From the Scalable TCP paper and other networking papers I've been reading, many researchers seem to be doing research for an Internet that doesn't quite exist yet. For example, while Scalable TCP may only be useful for a small group of users in the current internet, as High Speed Internet becomes more and more popular, and it may take many years or decades to do so, I am sure Scalable TCP, and related research, will become more useful to a larger number of users. However, by that time, more and more researchers will probably be shifting their focus to interplanetary networks, which may or may not ever come to fruition (but it is still looking toward the future).
Of course, this may seem like an inherent part of research (looking towards the future), but only in these recent papers has the idea really stood out to me. For our networking research, we are looking at Network Tomography as a tool to infer Network Topology. The main reason why researchers claim to use this tool, instead of more active probing tools like traceroute, is in order to be able to continue mapping the Internet while the routers and users become less and less cooperative with network measurement tools. Essentially, it seems that the researchers are preparing for a future Internet where little or no cooperation will exist.
Note that I stated that the researchers claim this is their primary reason for research, but my professors believe that the networking techniques that they are proposing are very useful for mapping networks that certain users, such as governments, etc., don't want mapped. An idea that is useful today, while still preparing for the future. So now I ask myself where I should focus my research. Should I take a gamble and focus on research that may or may not be useful in the future? Or should I focus on research that is important for people now and may have future implications? Just some interesting things I have been thinking about.
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