no good for tomorrow's battlefield, because everything will move around all the time," Gibson said. "What we need is dynamic scalability. Today's networks are stationary and have a static infrastructure that provides service to static end-nodes. Moving the node outside its standard service area requires reconfiguring something. Moving infrastructure always means reconfiguring something."
As a result, DARPA wants to fund development of new protocols or enhancements to the existing IP that will allow nodes, such as computers, to automatically sign on to networks in their vicinity.
Another aspects of the networking that DARPA wants to revise is the seven-layer OSI stack, long held as the basic foundation for building network protocols.
The OSI model was not designed for wireless communications devices, said Reggie Brothers, a DARPA program manager.
"The OSI model served us pretty well for the stable, predictable world of wireline communications," Brothers said. "Mobile networks are nothing like that. They are unpredictable and highly variable. We need to think of different layers of the stack to relate to one another directly, like a mesh, instead of one level up to the next."
The increased complexity of the network stack would let nodes enter a network quickly and without human intervention, Brothers said.
The von Neumann architecture will also come under scrutiny from DARPA.
"It is time to ask the harder questions about the ways of computer architecture we've been using for the past 30 years. Is it time to scrap the von Neumann architecture?" asked Anup Gosh, program officer for the Advanced Technology Office.
This architecture, which defines the basic essential parts of
MOD PARENT DOWN (Score:3, Funny)
Hello DOD (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Hello DOD (Score:3, Insightful)
Ad-hoc secure networks are an intriguing little problem area and I can see them wanting those to work. You want instant communication between vehicles but you don't want anyone else joining in. Sounds a lot like the mesh-net stuff like locust already does really..
N
TUNNELING! (Score:3, Interesting)
DuhRPA (Score:2)
The days of DARPA leading the liberation of humans through information is long gone. As poison like John "Iran-Contra" Poindexter's Total (Big Brother) Information Awareness serves to their discredit, they're mainly the wedge of the NSA into our lives in the infosphere. Forget "information liberation": your information has been nationalized.
Not necessarily true (Score:2)
I would imagine the upgrade of civilian equiptment would be something like the way they're doing Ipv6. Compatibility has been in software for a while now (Well, at least BSD and Linux). They're still several years away from upgrading, so I assume that when they do upgrade, if your hardware is older then 5 years, you're fscked. But because it's phased in gradually, how many people are going to actually have problems? Sort of like how USB was
I'm sure the adaptation will just breeze along (Score:3, Insightful)
People will only upgrade if it's absolutely painless or absolutely necessary, we should've learned this by now. I have friends that still use analog cell phones, just because it's easier not to switch.
Re:I'm sure the adaptation will just breeze along (Score:4, Insightful)
This is going to be designed primarily for military application, like the cruise missile or GPS. If it is easily adapted for civilian use, great (GPS). If not, well, that wasn't the point in the first place (cruise missiles).
Reinventing networking will be harder this time (Score:4, Insightful)
Before, it was competing against a vacuum. Now, it's competing against ubiquitous IP. They may develop some cool stuff that works on a battlefield, but it will never get widespread usage, commoditization, and economy of scale that IP has. If they come up with new features that work great, somebody will find a way to get similar functionality built on top of good old IP.
IP isn't perfect, but it's good enough that there's no way to displace it, given its free nature and level of entrenchment=.
Re:Reinventing networking will be harder this time (Score:3, Interesting)
Err.. (Score:5, Informative)
Who is this guy really? Thats not what IP is for - foolproof delivery of packets is handled by connection-orientated protocols like TCP. Sure, it might not get the *right away*, but the flexibility of packet based routing is something that has made networks as reliable as they are today (despite the huge amount of moaning that people do about them).
Mind you, as people have pointed out before, IPv6 has been waiting in the wings for a while now, and a military request for change might be the kind action needed to kick other people into gear.
Re:Err.. (Score:4, Interesting)
I am not a network engineer... but I am pretty sure that if you wanted to assure the delivery of email you would do it at a HIGH level in the stack, not at the transport level. If they are talking about packets, it has already been done. I am not sure that the Gibson in the article really understands what he wants.
It's pretty clear they've got the ideas and concepts all screwed up here.
This doesn't sound good (Score:5, Insightful)
Sorry, but the network capability of running a web server hasn't been assigned to you. You are blocked at the protocol layer.
Sounds like they don't want the Internet to be a network of ends anymore and control who can do what with the network. Nice experiment, this unrestricted free speech on the Internet, but we've decided we don't want you to have that. Be consumers, not producers.
