CYBERSPACE — When UCLA professor Leonard Kleinrock helped facilitate the first online exchange of test data on September 2nd, 1969, he never imagined that it would lead to spam, pop-up windows, free tours, zombie computers, downloadable ring tones, wifi coffee houses, and a thriving hidden and legitimate online economies featuring products and services of seemingly infinite variety. Now the U.S. federal government and both domestic and Japanese researchers propose that the communication medium known as the internet needs to die – in order to save it.According to the Associated Press, Rutgers University professor Dipankar Raychaudhuri, who promotes a “clean slate” philosophy, believes that the internet “works well in many situations but was designed for completely different assumptions. It’s sort of a miracle that it continues to work well today.”

Currently heading three clean-slate projects, Raychaudhuri is only one of a growing number of academics who believe that faster connection speeds, more powerful personal computers, and ever increasing storage needs are rapidly making the current system’s architecture obsolete.

Whether accurate or not, developments this time around will likely not be as influence free as those enjoyed by Kleinrock and others.

While creating new software and replacing aging networking hardware, IT professionals will find themselves dealing with a variety of professional and political entities keenly invested in the post-internet’s social and economic future. With federal wiretapping all the rage, a new and improved electronic communication system will be of great interest to the government, and internet retailers will want a say in how their new and improved storefronts will be developed.

Among those preparing to brace themselves against a wave of influence are the National Science Foundation, Rutgers, Stanford, Princeton, Carnegie Mellon, and he Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Governmental entities tackling the project include the U.S. Defense Department. Internationally, the European Union supports the Future Internet Research and Experience (FIRE) program and Japanese communications minister Yoshihide Suga has announced that his country will also begin work on a more robust internet replacement technology.

Clear-slate supporters have a variety of projects under way that they believe address the cultural differences to be found in the online world since the 1970s/‘80s, when trust, open and flexible systems, and professional friendships were the norm – thus making it possible for crackers and spammers to enter the system and begin wreaking havoc.

Programs currently under way include Princeton’s PlanetLab, Carnegie Mellon’s 100 x 100, and the Global Environment for Network Innovations (GENI), being developed by the National Science Foundation, which is also funding several university projects through Future Internet Network Design (FIND), according to the AP. If Congress continues to fund the estimated $350 million GENI project, it is expected to bear fruit in 10 – 15 years, an eternity in tech time and desktop/mobile device development.

Meanwhile, Kleinrock isn’t sure the internet needs to be replaced, although he lauds the innovative thinking associated with the possibility. “I think GENI will almost surely not become the internet, but pieces of it might fold into the internet as it advances,” he proposes.

For more on clean-slate projects visit: geni.net, cleanslate.stanford.edu, 100x100network.org, and orbit-lab.org.