<nettime> Internet Pioneers Panel Discusses Challenges for Future - Sigcomm99

[ronda@umcc.ais.org (Ronda Hauben)]

Internet Pioneers Panel Discusses Challenges Facing the Internet
                    by Ronda Hauben
                    rh120@columbia.edu
 
     The place: Sanders Theater, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA. The
date: Tuesday, August 31, 1999. The time, 17:15. (1) 
 
     The Moderator is Bob Metcalfe, the inventor of ethernet.  Among the
panelists are Louis Pouzin and Hubert Zimmerman who created the Cyclades
packet switching network in France in the early 1970s; Larry Roberts and
Len Kleinrock pioneers of the ARPANET, the earliest packet switching
network; Bob Kahn and Vint Cerf, also ARPANET pioneers, who went on to
design the TCP/IP protocol for the internetworking of diverse packet
switching networks; and Paul Baran, whose research helped to pioneer the
development of packet switching technology.
 
     The occasion: the 10th anniversary of the creation of the award
honoring lifelong contributions to the field of computer communications
research which has had an important impact on the work of others. On the
stage is a panel of those who have won the award over the past 10 years. 
 
     For his first question, Metcalfe asks what the panelists think of the
new protocol IPv6 which has been created to replace IPv4, the current
version of the protocol that makes the Internet possible. Surprisingly,
almost all the panelists say that they see IPv6 as problemmatic. Vint Cerf
notes that there isn't any pressure from users or vendors to make the
change. He adds, however, that lots of devices are being planned which
will need IP numbers and thus justify converting to the new protocol. 
 
     Len Kleinrock asks why there has not been any attention given in the
new protocol version to make future changes easier. Sandy Fraser, another
of the panelists, points to expenditures by big business which he believes
will lead to a large installed base making it expensive to make future
changes. 
 
     Bob Kahn reminds the other panelists about how the earliest version
of the TCP/IP protocol only anticipated that there would be a few networks
as part of the Internet. They thought they would never need addresses for
more than 1/2 dozen or dozen national networks. But soon the maverick
invention of the ethernet spawned local area networks, changing the
landscape.  In hindsight, Kahn notes, what should be the future is clear,
but when going forward, it is hard to see ahead. "We are going to get it
wrong again," he warns, if there isn't adequate thought put into what will
be needed. Instead of going by the principle "ready, aim, fire," when
tackling such problems, he observes, there's the tendency to "ready, fire,
aim" or "fire, aim, ready." He suggests the need to get ready first and
then to take aim at a problem, in order to be able to recognize whether or
not the correct problem has been identified. 
 
     Kahn proposes that the problem which led to the creation of IPv6 may
have been looked at in a way that is wrong or that there was a need for a
different approach to the problem. He notes that this is an example of
where the research community hasn't done a good job of thinking through
the future and what is needed. 
 
     The discussion moves on to what the problem is that causes long
delays for some in accessing the world wide web. The panelists consider
whether there are technical causes of the delays which the appropriate
research efforts could identify. 
 
      Changing the focus of the discussion, Metcalfe asks Louis Pouzin
what his view is of the creation of ICANN. He asks Pouzin if ICANN will
blow the whole thing apart.
 
     Pouzin responds, that since he lives in France, he isn't sure what
the issues are in the United States, but that you can't give up on the
concerns of people around the world. The task of assigning unique IP
numbers is not a real problem, Pouzin explains. But there has been a warp
in handling it at the international level. Pouzin asks: What is wanted? Is
there a desire for a situation whereby a few years from now a number of
countries will be up in arms and decide after all they could just as well
organize their own Internet? That it may be problemmatic, but that they
can handle it among themselves. 
 
     Pouzin explains that the ITU is in charge of allocating virtual
international resources of communication. That such sensitive issues must
be handled by an international committee.  There is no other way as they
have the experience and the relationship and the habits of diplomacy. 
 
     Vint Cerf comments that he can't believe he is hearing Pouzin say
that the ITU is better. Cerf disagrees that the ITU would be appropriate
to solve the problems. 
 
     Pouzin admits that they are difficult problems but that this is the
way to handle such difficult problems because there are so many items that
are national obligations that in the end, this is how it is done. 
 
     Cerf again disagrees, noting that ICANN has had a difficult birth but
believes that ICANN is needed because industry is the only game in town
with regard to who can oversee the Internet names and numbers. 
 
      Another of the panelists, David Farber, interjects his view that
ICANN got stuck in quick sand. It should have gotten an interim board to
get the actual board, and only then taken on the difficult issues, he
advises. First set up the infrastructure and then take on the functions.
Farber disagrees that ITU's process would be appropriate for the Internet. 
 
     In response to a question from Metcalfe about some of the technical
obstacles to the further development of the Internet, Len Kleinrock points
to feature shock, or the problem for the user of absorbing new interfaces
that require hours and hours of new learning. 
 
     Opposing the tendency toward the "dumbing down" of the network, Kahn
describes how the potential of the Internet will be lost if people can't
themselves interact with the Net. He proposes that there should be ways to
help people learn to become programmers so that every citizen would be
able to get the Internet to do what he or she wants. Kahn also suggests
that speech understanding research could help by making it possible to
give computers verbal rather than typed instructions. 
 
     Further discussion on the desirability of voice activation leads
Kleinrock to warn against voice activated agents given the difficulty of
human precision in understanding what the computer has understood and then
in being able to control the computer. 
 
     Farber refers to the fear of people that the computing environment
will expose everything a person does online to the observation of
government. Others on the panel recognize this as a problem but also that
there is the problem of corporations using the Internet to gather
information on people. Another problem presented is the need to gather
data to diagnose networking problems. 
 