Re:This doesn't sound good (Score:4, Informative)
Sheesh, RTFA. They're talking about a new protocol layer for use by the military. Combat-deployed wireless networks aren't "the Internet".
von Neumann architecture (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:von Neumann architecture (Score:5, Interesting)
The von Neumann archicture doesn't distinguish between instructions and data, allowing a program to modify another program or itself. (Think viruses/trojans.) But I think memory protection has patched this pretty well.
It also has a memory bottleneck. Other models, such as Harvard, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvard_architectur
I don't know of any great solution to the problem of starving the processor with slow memory access etc. but I think this is where you would look for one...
Going to something not packet. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Going to something not packet. (Score:3, Insightful)
Just love.. (Score:3, Insightful)
And USgovt.. Yeah, they at NASA hired ol' Mr. Becker to make our lan drivers
Understand then decide.
Do they have any real points? (Score:5, Insightful)
The article seems to have two different main points. Firstly that the entire networking model (7 layers) is inappropriate for "reliable" networks. Secondly they suggest that the entire model for building computers is wrong, and that somehow they need to use hardware to isloate programs.
The issues they address in the first point were issues which I felt were meant to be addressed by IP6, has/will it fail? I always understood IP6 as being designed to (optionally) have secure connections, qos and an ip address structure to allow for floating nodes. Would IP6 not stand up to delivering messages in network time for the entire US military structure?
The second issue seems simple to me, yes it will be much more reliable if you use a seperate computer for each task and allow them to communicate, but can you tolerate the lack of flexibility and is it even possible to do anything meaningful without adding lots of parts and weight (the more parts, the less reliable). I can imagine building a chip which actually contains 8 386s and 32M or ram split into 4M per 386, then have the disk controller map the device in an 8 way split so they can't touch each others data, a network chip could act as a switch to all the information, providing qos etc. buses to expansion could be mapped to cpus, but is it worth it or are you better off building two different but functionally identical systems so if one fails the other shouldn't? Also it's still one machine, as soon as you actually split it out into a meaningful number of machines weight, size and handling all become a problem. It would be lovely if you could sew tiny bluetooth enabled cpus w/mem into all the army gear and then they cluster together into a super cpu which reads the soldiers thumbprinted data device to figure out what to do, but would that actually require any sort of fundamental shift in how computers are made to achieve?
To me this article simply states that they haven't managed to build a good enough network yet, and want some cash to do it, and that they haven't managed to build a reliable os/app combination to deal with their needs yet either! Just the talk of "One of the limitations inherent in this approach is that when an application malfunctions, it can affect other programs" made me think they need to look harder at their OS. I will be surprised if the end result isn't IP6 (perhaps a modified army version) but you never know! I wonder what OS they'll go with though?
Re:Do they have any real points? (Score:3, Interesting)
Doesn't mean that it does so, or does so in a way that DARPA feels is sufficient. In particular, there's no protocol-layer method to restrict access, which was explicitly mentioned in the article. I think some of the stuff they're asking for (on-time, guaranteed delivery over an inherently unreliable network) is impossible, but it may be that a complete change in the way that you look at the problem can he
Re:Do they have any real points? (Score:3, Interesting)
You could create seperate data and return address stacks. You could write a very simple OS coupled with a very simple processor to create a much more hardened system. This might not be the highest performing OS. It would also have to be an RTOS to harden it
IP has no delivery guarantees for a reason (Score:3, Interesting)
Uh, ever heard of the two armies problem? [cmu.edu]
Redoing IP, not Internet (Score:3, Insightful)
Has it occurred to anyone else that DoD might not be out to reform the Internet in any way? They are out to build a network model to serve their own needs, but they have no need to reform the rest of the world.
Now, if they make this revolutionizing new network protocol/infrastructure public other people might want to adopt it because it's neat. But me being a hardened cynic, this will most likely only find use in privately owned networking ponds...Kinda like a certain version pf IP we all know of
How do they replace von Neumann? (Score:4, Interesting)
This is the only interesting part of the article. I couldn't care less what they do with the OSI layers. As long as someone writes about it as well as Stevens wrote about TCP/IP, it'll take me a month of reading and programming to get under my belt. We all learned Pascal, then C++, then C++ again when the standard came out, then Java, and Lisp, and Smalltalk, and Perl, andd Python, and C#, and a half-dozen more languages as the need came up. Now, you have to learn a few new networking layers and protocols. No big deal -- you should be pretty damned familiar with learning different implementations of stuff you already understand.
