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TO LEAD OR TO FOLLOW: THE NEXT GENERATION INTERNET AND THE TRANSITION TO IPv6

HEARING

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON

GOVERNMENT REFORM

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

JUNE 29, 2005

Serial No. 109–41

Printed for the use of the Committee on Government Reform

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpoaccess.gov/congress/index.html

http://www.house.gov/reform

(II)

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM

TOM DAVIS, Virginia, Chairman

CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut

DAN BURTON, Indiana

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida

JOHN M. MCHUGH, New York

JOHN L. MICA, Florida

GIL GUTKNECHT, Minnesota

MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio

TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania

CHRIS CANNON, Utah

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee

CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan

MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio

DARRELL E. ISSA, California

GINNY BROWN-WAITE, Florida

JON C. PORTER, Nevada

KENNY MARCHANT, Texas

LYNN A. WESTMORELAND, Georgia

PATRICK T. MCHENRY, North Carolina

CHARLES W. DENT, Pennsylvania

VIRGINIA FOXX, North Carolina

——— ———

HENRY A. WAXMAN, California

TOM LANTOS, California

MAJOR R. OWENS, New York

EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York

PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland

DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri

DIANE E. WATSON, California

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts

CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland

LINDA T. SANCHEZ, California

C.A. DUTCH RUPPERSBERGER, Maryland

BRIAN HIGGINS, New York

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of

Columbia

———

BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont

(Independent)

MELISSA WOJCIAK, Staff Director

DAVID MARIN, Deputy Staff Director/Communications Director

ROB BORDEN, Parliamentarian

TERESA AUSTIN, Chief Clerk

PHIL BARNETT, Minority Chief of Staff/Chief Counsel

(III)

C O N T E N T S

Page

Hearing held on June 29, 2005 ............................................................................... 1

Statement of:

Curran, John, chairman, American Registry for Internet Numbers; Jawad

Khaki, corporate vice president, Microsoft Corp.; Stan Barber, vice

president, Verio, Inc.; and Alex Lightman, chief executive officer,

Charmed Technologies, Inc. ......................................................................... 56

Barber, Stan .............................................................................................. 83

Curran, John .............................................................................................. 56

Khaki, Jawad ............................................................................................. 65

Lightman, Alex .......................................................................................... 91

Evans, Karen, Administrator, Electronic Government and Information

Technology, Office of Management and Budget; David Powner, Director,

Information Technology Management Issues, Government Accountability Office; Keith Rhodes, Chief Technologist and Director, Center for

Technology and Engineering, Government Accountability Office; George

Wauer, Director, Architecture and Interoperability, Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Networks and Information Integration

and Office of the Chief Information Officer, U.S. Department of Defense, accompanied by Major General Dennis Moran, Vice Director,

Command, Control, Communications and Computer Systems, Joint

Chiefs of Staff, U.S. Department of Defense .............................................. 11

Evans, Karen, ............................................................................................ 11

Powner, David ........................................................................................... 18

Rhodes, Keith ............................................................................................ 45

Wauer, George ........................................................................................... 45

Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:

Barber, Stan, vice president, Verio, Inc., prepared statement of ................. 86

Cummings, Hon. Elijah E., a Representative in Congress from the State

of Maryland, prepared statement of ............................................................ 109

Curran, John, chairman, American Registry for Internet Numbers, prepared statement of ........................................................................................ 59

Davis, Chairman Tom, a Representative in Congress from the State of

Virginia, prepared statement of ................................................................... 4

Evans, Karen, Administrator, Electronic Government and Information

Technology, Office of Management and Budget, prepared statement

of ..................................................................................................................... 14

Khaki, Jawad, corporate vice president, Microsoft Corp., prepared statement of ........................................................................................................... 67

Lightman, Alex, chief executive officer, Charmed Technologies, Inc., prepared statement of ........................................................................................ 94

Porter, Hon. Jon C., a Representative in Congress from the State of

Nevada, prepared statement of .................................................................... 108

Powner, David, Director, Information Technology Management Issues,

Government Accountability Office, prepared statement of ....................... 19

Wauer, George, Director, Architecture and Interoperability, Office of the

Assistant Secretary of Defense for Networks and Information Integration and Office of the Chief Information Officer, U.S. Department of

Defense, prepared statement of ................................................................... 47

Waxman, Hon. Henry A., a Representative in Congress from the State

of California, prepared statement of ........................................................... 8

(1)

TO LEAD OR TO FOLLOW: THE NEXT GENERATION INTERNET AND THE TRANSITION TO

IPv6

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 29, 2005,

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM,

Washington, DC.

The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:15 p.m., in room

2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Tom Davis (chairman

of the committee) presiding.

Present: Representatives Davis of Virginia, Gutknecht, Dent,

Waxman, Cummings, Kucinich, Higgins and Norton.

Staff present: Melissa Wojciak, staff director; David Marin, deputy staff director/communications director; Chas Phillips, policy

counsel; Rob White, press secretary; Drew Crockett, deputy director

of communications; Victoria Proctor, senior professional staff member; Teresa Austin, chief clerk; Sarah D’Orsie, deputy clerk; Leneal

Scott, computer systems manager; Kristin Amerling, minority general counsel; Nancy Scola, minority professional staff member; and

Earley Green, minority chief clerk.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. The committee will come to order.

I apologize for starting late, we were supposed to have a vote on

the floor. I was over there so I could leave at the beginning of the

vote and they ended up with just a voice vote.

Welcome to today’s hearing on the Next Generation Internet and

the transition to Internet protocol version 6 [IPv6].

Nearly 30 years ago in a Department of Defense lab, the Internet

was born. Originally designed to facilitate communications after a

nuclear strike, as the protocols were tested, refined and implemented, people began to recognize the possibilities for far broader

applications. Today, these protocols underpin the Internet.

American ingenuity developed, fostered, and fielded these simple

open protocols to solve a narrow set of problems, but this seemingly

small network solution has sparked a global revolution in communications. Over the past decade, cyberspace has grown into a dynamic nervous system that controls our Nation’s critical cyber and

physical infrastructures.

Within an hour’s drive of Fairfax County, there are about one

quarter of all Internet Service Providers on the entire planet.

About a quarter of all the Internet packets in the world are going

through a hub in northern Virginia. If you drive down the Dulles

Access Road, you can see the physical impact of the Internet on

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Virginia, but the current Internet, and the protocols and networks

that underpin it, may have reached its limits.

Internet protocol version 6 [IPv6], offers benefits for expanded

addressing, greater security, and new products, services, and missions for Next Generation Internet applications. However, it presents several challenges including: one, understanding the international implications; two, preparing the Federal Government; and

three, ensuring a secure transition.

Not surprisingly, interest in IPv6 is gaining momentum around

the world, particularly areas that have limited IPv4 address space

to meet their industry and consumer communications needs. Regions that have limited IPv4 address space such as Asia and Europe have undertaken aggressive efforts to deploy IPv6. Asian

countries have been aggressive in adopting IPv6 technology, because Asia controls only about 9 percent of the allocated IPv4 addresses, and yet has more than half of the world’s population.

Asian governments have invested hundreds of millions of dollars

in IPv6 technology. China has been extremely aggressive and

Japan has set up an IPv6 Promotion Council, using tax incentives

to encourage research and adoption of IPv6 by its private sector.

Europe currently has a task force that has the dual mandate of

initiating country and regional IPv6 task forces across European

states and seeking global cooperation around the world, and Europe’s Task Force and the Japanese IPv6 Promotion Council forged

an alliance to foster worldwide deployment.

Here at home, challenges such as procurement, information technology management, and modernization are often addressed deliberately by the Federal Government and change often takes years

to implement, but these are the challenges we take up on this committee.

Federal Government IT expenditures are on track to surpass $65

billion in fiscal year 2006, making the Federal Government once

again the largest purchaser of IT products and services in the

world. In addition, a recent report forecasts that IT spending will

continue to rise throughout the decade, reaching over $90 billion in

fiscal year 2010. With this buying power, we need to make sure

that the best and most secure technology is a priority when the

Government acquires IT goods and services.

I believe that we all want the United States to have the world’s

best information technology infrastructure, including maintaining

the world’s best Internet industry. I believe we all want U.S. defense capabilities to perform with maximum effectiveness and efficiency, and to realize the full potential of net-centric warfare.

