The Internet Architecture
The connections of the Internet
“The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits.” – Albert Einstein
The current Internet architecture, as developed by researchers in the 1970’s, is based upon TCP/IP protocol suite that has not changed much since then. The design was based upon system of connected computer terminals that only sent text based messages across wired links. The protocol suite was sufficient for the system at the time, however present day use of the Internet is much more than transfer of text based data form one computer terminal to the next. Today data is more sophisticated with pictures, video, and mobile application information now added to the gargantuan amount data travelling across the wires and through the air via Wi-Fi. The current Internet design is still based off the initial design created in the 1970’s which means that all data even if it is not text based must be converted to text before it can be transmitted. The TCP/IP protocol suite creates an inherent delay in transmission because of the data-to-text then text-to-data steps that must occur before transmission and on receiving a transmission.
In addition to the inherent delay of the TCP/IP protocol suite their are also issues with security. The current Internet architecture uses IP address locations as first-class entities which is how data knows where to go and where it is coming from. The problem that arises from this design is lack of anonymity across the Internet. Devices can also be exploited or corrupted with enough ingenuity and resources to acquire the IP addresses of the device and addresses of connected devices. In 2012 a group of hackers infiltrated 420,000 devices across the globe using a bot (automated program) that exploited routers with default passwords. The hackers used the data they accrued to create a heatmap of the devices they found across the world.
420 Thousand Carna Botnet clients active from March to December 2012. http://internetcensus2012.bitbucket.org/paper.html
The “researchers” performed this internet census after finding a way to exploit the current design of the Internet and sought to test the limits of their knowledge. 1.3 billion addresses later, they anonymously posted their findings on the website http://internetcensus2012.bitbucket.org/paper.html stating: “This was a fun project and there are many more things we could have done, but this concludes our work. […] We hope other researchers will find the data we have collected useful and that this publication will help raise some awareness that, while everybody is talking about high class exploits and cyberwar, four simple stupid default telnet passwords can give you access to hundreds of thousands of consumer as well as tens of thousands of industrial devices all over the world”. This is only one example of many that would lead one to distrust the secure nature of the current Internet architecture.
The National Science Foundation (NSF) has acknowledged the need for a new design of the Internet’s architecture and since 2010 funded five design proposals in a program called Future of Internet Architecture (FIA). These innovative approaches to the current protocol suite offer to solve some of the security and performance issues the global network faces today.