But, replacing the von Neumann architecture means changing just about everything I know. That's big. Everything is von Neumann. All the computational models, all the theory, all the basic underpinnings of what I know... it's all pretty much out the window once von Neumann goes. It's not just a dozen evenings at home with a book and reference implementation to relearn all of that stuff, either. It's relearning nearly all the Computer Science I know, and probably learning a whole bunch of new Maths to go with it.
That's gonna hurt.
Babbage (Score:3, Funny)
Sigh... I guess it's back to building the Analytic Engine... Pass me the lathe, will ya...
IP not Internet, stop freaking out! (Score:5, Insightful)
DARPA and the military aren't interested in rebuilding the internet, they are interested in rebuilding IP.
They want to rebuild IP because they have a need for a better system. They need secure, reliable, ad hoc networking so that battle groups can communicate with each other.
These are private WANs. Not the Internet! The Military is not going to send real time battlefield data across the public internet, and real time battlefield data is what this thing is all about. The military launches and rents satellites for that sort of thing, they don't send it across uunet.
When they create a WAN, they have to have some mechanism to talk. Right now it might be IP, but in the future they want it to be something else. Something better for THEM.
The US Military couldn't care less if the rest of the world, or the internet itself, started to use whatever they come up with.
As far as those attacking technical limitations, when they started working on the original internet I'm sure everyone was saying, "Fault tolerant distributed networking with dynamic routing? That's impossible, why are they bothering" The point of DARPA is to do science and advance the field beyond current knowledge.
They may succeed, and they may fail. But they shouldn't just not try.
Does this mean that Al Gore got it wrong.... (Score:3, Funny)
DARPA don't control it now.... (Score:3, Interesting)
They are of course fully entitled to invent as many protocols as they need for their own use, and it is probably a good thing, but unless it goes through the RFC process, it will never be accepted for general use by the public.
This is really a big non-event.
Heaven forbid (Score:3, Funny)
Yeah, just like that PCI bus clusterfuck. What a nightmare that was. Was ISA really so bad that we all had to buy new motherboards and expansion cards? Oh wait, yes it was.
Sometimes if you want to move forward you have to pick up your feet.
Ok, here goes (Score:4, Informative)
``Among the IT holy grails that DARPA wants to see revamped are
Well, they can't. It's just a model, an abstraction. It's not like networks are actually built by looking at the OSI model and carefully following it. It's more like you build your network infrastructure and protocols, and then the OSI model says that you can call your wires the physical layer, the software that does something with the network the application layer, etc.
``Many military commanders have been slow to adapt IT for critical tasks because they sense the equipment is unreliable''
Well, that's their judgment, but what does it have to do with the Internet protocol?
``"We don't expect computers to work, we expect them to have a problem."''
I guess many people do, but I don't. I buy my computer and expect it to work. If it doesn't, I'll return it and get a working one or my money back.
``Gibson cast some of the blame on the packet-based nature of Internet Protocol, which was not designed for foolproof delivery of messages. The protocol cannot guarantee delivery of e-mail, for instance.''
Right he is. Reliability is in TCP, and this is why most application protocols build on TCP. The unrealiability of IP is there on purpose, so we don't have the overhead of TCP when it's not needed, and that if we come up with a better alternative to TCP, we can use that instead without having to throw away IP. Conversely, we can exchange IPv4 for IPv6 and implement TCP on top of that. It's called modular design, and generally considered a Good Thing.
``"The packet network paradigm probably needs to change," Gibson said. "I'm not advocating throwing out the Internet Protocol completely, but we must absolutely have some mechanism for assigning network capabilities to different users and that capability has to scale to large numbers of devices automatically. The commander wants to be able to send a message and have it delivered, completely, accurately and on time."''
Ok, fine, so you need a real-time protocol. I can see how that wouldn't work with IP's best-effort (read: unreliable) delivery, without further guarantees. However, there is nothing in IP that says it _has_ to lose packets. If you find a way to guarantee timely delivery of packets (my bet is that you can't), then you can layer IP on top of that. Of course, you don't _have_ to use IP, but if you opt for a different protocol, that doesn't mean that I have to drop IP too.
``Another limitation with the IP approach is the inability to dynamically build networks. The military wants to quickly set up ad hoc networks.''
I don't think that's true. Just like there is nothing in IP that _prevents_ guaranteed delivery, there is nothing in it that prevents building dynamic networks, either.
``"... Moving the node outside its standard service area requires reconfiguring something.
Yes, necessarily. However, the implication seems to be that IP somehow cannot handle this. Again, there is nothing in IP to prevent this. You could simply broadcast a message to discover nearby access points, and attach to the one with the strongest signal. Periodically, or when the signal gets weak, you broadcast again.