I believe we all want the best Homeland Security systems, including cameras, sensors, and first responder systems intelligently

integrated together. I believe we all want fiscally responsible Federal spending, including spending on information infrastructures

that will deliver multiple returns on investment and preserve taxpayer dollars.

Today, we will hear about Federal efforts to transition to IPv6.

Our purpose here is to learn from the public and private sectors,

to hear if IPv6 can help us achieve long-term economic, defense,

homeland security, and technological leadership. If it can play a

part in reaching those goals, then I want to know what support the

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Government Reform Committee, the Congress, and the U.S. Federal Government need to provide.

I also want to learn about the risks. Every day brings news of

another computer intrusion or data theft. I hope to hear about the

security risks that exist under the current protocol, how IPv6

might address these risks, and whether the transition presents its

own risks.

Finally, I hope to learn if the United States is at competitive risk

with respect to the Next Generation Internet. My committee held

a hearing recently about the lengths to which the Chinese government would go to make sure that only Chinese software is purchased by Chinese government agencies. The Chinese government

not long ago announced that CERNET2, the first network based on

pure IPv6 technology, was going into formal operation. An official

from China’s National Development Reform Commission said China’s Next Generation Internet will bring huge benefits to their national economy and increase the country’s competitiveness in national defense, economy, science and technology.

Last year, I asked GAO to look at IPv6 and its implications for

the Federal Government. Today, we are here, in part, to review

their report, which highlights the fundamental challenges facing

the Federal agencies, the White House, and Congress.

However, to reap the benefits from IPv6 Federal agencies must

first begin to plan and develop requirements that will take full advantage of what the new protocol offers. I hope that the Office of

Management and Budget will continue its leadership role in information policy and begin to address some essential issues, including

how much IP address space the Federal agencies may require,

whether the Federal Government is ready for the transition, and

how much it will cost.

At this stage, I am gathering input on IPv6. I was pleased to receive a copy of the Department of Defense IPv6 Transition Plan recently. I am looking forward to receiving the Department of Commerce’s report as soon as possible, and see how IPv6 can help

America’s economy and help America’s exports.

The vast majority of the technology we know and use is rooted

in the United States. Many of these innovations were a result of

the ideas and hard work from individuals who came from other

countries to live, to work, or to be educated, some of whom are here

today.

America draws the best and the brightest from around the globe,

they produce their best work here, and then we share those efforts

with the rest of the world. I am confident that we can meet the

challenge of this transition.

I would now recognize the distinguished ranking member, Mr.

Waxman, for an opening statement.

[The prepared statement of Chairman Tom Davis follows:]

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Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Chairman, thank you for holding today’s hearing on Internet protocol version 6, what is often called the ‘‘Next

Generation Internet.’’

The architecture of the Internet was first developed more than

30 years ago, but the Internet of today is far different than it was

then. Whereas the early Internet joined together a small number

of computers, the Internet today connects desktop computers,

laptop computers, network servers, handheld Blackberries, cell

phones and cars. Even dishwashers and refrigerators are beginning

to go online.

The Internet is not yet breaking down under the strain, but

there are limitations that need to be addressed. The current system

has the capacity to connect together 4 billion different computers

and devices at any one time. This may seem like a lot, but consider

the computers and cell phones one typical family might own today,

or all the desktops, laptops, and Blackberries in use in the Federal

Government.

Four billion seems even smaller in light of the growing Internet

use worldwide. In fact, it is only because of network administrator

ingenuity that the current protocol’s technological limitations are

not paralyzing the Internet.

The Next Generation Internet eliminates major existing technological limitations. This new system increases access to the Internet exponentially while also offering the added benefits of more sophisticated security and improved connectivity.

Consumers will reap these benefits, but it is the Federal Government that may well be the greatest beneficiary. A recent GAO

study found that Next Generation Internet could help DOD to create more advanced weapons and information systems. Other potential uses include wireless border security sensors and interoperable

networks for first-responders.

Unfortunately, the Government is not taking full advantage of

this opportunity. GAO found that few agencies beyond the Defense

Department have even begun to ready themselves for the Next

Generation Internet. Meantime, the rest of the world is taking

Next Generation Internet seriously. China is building a nationwide

network that will run on the new system. India’s private sector is

actively moving to take advantage of these new technologies.

The Next Generation Internet is coming. I look forward to hearing from witnesses about what we can do to take the lead in developing the Internet as we did 30 years ago or we can wait for this

evolution to pass us by and then play catch up.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for the opportunity to make an opening statement. I look forward to the testimony of the witnesses

today.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Henry A. Waxman follows:]

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Chairman TOM DAVIS. Mr. Waxman, thank you very much.

The Members will have 7 days to submit opening statements for

the record.

I will now recognize our first panel, a very distinguished panel.

We have: the Honorable Karen Evans, Administrator, Electronic

Government and Information Technology, Office of Management

and Budget; David Powner, Director, Information Technology Management Issues, Government Accountability Office; Keith Rhodes,

Chief Technologist and Director, Center for Technology and Engineering, Government Accountability Office; George Wauer, Director, Architecture and Interoperability, Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Networks and Information Integration and

Office of the Chief Information Officer, U.S. Department of Defense. Mr. Wauer is accompanied by Major General Dennis Moran,

Vice Director, Command, Control, Communications and Computer

Systems, Joint Chiefs of Staff, U.S. Department of Defense. General Moran, thank you for being with us today.

It is the policy of the committee to swear all witnesses before you

testify.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Chairman TOM DAVIS. We will start the testimony with Ms.

Evans. Karen, you know the rules. We try to keep it to 5 minutes.

Your entire statement is in the record. Questions will be based on

your entire statement but you have 5 as a summary.

Karen, thanks a lot for being with us again.

STATEMENTS OF KAREN EVANS, ADMINISTRATOR, ELECTRONIC GOVERNMENT AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY,

OFFICE OF MANAGEMENT AND BUDGET; DAVID POWNER, DIRECTOR, INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY MANAGEMENT

ISSUES, GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE; KEITH

RHODES, CHIEF TECHNOLOGIST AND DIRECTOR, CENTER

FOR TECHNOLOGY AND ENGINEERING, GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE; GEORGE WAUER, DIRECTOR, ARCHITECTURE AND INTEROPERABILITY, OFFICE OF THE ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF DEFENSE FOR NETWORKS AND INFORMATION INTEGRATION AND OFFICE OF THE CHIEF INFORMATION OFFICER, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE, ACCOMPANIED BY MAJOR GENERAL DENNIS MORAN, VICE DIRECTOR, COMMAND, CONTROL, COMMUNICATIONS AND COMPUTER SYSTEMS, JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE

STATEMENT OF KAREN EVANS

Ms. EVANS. Thank you for inviting me to speak about the Federal Government’s efforts in preparing for the transition to Internet

protocol version 6. This afternoon, I would like to briefly identify

the steps we are taking in preparation for transition.

As I mentioned in my April 7, 2005 testimony before this committee regarding our efforts to safeguard the Government’s information systems, late last fall OMB directed the agencies to provide

a preliminary report on their planning activities for the transition

to IPv6. Only the Department of Defense had undertaken any significant effort in this area.

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Given the lack of government-wide progress and our concern regarding the complexities of transition, we recognize the need to

begin developing a comprehensive transition planning guide and

process.

We are about to take the first step and issue a policy memorandum providing guidance to the agencies to ensure an orderly and

secure transition to IPv6. The purpose of the guidance will be to

ensure effective planning and to raise the level of awareness and

urgency of preparing for IPv6.

The overarching challenge facing us is ensuring continued, uninterrupted functionality of Federal agencies during the transition

while providing continued and improved information assurance.

This will require major changes in the architecture of many agency

networks. Since there is a large embedded base of IPv4-compatible

equipment and applications, transitioning to IPv6 will also require

large capital investments and labor resources. While the challenges

are significant, they are not insurmountable, especially if we approach them methodically and in phases. The guidance will lay out

five important actions the agencies should take.

First, agencies will have to familiarize themselves to the transitions issues by reviewing the GAO report, the Commerce report,

and particularly the Department of Homeland Security’s US-CERT

advisory of security issues concerning IPv6. Since IPv6 is already

present in many Federal agency networks, it is important that

agencies begin addressing the security risks associated with IPv6

now.

