New Internet architectures

Abstract – The original Internet architecture, developed since over 40 years ago has been evolving ever since, and as a result, some issues and problems that could have not been foreseen or predicted a few decades ago are now appearing; some principles like end-to-end connectivity have been violated, and in the meantime new issues are emerging- identity and authentication, security, mobility, energy efficiency, etc. While recently there are calls for changes in the current Internet architecture, we stress the hidden risks and additional issues related to these ideas, including but not limited to network complexity, concerns about privacy, lack of guarantees for security, and discouragement for Internet access to ordinary people, and discouragement for developing new applications for the developers. This paper/study instead, maintains that the approach of patching the current architecture- firewalls, proxies, and other middle boxes are helpful and do not increase the complexity, thus do not endanger the evolvability and simplicity of the network. We believe that by better and more global laws the security issues will be minimized-this is what even the most advanced ideas for new architectures call for, since there are no guarantees for absolute security. The integration with cell phone networks and services can solve majority of existing issues with mobility, and energy efficiency. Also models for naming, multicast and anycast are also proposed, and as the need for mobility is growing, together with the need for better identification of data and services instead of machines, these models will emerge slowly. This industry is in the beginning of its era, and there are some great solutions on issues related to mobile support to smartphone devices, and we believe this field is moving in the right direction, thus rejecting the need for major changes in the current architecture. 1