This project investigates a new Internet architecture called Named Data Networking (NDN). NDN capitalizes on strengths - and addresses weaknesses - of the Internet's current host-based, point-to-point communication architecture in order to naturally accommodate emerging patterns of communication. By naming data instead of their location, NDN transforms data into a first-class entity.
While the current Internet secures the data container (i.e., the communication channel), NDN secures the contents itself. Thanks to this design choice, trust in data is decoupled from trust in hosts, enabling several radically scalable communication mechanisms such as automatic caching to optimize bandwidth.
The project studies the technical challenges that must be addressed to validate NDN as a future Internet architecture: routing scalability, fast forwarding, trust models, network security, content protection and privacy, and fundamental communication theory. The project uses end-to-end testbed deployments, simulation, and theoretical analysis to evaluate the proposed architecture, and is developing specifications and prototype implementations of NDN protocols and applications.
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