Second, agencies will have to assign a specific individual to lead

and coordinate agency planning. This person will be responsible for

monitoring, enforcing, and reporting on the transition and implementation of IPv6 within the agency.

Third, agencies will develop an inventory of existing IP capable

devices and technologies. To ensure an orderly transition from IPv4

to IPv6, we must establish a baseline and determine the size of the

problem. While we know IPv6 technologies are deployed throughout the Government, but like other organizations, we do not know

specifically which ones, how many there are, or precisely where

they are located. We are planning for each agency to file a report

of their inventory of IP capable devices and technologies to OMB

in the first quarter of fiscal year 2006.

Fourth, agencies will conduct an impact analysis to determine

fiscal and operational impacts and risks during the transition to

IPv6. We are planning for each agency to report the results of this

impact analysis to OMB in the first quarter of fiscal year 2006, and

it should include analysis on cost and risk. For cost, the agencies

must report on estimates for planning, infrastructure acquisition,

above and beyond normal expenditures, training, and risk mitigation.

Fifth, the policy will direct the CIO Council to develop before the

end of the calendar year, more detailed IPv6 implementing guidance. It will include guidance for developing detailed prioritized

schedules and milestones, integrating IPv6 with the agency enterprise architecture, developing necessary IPv6-related policies and

compliance mechanisms, training material, and test plans for IPv6

compatibility and interoperability. To the extent the agencies are

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currently capable of addressing the elements of the future CIO

Council guidance, they have been instructed to begin doing so now.

We will also use the OMB EA Assessment Framework to measure

the degree to which agencies are effectively performing this planning element.

Our policy will also set June 2008 as the date by which all agencies’ infrastructure, network backbones, must be using IPv6 and

agency networks must interface with this infrastructure. Once the

network backbones are ready, the applications and other elements

will follow. Setting this firm date is necessary to maintain focus on

this important issue. Overall the actions set out in our policy will

begin to address the many challenges that come with IPv6 transition.

I would like to take one moment to discuss one aspect of the implementation guidance. Later in this hearing, you may be hearing

testimony that says IPv6 poses a problem associated with the capability called tunneling. In fact, tunneling is extremely widely used

throughout the Government and industry and facilitates cost effective and safe communications.

During the question period, I would be happy to answer your

questions about the aspect of IPv6 tunneling and how it could be

controlled and any other questions you have.

Thank you for this opportunity to talk about the administration’s

strategy.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Evans follows:]

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Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you very much, Ms. Evans.

Mr. Powner.

STATEMENT OF DAVID POWNER

Mr. POWNER. We appreciate the opportunity to testify on Internet protocol version 6.

With me today is Keith Rhodes, GAO’s Chief Technologist who

will discuss the security aspects of transitioning to this new protocol.

The initial benefits of IPv6 is that it will immediately remedy the

shortage of worldwide Internet addresses and will greatly increase

the number of devices that can connect to the Internet. IPv6 is

clearly gaining momentum globally, especially in regions such as

Asia where address space is limited and concerns exist about the

U.S.’s adoption of the new protocol as it pertains to global competitiveness.

This morning, I would like to leave you with three thoughts before Mr. Rhodes discusses the need to mitigate security transition

risks.

First, there are many benefits to the new protocol; second, Government transition has been slow; and third, key planning efforts

are essential. In addition to the increased address space that will

accommodate the growing number of users and mobile devices,

IPv6 will, among other things, allow for an efficient and possibly

faster routing, simplify network administration and enhance IP security by improving authentication and confidentiality of data sent

over the Internet.

The Department of Defense plans to utilize IPv6 features. For example, it envisions our future soldiers equipped with multiple IP

addresses for communications and to monitor vital signs. Other

Federal agencies, for the most part, have not initiated IPv6 planning efforts. Because of this, we recommended to OMB that they

instruct Federal agencies to begin addressing key planning efforts.

These include developing inventories and assessing risks, creating

business cases and identifying timelines and methods for transition.

Mr. Chairman, we have been working with the Office of Management and Budget and we recognize Ms. Evans’ efforts that earlier

this year called for Federal agencies to update strategic plans, enterprise architectures and acquisition strategies to address IPv6

transition. Although Ms. Evans’ statement is encouraging, more effective leadership is needed.

In addition, we also recommended that Federal agencies take immediate action to address near term security risks. Ironically, this

new protocol that in the long term will improve network security

creates several near term vulnerabilities if not properly managed,

as Mr. Rhodes will now demonstrate.

Before turning it over, Mr. Chairman, I would like to thank you

for your leadership in this area and for jump starting the Federal

Government’s transition to this new protocol.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Powner follows:]

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STATEMENT OF KEITH RHODES

Mr. RHODES. What I am going to explain to you is an exploit that

we have used when we are testing Federal departments and agencies and one we have proven and documented in our own laboratory.

The first slide is a typical IPv4 configuration. You see a router,

intrusion detection, a firewall, all working together to protect a system that is connected to the Internet.

The intruder on the left sends the target agency on the right a

specially crafted e-mail. The targeted user opens the e-mail thinking it is a normal e-mail. Let me note here this attack does not require the user to double click on an attachment as is common with

most MOU ware. If the e-mail is Web-based, that is, it is written

in the language of the World Wide Web, the hypertext mark up

language, then even if the user just previews it in the window in

their mail system, the attack will launch.

The e-mail looks normal to the target but deep inside the computer, the IPv6 stack is turned on, given an address and a mission.

The mission is to send a shell back to the intruder using IPv6 inside IPv4. This means that the shell request is sent back to the intruder via tunnel which is carried by the IPv4 packets. The shell

request is totally invisible to the firewall, the intrusion detection

system and the Internet, just some normal looking IPv4 packets.

Now there is a new network, a dedicated network between the

intruder and the target agency unseen by most current firewall and

IDS technologies.

As the intruder explores the target agency, the intruder’s software converts the PC to a router and many other computers answer the IPv6 call. Now there is a covert IPv6 network invisible to

the target agency.

My final point is this could have been avoided using available

technology and best practices, for example, closing Port 41 to outbound traffic on your firewall. The transition to IPv6 can be done

safely and securely with proper precautions. Otherwise, the intruders are out there and they know how to do this.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I will accept any questions.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you very much.

Mr. Wauer.

STATEMENT OF GEORGE G. WAUER

Mr. WAUER. Good afternoon. Thank you for the invitation to testify before the committee.

In the interest of time, I will submit my formal written testimony

for the record. I would, however, like to make the following key

points.

The Department of Defense views version 6 as a critical enabler

in achieving our vision of global net-centric operations. Modifying

version 4 to accomplish this version would have been, at best, problematical. Version 6 provides specific features that can make the

net-centric vision a reality.

In June 2003, the Department established the goal of

transitioning to version 6 by 2008. We are defining phase timelines

that include specific system implementations that address increasingly complex end-to-end functionality. However, due to the critical

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nature of the Department’s mission, it is imperative that this transition not imperil our current operational capabilities.

Our strategy and the position of the Department is to complete

the transition with minimal additional costs by using phase

timelines and relying primarily on already-scheduled and planned

technology refreshments. In fact, since October 2003, we have required version 6 capability on all new acquisitions and procurements. This strategy allows the Department to leverage ongoing

commercial and industry version 6 efforts.

However, even with this transition strategy, there will be some

additional costs for this major technology insertion. These additional costs are expected to be in the area of planning, engineering,

technical assessments and training. Implementing version 6 across

the Department is complex and presents many challenges. Careful

and early planning has been necessary to ensure the transition to

version 6 is accomplished in an effective and controlled manner.

Version 6 must not be disruptive to the everyday, strategic tactical

and business operations of the Department.

DOD is firmly committed to the expeditious transition to version

6 in a manner that is affordable and protects the interoperability,

security and performance of the existing requirements we have on

our plate.

Thank you and I appreciate the committee’s interest in the transition for the Department and I would be happy to answer any

questions.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Wauer follows:]

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Chairman TOM DAVIS. Ms. Evans, let me start with you. IPv6

raises some very broad and very serious policy issues as you addressed. Some of these issues are squarely within OMB. For example, agencies are planning for IPv6 and securing their current systems.

