IPv6 the NEXT Internet
Who would have guessed that the sleepy little backwoods Virginia town, Harrisonburg, would become the focus of a global telecommunications revolution. While it wasn't really news to all of us, it certainly is news -- we will be the first site in the country to test the next generation of the Internet -- IPv6.
On Tuesday, (August 15, 2006) U.S. Rep. Bob Goodlatte, hosted and sponsored the 2006 Innovation and Technology conference at James Madison University (JMU) here in Harrisonburg. Highlighting the conference was Mark Bayliss, CEO of World Airwaves and Robert Cresanti, Under Secretary of Commerce for Technology.
(Above: Bayliss, Cresanti, Bayliss, Goodlatte)
IPv6 is to broadband, as broadband is to dial-up
The Harrisonburg Downtown Technology Zone will have IPv6 by August 31 or early September, according to Jim Barnes, Harrisonburg’s assistant economic development director for technology.
Bayliss, founder of World Airwaves began in in the early 1990s, as a leading-edge, Winchester, VA, internet dial-up guru. Since then he has propagated dedicated server hosting all over the world and has pioneered in areas such as peer-to-peer, security and anti-spam development. He comments:
"Since this [Harrisonburg] is the first location for IPv6 in the United States, it will be the vision of what the future of the Internet will look like and the people who are on the Internet here will see and be part of the first project."
In a nutshell, IPv6 offers almost infinite IP addresses, and assigns each communication device a unique address. It's capacity to 'multi-cast' on a peer-to-peer basis, eliminates the redundant packet delivery of the current, 20-year old IPv4.
The End of Spam
The overwhelming benefit of this new technology is trackable accountability. Since IPv6 forces unique IP addresses, each email and each communication between any IP-based device, (computers, cell phones, maglabels, etc.,) will be accurately and instantly trackable. Organized crime, terrorist organizations, phishers and spammers will no longer be able to forge headers in email. Law enforcement will be able to track criminal activities to the exact device and location of the crooks!
This marks the very beginnings of a totally new era for the 'connected' world -- and you can bet we will be reporting more on this emerging technology.
References:
* WSHV News, Shane Symolon
* DNR Online, Dan Wright
* CIO Today, CA
* GCN.com, DC
* GCN.com, Aug 14, 2006
