NSF Gives Peek At Plans To Overhaul Internet

The National Science Foundation (NSF) has given a glimpse of a proposed initiative to redesign the Internet. Though short on details and currently without funding, the project, called the Global Environment for Networking Investigations, is intended to take a clean-slate approach to designing a new Internet, one that addresses some of the major shortcomings of the current Internet, including security and the growing numbers of individual devices that connect to the network.

Increasing transfer speeds is not one of the project’s goals. Leonard Kleinrock, computer scientist at UCLA and one of the developers of Arpanet, precursor to the current Internet, noted that early developers of the Internet did not anticipate its current reach and had no reason to include security as a primary concern. In addition, the network was not designed to accommodate the vast numbers of mobile and wireless devices, as well as remote sensors, that now vie for Internet space.

The NSF is seeking participation from other government agencies and from other countries for the project.

New York Times, 29 August 2005 (registration req’d)