Other issues such as the international challenges, economic competitiveness, lack of IPv6 firewalls for classified systems go beyond

the purview of OMB and the CIO Council. What is the administration doing to organize and address this challenge?

Ms. EVANS. First off, there are a couple things in there but more

importantly, everything we do within the administration is coordinated within the Executive Office of the President. As we move forward and take on these issues, they are coordinated through the

councils that exist within the Executive Office of the President.

We have taken on this issue, my policy and how it impacts the

Federal agencies has also been looked at going forward, so I can

talk about what I am doing to affect the Federal agencies overall.

I would be happy to take back any other specific questions that you

have and get answers for the record.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Do we have any ballpark estimate of the

cost and the labor requirements of the transition?

Ms. EVANS. Right now, based on the analysis we did, it could

grow by an order of magnitude. This is the reason why we are asking for the agencies to prepare these reports and these documents

so that we can get an estimate of what it is going to cost.

For the most part, and I believe my colleagues from DOD have

already stressed this, a lot of the costs as far as hardware, software

or the products we buy, they are already IPv6 capable and enabled

and have that capability. The cost we want to make sure we have

a true handle on deal with the applications that are currently in

place. They may be using something very specific to IPv4. That is

why I agree with everything that has been said so far. The planning efforts will be very critical to get a good handle on the cost

estimates.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Given the expenditures by the Europeans

and the Asians on this, which far out-strip anything we have done

are we behind the eight ball at this point? How would you describe

where we stand?

Ms. EVANS. As far as the implementation of IPv6, I think everything you read in the GAO report shows that it is self explanatory.

We have a huge investment obviously in version 4 and the way to

move forward is the administration, at least from the Federal Government’s standpoint and our investment is we are going to take

a market-based approach and view how the market and the products conduct to go forward.

We are taken that first step by indicating that we want our network backbones to be IPv6 enabled by 2008. We feel that is a significant step for where we already are. When I say we are behind

the eight ball, it is relative depending on what services, what activity, whether you are looking at it from the consumer or the Federal

Government standpoint of the investment.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Mr. Powner, to the extent that you are

able, can you kind of describe the projects you are undertaking in

IPv6?

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Mr. POWNER. The projects GAO is currently undertaking?

Chairman TOM DAVIS. I am sorry, I meant to ask this of Mr.

Wauer.

Mr. WAUER. Those are spread out over the whole Department of

Defense. We are looking at all of the new procurements going on

such as TSAT, the gig bandwidth expansion and several of the

other procurements that are going on, JTERS. All of those are

going to be IPv6 enabled.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Are you in any position at this point to

talk about how long it would take to complete the transition and

what the cost would be?

Mr. WAUER. No, I am not.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Ball park?

Mr. WAUER. Anything I would give you would be strictly off the

top of my head. The actual implementation plans from each of the

services and components are being generated. They have gone

through a first cut and until we see those and are able to aggregate

those, it would be very difficult to put a specific timeframe on that.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Mr. Powner, how do we measure the success of the transition? Could GAO benchmark the United States

versus other nations? Would that be an appropriate benchmark?

Mr. POWNER. One of the things that we are currently in the process of doing for you is looking at some of the early adopters of IPv6.

In fact, we will touch on some of that with where some of the other

countries are. Initially, some of the data out there is a bit misleading. Clearly from a leadership perspective, I agree with some of

your comments earlier and where your questions were going that

we are behind the eight ball from a leadership perspective clearly.

From an actual transition perspective, it is a little unclear where

some of the other countries are. There are councils in place and tax

incentives being thrown out there for corporations and agencies.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. How much has been spent by other countries roughly on the transition at this point?

Mr. POWNER. No ballpark.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Significantly more though than we have

spent, is that fair to say?

Mr. POWNER. Likely, yes. That is a huge unknown here in the

States, how much we spend, especially from the Federal perspective.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. You may actually have the incentive because they are the ones that need the addresses and everything

else.

Mr. POWNER. Absolutely and we don’t have the pressing need because we control more than 70 percent of those 4 billion addresses

to date.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. If the world stayed at IPv4 at this point,

we would not be disadvantaged competitively, it would be the other

countries and that is where the impetus is?

Mr. POWNER. Correct, but I think if you look from a mission perspective and why DOD has this very detailed effort in place to

transition from a mission perspective, we would like to stay on the

cutting edge. There are implications for homeland security applications where we could really benefit from what the new protocol

could provide.

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Chairman TOM DAVIS. Would you say this is not comparable to

Y2K because we are not dealing with a time certain at this point?

This continues to be a work in progress as it emerges. As Ms.

Evans said, market-based and we will see how quickly it gets up

to snuff?

Mr. POWNER. It is clear we don’t have a firm deadline like Y2K

but I think it is nice we have a target the administration is now

throwing out for 2008. Clearly it is similar to Y2K in the sense that

it affects a lot of equipment that is out there. Our phones, our PCs,

operating systems, network routers, it is widespread in terms of

what will need to eventually be swapped out.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Reading the papers today with constant

reports of intrusions and security breaches, it appears the Internet

is relatively insecure. With full implementation of IPv6, do you

think it would provide greater security potentially?

Mr. POWNER. Clearly with the new protocol, there is a feature in

it that allows for more robust authentication and confidentiality of

the day. In the long term, it is believed that protocol will allow for

greater security.

The issue where it is insecure as Mr. Rhodes demonstrated is

there is a lack of awareness that agencies currently have, IPv6 in

their networks today? If they knew that occurred, they could effectively mitigate those risks.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Let me ask the entire panel, should the

U.S. Government obtain its own block of IPv6 address space now?

Mr. RHODES. I don’t think it is actually necessary for the United

States to do that when you are talking about a huge volume of addresses. Locking in your own set is not the same as it was with

IPv4. That is one of the great benefits of IPv6 that there is plenty

for everyone. If you lock in your own, that is fine because then you

have contiguous sets of IP addresses that you can work but it is

not the same struggle that we had with the current set of addresses that you need to worry about in IPv6.

General MORAN. The Department of Defense is in the process of

pulling together an area of how many we think we will need and

we are processing forward to establish that and get it allocated to

us.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Do you think the transition to IPv6 is an

economic imperative and do you think the Federal Government is

losing its lead in technology by not moving more quickly? Mr.

Powner, do you have any thoughts on that?

Mr. POWNER. Clearly, I think we are in a far better position if

we lead than lag. Being in a position where we can take advantage

of some of the applications that IPv6 could provide would put us

on sound footing, especially when you look at some of the capabilities we need to secure, the Department of Homeland Security.

Mr. RHODES. Mr. Chairman, as a scientist and as an engineer,

I can only say if we allow other people to adapt before us, they will

be the ones who build the killer applications and we won’t because

they will be able to work with it everyday. The Chinese already

have an IPv6 router that they are just waiting for market share

on. They have an IPv6 dedicated and enabled network.

If you look at the implementations in Japan and look at the

equipment being built in Japan, they are the ones working with it

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on a regular basis in day-to-day operations. We would like to have

a voice over IP; they are already working on it because they get

the quality of service benefit from IPv6. Somebody is going to be

ahead of us if they are working with it every day.

If we relegate it to being networks sitting inside universities,

that is fine but that is research. As Ms. Evans points out, that is

not the market driving it.

General MORAN. From the Department of Defense perspective, it

is an operational imperative that we move to IPv6 because if you

look at the future warfighting concepts, whether they be land, air

or sea, we must have an IPv6 environment in order to move the

information we are going to require to be successful in the environment. Therefore, the DOD I think has moved out so aggressively.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Do you think IPv6 quality of service

standards meet the needs of DOD and will IPv6 give DOD less

quality of service than we have currently?

General MORAN. I am not a technologist but I do believe in order

to get the quality of service capabilities that we require across our

global information grid which is going to be our part of the network, we are going to need to have the IPv6 quality of service implementation.

We are involved through the department level to ensure that the

definitions of those standards meet our requirements.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. But basically what you have is Asia and

Europe moving ahead on their own. Whatever we do, we will have

to adjust to these standards. Either we will be left behind or the

more proactive we are, we will be able to continue a leadership

role.

General MORAN. It is my personal belief that we need to be in

a leadership role so that we get the standards developed in a way

that from the Department’s perspective, we get the capabilities we

require.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. I appreciate the leadership role DOD is

taking.

