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Ask HN: You have one shot to redesign the Internet – what do you change?

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Re: Ask HN: You have one shot to redesign the Internet – what do you change?

#61

Post by jffry »

bruce343434 wrote: post #34
jedberg wrote: post #23

TL;DR: Constants shouldn't be hard coded in the software, they should always be in a separate config The problem is that it's the 60s. My first thought was "security", but unless you an also teach them about elliptic curves, they're going to use the security of the 1960s, which as we now know isn't very secure. Maybe at least having security baked in would help make it easier to switch to better security later, like…

I really don't understand what stopped ipv4 from being extended like this: w.x.y.z == 0.0.0.0.w.x.y.z In fact, you can even ping any 32 bit unsigned integer and it will turn it into an ipv4. Try it: `ping 134744072` will ping `8.8.8.8` So why not 64 bit? 32 bits fit in 64. Instead we now have 2 concurrent protocols. ps. 8*256^3 + 8*256^2 + 8*256 + 8 = 134744072

Because "just add 4 more bytes of address space" wouldn't be backwards-compatible with the world's worth of hardware and software built around IPv4 anyways. There just isn't anywhere in an ipv4 packet that you could put those extra bytes that wouldn't break existing systems.

So the only real option is creating a new protocol with a new protocol ID in the header. And if we're making a new protocol anyways, we might as well design it to fix more problems than just address space exhaustion.

And that's what IPv6 is. The Wikipedia article has a lot of details on the kinds of changes it makes and why: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPv6#Comparison_with_IPv4

Re: Ask HN: You have one shot to redesign the Internet – what do you change?

#62

Post by pie420 »

jedberg wrote: post #41
bruce343434 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really don't understand what stopped ipv4 from being extended like this: w.x.y.z == 0.0.0.0.w.x.y.z In fact, you can even ping any 32 bit unsigned integer and it will turn it into an ipv4. Try it: `ping 134744072` will ping `8.8.8.8` So why not 64 bit? 32 bits fit in 64. Instead we now have 2 concurrent protocols. ps. 8*256^3 + 8*256^2 + 8*256 + 8 = 134744072

Because all the existing routers would break on all the new addresses. A new protocol was created specifically so that legacy equipment would never get the request. For example, if an old router got a packet for 1.2.3.4.5.6.7.8, where would it send it, if it didn't crash just trying to read that address?

Yes, let's design the internet around keeping 90s routers running as long as possible. Excellent. Let's also design highways with a max speed of 20 MPH so we can accommodate Model T's

Re: Ask HN: You have one shot to redesign the Internet – what do you change?

#63

Post by rektide »

uncomputation wrote: post #26

Push for content-addressing over URLs. To be honest, I don’t know if this would hamper the development of the internet or be a good thing at all, but I would love to see what people would come up with and how it would change the web.

The Web Packaging specifications[1] are surprisingly close to turning URLs into a content-addressed system. Content-addressed networking is all about names for content, after all, which philosophically is a close match for what a URL is, it just so happens that HTTP uses urls to resolve servers that serve the content. But with Web Package, content is signed by the origin, and can be distributed via other means.

One of the primary uses cases for Web Package is to let two users exchange content while offline, perhaps via a usb stick or what not. This isn't part of the specification, but we could begin to imagine sites that have a list of the web packages they have available for download. And we could imagine aggregating those content indexes, and preferring to download from these mirrors over downloads from the origin's servers.

I'm hoping eventually we get a fairly content-addressed network, via urls.

[1] https://github.com/WICG/webpackage

Re: Ask HN: You have one shot to redesign the Internet – what do you change?

#64

Post by jffry »

pie420 wrote: post #62
jedberg wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because all the existing routers would break on all the new addresses. A new protocol was created specifically so that legacy equipment would never get the request. For example, if an old router got a packet for 1.2.3.4.5.6.7.8, where would it send it, if it didn't crash just trying to read that address?

Yes, let's design the internet around keeping 90s routers running as long as possible. Excellent. Let's also design highways with a max speed of 20 MPH so we can accommodate Model T's

There's no way we could ever stop the world and get everybody to use a new protocol overnight.

