Module One Assignments
Vint Cerf, widely regarded as one of the "Fathers of the Internet", posits how the internet could be if we knew then what we know now in the video lecture, Reimagining the Internet. The following questions and answers give some insight into Cerf's discussion.
This essentially means that the Internet is a network whose protocols are homogeneous - or the same - throughout. However, heterogeneous computers - or those of different types - are all capable of connecting to the internet and accessing the network in the same manner, despite their differences.
Metcalfe's Law states that "the value of a telecommunications network is proportional to the square of the number of ocnnected users of the system". This is applicable to users of the Internet nowadays, though the law's original intent was to describe the Ethernet.
The majority of internet users are located in Asia, specifically in mainland China. While Asia has the largest internet population of any region, North America has the highest percent penetration, at 76.2%.
Mobiles allow the internet to be much more accessible to those who would not normally have access. They are able to connect wirelessly and are relatively inexpensive in comparison with larger and more complex laptops or desktops. They have limited functionality, but still allow users to access the internet nearly as fully as they could from a computer, with greater ease and mobility.
Telegraphs and telephones were purpose designed and had a limited range on which they could communicate. A phone line was limited to 64kbps and could only transmit what you were speaking into it. Conversely, the dynamic range of the internet can be extremely broad. It can transmit data as small and insignifcant as mouse clicks to enormous data transfers, all over the same network. It is far more versatile than telegraphs and telephones were ever able to be.
There was not initially a particular logic behind the choice of 32-bit address space - the development simply needed a direction to go in, and Vint Cerf chose 32-bit, thinking it was just an experiment that needed to be progressed. He stated that he didn't realize it would later become the backbone of the internet.
Digital signatures bind the IP name and address to the message and allow you to verify the authenticity of the source of the information. It makes it much more difficult to lie about source and connectivity.
A sensor network is one that can feed data and information from a source to the internet for monitoring, and have a variety of different uses such as monitoring seismic, oceanographic, atmospheric, or satellite information. Vint Cerf gave the example of the wine cellar in his house using a sensor network that could monitor the temperature, and alert his via SMS when the temperature exceeded the given range.
He described the greatest problem as the challenge of making systems more resilient. They need to be made more conscious of errors in configuration, and the hardest problem is to figure out when a configuration is wrong. He stated it was easy to see when parameter values are out of range, but modern systems make this more difficult as they are an ensemble of parameters which may add up to bad things, but it is difficult ot determine when this is occurring.
Collaboration is important because developers need to be committed to data liberation. People need to be able to get their information out of the cloud whenever they need to, and need to be able to move it to another cloud if desired. Vint Cerf likened cloud networks of 2010 to networks in the 1970s - they existed, but needed to work together better in order to function optimally. He stated there needs to be a virtual network in the cloud so that all clouds can connect to one another with sufficient commonality.
The internet was not originally designed with mobile in mind - it was instead dealing with packets that were received by a stationary network. The issue of dealing with mobility of devices below the internet protocol had to come much later. Today, internet-enabled devices are small enough to carry in your pocket - and in the initial design, they failed to recognize that someday there could be nodes whose IP addresses would change depending on where they accessed the network.
He stated that the problem was that broadcast media was turned into point to point links. He described that ideally, a satellite would be able to rain packets down on a lot of places at once - but for now, delivery leaves a lot to be desired.
Strong authentication is the assurance that who you are speaking to actually is who they say they are. This is an issue because currently, the Internet does not do a good job of authenticating components of the network, and you can be unsure if this router "speaking" is the one we are actually talking to or not. There was no inherent ability built into the Internet to authenticate various sources, which can be inconsequential in some cases, yet crucial in others. This also plays an issue when trying to get more users to use the cloud - you need to be able to prove that only authorized users are capable of connecting to it.
An overrun problem is one in which a malicious entity can utilize your system's assets in order to overrun your system.
Content creators, before the advent of the internet, recovered value from their intellectual property by controlling distribution and copies. Today, this collides with the ease of distribution that is nearly unchecked on the internet. Cerf stated that the rules of recovering value via copy control are outddated and rooted in the wrong kinds of concepts. Alternate methods of recovering value must be explored in the age of the Internet.
Rotten bits equate to noninterpretable data - essentially meaning that current software is unable to translate or read older formats or information. An example of this would be trying to run an old image format created on a Macintosh computer years ago on a Windows 10 machine today, or trying to open a 1997 Powerpoint in the year 3000. Cerf described it as not just a problem of holding onto application software to read old data, but also having to hold onto the old operating systems and the emulations that were needed to interpret that data. Today, we need to create rules that reasonably apply to encourage people and businesses to ensure that objects created in earlier or today's forms are still interpretable in the future.
Spacecraft communication has previously always used point to point links - however, this created the problem of overheating systems as massive amounts of data from Mars came pouring into one location. As an alternative, InterPlaNetary Internet utilizes delay and disruption tolerant protocols, which work at interplanetary distances and can be applied to military communications as well. Cerf stated he hoped that standards for InterPlaNetary internet can be adopted by all, and in the future, can allow spacecraft from a multitude of countries to communicate with each other, and perhaps even one day, create an interplanetary backbone.
Common carriage is defined as applying the same rules to everyone. The implications of this are that no one person should have to pay more than their neighbor for the Internet, even if their usage is higher.
The network won't be easily visible, and will be a part of the environment in the same way that electrical power is today. People will expect networking to be part of the environment, and all devices will be networkable. He even stated that perhaps someday the network can interface through neural systems, much like how a cochlear implant functions.