Mr. Gutknecht, any questions?

This is new stuff for a lot of members. A lot of us are still trying

to figure out how to plug in the computers but it is critically important for us, not just for operation of government but for global competitiveness.

From the GAO perspective, I appreciate your report. This was

very, very helpful to others in kind of laying this out. This is the

first congressional hearing on this but it is something we will continue to try to ride herd on here. Hopefully the interest will spread

to other committees as we understand the national security implications, the global competitiveness, economic ramifications of this

and this is a big bite for you, Ms. Evans, as well. I hope you are

getting cooperation within the Government as you continue to take

your leadership role on this.

If there aren’t other questions for this panel.

General MORAN. I really want to make one statement about one

item you just mentioned and that was the question about Y2K. I

do believe the reason the Department has been so successful is that

our leadership is using the Y2K model to manage this. That is

what has forced the leadership to deal with the realities of this

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change that is required. Even though we don’t have a day and time

that we have to be on IPv6, the management strategy the Department is using is exactly what we used in Y2K. I would argue that

is why we were so successful.

Mr. WAUER. If I can inject one other thing, one of the things the

Department has found is this is a highly complex process. It is

spread out over a myriad of different applications. It is not a trivial

thing, both from a technical and management standpoint.

We actually stood up a transition office. This is not a part-time

job for a group of people. This is going to require some dedicated

staffing and some real emphasis being placed on it to get this thing

done right.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Is there dedicated funding for this at this

point or are we kind of taking a little here and there?

Mr. WAUER. The first 2 years, there was some dedicated funding

for the transition office itself. We are now in the roll. It is spread

across because the way we manage true programs, it is spread out

across the programs.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Explain to me what happens if we sit back

and do nothing. If we were to sit back at this point and take a very

relaxed point of view and let everyone else move ahead, what are

the ramifications of that? Ms. Evans.

Ms. EVANS. I would like to venture an answer that we could. As

a Nation, we could sit back because we do own over 70 percent of

the address in space. We could invest and make that address in

space continuously work for us and gain greater efficiencies but I

think as pointed out by several others here, if you want to drive

innovation, you have to create an environment where people can

think about what if. You saw that as we were going through the

big dot com boom. Everybody was in the what if, the Internet presented so many different opportunities.

This isn’t a concept, a technical concept that sometimes is a little

hard to grasp but it provides the opportunity to provide an environment out there that you can ask that question again, what if. What

if I want to do this for Homeland Security, what if I want to do

this for the Department of Defense so that I can expand? Industry,

I believe, would respond because of the way that innovation has always been here within the United States. So we could sit back and

continue to invest in the current technology that we have and

make it more efficient or we can invest in the possibilities of the

future.

The administration acknowledges that with proper planning and

proper resources, IPv6 would allow the country to be able to move

forward to deal with all those issues.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Mr. Rhodes.

Mr. RHODES. Just wanted to give you one practical homeland security application. We are very concerned about chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear unconventional devices. One of the solutions to that is to place sensors. Each one of those sensors is

going to be on a network, each one of those sensors is going to require an IP address, they are going to have to send their information back somehow.

If you want to really have ground truth either from the standpoint of the soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines or the first reVerDate 11-MAY-2000 09:53 Aug 26, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00059 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\22510.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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sponders, you are going to have to have this. Yes, we could sit back

but you just don’t have enough Internet available to you at this

moment in its own configuration.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you very much.

We will take a 2-minute break and call our next panel.

[Recess.]

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you all for being here.

You heard our first panel of witnesses and some of the questions.

Hopefully we can get into some other questions as we move

through this.

We have on this panel: John Curran, chairman, American Registry for Internet Numbers; Jawad Khaki, corporate vice president,

Microsoft Corp.; Stan Barber, vice president, Verio, Inc.; and Alex

Lightman, chief executive officer, Charmed Technologies, Inc.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Mr. Curran, we will start with you and

move down the line. Try to keep it to 5 minutes but if you need

time, it looks like we have a small group of members, so we will

have some time if you need a couple extra minutes to make your

point.

STATEMENTS OF JOHN CURRAN, CHAIRMAN, AMERICAN REGISTRY FOR INTERNET NUMBERS; JAWAD KHAKI, CORPORATE VICE PRESIDENT, MICROSOFT CORP.; STAN BARBER, VICE PRESIDENT, VERIO, INC.; AND ALEX LIGHTMAN,

CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, CHARMED TECHNOLOGIES,

INC.

STATEMENT OF JOHN CURRAN

Mr. CURRAN. Good afternoon.

My comments are formally a part of the record, so I am not going

to read them but I will summarize them for the sake of brevity.

I am John Curran. I was one of the founders of the American

Registry of Internet Numbers. I have been the chairman since its

inception in 1998.

I would like to say I welcome the chance to come here and talk

about U.S. leadership and the IPv6 arena. I think it is a very important topic.

I want to say for background not everyone is aware of how IP

addresses are allocated. ARIN is one of the five regional Internet

registries that handle address management. We handle it for North

America which includes Canada, the United States, much of the

Caribbean. Our counterparts are AfriNIC, APNIC, LACNIC and

RIPE NCC which handles Europe. Combined, these registries form

a bottoms up policy formation process that all Internet service providers worldwide participate in. This is a very important concept

to keep in mind as we talk about Internet numbers and how they

are allocated and the transition to IPv6.

I have background in industry as well which is relevant to this.

I have been involved in three Internet companies as chief technology officer including BBN which was the builders of the

IBERnet, the original IP network; XO Communications out in Virginia; and most recently a company called ServerVault.

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My involvement in the Internet actually goes back quite some

time. I was involved in the Internet Engineering Task Force back

when it was time to form the IP Next Generation Directorate, the

group that took on the problem of the IP address depletion issue.

I would like to review what happened at that time because it is

very important to this proceeding to give context as to why we are

talking about IPv6 now.

Back in 1993, the emerging research network and commercial

Internet was very successful. We had the regional networks growing by leaps and bounds, we had the very start of the commercial

Internet providers. A group of people got together and figured out

that we were going to have an address depletion problem. Back at

that time, that problem looked like it could occur as soon as 2005,

potentially as late as 2010.

As a result, the IETF formed a group called the IP Next Generation Directorate which was challenged with forming the requirements for the next generation Internet protocol. The result of that

group and the follow on efforts in the IETF was the IPv6 protocol.

That protocol as we all know has a much larger address space and

has numerous technical enhancements. This is all covered very

well in the GAO report and I won’t go through it.

It was envisioned that larger address space was needed because

we were going to run out of address spaces again very early in

2000. Luckily, there were some changes in address allocation policy

at the same time. These changes resulted in the usage of IPv4 address space being reduced substantially, the rate at which we were

using them, and as a result, we have no problem today. IPv4 address space is being used but there is plenty available for organizations worldwide to connect.

The reality is that we do forecast this a bit. The forecasts show

2018 being one of the earliest forecasts but it is a moving target.

You can have a few years of increased usage that will cause that

forecast to come in.

The important point here is that whether we are looking at a

number of 201, 2015, there is ample time for organizations to transition to IPv6. There is not a crisis, per se. This is important to remember because the transition to IPv6 is a very challenging item.

We had the prior panel discuss the planning, the business case and

the security issues associated with that.

I would like to highlight the fact that we have been allocating

IPv6 addresses to organizations since 1999. The Internet community is standing by ready to transition. We have the protocol done,

we have the address allocation authorities done, there are test networks for IPv6. So we are ready to go. That is not a challenge.

The challenge is that you need to have a transition plan and you

need to have business cases. These are very complicated for industry to form. One of the things that led in the United States to a

lot more analysis of transition issues was the Department of Defense’s adoption of a Statement of Migration to IPv6. That caused

not only within the Department of Defense community but in the

contractor community and in the vendor community, a focus on all

of the issues necessary to enable this.

The reality is that is what we need, more industry involvement.

This industry involvement can be achieved by involving more FedVerDate 11-MAY-2000 09:53 Aug 26, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00061 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\22510.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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eral agencies in the planning process. Per se, industry will help facilitate the transition to IPv6, but we don’t need anything other

than the impetus provided by more Federal planning.

As some of the largest users of IT technology, it is appropriate

that Federal agencies are the ones that start the planning process

as early as possible because they have large issues that are associated with their scale.