``As a result, DARPA wants to fund development of new protocols or enhancements to the existing IP that will allow nodes, such as computers, to automatically sign on to networks in their vicinity.''
Like ZeroConf? That would be a Good Thing. More power to them.
``The von Neumann architecture will also come under scrutiny from DARPA.''
I won't comment on that. I don't know what exactly the Von Neumann architecture is, and besides it is off-topic in my discussion on network protocols.
will companies adopt this? (Score:3, Insightful)
Sounds like some simple requirements (Score:3, Interesting)
The main requirement seems to be self-configuring mobile networks and services.
I suppose nobody wants to renumber IP addresses every time a battleship moves from one theatre to another. Imagine having to move a whole division from one place to another, and having to reconfigure all the appropriate devices. What a nightmare. Plus, you wouldn't be able to find anything anymore.
They could move to zeroconf/rendevous for their network service naming, which is a bit better than a static address/conf file.
But they still have routing issues. Maybe they should adapt the cell network routing? Cell providers seem to have a better idea about how to dynamically route information to devices that change location often. Phones have a unique address which is tracked by the network...or at least it behaves that way.
Then there's the security side. How do you authenticate/authorize someone when they try and join the network? You don't want to lose a laptop then have someone be able to watch your operation. Biometric stuff won't work so well, because they can always cut off a hand and use it without the user attached (ugh).
Pretty interesting problems, really.
DARPA: means Research (Score:4, Insightful)
TCP/IP is not perfect for every use. If DARPA can find a better set of protocols to slide into layers three and four of the OSI model, more power to them.
Internet protocol suite [wikipedia.org]
Clueless managers (Score:3, Interesting)
Did I miss something?
Will not change the "Internet" (Score:3, Interesting)
Since this is a DoD project, its primary use will be for military networks. Perhaps there will be a trickle down to an "Internet 4" system through technology sharing. I don't see this changing the internet we currently use anytime soon. What it will change is how battlefield command systems and forward deployed units will communicate with each other. Establishing a network connection via traditional microwave, satellite, wired, and wireless (this is the key....wireless) will now exchange data using the DARPA protocol instead of IP.
How nice would it be to have a soldier (or any other unit you wish to deem a "node" on your network) be able to "uplink" to the required military network (battlefield or otherwise) simply by broadcasting to the network. No need to configure a DHCP Server (in the case of dynamic allocation) to dish out an IP address...there is no more IP. I think that is what DARPA is attempting to achieve. They want the military to have a secure, easily scalable, and always available network infrastructure. How they plan to accomplish this...who knows, although it would probably be something similar to IPv6 where everything (network accessible device) has its own hardware created identifier. Perhaps like "DNA" for the hardware. Anyone own stock in Motorola? No? Perhaps it's time to buy some.
Get rid of ports. (Score:3, Interesting)
The concept of "ports". Ports are actually in-host entity identifiers, while the IP address itself is an in-network entity identifier.
There should really be only one type of entity identifier, especially when it is 128-bit long.
The idea is that the last few bits of an IP address would typically serve the function of a "port". This way, a DNS server could translate names to much more specific entities than full hosts. It would allow hosting multiple FTP servers on the same host, for example, without the clients having to connect to different ports. It would dissolve the need for the silly ad-hoc workarounds with virtual web hosts.
This kind of addressing also allows much simplification of applications that would no longer need to use multiplexing over their connections. Instead, each application could allocate addressable "entities" and the multiplexing can be handled by the network layer.
Finally, it would eliminate the need for the UDP protocol entirely, as in-host identifying becomes part of the network layer itself.
TCP-layer becomes simpler as there is no need to handle in-host addressing as well.
Lets eliminate ports, for a simpler network protocol
Re:DARPA Aims to Redo.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Just data and security (Score:4, Insightful)
What we don't have is security built into IP. IPSec is a good beginning, but its more of an afterthought. Not nearly as good as what they could do if security were an integrated part of the native IP protocol.
Re:Re-Inventing the Wheel? (Score:3, Insightful)
Someone has not got enough to do....
IPv6 can go join IPv5 in the scrap heap now... bring on IPv7!
Re:Reliability (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Don't forget saying goodbye to privacy. (Score:3, Insightful)
The purpose of protocols is to transmit information in an understandable manner. If you want privacy, either stop transmitting information or render it non-understandable (ie., encryption). It makes no sense to bitch about someone's effort to improve the state of the Internet.