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Re Why Russia is Building Its Own Internet
From: "Dave Farber" <dave () farber net>
Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2018 21:30:15 +0000
---------- Forwarded message --------- From: Karl Auerbach <karl () cavebear com> Date: Thu, Jan 25, 2018 at 3:28 PM Subject: Re: [IP] Why Russia is Building Its Own Internet To: <dave () farber net>, ip <ip () listbox com> CC: <dewayne () warpspeed com>, Steve Goldstein <steve.goldstein () comcast net> On 1/25/18 8:01 AM, Dave Farber wrote: [Note: This item comes from friend Steve Goldstein. DLH] Why Russia is Building Its Own Internet By Tracy Staedter Jan 17 2018 < https://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/telecom/internet/could-russia-really-build-its-own-alternate-internet
It is not just countries that are slowly evolving to have their own internets, it is also companies. Remember how the net was at first just a network - the old ARPAnet kind of thing - and then we learned to create a "catnet" or "internet" in which we joined those separate networks into the larger whole that we call "the internet". Well, that crank can be turned again so that we have a network of internets. And it's happening in various ways and for various - and in many ways rather compelling - reasons. Back in 2016 I wrote a note about how I see this happening - https://www.cavebear.com/cavebear-blog/internet_quo_vadis/ The thesis of that note is that the end-to-end principle at the IP packet layer is essentially dead, but that that principle has strength today at the application layer - which means that any internet-of-internet that gives users the end-to-end experience they want from their favorite apps is a working internet no matter how inelegant the underlying plumbing may be to the eyes of old internet techies like many of us here. We've seen this user interest in application services rather than plumbing happen already: Both telephone and television traffic, forms once tightly tied to particular specific underlying physical infrastructures, are now delivered by a variety of means. And for the most part, users do not care. Many today think that this carving up of the internet would occur along lines scribed into the domain name system or by creating an new DNS root. Others tend to think of super carrier grade Network Address Translators (GCNATs), which is a technology that does not adequately scale. Almost everyone tends to think in terms of one global public IP address space - and that is where my thesis diverges. In the network of internets the address at the application level - which is the level that users care about - is what it has already become, a world of application-specific handles ranging from things like URL/URI constructs to Facebook names and Twitter handles to Google logins. That opens the door to a future network of internets in which IP address become mere local tokens just as MAC addresses really only have meaning within the context of a single Ethernet-like domain. My thesis is that today's internet can be evolve into a something that looks like isolated islands that are connected by well-guarded bridges. Each island could have its own complete - and I mean 100% complete - IPv4 or IPv6 address space. Those bridges would be application-specific application level gateways, with a foot in the IP address space of the two (or more) islands that it bridges between. There are lots of compelling reasons for this evolutionary path. Most have to do with the channelization of inter-island/inter-internet traffic onto the narrow bridges. This is not a new idea - medieval cities often constructed walls around the city not just for security against attackers but also to channel commerce and people through well guarded (and taxed) gates/portals. On a security basis it means that we don't have IP packet layer pathways around the bridges. And the channeling of traffic to the bridges means that it can be more readily observed, blocked, or modified by national/corporate security officers. And those who are concerned with copyright and trademark and the like - they can have their enforcement engines inserted into the bridge. We've already taken steps in this direction. The IPv6 internet is largely one that is logically distinct from the IPv4 internet even if both are overlaid onto the same wires - just as IPv4 and Novell IPX co-existed on the same physical plant in an earlier era. And although China and Facebook and Verizon and Netflix have not yet carved themselves off into separate IP based network, the number of technical ties that keep them from doing that is diminishing. Eventually the reasons driving separation will exceed the reasons for remaining and an internet island will calve off from today's internet. A bridge will be constructed. And most users will not even notice the difference. By-the-way, DNS does play a technical role in this island-and-bridge system. Basically no change is needed to DNS technology or implementations. However, each island would have its own DNS root and the data records under that root would be such that for local resources DNS would provide much as it does today. But for resources that exist elsewhere the DNS resource records would point to the appropriate bridge (and thus the appropriate application level gateway) to use. This is not much different in concept that the idea of an IP packet layer default route to which packets going off the local network are to be sent. --karl-- This message was sent to the list address and trashed, but can be found online. <https://www.listbox.com/login/messages/view/20180125152827:4A92DDA0-020E-11E8-BDEE-FA82CB4DEBE6/> ------------------------------------------- Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/247/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/247/18849915-ae8fa580 Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=18849915&id_secret=18849915-aa268125 Unsubscribe Now: https://www.listbox.com/unsubscribe/?member_id=18849915&id_secret=18849915-32545cb4&post_id=20180125163032:F6F94928-0216-11E8-AD09-886FAA5C378C Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
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