| Fragments Internet Policy Institute Launched The creation of the new think tank was announced by Jim Barksdale, former CEO of Netscape, Vint Cerf, Senior Vice President of Internet Architecture of MCI WorldCom, Esther Dyson, author and Chairman of EDventure Holdings, Inc., Mario Morino, Chairman of The Morino Institute, and Kimberly Jenkins, President of the Internet Policy Institute. The new, nonprofit think tank will employ well-known experts and scholars to research subjects ranging from the role of the Internet in privacy to the Internet's impact on taxation and health care. "The Internet is surrounded by noise, hype, rumors, marketing, IPOs and the hopes of starry-eyed start-ups, but there is very little hard data on which policymakers can base critical decisions that will determine the future of the new medium and how it affects society," said Barksdale, co-chairman of the Internet Policy Institute's Board of Directors. Wayne Clough, President of Georgia Tech, is his co-chairman. "The speed at which society has adopted the Internet is unprecedented," said Cerf, who was Chairman and founding president of the Internet Society, as well as one of the designers of the TCP/IP protocol. "If, as we expect, half the world will be online within the next four years, we must make sure that the policy decisions we make now are based on solid, well-researched data." The Institute announced its first research project, to be undertaken in collaboration with The Brookings Institution, on "The Economic Pay-off from the Internet Revolution." The research will be led by Alice Rivlin, former vice chair of the Federal Reserve System's Board of Directors and former Office of Management and Budget director, now with the Brookings Institution, and Robert E. Litan, Vice President and Director of Economic Studies at The Brookings Institution and former associate director of the Office of Management and Budget. The research will produce the first comprehensive, systematic economic study by an independent research group of the subject. The nature and extent of the impact is of special importance to macro-economic policy specifically monetary policy to the extent that the Net is having or will have a material and sustained impact on the growth rate of productivity. The impact the Net has on specific industries, and the way it affects barriers to entry, has important implications for antitrust and regulatory policy. Exactly one year before the next presidential election, the Internet Policy Institute also announced its first publications project, "Briefing the President: What the Next President of the United States Needs to Know About the Internet and Its Transformative Impact on Society." The Institute also released the introduction to the project by Barksdale, while Cerf outlined the contents of the next paper, "What is the Internet (and What Makes It Work)" that will be released December 1. Over the course of the coming months, the Institute will release 13 papers to be presented in briefings to all the leading presidential contenders and later compiled into a book. "We didn't know five years ago the direction that the Internet would take," Barksdale said. "I'll bet that five years from now, we'll be surprised by its new directions. We need to assure that an honest, objective approach is taken on Internet issues, to prevent decision making that hinders the potential of this amazing medium," he said. For more information see: http://www.internetpolicy.org APRICOT 2000 More on Web Caching ICANN Update
At the annual meeting in early November, nine new directors joined the ICANN Board of Directors. They are Robert Blokzij, Ken Fockler and Pindar Wong named by the The Address Supporting Organization (ASO); Amadeu Abril i Abril, Jonathan Cohen and Alejandro Pisanty named by the Domain Name Supporting Organization (DNSO); Jean-Frangois Abramatic, Vinton G. Cerf and Philip Davidson named by the Protocol Supporting Organization (PSO). Interplanetary Internet Special Interest Group Formed The CCSDS organization is primarily concerned with communications standardization for scientific satellites, with a primary focus on the needs of near-term missions. In order to extend this horizon out several decades, and to begin to involve the terrestrial internet research and engineering communities, a special Interplanetary Internet Study was proposed and subsequently funded in the United States. The Interplanetary Internet Study is funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's Next Generation Internet Initiative, and presently consists of a core team of researchers from the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, MITRE Corporation, SPARTA, Global Science & Technology and consulting researchers from The University of Southern California Information Sciences Institute, University of California Los Angeles and the California Institute of Technology. The primary goal of the study is to investigate how terrestrial internet protocols and techniques may be extended and/or used as is in the exploration of deep space. The study team has also founded the IPNSIG and has formed the core of an Interplanetary Internet Research Group under the sponsorship of the Internet Research Task Force (IRTF). The NASA IPN Study Team will act as liaison between the satellite and space communities and the ISOC/IRTF communities. The NASA IPN Study Team will assist with requirements and understanding of the deep space environment and missions, while the primary research on new or modified protocols will be conducted by the IRTF. In addition, the NASA Study Team will also act as liaison with the CCSDS. The NASA Study Team will also enable simulated and actual opportunities to test protocols and the use of internet techniques in the space environment. For more information, visit: http://www.ipnsig.org
The Internet Protocol Journal Editorial Advisory Board Dr. Vint Cerf , Sr. VP, Internet Architecture and Engineering MCI WorldCom, USA The Internet Protocol Journal is published quarterly by the Cisco News Publications Group, Cisco Systems, Inc. www.cisco.com Copyright © 1999 Cisco Systems Inc. All rights reserved. Printed in the USA. |