What2what (was end2end): the future of the Internet

When: 
Thursday, October 20, 2005 - 7:00pm
Room: 
E51-325
Lecturer(s): 
Scott Bradner, Harvard University

The Internet end-to-end mantra actually reflected reality once upon a time and was key to the development of what we now know as the Internet, but that time is long gone. The e2e model has died a death of a thousand little optimizations, many self inflicted by the same people that were the beneficiaries of the developments enabled by the widespread enough reality of the e2e model. Other than in a few niche ecologies such as research universities, e2e exists in today's Internet mostly as a quaint concept. And now the traditional telephone world, the FBI, Homeland Security and the ITU-T want to (indirectly) stomp out any such residues. This talk will review some of the scholarly ruminations, not so scholarly rants, and various laments about the changing Internet environment and then explore the implications of likely Internet futures on innovation, security, privacy and usefulness.

Lecturer Biography: 

Scott Bradner has been involved in the design, operation and use of data networks at Harvard University since the early days of the ARPANET. He served in a number of roles in the IETF. He was the co-director of the Operational Requirements, IPng, Transport and Sub-IP Areas. He was a member of the IESG (1993-2003) and was an elected trustee of the Internet Society (1993-1999), where he currently serves as the Secretary to the Board of Trustees. Scott is also a trustee of the American Registry of Internet Numbers (ARIN). Mr. Bradner is the University Technology Security Officer in the Harvard University Office of the Provost. He tries to help the University community deal with technology-related privacy and security issues. He founded the Harvard Network Device Test Lab, is a frequent speaker at technical conferences, a weekly columnist for Network World, and does a bit of independent consulting on the side.