Pentagon to Move to Next-Generation Internet

The Defense Department said on Friday it planned to link its high-tech weaponry, battlefield sensors and other communications systems to an upgraded Internet operating system within five years.

John Stenbit, the Pentagon's chief information officer, said the current system, which the Defense Department helped develop decades ago, was too limited to meet the needs of today's technology-driven armed forces.

It was not secure enough and was too prone to dropping information "packets" used in such things as videoconferencing, he told reporters. Another shortcoming, he said, was the limited, telephone-like numbering system that underpins familiar domain names such as www.yahoo.com.

Stenbit said the Pentagon planned a five-year switchover to the new system, or protocol, because he expected a majority of cellphones, laptops and other devices that connect to the Internet to use the new approach by then.

"My best guess is that it's going to happen commercially before 2008 or I wouldn't have chosen 2008," he told reporters. "If we don't start buying the stuff today, we're in trouble whenever it happens."

The Internet's current operating system, IPv4, has been in use for almost 30 years by the Defense Department.

The new standard, known as Internet Protocol Version 6, or IPv6, being developed by an independent standard-setting body, will help glue together the key components of the Defense Department's so-called Global Information Grid -- its sensors, weapons, aircraft, information systems and digitally linked forces.

The evolution toward the new standard must be taken into account for all purchases starting Oct. 1, Stenbit, assistant secretary of defense for networks and information integration, told the armed services in a memo.

Source: Reuters, Washington

 

good maybe now they will stay out of civilian internet

 

Oh, man! That means they are going to be coming after software pirates with cruise missles. Download an MP3 and get nuked by a sub. B1 bombers dropping their load on the inet cafe's of China and Bangkok.

Sheesh!!!

 

Yep. and you have to know the project is sponsored by the Anti Piracy Lobby...