Errm... isn't that what IPv6 is for? Granted there's more to the Internet than that, HTTP and HTML could probably use a rethink. Migration will be a killer though. How long have we been waiting for IPv6?

"DARPA is interested in ideas that will lead to the development of new addressing schemes (eg, a structured hierarchical addressing system) to supplement the current IP scheme."

Doesn't IPv6 (and to an extent the current IPv4 address allocation system) do that ?

And wasn't OSI based on a hierachical addressing scheme ? We all know how well that took off.

... let's raise a People's Army and seize control of the state!

In other words, the Pentagon wants to regain control of the Internet, but doesn't have enough up to date boffins to do it. Damn those other nations! It's ours, we want our ball back!

I'd be all for a more up to date efficient interweb... faster speeds? you mean like the ones the Japanese and Swedish have?

I'm just more concerned with what little secret snooping protocols the current administration would also like to sneak into the standards, and that's me taking off the tinfoil hat!

"DARPA aren't fixing to cough up any cash as yet, but they say they might well if any promising notions turn up"

If they aint fixing to throw a wad of cash, that would choke a donkey, at a project they've turned onto over the Web, they aint even warming up the the Game....and that puts them out of the Game altogether........ Lost in CyberSpace.

They may as well be taking a bath for all the good that they will be doing sitting on the sidelines.

All they really need to do is replace SMTP with something that everyone magically starts using. Once you fix that, spam dissappears, and then all of a sudden we have a tremendous amount of spare bandwidth, disk space, and cpu time on our hands.

Well, thats the theory anyway : -)

I would respectfully remind those that claim that CPU and memory limitations no longer apply to rethink that attitude. Those limitations may not apply to today's typical desktops and servers. But I would think it would matter very much to handheld devices (such as those deployed to the armed forces). Not in the same way that it mattered when ARPAnet started when devices had much less processing power and memory, but still. Then again, such thoughts will lead us into another optimize-or-not debate. The one thing I would suggest is to find a way to build security into the network instead of as an add-on like https.

Don't be so pathetic, Neil!

"once you fix that, spam disappears"

what makes you think that any new mail protocol will stop the spammers from using it instead of SMTP? They'll find a way, they always do.

If its easy enough for 'everyone' to use, its easy enough for spammers to abuse.

I think that if all ISPs started filtering out spam at its source then that would give us a lot more bandwidth to play with. Though we'd have to pay more for the processing power that they need to stop the spam. I like how the FBI or whoever it was had released code to patch up people's machines automatically though, it's really what needs to be done now.

Alternatively, we could nuke Microsoft? Problem solved..

Or as the conspiracy boys would say their motives are hidden and dark , and are not intended to benefit any user but themselves!

I have alwaysunderstood that a group of scientists at CERN in Switzerland were the founders of the internet!

Your thinking of Tim Berners Lee and crew, they invented the browser and http. ARPA ran the project to connect government and educational networks across the country to provide resilient multiple routes with the idea that it can be used for reliable communication as it wasnt dependent on a single point to point connection.

"Don't be so pathetic, Neil!"

Totally irrelevent but it was actually Rick's idea. Neil Would never have suggested something so confrontational!