The Infrastructure for Resilient Internet Systems (IRIS) will solve technical problems with existing P2P networks such as Gnutella and KaZaA and speed up searches and information transfer over the internet.
P2P isn’t always a dirty acronym it seems with news that the US government – that’s right the Feds – is currently funding the development of a new P2P network to someday even supersede the web itself.
Dubbed the Infrastructure for Resilient Internet Systems (IRIS), the goal of the P2P network is to speed up searches and information transfer over the internet and to discourage DDOS attacks by hackers.
What the network aims to do is make information as redundant as possible so that users don’t have to rely on a single server for data. They can instead rely on its popularity and the resulting duplication that thereby shares the traffic load over a number of hosts.
“It will stop servers from crashing under Denial of Service attacks,” says Hari Balakrishnan, a computer scientist based at MIT and a principal researcher on the project.
The technical problems evident in existing P2P networks that the team seeks to overcome center mainly around the fact that it’s de-centralized nature make search queries slow and irregular. With no central server in place keeping track of all the data users are tasked to fill the gap, and with obviously less than optimal results.
It’s design criteria is three-fold:
- That as long as there is no physical break in the network the target file will always be found.
- That adding more information to the network will not affect its performance.
- That machines can be added and removed from the network without any noticeable adverse affects.
“There is no single network that meets all these three properties as yet,” said Balakrishnan.
Balakrishnan and his colleagues are developing a news search algorithm that will find a file on IRIS quickly with minimal increases in search time as total data storage size grows with the popularity of the network.
Balakrishnan hopes that IRIS will eventually be adopted globally as a default standard for information exchange. “We think IRIS should be used for more than just file sharing,” he says.
Oddly enough he is going to great lengths to develop algorithms for IRIS that will prevent censorship and content filtering to ensure the free flow of information. “People are working in our team to prevent removal of information,” he says. “I am not interested in censoring the publishing of information.”
This means that file-sharing will have a home in IRIS making its debut all the more anticipated by some and dreaded by others. Balakrishan points out that it’s his job not to guarantee that it follows the laws of man, but instead those of science. “How do you prevent people from doing bad things? I don’t think this is a technical problem,” says Balakrishnan.
IRIS will be developed over the next five years by researchers from five colleges and universities that include MIT and the University of California at Berkeley using a $12 million USD grant funded by the National Science Foundation.
After discussing before how China appears to be leading the way in P2P and file-sharing services due to its relaxed regulatory environment regarding copyright laws and enforcement, this is welcome news. The US may continue to be one of the pioneers in P2P and file-sharing services after all thanks to the very same government that has made P2P and file-sharing a developers nightmare and a copyright lawyers dream.
Moreover, stay tuned. We may just be entering a new file-sharing age, one where data is transferred quickly, anonymously, and on a global scale. Lookout BitTorrent, IRIS is coming!
[Via the New Scientist]
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News Tip? Comment? Suggestion? jared@zeropaid.com
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Storm
lol the us goverment never faze’s me… and what does the RIAA think of this…
I doubt the RIAA or MPAA are jumping for joy over this if what he says is true about it’s neutrality. But I think the net should be neutral. It is not the ISP or ICANN’s job to “police”the net.
If the RIAA and MPAA and others who do not like what is happening maybe they ought to change there tactics a bit and actually treat their customers like people instead of potential criminals.
Still….the warning bell going off in my head has to make me wonder if the US Governments intentions are really sincere when it comes to actually creating another internet with p2p and making it neutral!
After all…this is the same Government that has supported big business in the past and congress is in their pocket.
So it makes me really suspicious as to why the US Government would want to make a totally anonomyous system that would make it just that much harder for copyright holders to catch people they think violated their works?
Remember some time ago when there was talk about the US separating their internet from the rest of the world or vice versa due to this whole copyright muddling?
Look what they’re doing now
Watch out next thing you know the states might very well be known as the internet hermit country.
The assumption here is that the common folk will have access to this. Maybe not. Application for the government that wants to control its citizens: files on all of us that can be instantly shared among government agencies. Imagine if the Nazis had had this. Don’t celebrate too soon!
If it comes from the government it will be another attempt to destroy the neutrality of the internet and spy on it’s users. Simple as that.
I think I agree with John Milton. Why else would the government be doing this while implying that the Average Joe could be using it eventually?
What? Distributed Web Pages? Is that what this is IRC is Ok it’s a bit like that isn’t it? Have no idea what they are talking about but would like some funding too help. Please send money to (available on request). 5 years programming experience and discover of the ultimate shape : the sphere. I’ll need about a million and will require about 3 hours break a day.
Of course I won’t waste it on crack that’s for Fridays.
someday we will be telling our children or grandchildren about the “good ole’ days” of the Internet and P2P and freedom online.
i am just amazed that this article is here. i mean alex jones has been talking about the u.s. gov plans to create a “new network” to replace the internet and then destroy the old one as to gain total control over it.
so here it is. the proof. once again alex jones is right. *sigh* that’s a really scary realization.
Alex Jones is right the govt is spending big money to create an alternative network that can be managed by THEM. Things were just fine for the few who controlled the the many until the internet and its accompanying free flow info. Now it seeems their controlled media is not so effective in shaping people’s opinions as much as they (The ruling elite) would like. Suddenly people have opinions of their own and there is talk even of rebellion.
Where as the communist used sheer force to push their populations into submission the so called democratic US govt folks had the media as their power stick. Without that stick they could loose all.
Enjoy thre freedom while it lasts.