Craig Wright to speak at influential IEEE Future Networks Forum

Dr. Craig S. Wright will speak at the IEEE 5th Future Networks World Forum in Montreal in October 2022. The annual event looks at how information technology networks will advance and work to benefit society into the future, particularly 5G wireless networks and beyond. With Bitcoin aiming to play a large part in network advancement as IPv6 takes over, it’s another chance to override misinformation campaigns and showcase its advantages.

The IEEE Future Networks Committee’s Honorary Chair is Vint Cerf, who co-developed the TCP/IP protocol with Bob Kahn. Professor Latif Ladid, who spoke recently at the Global Blockchain Convention in Dubai, is a Founding co-chair.

The Future Networks World Forum (FNWF) is an event that brings together experts from academia and research as well as industry to present on how best to “nurture and cultivate future network technologies and applications.” It is currently inviting participants and paper submissions.

“These systems should unveil a novel mobile network architecture that not only improves physical data rate, but also creates a new ecosystem allowing the deployment of novel services and applications.”

Bitcoin certainly counts among those novel services and applications. Although a formal “economic layer” for the internet is not new (payments were planned to be built in as the network moved towards open/public use) it was never developed. Instead, since 1993 the worldwide web has relied on bolted-on systems to accommodate credit cards and other payment methods to support its massive economy—solutions that have often been clunky, insecure, and vulnerable to hacks and fraud.

Having a Bitcoin protocol that integrates with features of IPv6, the latest version of the internet’s communication protocol, would help create an economic revolution. IPv6 makes it possible to provide a unique IP address to hundreds of billions of users, both human and electronic. IPv6’s ability to generate keys and encrypt header information makes transferring data more secure and private; perfect for Bitcoin in a world where simplified payment verification (SPV) becomes more widely used. Finally, payments and other secure data transfers can be done directly from IP to IP, at high speed and low cost.

Yes, Bitcoin is like the early Internet

Comparisons between Bitcoin and early internet development are so frequent they’re almost a cliche. However, these comparisons usually look at public understanding and user adoption. There are even more parallels to be found in their behind-the-scenes histories and technical development. These include personal rivalries and betrayals, disputes over governance and what to include in set protocols (and who deserves recognition), as well as the influential roles played by government and private business.

Vint Cerf, like Craig Wright, also faced some uphill battles as he co-developed the TCP/IP protocol. TCP/IP became the standard for military networking in 1980 and then for civilian networks from 1982 (and the entire ARPANET from 1983). However, government funding to develop ARPANET dried up in the mid-1980s as the military and other civilian supercomputing networks separated, and ARPANET was phased out between then and 1990, when it was formally decommissioned. Cerf wrote a lamentation called “Requiem of the ARPANET” at the time. It contained the lines:

“It was the first, and being first, was best, but now we lay it down to ever rest.”

Cerf and Kahn left to start a non-profit company called CNRI, which lobbied industry and government to create a more useful computing network for public and commercial use. Eventually, Congress passed the High Performance Computing and Communication Act in 1991, authored by Al Gore (yes, he does deserve some credit here) who coined the term “information superhighway.”

Bitcoin was also the first, and best, blockchain protocol. As BSV, it retains that protocol to this day. Unlike the ARPANET, we get to keep it around in its original form. It has its enemies and rivals in the form of crippled BTC and jerry-rigged “smart contract” blockchain networks like Ethereum and Solana. Some of these rivals have powerful industry and financial backing, which is reflected in their PR campaigns—but confidence in blockchain is currently low as their speculative markets continue to crash, clearing the way for Bitcoin (BSV) to re-emerge as the rational and responsible way to build an internet economy.