While most of us have been binge-streaming or strapping computers to our bodies or wrapping our heads around the ins and outs of net neutrality, an international team of academics and some of the world's biggest technology companies have been quietly pondering how to rewrite the basic structure of the internet—for our sakes.
Their idea sounds simple: instead of numbers, use names. Focus not on the locations of things, but on the things themselves.
The proposal, called Named Data Networking, shifts the focus from the numbered locations of data—IP addresses like 174.16.254.1—to the very names of data—something like motherboard/stories/NDN/photo1. Under this system, for example, when your computer makes a packet request for a new Netflix release, you could retrieve the video from the nearest computer that has it, rather than wait to get it from Netflix's heavily-trafficked centralized servers.
"As far as the network is concerned," the project's website says, "the name in an NDN packet can be anything: an endpoint, a chunk of movie or book, a command to turn on some lights, etc." An internet not of numbers, but, if you will, of things.
http://motherboard.vice.com/read/the-internet-of-names
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Named_data_networking
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 04 2015, @11:04PM
> There just is no upside. It reminds me of Apple solutions to usability problems the years Jobs wasn't running the show.
Since Van Jacobson is involved, I'm willing to give it the benefit the doubt.
Anyone who knows how the internet works knows Van. [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 05 2015, @05:25AM
His career peaked a quarter of a century ago. Since then he has mostly sat around talking about what he did or being given awards for what he did.
If he has something new, which this is not, then he will have to prove how it is so much better that we should throw away the largest and most complex system of communication in the history of man in favour of it.
Oh, and my dosage of snark: Anyone who knows how logic works knows not to make assumptions.