Attempting to change the format of an existing protocol in-place in a way that existing hardware and software cannot handle, would be an effort that's dead on arrival.

The global transition to ipv6 is already hard enough, and that's with it designed as a separate protocol so that existing equipment that doesn't understand it can at least gracefully discard it instead of mishandling it.

Re: Ask HN: You have one shot to redesign the Internet – what do you change?

#65

Post by underseacables »

I remove most centralized control so that private companies have no power to censure, but governments could if they chose. I think private companies have vastly too much power over the internet, something that is unlikely to change.

Re: Ask HN: You have one shot to redesign the Internet – what do you change?

#66

Post by jedberg »

pie420 wrote: post #62
jedberg wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because all the existing routers would break on all the new addresses. A new protocol was created specifically so that legacy equipment would never get the request. For example, if an old router got a packet for 1.2.3.4.5.6.7.8, where would it send it, if it didn't crash just trying to read that address?

Yes, let's design the internet around keeping 90s routers running as long as possible. Excellent. Let's also design highways with a max speed of 20 MPH so we can accommodate Model T's

Funny you should mention the Model T. We did the exact same thing with roads as we did with IPv6. We created a new type of road (highways) that the Model T could not go on. But the new cars can still use the old roads, albeit slower than their max speed. This is the same as IPv6 going through carrier grade NAT.

Slowly over time the roads were upgraded, so now you can use mostly high speed roads to get between places and you don't really see Model Ts anymore because it's not convenient to avoid all the high speed roads.

Re: Ask HN: You have one shot to redesign the Internet – what do you change?

#67

Post by Jtsummers »

pie420 wrote: post #62
jedberg wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because all the existing routers would break on all the new addresses. A new protocol was created specifically so that legacy equipment would never get the request. For example, if an old router got a packet for 1.2.3.4.5.6.7.8, where would it send it, if it didn't crash just trying to read that address?

Yes, let's design the internet around keeping 90s routers running as long as possible. Excellent. Let's also design highways with a max speed of 20 MPH so we can accommodate Model T's

The issue is replacement cost and feasibility. As roads got better pavement (or were more reliably paved) speed limits could increase. I still have some 20-30mph dirt roads near my home here (actually quite a few), but highways were specifically made to support higher speeds (longer straight sections, in sane places smoother curves). Notably, improving road quality did not obsolete the Model T (though it did become obsolete) on its own. It just made them particularly outdated when other, faster, options were now viable.

Nothing has stopped making faster cars just as nothing (fundamentally) has stopped us from making a "better" Internet (supporting more addresses and other features). What hasn't been done is to say, "Ok, so we already have this massive hardware rollout but we're going to literally obsolete 99.99% of it overnight and cost everyone, home users, small businesses, governments, megacorps, billions or trillions to replace their hardware."

Why didn't that happen? Because it would've been stupid. Instead we ended up with what's amounted to two Internets with bridges between them. The transition hasn't been smooth, but it has been happening.

Re: Ask HN: You have one shot to redesign the Internet – what do you change?

#69

Post by wantsanagent »

jart wrote: post #17
philipswood wrote: post #10

Require emails to be signed by the sender cryptographically.

It's the 1960's. There's no RSA or AES or even DES.

Sure but it's a small community that hung out in person a lot. Tokens, pass phrases or one-time-pads could have been physically swapped.

There's really just a difference in thinking, "private by default for email" vs "public by default." Or "untrusted network" vs "trusted network." However you want to think about it.

Re: Ask HN: You have one shot to redesign the Internet – what do you change?

#70

Post by sithlord »

YossarianFrPrez wrote: post #59
bmcooley wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly this would probably just make VPN services more widely used to workaround shutdowns.

True, unless the timezone was tied to each user's accounts. The website doesn't have to "not work" it just has to return a page that says something to the effect of "we are closed for business."

So a user couldn't just change their timezone? What if they moved?

Also who is this to protect? The user? What if they work midnights or their days are backwards?

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