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The Beginnings and Prospective Ending of âEnd-to-Endâ: An Evolutionary Perspective On the Internetâs Architecture
The technology of âthe Internetâ is not static. Although its âend-to- endâ architecture has made this âconnection-lessâ communications system readily âextensible,â and highly encouraging to innovation both in hardware and software applications, there are strong pressures for engineering changes. Some of these are wanted to support novel transport services (e.g. voice telephony, real-time video); others would address drawbacks that appeared with opening of the Internet to public and commercial traffic - e.g., the difficulties of blocking delivery of offensive content, suppressing malicious actions (e.g. âdenial of serviceâ attacks), pricing bandwidth usage to reduce congestion. The expected gains from making âimprovementsâ in the core of the network should be weighed against the loss of the social and economic benefits that derive from the âend-to-endâ architectural design. Even where technological âfixesâ can be placed at the networksâ edges, the option remains to search for alternative, institutional mechanisms of governing conduct in cyberspace.
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