The National Science Foundation wants to build an experimental research network known as the Global Environment for Network Innovations, or GENI, and is funding several projects at universities and elsewhere through Future Internet Network Design, or FIND. Rutgers, Stanford, Princeton, Carnegie Mellon and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology are among the universities pursuing individual projects. Other government agencies, including the Defense Department, have also been exploring the concept. The European Union has also backed research on such initiatives, through a program known as Future Internet Research and Experimentation, or FIRE. Government officials and researchers met last month in Zurich to discuss early findings and goals. A new network could run parallel with the current Internet and eventually replace it, or perhaps aspects of the research could go into a major overhaul of the existing architecture. Why??? Cozy world of researchers in the 1970s and 1980s doesn't necessarily mesh with the realities and needs of the commercial Internet. "The network is now mission critical for too many people, when in the (early days) it was just experimental,". The Internet's early architects built the system on the principle of trust. Researchers largely knew one another, so they kept the shared network open and flexible ? qualities that proved key to its rapid growth. But spammers and hackers arrived as the network expanded and could roam freely because the Internet doesn't have built-in mechanisms for knowing with certainty who sent what. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18095186/ Thanks & Regards, Farooque Shaheen, Tel. 080-26678388 Ext. 4105 VOIP- 40366 -- This message has been scanned for viruses and dangerous content by MailScanner, and is believed to be clean.