And All Websites Will Be in Esperanto

Radley Balko | April 16, 2007

A team of Very Smart People backed by the federal government say they have the cure for what ails the Internet: central planning!

Although it has already taken nearly four decades to get this far in building the Internet, some university researchers with the federal government's blessing want to scrap all that and start over. [...] The Internet "works well in many situations but was designed for completely different assumptions," said Dipankar Raychaudhuri, a Rutgers University professor overseeing three clean-slate projects. "It's sort of a miracle that it continues to work well today."

If they do scrap it and start all over, you can bet the new Internet will be a very different place.

One challenge in any reconstruction, though, will be balancing the interests of various constituencies. The first time around, researchers were able to toil away in their labs quietly. Industry is playing a bigger role this time, and law enforcement is bound to make its needs for wiretapping known. There's no evidence they are meddling yet, but once any research looks promising, "a number of people (will) want to be in the drawing room," said Jonathan Zittrain, a law professor affiliated with Oxford and Harvard universities. "They'll be wearing coats and ties and spilling out of the venue."

Meanwhile, Congress' continuing efforts to control Internet 1.0 continue.

Comments

|4.16.07 @ 9:44AM|#

Zamenfek! Estas tre malbonega ideo!

|4.16.07 @ 9:44AM|#

Shocked, Shocked I am to see Reason peddling the bogus myth that the Internet sprung forth in spite of, rather than directly due to, governmental intervention. Coming up next: "Did you know Al Gore said he invented the Internet? Ha! Ha!"

ed|4.16.07 @ 9:47AM|#

Yep, if there's one thing that drives a bureaucrat insane it's something he has no control over. Clinton/Obama will take care of it. Third year, first term. Right after socializing medicine but just before commencing the troop withdrawals from Iran.

|4.16.07 @ 9:56AM|#

Did you know Al Gore said he invented the Internet?

How many times do we have to go over this? Al never said he invented the internet! What he said was, "I took the initiative in creating the internet." That's not the same thing. Nope, not the same at all.

|4.16.07 @ 10:08AM|#

Shocked, Shocked I am to see Reason peddling the bogus myth that the Internet sprung forth in spite of, rather than directly due to, governmental intervention. Coming up next: "Did you know Al Gore said he invented the Internet? Ha! Ha!"

Good point, at we're also seeing it here with all the hype over private space travel - a endeavor only possible due to the government spending probably trillions of dollars developing the knowledge and technology over the decades.

|4.16.07 @ 10:09AM|#

Reason peddling the bogus myth that the Internet sprung forth in spite of, rather than directly due to, governmental intervention

(a) I don't see anything in this posting that says the Internet was not originally created by DARPA.

(b) So what if it was? Does anybody seriously argue that it is now almost entirely a creature of the private sphere? Which these tools are trying to drag back under state control? Like that would be a good thing?

|4.16.07 @ 10:09AM|#

So... whatever happened to Internet2? Can't they go ruin that one instead?

dhex|4.16.07 @ 10:09AM|#

to try and de-troll things a bit, how much credit/blame (depending on how you want to roll) does the gubmint deserve regarding the existence of today's internet?

|4.16.07 @ 10:14AM|#

Bush was quoted as saying, "You're doin a finetastical job fixin the interweb there Browny!"

Max|4.16.07 @ 10:15AM|#

Well, it was a joint effort not only by the DARPA, but also by CERN in Europe, who claim for themselves that they "invented" the internet.

If we remember the beginnings of the internet, we will see that there was some government build-up, due to it being a defense program, but it expanded to universities and from then on it grew to be the play-ground of private interest groups/individuals (USEnet and later WWW). I doubt anything like the internet of today would have been possible in a planned effort. I mean most people doubted that something like google/youtube/email would or be necessary. And well, we proved them all wrong.

|4.16.07 @ 10:24AM|#

Could they even do that at this point? Wouldn't foreign countries object and start their own/keep the old one?

|4.16.07 @ 10:26AM|#

Kial vi devas malami esperanton?

|4.16.07 @ 10:36AM|#

Of course, without the government created Internet, there would still be an Internet.

There were BBS's, Fidonet and Compuserve for example.

When the government muscles into a commercial enterprise, it tends to put its competition out of business, and within a decade or so, people forget that private competition was even possible.

|4.16.07 @ 11:05AM|#

Not to mention the General Electric Network Information Exchange (GENIE). I was on that and a couple of local BBS before that.

One thing is for sure, once the government gets involved, the fun gets sucked right out of it. I would bet on a more restrictive, heavly surveilled, non-autonomus system. The old one was created with the idea of a free exchange of ideas. In today's climate, free exchange is bad, it supports terrorism, the government must know what everyone is doing or may do. At least that's the way our government is acting.

I suspect that one day you will be indicted on crimes based in your virtual doings. One day the right to remain silent will be moot because your virtual self will tell all.

Al Gore|4.16.07 @ 11:09AM|#

So I didn't invent the Internet. Well I was right about global warming so, um, neener-neener-neener!

|4.16.07 @ 12:30PM|#

Will they call it Internet 3?

|4.16.07 @ 12:38PM|#

Myself, I'm waiting for decentralized, wireless mesh networks. If they're practical, they'll take off while this thing is sitting in a decade or two of planning meetings.

lunchstealer|4.16.07 @ 2:08PM|#

The big question is how will we stop Manbearpig from using the new internet?

Brian Sorgatz|4.16.07 @ 2:46PM|#

Hura! Laboro por ni esperantistoj!

bill|4.16.07 @ 5:22PM|#

Dipankar Raychaudhuri is a nappy-headed ho!

LarryA|4.16.07 @ 7:04PM|#

"It's sort of a miracle that it continues to work well today."

1. The free market does work miracles.

2. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Trading Cards|4.17.07 @ 8:32AM|#

Well, if the internet DOES get to be rebooted, I'm taking out a fat loan and buying up all the sweet domain names and other prime real estate.

A nice daydream, but it'll never happen, of course.