A second set of technologies could help authenticate Internet communications. It would be a huge boon to Internet security if you could be sure an e-mail from your bank is really from your bank and not a scam artist, and if the bank could be sure that when someone logs in to your account, that person is really you and not someone who stole your account number.
Today, the onus of authentication is on the Internet user, who is constantly asked to present information of various kinds: passwords, social-security numbers, employee ID numbers, credit card numbers, frequent-flyer numbers, PIN numbers, and so on. But when millions of users are constantly entering these gate-opening numbers, it makes it that much easier for spyware, or a thief sniffing wireless Internet traffic, to steal, commit fraud, and do damage.
One evolving solution, developed by Internet2 -- a research consortium based in Ann Arbor, MI, that develops advanced Internet technologies for use by research laboratories and universities -- effectively creates a middleman who does the job. Called Shibboleth, the software mediates between a sender and a recipient; it transmits the appropriate ID numbers, passwords, and other identifying information to the right recipients for you, securely, through the centralized exchange of digital certificates and other means. In addition to making the dispersal of information more secure, it helps protect privacy. That's because it discloses only the "attributes" of a person pertinent to a particular transaction, rather than the person's full "identity."
Right now, Shibboleth is used by universities to mediate access to online libraries and other resources; when you log on, the university knows your "attribute" -- you are an enrolled student -- and not your name or other personal information. This basic concept can be expanded: your employment status could open the gates to your company's servers; your birth date could allow you to buy wine online. A similar scheme could give a bank confidence that online account access is legitimate and conversely give a bank customer confidence that banking communications are really from the bank.
Shibboleth and similar technologies in development can, and do, work as patches. But some of their basic elements could also be built into a replacement Internet architecture. "Most people look at the Internet as such a dominant force, they only think how they can make it a little better," Clark says. "I'm saying, 'Hey, think about the future differently. What should our communications environment of 10 to 15 years from now look like? What is your goal?'"
This is the second of a three-part article. The last section, is about an effort by program managers at the National Science Foundation to launch a $300 million research program on future Internet architectures.
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Comments
Guest (Ted Vollers) on 12/20/2005 at 4:45 AM
1
Guest (Ted Vollers) on 12/20/2005 at 4:45 AM
1
Guest (Adrian Lopez) on 12/20/2005 at 5:17 AM
1
Something really bothers me about this proposed future for the Internet.
Guest (Kerry Bowser) on 12/20/2005 at 8:42 AM
1
Guest (Kerry Bowser) on 12/20/2005 at 8:42 AM
1
Guest (Adrian Lopez) on 12/20/2005 at 5:17 AM
1
Something really bothers me about this proposed future for the Internet.
Guest (Jim Hayes) on 12/20/2005 at 12:51 PM
1
Spam can be cured on the current Internet by charging per email - I think a penny a msg while Bill Gates promotes a tenth as much, but either will kill off the economics of Spam.
The problem is the suppliers of equipment for the Internet are probably scared Spam will go away, because it will open up massive amounts of bandwidth and squash sales of new equipment needed to expand Internet capacity. Thus they have little incentive to stop Spam. However, killing Spam will more than double the capacity of the Internet and allow new options like IPTV to take over.
Maybe thats the solution - create a secure Internet2 for communications and leave the current infrastructure for IPTC broadcasting, with hardware designed to only accept and display video. Would that make everybody happy?
But to make it truly successful, it should be internatioal in scope.
Guest (webfrog) on 01/11/2006 at 12:00 AM
1
1. Charging for e-mail - talk about an administrative and technological nightmare. With international boundaries blurred or invisible it would be impossible to implement under the current structure of the internet. Anyway the spammers already use off shore systems to send it to try to avoid the U.S. legislation on spam.
2. Keep patching and worry about it later. Sorry but the longer we do that the more disruptive the re-build becomes and I guarantee you it will be disruptive no matter what.
3. The internet is already run by big companies, they provide the very backbone of the internet and are the reason we even have it, without them there would not be an internet.
Guest (wsebfrog) on 01/12/2006 at 12:00 AM
1
One road to improving the internet would be the adoption of IPV6, that would provide over 281 trillion addresses, more than enought for every device that wants to access the internet it's own IP address.
Guest (Jim Hayes) on 12/20/2005 at 12:51 PM
1
Spam can be cured on the current Internet by charging per email - I think a penny a msg while Bill Gates promotes a tenth as much, but either will kill off the economics of Spam.
The problem is the suppliers of equipment for the Internet are probably scared Spam will go away, because it will open up massive amounts of bandwidth and squash sales of new equipment needed to expand Internet capacity. Thus they have little incentive to stop Spam. However, killing Spam will more than double the capacity of the Internet and allow new options like IPTV to take over.
Maybe thats the solution - create a secure Internet2 for communications and leave the current infrastructure for IPTC broadcasting, with hardware designed to only accept and display video. Would that make everybody happy?
But to make it truly successful, it should be internatioal in scope.
Guest (Bill Priff) on 12/21/2005 at 1:41 PM
1
There is a choice to be made. There will either be a dumb network, and open network protocols - which will spur innovation and some chaos and uncertainty, or there will be a network run by big companies that cant shake the bellhead mindset - which will lead to less freedom and innovation.
Guest (C R Muthukrishnan) on 12/22/2005 at 12:30 AM
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Guest (muthu) on 03/27/2006 at 12:00 AM
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Guest (C R Muthukrishnan) on 12/22/2005 at 12:30 AM
1
Guest (Bill Priff) on 12/21/2005 at 1:41 PM
1
There is a choice to be made. There will either be a dumb network, and open network protocols - which will spur innovation and some chaos and uncertainty, or there will be a network run by big companies that cant shake the bellhead mindset - which will lead to less freedom and innovation.
Guest (Bill Rosenfeld) on 12/22/2005 at 10:59 AM
1
Guest (Bill Rosenfeld) on 12/22/2005 at 10:59 AM
1
Guest (Adam) on 02/04/2006 at 12:00 AM
1
Guest (Kevin) on 03/07/2006 at 12:00 AM
1
The people and companies cited in this article have a lot to gain by a massive change to the Internet. Akami, Microsoft, Internet2, etc. would get to charge everyone for new products. Computer scientists are always dieing to scrap the status-quo in order to design and put their name on the next new thing. Scrutinize every word they say.