At the recent IEEE Summit, co-located with the Smart Cities Week in Rabat, Morocco, Professor Latif Ladid, President and Co-Founder of the IPv6 Forum presented attendees with the history of Internet protocols, drawing conclusions for the current state of the Internet.
We caught up with Prof Ladid, asking him about the deficiencies of the current Internet and why the switch to an Internet that is solely based on IPv6 can tackle these deficiencies – and where blockchain technology fits in.
A simple explanation of how the current Internet (IPv4) works vs. IPv6
Prof Ladid explains the current Internet model, or IPv4, as such: ‘Instead of having end-to-end or peer-to-peer communication like we have on the phone, there’s an inbetweener, or intermediary. This inbetweener manages communications as the master while relegating other parties to the role of slaves. The master decides who gets to talk and when they need to shut up.’
The original design of the Internet entailed that big mainframes would talk to each other directly. With the Telecom world that has joined, users don’t get IP addresses, but rather dynamic, if not only private IP addresses. This makes Internet users slaves instead of masters in the connection.
‘With IPV6, we have restored this into a model so that people can talk to each other directly.’ Prof Ladid points out that this restoration of the original Internet model is very important for applications like blockchain, which is likely to be one of the first and biggest adopters of IPv6, given the functionalities it unlocks.
Why the current Internet is deficient for a Data Economy
How does IPv6 apply to IoT applications?
Prof Ladid states that, in the area of I.T., you don’t want to have an intermediary who is managing communications between IoT devices, especially if you have thousands of them implemented. Devices should speak directly to each other and then just send you the data that enlightens your decision-making. ‘All of these devices should serve us. We are not there to coach and manage them.’
For Prof Ladid, this move back to the original idea of the Internet intersects with the BSV blockchain’s return to the original design of Bitcoin and blockchain, making it an opportune time to achieve maximum efficiencies through concurrent implementation.
‘I think we will see in the hype curve that IPV6 and the BSV blockchain are on the same curve going upwards towards a boom. They are going to be very good roommates in conquering the Internet in a very big style,’ he advocates.
The build up towards an Internet-blockchain revolution
According to Prof Ladid, we are only seeing the start of this concurrent boom of blockchain and IPv6. And yet, blockchain is already delivering tremendous value to the economy. He references the US agricultural supply chain where 40 per cent of food is wasted, which is reflected in the price the consumer has to fork out and results in the farmers losing out on full compensation for their harvests.
‘Traditionally, farmers would sell directly to the end users without someone in between, an intermediary,’ he says, drawing a parallel with financial third-parties that take a huge cut of money just as the agricultural supply chain takes a chunk out of products.
In his view, these inefficiencies are building critical mass towards a massive redefinition of the supply chain, especially in the food supply where there’s pressure to feed a growing world population. He sees the same applying to all the logistical industries, such as car manufacture.
Bringing in blockchain technology and IPv6, Prof Ladid sees these peer-to-peer models linking producers and consumers directly reducing the pain of producers, especially farmers, but also the pressure on end users.
Prof Ladid is very optimistic about the next five years, expecting to see a lot of large projects developing in this area. ‘We can do it far better with IPv6 – for the entire planet, not only for certain users. It will touch every single industry that is looking for data transparency as well as tracking, tracing and so forth. And today the world needs some application that creates peace amongst people.’
Attend a BSV blockchain event near you
The Association for the BSV blockchain is the global industry organisation that supports the BSV blockchain. You can read our recap of the Global IEEE 5G-IoT Blockchain Summit in Rabat, and head over to our events page to see similar events in your geographic location.