I just want to say that ARIN supports the increased involvement

of more Federal agencies in this planning process. The Internet

community is ready to transition to version 6. There is time to get

the job done and we look forward to this committee’s and the

GAO’s involvement in encouraging more Federal agencies to move

in this direction.

That concludes my comments. Thank you and I look forward to

questions.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Curran follows:]

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Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you very much.

Mr. Khaki, thank you very much for being with us.

STATEMENT OF JAWAD KHAKI

Mr. KHAKI. My name is Jawad Khaki. I am the corporate vice

president for Windows Networking and Device Technologies where

I have worked for 16 years.

I consider it a great honor to be with the committee today. Beginning in July, I will serve on the Federal Communications Commission’s Technical Advisory Council which was designed to provide

the FCC with technical advice on emerging technologies.

In both this hearing today and as part of the FCC Council, my

goal is to help America maintain its tradition of technological excellence and role as the global leader in information technology.

The success of the Internet today is due in large part to the efforts of the U.S. Government providing initial financial incentives

including supporting academic research and Microsoft and other

key industry partners providing Internet capable devices and applications.

Broadband Internet access is now commonly available worldwide

and combined with the latest IP devices and services such as mobile telephones, multi-player games, voice-over Internet protocol,

video conferencing, IP-based TVs are placing increasing requirements on the Internet’s infrastructure. IPv6 brings relief to this

strained infrastructure.

International IPv6 efforts continue to pick up momentum, as you

noted most notably in Asia, specifically in Japan and China. In

September 2000, the Japanese Prime Minister, Mori Yoshiro made

IPv6 a Japanese national priority akin to the U.S. Government’s

approach to the Internet 30 years ago.

We anticipate that Japan will roll out robust, commercial IPv6

networks capable of supporting tens of millions of broadband subscribers over the next few years. Chinese and Japanese efforts are

designed not only to deploy IPv6 Internet technologies but also to

promote domestic industry. Domestic companies in China receive

substantial government funding for their efforts. We also see similar efforts in India, Europe and other parts of the world. IPv6 adoption has proceeded slowly in the United States but is likely to accelerate as IPv6 network solutions and applications become more

available, robust and affordable.

The conversion from IPv4 to IPv6 is a large task that will affect

network architectures, applications, systems and operational procedures but we believe the benefits would outweigh the costs. It appears private industry efforts are working well at this stage of IPv6

planning and deployment. Companies continue to support IPv4, increasing providing IPv6 compatibility and many are preparing for

an eventual transition to an IPv6 network.

It is difficult to codify an exact cost amount of either an organizational or national level IPv6 transition since the costs will depend

heavily on the way entities deploy IPv6. Transition technologies

provided as an inherent part of the IPv6 protocol support are in the

short term the most cost effective, fastest and least disruptive way

to introduce IPv6 connectivity into an existing IPv4 environment.

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In the long term a full native IPv6 deployment can be achieved

gradually by adding IPv6 into the network through a regular technology refreshed cycle. Microsoft understands the importance of

IPv6. Our research and development teams participate in the IETF

IPv6 Open Standard Activities and the next version of the Windows operating system, code-named Longhorn, will be fully IPv6

capable.

While we are working toward developing a comprehensive set of

IPv6 capable applications and services, we remain acutely aware

that any IPv6 deployment should be a phased transition that results in minimal infrastructure upheaval. Ultimately, Microsoft believes that marketplace dynamics with the Government being an

engaged customer, will gradually lead to widespread use of IPv6 in

the United States and around the world.

As we look at the Government’s role, we would not recommend

mandates or regulations to artificially force IPv6 deployment but

rather, active political support and efforts to strengthen the domestic economy and stimulate commercial innovation.

On the academic front, U.S. Government funding of research

grants and programs that provide a guiding light on evolution of

the Internet should be continued. As Bill Gates stated at the Library of Congress in May, ‘‘Our universities and laboratories must

be invigorated with first class research programs and thinkers to

continue to blaze the technology trail.’’

We suggest that international efforts to stimulate adoption of

IPv6 be evaluated and that the U.S. Government learn from and

if appropriate, adopt some of these emerging practices. Providing

economic incentive programs typically show faster results than policy recommendations alone.

U.S. Government procurement actions have a profound impact on

commercial product strategy and delivery plans. Strong IPv6 support from the U.S. Government such as current efforts by DOD will

only strengthen the perception that IPv6 is an important technology for American business and the public sector.

In conclusion, Microsoft is excited about the IPv6 potential to enable pervasive collaborative computing. The U.S. Government has

a great opportunity to foster an environment in which we have industry and academic IPv6 thought leadership. We are eager to

work with you to achieve this environment.

Thank you once again for the opportunity to speak before the

committee. I look forward to answering your questions.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Khaki follows:]

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Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you very much.

Mr. Barber.

STATEMENT OF STAN BARBER

Mr. BARBER. It is a distinct honor to speak to you today about

the next generation Internet and the transition to Internet protocol

version 6.

My name is Stan Barber, the vice president of engineering operations at Verio, Inc. Verio is one of the world’s leading Internet

service providers and one of several so-called Tier 1 Internet backbone providers, the networks with sufficient reach, scale and traffic

to afford their customers and customers of other interconnecting

networks, including U.S. Government users, global connectivity.

Verio is based in Englewood, CO, and is a subsidiary of NTT Communications Corp. and an affiliate of NTT America, Inc.

The committee is to be congratulated for its focus on the next

generation of Internet services. We all recognize that the Internet

has become in a few short years a fundamental aspect of our economy and essential to the productivity of business and delivery of

government services. To some, the term ‘‘next generation’’ suggests

speculation about future technological developments, and wide expanses of time and opportunities to identify and address issues.

However, we live on Internet time, and, ‘‘next generation’’ in that

context means ‘‘now.’’

Indeed, the next generation of the Internet, IPv6, was defined as

an open source, non-proprietary protocol in the 1990’s and has already found its place extensively in major computer operating systems such as Windows XP and Linux and in many public and private networks around the world. I believe that my company, Verio,

is the world’s most experienced commercial IPv6 service provider

and operates the most extensive commercial IPv6 network.

Most networks today still operate in the older IP version 4 protocol, but the transition to the later technology is essential and inevitable because of the inherent advantages built into IPv6. IPv4 does

not today provide for sufficient addresses to accommodate efficiently connectivity to all potential users worldwide. IPv6, on the

other hand, increases the number of directly addressable nodes exponentially. While security for IPv4 is provided where practical as

a ‘‘patch,’’ using overlay systems, IPv6 builds in high level security

protections, such as secure remote node authentication and

encryption, directly into the network layer, assuring more reliable

and ubiquitous protection.

IPv6 generally increases flexibility and functionality with additional benefits, such as more efficient routing of traffic and more

effective usage with wireless devices. The result is lower costs and

improved services, like end-to-end communications and communications with devices other than PCS, something we call m2m-x communications. That is why Internet equipment manufacturers and

the leading software providers, service providers and private network operators have started to transition from v4 to v6, and those

that have not as yet, will inevitably find that flexibility, efficiency

and security requires the conversion.

Other countries are ahead of the United States in this transition.

This does not reflect any genuine technological advantage over the

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United States. Indeed, it may be said that the United States continues to lead the rest of the world in Internet and related technology. Other countries have advanced to IPv6 primarily because

of an initial lag in Internet development. Consequently, they have

been more keenly focused on the need to address the shortage of

Internet addresses and less extensive legacy networks in need of

transition.

For example, the European Commission created a task force to

design a plan of action for development, testing and deployment of

IPv6 in 2001. The task force is coordinating efforts in individual

member counties and regions and seeking cooperation with other

countries.

The Chinese government has established an IPv6 network linking major universities. The government is also funding a plan to

develop a more extensive IPv6 infrastructure.

Taiwan is also developing a national information infrastructure

built on IPv6.

India has established the IPv6 Forum to coordinate development

and implementation of IPv6.

In Japan, the home of our parent company, the government’s eJapan Strategy has been promoting the transition to IPv6 Internet.

In addition, an e-Government Creation Plan facilitates the procurement of IPv6-capable devices. In the commercial sector, the IPv6

Promotion Council helps address issues related to the transition.

