CHINA SET TO DOMINATE INTERNET REVOLUTION:
Privacy, security and other major implications
Wednesday 23 August 2007

The next internet revolution has already begun, and the innovators in this field are set to reap the commercial benefits.

"With the first generation Internet, China always seemed to be playing catch-up with the US, but now it hopes to gain what is known in business circles as 'first mover advantage'. The US holds almost 1.3 billion or 30% of all potential Internet Protocol addresses, and it is thought that this comfort zone is partly responsible for their sluggishness in moving to the next version", conference organiser Dr Xiaojun Wang said.

This is one of the topics under discussion at a major telecommunications conference being held at DCU. Over 60 academics and industrialists from China will attend. The conference was held last year in Hangzhou in China, and next year will be held in Beijing to coincide with the Olympic Games.

According to Dr Martin Collier, Senior Lecturer in the School of Electronic Engineering at DCU, "China's pre-eminence at conferences of this kind serve to highlight their emergence as a major player in Information and Communications Technology. China is forging ahead in the area of space technology, for example, but another priority is the Internet".

The new technology development is called Internet Protocol version 6 or IPv6. Internet Protocol is a language that computers use to communicate with each other. The version that is currently used is called Version 4 and was developed in the US. The new version, Version 6, is slowly taking over and is set to have major consequences on many aspects of our lives.

The main improvement of Version 6 is that there are more internet addresses available. "Your internet address is the internet equivalent of a telephone number. I need to know your address to contact you over the internet. With far more addresses to hand out, we could, for instance, connect every lightbulb in the world to the internet. It would be possible to turn the lights on and off in your house from a hotel in Australia", said Dr Collier.

In time, when all computers are able to understand the new language, there will be an almost limitless number of internet destinations available. These will potentially include every single electrical device or machine from household appliances (fridges, kettles, washing machines), communications devices (i.e. mobile phones, computers) medical devices (i.e.heart monitors), surveillance cameras, motor vehicles (taxis, lorries), etc.

"There are, however, privacy implications with this development. While a hospital could monitor the heart condition of patients wearing monitors, the same technology could also allow your medical insurance company to monitor your heart and could, in theory, refuse you cover if the patient were shown to be 'high risk'", said Dr Collier.

Another implication is security. Using Version 6, it would be possible for the police to connect to every surveillance camera in the world. However, according to Dr Collier, we have already allowed webcams, camera phones and surveillance cameras to intrude on our privacy without considering the implications.

"Importantly, the Irish government have invested in telecommunications research and have funded RINCE (Research Institute for Networks and Communications Engineering) at DCU. Because of this investment, China is willing to cooperate with Ireland in its research. However, it is important that second- and third-level students appreciate the tremendous opportunities there are for engineers in the communications area, particularly the Internet. We all use it, but knowing how it works and being involved in how it shapes our world is the exciting part", Dr Collier said.

The China-Ireland International Conference on Information and Communications Technologies, runs on the 28th and 29th of August at Dublin City University. Professor Yan Ma of the Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications will present a paper on the China Next Generation Internet project.