If you read the fine print, it's just a scam for some researchers (who if the reporters are to believed, have poor understanding about the Internet's design criterias and evolution of complex systems) to get grants for the next decade, at which point they'll unveil their replacement for 2005's internet.

You made that up. There is no fine print. I even checked the HTML code through my admin. None. The font is all the same size.<p>But think about it. The military is clearly going to go it alone which may require researchers to do it, too. Then you have the structural need to upgrade for unanticipated devices. As it has to be revamped rather than patched, why would they not work out all the kinks - which includes this sort of hobby use?

<p>
The Internet was designed for periodically convected devices of an unanticipated nature! Writing about this would take immense amounts of time and certain would touch on the philosophy of large chaotic systems. However, there's a few instructive cases to look at, if you have a few moments, which are basically attempts to design/redesign the Internet from the top-down.

<ul>
<li>
IPV6 - there's still hope for this yet, but more or less killed or deferred by NAT; note that IPV6 does things that people actually <i>need</i> and it's still not getting traction

<li>
OSI networking -- TCP and IP are crap; here's the real way to do it, as designed by the best engineers. Not.

<li>
ATM which a few years ago was going to sweep away all this 1970's Ethernet crap
</ul>

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Also instructive is the attempt to reinvent silicon chips with GaAs; although "better" than silicon, it never really took off because silicon had all those years of practical use that overcame its shortcomings. Oh, and X.400 vs RFC822 for email!

But those are just structural arguments. Controlling use is going to be the issue not higher level computer engineering.

You don't want to put me on the list of people who know much about the internet, but it seems to me that if on-line anonimity could be removed then much of the fluff and toxins of the internet might be washed away leaving something far more acceptable but perhaps not so viable.

Sincerely, Lord Dark Ears of Groo.

Because you can't replace "the Internet" with "something else" without replacing the current billions -- trillions? -- of dollars of mental and physical investment with something _much much_ better. Given that most people consider "control" a downgrade, there's nowhere for this to go.

It is most likely that most people will not be asked. What I see is the creation of separate research, military and commercial internets (the unity replaced by a number of these) and hobbyists being left out or sent to the wolves.

I cannot imagine the commercial part of the iNet splitting from the private free for all net.. Also, I see the military and research communities already having their own networks (intRAnets). the Net will exist as it does now, perhaps with a little less clutter, because if it were to be thrown to the wolves, the control freaks would not be able to monitor us, or successfully sell the crap they sell to us as easily.

As far as anonymity goes, it will stay as well so long as there are people wishing to do harm combined with people wishing to hide from them.

Trevor Nutwell
Blackpool

I am still confused about what this "internet thingy" actually is. Is it the www ? Or my ability to find and download songs on a P2P network or my ability to email someone's phone?

If you think about the internet as a set of unique IP addresses which can be accessed with various tools I find that structure unlikely to be replaced anytime soon. Just as the concept of a filing system has not been changed by the introduction of alphabetization, number coding by subject or coloured file folders. But there is no question that the tools for accessing those IPs will change radically. Things like private ultra high speed networks are already being built. And, for enough money, you too can have your own fibre drop to you desktop if you live in a biggish city.

On the other hand, if you think of the Internet functionally, that is as a means of publishing information, the changes will tend to be more about who can access your information from their access point to the net. For example, internet filters used by companies and governments and schools are usually justified as a means to block p0nr but they are often configured to block everything from hate speech to sports scores, online betting to blogs on the basis that people at work or at school have no need for such access.

The really strange thing about all of this is that the essentially networking technologies of the net could be replaced in a way which would allow the net as we know it to continue to function pretty much as it does now from the users' perspective. In effect our current IPs would be grafted wholesale onto the new system as a subset of the larger system. Most of us would never know the difference.