back to article Vint Cerf mods Android for interplanetary interwebs

Internet founding father cum Google evangelist Vint Cerf is working to bring his interplanetary interwebs protocol to mobile networks here on earth. In 1998, working in tandem with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the (co-)father of the seminal TCP protocol launched an effort to create an "interplanetary extension to the …

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  1. Mike Shepherd
    FAIL

    I tried

    I tried, I really did.

    I tried to get excited about the problems of connection-oriented comms across the solar system and how it affects so many of us here on earth.

    But then I decided I'd just have another cup of tea.

  2. charlied16

    Vint Cerf talks about his hi-tech wine cellar

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EGSsjOynXg4

  3. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
    Boffin

    Isn't that the "Licklider Transmission Protocol"?

    ...and if so, why isn't that name used any longer??

  4. Chris Martin 2
    Grenade

    Speed of Light...

    So the Ping time to Mars which is somewhere between 3 (x2)minutes and 20(x2) minutes still exists and is caused by the limitation of the speed of light. So why did they start looking at this protocol in the first place, as it defaulted to a terrestrial use...

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Paris Hilton

    "Hot dead birds"

    Mmmmm, goths.

  6. Lars Silver badge
    Happy

    Nice

    But on the other hand the BSC protocol by IBM "some" time ago let you define the time before NAK very freely (and long). So what is new expect that I am unfair.

    Anyway what I do not like is if something that is just an extension to something "old" is called an invention. And I suppose extending the time out for the TCP/IP protocol is not an invention.

    And what about this Android stuff, is is not Linux.

    In other words Vint Cerf is modding the TCP to allow for longer time outs.

  7. sT0rNG b4R3 duRiD
    Paris Hilton

    SEP/IP?

    Sub-Etha Net Protocol?

    Somebody Else's Problem?

  8. Alex 72
    Thumb Up

    Mars on the number 25 ?

    So we tried to figure out how to send data to mars and along the way made downloading **** on the train or in a tank whilst moving work well LOL

  9. Alastair 7

    Re: Mars on the number 25 ?

    Spoken like a man who doesn't know how much of modern technology we owe to NASA...

  10. Piloti
    Pint

    Maybe in America....

    "" We all know that when you drive around, coverage isn't very good... "", but not in Blighty.

    Tut, pah.

    P.

  11. nobby

    ping time over sattelite comms

    I was part of a team implementing a system in Africa in the 90's. all well and good except the parent company wanted all the servers in Germany.

    And there was none of those skinny web clients in those days.It all seemed fine in early tests until we found out that the network (not internet, network) between Africa and Germany went via a satellite.

    So we had 4s ping time. minimum.

    Oh the joy, I remember it now! A bit like 'nam flashbacks only with the end-user's MD staring over your shoulder..

    Geo-synchronous-orbiting satellite communication could do with this protocol. I might still have hair if that had been the case.

  12. graeme leggett Silver badge

    @Alastair 7

    well NASA does make claims for its contribution but having quickly looked over their page on the subject (http://techtran.msfc.nasa.gov/at_home.html) most of their contribution appears to be the huge budget they were able to throw at companies to improve existing or develop new technology for them.

    nice to see them contributing to communications at last - they didn't invent the radio, microwave transmitter or the orbital satellite nor rocket launchers but they did have a big bag of money to bring them together to destroy America's enemies

  13. alyn

    DFS

    Kentucky fried chicken should be called DFS (Deep-Fried Shit)

  14. amanfromMars 1 Silver badge
    Pirate

    All your thoughts belong to us? Only in your dreams and nightmares, Bubba.

    "Spoken like a man who doesn't know how much of modern technology we owe to NASA..." ... By Alastair 7 Posted Friday 6th November 2009 01:36 GMT

    Alastair 7,

    The problem would appear to be that they would also too easily think to own the modern technology rather than release it and realise that IT has taken [it] over and would share it for free, so that all can benefit from what is there and what is to yet to be ....... with a Completely Different Mindset in Control for Increased and with Increasing Powers. And that is Failing in those who would sat at the top of the myriad pyramid schemes milking the Status Quo and New Worlds with Past Establishments and Old Cabals ...... Conspiring Elitists who are far too uncomfortably close to what is remembered as Fascist Nazism to be any different .... and it is well documented what happened to those misguided and arrogant fools/tools.

    And this is the sort of problem which immediately needs to be currently addressed, as it is a Relative Parallel. And unfortunately the UK also has heads-buried-deep-in-the-sand US type problems too, as you can read here .....

    <<< At 9:05 am on 6 Nov 2009, amanfromMars wrote:

    Stephanie,

    This is the rampaging bull/unresolved issue still running riot in the china shop and holding the world and his dog to ransom ........ http://market-ticker.denninger.net/archives/1588-Breaking-Up-The-Big-Banks.html ...... and ensuring that the System will destroy itself. >>> ... http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/stephanieflanders/2009/11/boxed_in.html

    Which when posted returned, as has been the case for some while now ......[There has been an unexpected problem. Please reload the page and try again] ...... and which of course, never resolves itself to succeed and allow for posting and public view on the BBC.

    Oh dear ...... The BBC still banning free speech from alien and/or dissenting voices, which only need to be voices asking pertinent/impertinent/inconvenient/uncomfortable valid questions on its publicly funded message boards ........ ergo is democracy abused for and with a dictatorial propaganda machine which would spin a false trail and failing tales. But that will be hardly new News to El Regers.

  15. Anonymous Coward
    Alien

    ..then how about UDP?

    If TCP is so problematic out there, so why not try UDP? You won't have to wait for an ACK.... NACK?

  16. Anonymous Coward
    Boffin

    Not the brightest?

    So they first tried TCP/IP - did they really need to try it to realise that was a non-starter? Heck, even the initial SYN/SYN-ACK/ACK would take between 10 minutes and an hour to Mars.

    TCP - is there anything it can't do? Interplanetary comms it seems.

  17. Hermes Conran
    Alien

    Great,

    Now we have tentacle enlargement spam to look forward to!

  18. OffBeatMammal
    Alien

    life imitating art...?

    didn't Victor Vinge already define a protocol that worked just like this for communications in a "Fire Upon The Deep" - http://bit.ly/21kigV

    Though it was even more challenging there as it had to deal with aggressively subverting alien hordes as well as different transmission speeds.

  19. gsthakur
    Terminator

    DTN in daily mobile networks

    It was indeed to see DTN coming to the our our daily mobile networks. Activities like Emergency Systems, Disaster Recovery can be benefited by this kind of framework. Since during these times, the infrastructure based communication is all but busted. So, a kind of ad hoc mobile to mobile communication would be much more of helpful. Good going from my side....

  20. Andy Gates

    Neat

    It'll be good for Devon too. Connectivity down here is a bag of old lady pants.

    Vint (you know, for years I thought that name couldn't be a person, it had to be an org) is wise when he talks about crowded mobilespace. Which would you rather do on New Year: text your Mum twenty times getting the failwhale, or text her once and let the machine do the drudgery of finding a gap in the traffic?

  21. peter 3

    More interesting

    If the information was only released on a need to know basis, like weapons stations on Mars they could mount a server half way and have it respond to queries in half the time it would take earth to respond.

  22. No, I will not fix your computer
    Grenade

    How about zero lag relays?

    Given that entangled qbits pass their information faster than the speed of light (instantly) over any distance a qbit relay (running a TCP/IP qbit bridge) could give earth/mars and mars/earth lag of no more than a local LAN.

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