I have described these initiatives in other countries not to advocate any U.S. Government mandate or funding of transition to IPv6

in the private sector, but to note the clear recognition by policymakers abroad of the potential of IPv6. This committee is showing

its characteristic leadership in bringing to the attention of the public the need for an effective transition from legacy Internet technologies in government and more generally.

The report of the Government Accountability Office requested by

this committee demonstrates a deep understanding of the issues

raised by this technological transition. The GAO offers solid recommendations to save government money and to protect against

security threats.

In addition to GAO’s comments, it is also useful to recognize that

the transition to IPv6 need not be disruptive or costly. Verio and

NTF Communications employ the so-called ‘‘dual stack’’ transition

strategy globally in which we run simultaneous IPv4 and IPv6 systems. Use of the IPv6 system is selected where a peer has that capability; the legacy protocol is employed where the peer cannot be

reached in IPv6. Thus, the transition is transparent to users and

existing software and equipment.

Software and equipment that does not accommodate IPv6 can be

updated in conjunction with normal upgrades or as specially designated by management. The key point is that, as recognized by

the GAO report, government and private sector management

should at least be surveying their essential IT operations to accommodate the inevitable transition. In this regard, the GAO and this

committee are also to be congratulated for highlighting an extremely important issue of security related to on-going employment

of legacy IPv4 networks in the transition to IPv6.

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As I have indicated, some operating systems, including such

ubiquitous systems as Windows XP, Apple’s OS X, Linux and Unixbased systems, already accommodate IPv6, although they are used

primarily in this country in conjunction with the legacy network

protocol.

Similarly, many software applications today accommodate IPv6.

Not all IT managers are aware of the potential of a grave security

threat to their systems by allowing unauthorized parties access to

software using ‘‘ghost’’ IPv6 addresses unrecognized by their systems because they are buried within IPv4 addressed packets. Or,

if they are aware of the threat, they do not have the budgets and

other resources to address the problem.

Even as government agencies and the private sector transition,

as they must, from the legacy platform to IPv6, they must be vigilant in adapting firewalls and other equipment and software to prevent unauthorized parties from using IPv6 capabilities accessed

covertly over existing IPv4 networks.

Mr. Chairman, I thank you again for the opportunity to address

this committee about these critical issues of technological development and implementation, and for your leadership in identifying

and making the public aware of these important matters. Verio

stands ready to continue to assist the committee further in any

way we can.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Barber follows:]

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Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you very much.

Mr. Lightman.

STATEMENT OF ALEX LIGHTMAN

Mr. LIGHTMAN. Thank you for allowing me to share my observations on the possibilities, opportunities and challenges presented to

the U.S. Federal Government by the looming and inevitable transition to Internet protocol version 6.

As the name of this hearing, ‘‘To Lead or Follow,’’ implies, this

is an urgent time for Internet leadership. The Federal Government

invested the first $50 million in the first Internet, and as a result,

the United States led the world in that technology.

The United States has 50 percent of the Internet service business, and the Internet has impacted thousands of industries, creating an estimated $500 billion a year in extra Federal revenues, and

adding over $1 trillion in wealth via companies like Google, Yahoo!,

Amazon, eBay, and hundreds of other public companies.

Similarly, the new Internet has the potential to create 10 million

new American jobs and trillions of dollars in revenue for the

United States, but leadership is slipping away to other countries,

and it will soon be difficult, if not impossible, to recover. One company, Japan’s NTT, has more IPv6 customers than all American

companies combined. In fact, over 99 percent of IPv6 traffic is occurring outside of the United States. In the first Internet, we had

99 percent of all Internet traffic in the early stages. To answer your

question from earlier, we are way, way, way behind the eight ball.

Japan, China, Korea, and Europe have invested over $800 million in the new Internet compared to about $8 million for the U.S.

Federal Government, and are now changing the new Internet to reflect their political priorities, which are very, very different from

America’s political priorities, and even American laws.

I got a 300 page document from a friend of mine in Spain where

they are basically trying to make IPv6 anonymous so that you can’t

see who is using it and doing what. In China, they have 70,000

people, 50,000 now and 20,000 about to be hired whose whole job

is to scour the Internet finding people doing things they don’t like

and then grabbing them. These are two opposite extremes from the

way America would like to do it. We would like to have peaceful,

non-terrorist uses of the Internet be private but we want to be able

to reach out and protect the country when we have to.

With Federal leadership in the new Internet, the U.S. Federal

Government will create a service export boom, with millions of innovative new jobs, increased competitiveness for hundreds of industries, and thousands of new startups, potentially creating a booming economy. American leadership in the new Internet will also add

thousands of new products vital to our military and homeland defense, better security, and underpin sustainable technological leadership for the United States.

The promise of the products and services enabled by the new

Internet is huge, an affordable way to show high quality television

over the Internet, a possible way to deal with spam and attacks on

networks, and hundreds of applications to make American lives

easier and safer.

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Over $9 trillion of America’s nearly $13 trillion economy relates

to services, subscriptions, and transactions, and we kind of take it

for granted people can’t come in and grab those away from us. IPv6

will help keep the trust and keep hundreds of millions of customers

loyal to American companies. If we don’t show leadership in the

new Internet, we get a loss of millions of jobs and market shares

across thousands of companies.

This is my big concern. A loss of public trust and reputations in

transactions over U.S. networks using the existing, highly vulnerable IPv4 protocol, coupled with an increase in trust of IPv6 networks in Japan, Korea, China, and the 25 nations of the European

Union, could have a devastating impact on America’s service economy. Internet Service Providers, telecommunications giants, banks,

brokers and even our defense contractors will lose business.

Where the U.S. Government showed leadership, as we did with

the post office, the interstate highway system, airplanes, lasers,

radar, computer chips, and satellites, none of which would have

happened if we had left it to the market, we are world leaders even

decades later.

Where our Government did not show leadership, where there

wasn’t a Congressman Davis to hold hearings and get involved

with it, including color televisions, big screens and high definition

television, digital cameras, and DVDs, America plays almost no

role in these and related areas, except as a consumer and our trade

deficits reflect that, almost $700 billion this year, importers of food,

importers of goods. God help us if we become importers of services,

subscriptions and transactions. We are a follower, not a leader, in

these fields. If we do not show leadership in the new Internet, this

same thing will happen to us, but on a much broader basis, it will

be in everything the new Internet touches, which is almost everything.

Mr. Chairman, the opportunity exists for the American Government to show leadership in the new Internet, to make a real difference for our national security and our industries and workers.

By supporting the transition of the Government agencies to the

new Internet standard, as the Defense Department has already

started to do, we will not only support a more efficient and effective

government, that is, help facilitate fundamental government reform, but will send a signal to the world that America is still a

technology leader in the 21st century. And for anything as important as a new Internet standard, it will not be left behind, but will

march in front, and our Coalition Partner governments will join

with us and rally to our standards banner. I confirmed this at the

Coalition Summit which you honored us by being the opening keynote speaker.

Mr. Chairman, there are many specific actions that your committee could take to support the promotion of the new Internet in our

Government, and to support the government reform that will be

possible when all of government talks with the same technical language, so to speak, with this new standard. Here are three: one,

mandate IPv6 for the entire Federal Government by 2010; two,

choose a leader who has the authority, responsibility, and accountability as well as the creativity, passion, and integrity, to galvanize

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thousands of other leaders to get excited and committed to making

the transition to IPv6 on schedule.

I point to the case of the Coalition Summit where 30 different

Coalition partners, people who fight and die beside us in Iraq, said

who is your IPv6 leader. We have our person in Sweden, the same

person who managed the transition for the government from IPv4.

Japan has their leader who reports directly to the Prime Minister

in monthly meetings about this. China has its leader, Korea has its

leader. Everyone has a leader but us.

Finally, enable this leader to create a Federal IPv6 Transition

Office to serve as the central engine for the Federal IPv6 transition, overseeing a budget which I put this number out there 6

months ago and nobody has even taken a shot at it, of $10 billion,

with the budget of FITO itself of about $50 million a year.

This office will assist in managing the complexity of an Internet

transition, something we did before, in the early eighties when the

Internet was only one-millionth as large as it is today. It is worth

pointing out there was a protocol before IPv4 called NCP. Ten

years after TCIP was introduced, the Federal Government said, we

are going to get rid of this less useful protocol and we shut it off

for 1 day. People howled and we shut it off for 2 days. Then we

shut it off entirely.

