Tech Officials Gear Up For Next Internet
Tuesday June 15, 7:00 pm ET
Donna Howell
Tech firms are marching toward the next-generation Internet, now that it has gotten a big boost from the Defense Department. But the trip will be a long one, fraught with some risks.
The Internet and other networks are very gradually upgrading to a newer operating structure, called Internet protocol version 6, or IPv6. This accommodates a vaster, more capable digital world that's friendlier to electronics and other gadgets.
It opens up ways for all kinds of devices to get their own numbered Internet addresses, and makes setting up the connections easier. So anything from an air quality sensor to a battlefield weapon can report data online. IPv6 also improves security and aids transmission of real-time data, such as voice and video.
A Defense Requirement
Major tech firms are upgrading their gear and software to work with IPv6. Their efforts are invigorated by a Defense Department mandate, said technology leaders at this week's North American IPv6 Summit, in Santa Monica, Calif.
With nimbler battle systems in mind, in October the Defense Department made IPv6 compatibility a requirement for all its new networking-related buys. So tech firms are changing to keep up.
"Big IT vendors like Cisco, HP, Microsoft, Sun, a few others -- they've been doing IPv6 for years", said Yuri Rich, business director for the North American IPv6 Task Force. "Now we're seeing a greater number of vendors spreading out across the spectrum who are implementing v6 in a serious way. It's not just a minor, passing interest. It's spending R&D money to get IPv6 up and running and to let the DoD know they have it."
Widespread commercial adoption of IPv6 will take at least a few years, Rich says. The military aims to transition to it around 2008, as part of an initiative to get better networked.
"The Internet is a medium in which we have to conduct commerce and cultural activities, and it is vital to our national interests," said conference keynote speaker Tom Mayhew, a senior director with Oracle's (NasdaqNM:ORCL - News) technology business unit. "The military has to figure out how to fight in that environment."
Interest in learning about IPv6 has trickled from the DoD to the Commerce Department, the Homeland Security Department and the Transportation Department, says Alex Lightman, marketing director for the North American IPv6 Task Force.
"There's actually word that the Office of Management and Budget will also propose that we mandate IPv6 for the entire government," he said.
Are technology vendors seeing interest in IPv6 outside government?
"A lot of the interest we've seen is coming from academic institutions and other technology companies in the process of developing next-generation applications," said Cody Christman, director of product engineering at Verio. It's a unit of NTT Communications that provides IPv6 service in the U.S.
Will Aid Wireless
Wireless providers are likely to show a growing interest in IPv6, Christman says. One reason is that IPv6 will make it easier to handle calls when a person travels outside their home area. Another reason is that IPv6 lets more devices have their own Internet addresses.
"China has 60 million Internet users and 30 million IPv4 addresses," Christman said. "As wireless proliferates, that's why China's interested -- because they don't have any address space."
IBM's (NYSE:IBM - News) seeing some customer uptake of its IPv6-enabled platforms and applications, says Jackie Jackson, a senior technical staff member in the company's enterprise networking solutions center.
"We're seeing more of it in Asia-Pacific than we are in the U.S.," Jackson said. "But we spend a lot of time with the government. We're part of several different government projects for IPv6."
The switch to IPv6 brings risks, security specialists warn.
"IPv6 is several years old, but many of the security aspects are in effect still being thought out," security consultant Richard Graveman told the conference. He says the biggest security worry is denial-of-service (traffic-flooding) attacks.
There's also the risk of cross-platform attacks by hackers as firms start to do IPv6 networking alongside their existing IPv4 networks.
"Can you afford for a v4 resource to go down if somebody exploits a v6 risk?" asked speaker Dennis Vogel, a product marketing manager for Cisco Systems (NasdaqNM:CSCO - News). "Could they use a v4 tunnel to get to a v6 resource?"
Hackers long ago discovered IPv6, Vogel told the conference. He's identified more than 20 software programs that can be used to try to compromise next-generation networks. At least one decoy network set up to trap hackers has been hit with an attack that used IPv6 techniques. And a 2002 worm called Slapper could have been IPv6-enabled.
The risks are reminders to pay attention to security as IPv6 adoption increases, Vogel says.
Still, IPv6 is ultimately supposed to improve Internet security. It uses a standard called IPsec (short for Internet protocol security) to encrypt data in transit.