     Metcalfe asks if the Internet architecture will continue to scale
making it possible for many more networks and computers and people to be
connected. Sandy Fraser warns that the vision and the architecture that
has made such scaling possible is being eroded. He wonders where the
leadership will come from to continue to sustain the catenet concept, the
concept of a diversity of networks being able to interconnect and
communicate.  Also Fraser urges the need to reestablish the importance of
basic concepts that are at the foundation of the Internet, such as the
datagram.(2) 
 
     Another panelist, Paul Green, reminds the audience of the two
cultures concept introduced by the British writer C. P. Snow. Technology,
Green proposes, can be used for enslavement or empowerment, and there is a
need for understanding and exchange between those involved with the
liberal arts and the sciences. He points to the one sided portrayal of
technology in George Orwell's book "1984". Instead of such a frightening
scenario, the diffusion of communication can bring international peace and
help solve the problems of the disadvantaged, Green adds. 
 
     Kahn questions how one can determine the issue of the ability to
scale the Internet from current knowledge. He compares this to trying to
predict the ability of the world economy to scale. Both are hard to
predict, he contends, because we don't know what will be invented. 
 
     Metcalfe asks if there are any silver bullets that will solve current
problems. Kahn replies that it is much easier to build something reliable
than to debug problems. He explains that it is crucial to have records of
what happens on the Internet to be able to solve the technical problems.
And though this may fly in the face of concerns with privacy, it is
crucial to come to grips with this problem. It isn't possible to keep the
Internet reliable without keeping certain kinds of records. He explains
that the telephone system had found a way to monitor the workings of the
system and so has been able to solve this problem. 
 
     The big expense that AT&T had incurred in buying a cable company is
presented by Sandy Fraser as the motivation for the company to encourage
customers to buy as much video and audio as possible to pay for AT&T's
investment. 
 
     Others like Dave Clark and Bob Kahn raise the importance of exploring
what users will want to do using the Internet, rather than deciding for
users what they will do.
 
     As his final challenge to the panel, Metcalfe asks what would be the
most interesting questions to pose to a graduate student contemplating
research in the data communications field. 
 
     Kleinrock proposes studying the field of nomadic computing.  Also he
suggests exploring issues such as: If one gives up all privacy, how much
security could one achieve on the Internet? That the relationship between
security and privacy require study. Kahn proposes exploring the
relationship of design theory with engineering practice. That there is the
need to do good design and to have a way to have measurable results to
compare with the theory. Paul Green urges students not to take a micro
problem, but to work on something that they would be proud of, and to make
it count.
 
     The panel ends after two and 1/2 hours. The acoustics in the Harvard
building known as Memorial Hall where the panelists had been seated were
poor, making it often difficult to hear each other or for some in the
audience to hear.  Also most had been through a tiring day before the
panel gathered at 17:15. 
 
     Despite the difficulties, however, something had been achieved. Some
of the panelists challenged the fads in Internet research and development,
urging that the problems need more effort to be understood. Several of the
panelists freely disagreed with each other, yet often did so without any
hostility or animosity. This led to a discussion where different views
were presented so that the issues could be explored in a broader way than
often happens in technical conversations. Also the issues examined were
for the most part either social, or the discussion of the technical issues
included social concerns or considerations. This, too, was quite different
from the narrow technical discussion that is often proposed as the model
for technical issues.
 
     The panel discussion helped to present a view of the field of data
communication that contributed to the foundation of the Internet and to
its early development. Including discussion of social concerns as a part
of the discussion of the field, helps to establish the fact that the user
is part of the data network and the needs and interests and concerns of
the user are an area to be included in the field of research and study.
This then presents a glimpse into the future when the user and the
interests of the user interacting with the hardware and software are
recognized as a vital part of the Internet. Instead of viewing the user as
customers or as victims of commercial firms vying for market share, users
will be viewed as citizens of an online collaborative and participatory
networking society, or more simply as Netizens.
 
     The panel did not, however, grapple with the most important issues of
the continued development of the Internet. Such issues have to do with the
way that, at least in the United States, the academic and government and
other public or educational forms of Internet development have been
subsumed within a commercial sphere, where any broader vision of the user
as netizen or of the need to connect all users has been ceded to industry
who only view users as customers. JCR Licklider who promoted much of the
early vision for the development of computer networking, maintained that
network access must be seen as a right, rather than as a privilege. This
view required that all the population have the ability to have access to
the developing computer network.(3) And that the network be interactive,
encouraging the users to participate online and in developing it into
something that would meet the needs and desires of its users. This vision
had the user participating in creating the ever developing vision for the
future of the Internet. That is the challenge that users need to take up,
taking the torch from the pioneers and carrying it forward. 
 
-----------------
 
(1) The event was the opening session of Sigcomm'99, sponsored by the
Special Interest Group (SIG) on Data Communication of the Association of
Computer Machinery (ACM). The conference was held from Tuesday, August 31,
1999 through Friday, September 3, 1999. See
http://www.acm.org/sigcomm/sigcomm99
 
(2) The datagram was one of the early conceptual and technical advances
which made it possible to have an internet. A datagram is a packet
containing only source and destination information in addition to the data
being transported. It doesn't contain information about the path for
reaching the destination. 
 
(3) See for example "The Computer as a Communication Device", by JCR
Licklider and Robert Taylor, "Science and Technology: for the Technical
Men in Management" 76 (April 1968): 21-31. Reprinted in "In Memoriam:
J.C.R. Licklider: 1915-1990", 21-41, Palo Alto, Calif. Digital Systems
Research Center, 1990. See http://memex.org/lick.html and
http://www.columbia.edu/~hauben/netbook


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