Boffins call for Internet reboot

A GROUP of boffins is trying to get US government support to switch off the internet and build something better in its place.

Dipankar Raychaudhuri, a Rutgers University professor said that it is a miracle that the Interweb continues to work as it was designed for completely different assumptions.

Now that the web is not constrained by slow connections and computer processors and high costs for storage, its underlying architecture needs to be replaced, he said.

Of course such projects do have a few problems. Governments, who are more obsessive about snooping on the web than they were at the height of the cold war, will want better wiretapping access and industry will need a bigger say in how it is all managed.

The National Science Foundation wants to build an experimental research network known as the Global Environment for Network Innovations, or GENI, and is funding several projects at universities and elsewhere through Future Internet Network Design, or FIND.

Any new Internet could run parallel with the current Internet and eventually replace it.

It could take about 15 years before Internet 2 (This time it is personal) gets off the ground in any meaningful way and it could take billions of dollars to replace all the software and hardware deep in the legacy systems.

More here.