WEBVTT 00:00:00.995 --> 00:00:12.702 (Music) 00:00:12.702 --> 00:00:16.082 (Applause) 00:00:16.082 --> 00:00:20.855 Some time ago, a man named Bob Metcalfe invented the Ethernet, 00:00:20.855 --> 00:00:25.133 in 1973, about a mile and a half from where I was working at Stanford, 00:00:25.133 --> 00:00:26.874 working on the Internet. 00:00:26.874 --> 00:00:32.972 And a few years later, Bob announced that the Internet was going to experience a gigalapse, 00:00:32.972 --> 00:00:35.228 and he published an article on the subject. 00:00:35.228 --> 00:00:36.939 And it didn't happen. 00:00:36.939 --> 00:00:40.863 And, to his credit, he took his newspaper article, 00:00:40.863 --> 00:00:43.925 ran it in a blender, and ate it on the stage. 00:00:43.925 --> 00:00:45.164 (Laughter) 00:00:45.164 --> 00:00:48.291 After first checking to see if the ink might be toxic or not. 00:00:48.291 --> 00:00:49.172 June Cohen: (Laughs) 00:00:49.172 --> 00:00:54.352 Vint Cerf: Now, it's absolutely true that the Internet is getting bigger and bigger, 00:00:54.352 --> 00:00:56.441 and more and more ubiquitous. 00:00:56.441 --> 00:01:00.570 It's going to be in just about every appliance we can think of. 00:01:00.570 --> 00:01:04.428 The question is, does that mean it's all going to collapse? 00:01:04.428 --> 00:01:06.033 I don't think so. 00:01:06.033 --> 00:01:09.426 But I am willing to accept the proposition that 00:01:09.426 --> 00:01:11.419 we should think about that. 00:01:11.419 --> 00:01:16.578 Already there are changes being made to the Internet to make it more resilient, 00:01:16.578 --> 00:01:18.605 to make it more resistant to some of the problems 00:01:18.605 --> 00:01:20.638 that you see in the headlines every day. 00:01:20.638 --> 00:01:24.491 This is not a static system. 00:01:24.491 --> 00:01:26.386 This thing is still evolving, 00:01:26.386 --> 00:01:29.563 Even though the design was done 40 years ago, 00:01:29.563 --> 00:01:32.328 it has evolved over that period of time, 00:01:32.328 --> 00:01:34.441 and it continues to change. 00:01:34.441 --> 00:01:38.446 That's the one thing that makes this network so unusual, 00:01:38.446 --> 00:01:42.366 it wasn't designed to do any thing in particular. 00:01:42.366 --> 00:01:45.486 And that's why it's been able to do almost anything 00:01:45.486 --> 00:01:47.887 we can think of to program. 00:01:47.887 --> 00:01:53.444 So I'm ready for Plan B, if Danny has a specific idea, 00:01:53.444 --> 00:01:57.405 but I have the feeling that by making it more and more ubiquitous, 00:01:57.405 --> 00:02:00.843 it's going to be pretty hard to shut it down. 00:02:00.843 --> 00:02:03.413 When you look at all the things that happen, 00:02:03.413 --> 00:02:06.261 the various and sundry attacks, which really do happen, 00:02:06.261 --> 00:02:09.339 the malware that floats through the network, and everything else, 00:02:09.339 --> 00:02:13.242 aren't you amazed that it still works? 00:02:13.242 --> 00:02:15.471 I mean, look, if you know too much about something 00:02:15.471 --> 00:02:17.543 it's always astonishing that it works at all. 00:02:17.543 --> 00:02:19.613 Every time I get a web page that comes up, 00:02:19.613 --> 00:02:20.836 I'm sitting here thinking 00:02:20.836 --> 00:02:23.284 "Holy Crap, it actually worked." 00:02:23.284 --> 00:02:24.959 (Laughter) 00:02:24.959 --> 00:02:27.341 And, you know, when you know all the things that have to happen, 00:02:27.341 --> 00:02:29.434 you think "Ha! That's impossible." 00:02:29.434 --> 00:02:32.160 So, it has been stunningly resilient. 00:02:32.160 --> 00:02:35.264 It has grown by a factor of a million or more, 00:02:35.264 --> 00:02:38.539 since it was first turned on in 1983, 00:02:38.539 --> 00:02:41.864 but something new could come along. 00:02:41.864 --> 00:02:43.469 I'll give you a good example. 00:02:43.469 --> 00:02:46.235 There was this thing called the telephone network. 00:02:46.235 --> 00:02:49.556 It was invented around 1876. 00:02:49.556 --> 00:02:53.823 Today, the telephone network is turning into the Internet, 00:02:53.823 --> 00:02:56.820 because all the voice is being run over IP, and everything else. 00:02:56.820 --> 00:02:59.610 So that means you can build a big thing, 00:02:59.610 --> 00:03:01.788 and that doesn't mean something else won't come along. 00:03:01.788 --> 00:03:05.735 So it may not be Plan B to preserve the Internet, 00:03:05.735 --> 00:03:09.614 it may be Plan C to invent something new. 00:03:09.614 --> 00:03:12.913 Actually I believe it would be prudent to do two things. 00:03:12.913 --> 00:03:16.954 One of them we've already started doing, this is called "clean sheet." 00:03:16.954 --> 00:03:19.918 The question is, what if we started over and redesigned the network, 00:03:19.918 --> 00:03:21.301 what would we do differently? 00:03:21.301 --> 00:03:26.247 I know one thing I would do, I'd pick 128-bit address space instead of 32 -- 00:03:26.247 --> 00:03:30.280 JC: Who wouldn't? VC: -- so we wouldn't have to go through the IPv6 transition. 00:03:30.280 --> 00:03:33.371 And I'd also work hard on more security. 00:03:33.371 --> 00:03:38.372 But, nonetheless, I think that the clean sheet phenomenon, 00:03:38.372 --> 00:03:40.523 the clean sheet exercise, lets you do two things. 00:03:40.523 --> 00:03:43.070 It lets you see what would you do differently, what would it look like, 00:03:43.070 --> 00:03:44.671 and then you can ask, well, 00:03:44.671 --> 00:03:47.805 can I retrofit any of those ideas into the existing network? 00:03:47.805 --> 00:03:49.654 That's happening. 00:03:49.654 --> 00:03:52.781 The second thing, I think, is to ask the question, 00:03:52.781 --> 00:03:56.043 what could I do to create a communication environment 00:03:56.043 --> 00:03:57.835 that's even better than the Internet? 00:03:57.835 --> 00:04:00.740 I don't know what the answer is, although it might turn out to be 00:04:00.740 --> 00:04:05.328 quantum communication, which the physicists tell us is not possible, 00:04:05.328 --> 00:04:07.716 but then, they told us a lot of things are not possible, 00:04:07.716 --> 00:04:11.493 so, who knows? In 10 years' time maybe we will see something different. 00:04:11.493 --> 00:04:14.995 Right now, I think we'll manage okay.