Government Technology - October 2007 - (Page 22)

GT: A QUOTE FROM YOU SAYS THAT 99 PERCENT OF ALL INTERNET APPLICATIONS HAVEN’T BEEN CONCEIVED OF YET. WHY DO YOU SAY THAT? CERF: The basis for my speculation is to look at the rate at which new ideas are coming along on the Net, either within the Web context or elsewhere. There is an increasing number of people with capability and interest in building applications on the Net. You can predict even now, with only 1 billion users on the Net, that as we move toward the next decade of the 21st century, maybe we’ll have 5 billion users — that’s a factor of five right there. And some of these things are not linear in terms of the rate at which inventions happen. Every time somebody invents something that’s successful or comes up with a new standard, it creates another platform on top of which invention can happen. So this thing is a positive feedback loop. GT: WHAT WILL THE INTERNET LOOK LIKE IN THE FUTURE? CERF: We can already see some very clear trends, and I think the clarity of my vision probably doesn’t go more than five or six years out. One thing for sure is that an increasing amount of applications will be available on mobile devices. Second, the speeds at which you can access the Net will increase over time, both in the wireless and the wired world. Third, more and more devices are going to be Internet-enabled, which means they can be managed through the network. You can imagine exchanging all your remotes to control your entertainment equipment with one single mobile, which interacts with them through the Internet, which means it could be anywhere. You don’t have to be at home in the living room or entertainment room controlling the device directly with an infrared signal. Instead you’re talking through the network to those devices, and of course strong authentication keeps the 15-year-old next door from reprogramming your entertainment system. Another thing we’ll see is an increasing amount of sensor-type systems being part of the Internet, so their information is accessible that way. It could be buildings or automobiles that are instrumented. Devices we carry around might be capable of detecting hazardous materials in the air. They may even be capable of detecting humidity, temperature and other very basic things. But the result of collecting all of that information is a micro-view of climates or weather, making our weather prediction even more precise because of the data we get. Beyond that, it’s a little hard to say, except for an effort to expand the Internet’s operation so it can work across the solar system. That’s part of an application I have been working on “ EVERY TIME SOMEBODY INVENTS SOMETHING THAT’S SUCCESSFUL OR COMES UP WITH A NEW STANDARD, IT CREATES ANOTHER PLATFORM ON TOP OF WHICH INVENTION CAN HAPPEN. with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and more generally with NASA. It is reasonably predictable that during the second decade of the 21st century, a networking platform for deepspace communication will emerge and make the kinds of spacecraft we use for exploration more flexible. Often these spacecraft are single-platform devices, and you talk to them through a single radio link from Earth. The exchange is just two-way. As we build more flexible networking capabilities that can work in deep space, we can imagine constellations of spacecraft, sensor networks and orbiters all communicating locally with each other, maybe on an interplanetary basis, and not necessarily just back to Earth. So in the very much longer time frame — 20, 30, 40 years from now — we might see quite a collection of devices around the solar system interacting through this deep space interplanetary network. GT: HOW FAR ALONG IS THAT WORK? CERF: The new protocols required to make things work flexibly in deep space across interplanetary distances are pretty well stabilized. In fact, when we were working on the ” interplanetary networking design, we realized that we actually ended up working on a special case of a more general concept called delay- and disruption-tolerant networking. When you’re communicating with something on another planet, the planet’s rotating and you’re cut off from communication until the rotation brings it back in view. Or you may not be able to talk to an orbiter when it’s behind a planet. So those are types of disruptions. Delay, of course, is inescapable because of the distances between the planets. They are literally astronomical. We looked at the general case of delay and disruption tolerance in networking protocols and realized this would apply to certain tactical situations here on Earth. In tactical mobile communications, you’re using radios, you’re moving around, and the connectivity is varying. You might lose radio contact, or you could be jammed. A variety of impairments could occur which cause communication to be disrupted for uncertain amounts of time. Hence, delay and disruption tolerance is needed. We’ve been testing that theory with the Defense Department. We’ve taken the space protocols and implemented them for the Marine Corps, which is trying them out in tactical environments, and they work very well. Then we worked with the sensory network people to use these techniques for sensor networks, and that’s working out very well. This is sort of a nascent beginning of a whole new class of communication protocols that are not based on exactly the same assumptions that the TCP/IP protocols were 30 years ago. GT: SO THAT RESEARCH IS PRODUCING BENEFITS RIGHT NOW? CERF: Yes, terrestrially. That was a very satisfying outcome because people were saying, “Why are you bothering to network the planets? It’s 100 years from now.” In truth, the initial motivation was simply to look as far ahead as possible and say, “What would we have to do if we really wanted to have an interplanetary network? What would it look like?” But then we realized there were some terrestrial applications. That’s true for the civilian sector also. People who carry mobile devices are well aware of the potential for discontinuity and impairment, and these protocols try to overcome that. GT: WHAT ARE SOME OF THE BARRIERS TO CONTINUED INTERNET EXPANSION? CERF: The network needs to go through some major changes to continue to grow. The current design was standardized in 1978. The address OCT_07 22 http://www.govtech.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Government Technology - October 2007

Contents Point of View Big Picture The Last Mile GT Spectrum Letters How It Works Cerf on the Net Way Back Machine Separation Anxiety Let's Roll Rising to the Challenge Wednesday Afternoon Fever Parking Possibilities Products Signal: Noise

Government Technology - October 2007

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