Because of this hearing and what is set in motion, there will

come a point at which we realize there is no sense having IPv4 and

we will shut it off like we shut off NCP. Let us have America be

the ones to determine when that shut off is rather than other countries that might stop routing our packets.

If I had to summarize what the Federal Government should

know about IPv6 it would be: the transition to IPv6 has costs and

benefits. The benefits far outweigh the costs. Failure to transition

to IPv6 for the whole economy by 2012 will cause a loss of Federal

revenues that is roughly comparable to a tax cut, with these funds

flowing to Europe and Asia rather than to American taxpayers.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of this committee, for

your time and attention, and for the proud leadership role in technology and innovation for America that you represent.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Lightman follows:]

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Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you very much.

I want to thank all of you. Internet and related areas is one of

the few areas where we are generating a trade surplus.

From almost unanimous testimony, it appears if nothing else, the

transition to IPv6 is going to give more innovation, that is where

the innovation is coming from. What are they rolling out in Japan

right now in products from using IPv6 that we don’t see over here?

Does anybody have an answer to that?

Mr. LIGHTMAN. What they found is that first of all with building

controls, they have loan way and other companies which they found

they can save 29 percent of building operating costs, enough to pay

for an entire building within 20 years by having each room have

up to 250 controls all managed automatically by IPv6.

They installed voice over IPv6 in college dorm rooms and were

giving students free calls all over the country. They have had over

800 taxicabs in Goya, Japan using IPv6 to decide where taxis

should go to more efficiently pick up people. So it is involved in

services, it is in cars, it is in elevators, it is in trains and there are

370 companies doing projects on IPv6. All I am talking about is the

academic projects of two universities.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Does anyone else want to add to that?

Mr. KHAKI. I would characterize the Japanese deployment to be

in its early stages and the examples that Mr. Lightman gave are

accurate. I think what is impressive is the investments they are

making for the long term infrastructure for their country in partnership with telecommunications operators.

As I commented earlier, they are building the next generation

communications infrastructure. They will deliver security services

for IT as well as content services for the home. It is a longer term

investment that I think is more impressive than what we are seeing in terms of early adoptions. Almost every company in Japan

that creates consumer electronics devices or network infrastructure

has a strong IPv6 plan and those products may position Japanese

industry in much more competitive position than they would have

been with IPv4.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Mr. Barber.

Mr. BARBER. There are also a number of groups that are formed

in Japan to foster the use of IPv6 in non-traditional devices as I

mentioned in my testimony, non-PC communications. Those range

not only from things like cell phones which already have Internet

today in many parts of the United States, but to more atypical devices like you mentioned in your opening comments, refrigerators,

security systems in the home.

There was a discussion about taxicabs that was mentioned earlier but they are also using it to provide real time information in

the car so when you are driving from point to point, you can pick

up information on the current traffic patterns or perhaps weather

in the area you are about to enter, things like that. The capabilities

they are exploring in Japan are extensive and they are possible because of IPv6.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Mr. Lightman talked about the United

States would be wise to mandate any transition by a certain date,

2010, and if we didn’t do it by 2012, you talked about perhaps some

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fairly serious economic ramifications. How do the rest of you feel

about that?

Mr. Curran.

Mr. CURRAN. I think it is important to have a transition plan for

every Federal agency. This is something that is necessary, a transition is inevitable and the activity of going through and building the

plan to do transition on an agency by agency basis is necessary.

Just going through and having that plan as we have seen the activity that has followed the DOD commitment to a migration plan and

a commitment to move to IPv6 will cause industry activity within

the United States.

I believe a specific date may not be required but the fact of having a plan which calls for transition and having that plan submitted by a date is a very wise idea.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Do you think we are behind the eight ball

at this point or do you think we are OK?

Mr. CURRAN. You have to recognize that my view on this is somewhat skewed because of my experience with the Internet over the

last 15 years in the addressing field. I believe that it is not a question of whether or not we have to move quickly to catch up. Earlier

you asked the members from Government whether or not it was

important for the Government, for example, to go get its own block

of IPv6 address space. That is not necessary. The address space

will be there. IPv6 provides an ample address space so it will be

there when agencies go to get it.

I think the more important question is that it is important to

raise the awareness of IPv6 within the United States, it is important to get all of the people involved in technology, manufacture,

the vendors to produce IPv6 capable products and not just know it

is a switch they have to turn on but someone is going to actually

turn that switch and use it.

The act of the DOD committing to version 6 caused to work out

interoperability problems that would not have otherwise been

found. The commitment of agencies to do the same will cause the

U.S. industry to catch up on version 6.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Does everyone who requests a block of addresses receive it?

Mr. CURRAN. The regional registries all have allocation policies

that they follow for issuing those address blocks. These are set on

a region by region basis. The challenge is if you meet the guidelines, you get your address space. There are applications in every

region of the globe that don’t meet that region’s addressing policy

and get turned down.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Is that a business case you have to make

to get that address?

Mr. CURRAN. It is simply showing that you have valid uses for

the address space. One of the challenges we face as the stewards

of the address space is ensuring that people indeed have equipment

to use the addresses on. We don’t want a hoarding situation.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. That is the next question. If I’m a large

consumer products manufacturer and I would put IPv4 in every

product I make, say $20–40 million, can I get that block?

Mr. CURRAN. That question actually came up a number of times

2 and 3 years ago. We were approached, for example, by the celVerDate 11-MAY-2000 09:53 Aug 26, 2005 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00104 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\22510.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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lular industry. The cellular industry was directed that wide scale

deployment of devices with embedded addresses should look in the

direction of version 6.

We are trying to make sure that the future is looking to version

6 particularly for these embedded applications.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Mr. Higgins.

Mr. HIGGINS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for your leadership on

this very important issue.

The United States represents about 5 percent of the world’s population and about 50 percent of its economic strength, and about

40 percent of its technological output. The U.S. leadership position

is eroding as evidenced by the pervasive and growing trade deficit

which is about $600 billion today, meaning that Americans who

used to make things and sell them to the rest of the world are now

a consumer nation. We consume about 6 percent more than we

produce. This indicates there are economic troubles currently and

on the horizon. It is a much different world than we dealt with ever

before.

Tom Friedman, the New York Times columnist and author just

wrote a book called, ‘‘The World is Flat’’ and in it he argues that

the old vertical model, the old economic model of knowing who is

on top and knowing who is on the bottom is gone, the world is flat,

it is horizontal. Knowing who is up, who is down and who is emerging is much more difficult.

He argues that this is a consequence of the convergence of information technology which now makes the tools of innovation and

collaboration available to all. Depending on the motivation that you

bring to these tools, positive or negative outcomes are determined.

The one interesting parallel he outlines in his book in the final

chapter in particular is, he says in February 1999 two airlines were

started. One was started by a bright American entrepreneur by the

name of David Kneitelman of Salt Lake City, UT. He financed

through American banks the purchase of a whole new fleet of jets.

He outsourced the pilot training to a flight school throughout the

United States and he outsourced the reservation system to retirees

and housewives in Salt Lake City. When you call Jet Blue, which

is his airline, and make your reservation, you are talking to someone who is in their living room in Salt Lake City. He built in Jet

Blue one of the most successful and financially strong airlines in

the entire world.

The other airline was started in Afghanistan by Osama Bin

Laden. He financed a purchase of jets through various financiers

in the Middle East; he outsourced the pilot training to a flight

school in Miami; and outsourced the training or planning to Ali

Sheik Muhammed.

Both airlines were designed to fly into New York City, Jet Blue

into LaGuardia and JFK and of course Al Queda into lower Manhattan.

The thesis of his book is a very urgent reminder of what Americans have to do in order to not only regain their economic superiority but to also stay competitive in the world so as to ensure that

our national security is strong and secure as well. I don’t know if

you have read the book or read his column, I am curious as to what

the panelists think about the thesis that Friedman outlines.

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Mr. LIGHTMAN. I read the book and I think he missed trust in

a big way. Recently there was a story publicized all across England. I spent the last 2 weeks in England raising money for an

IPv6 fund. People said, oh, the Indians let out the bank data; well,

I am never going to outsource anything to them again. So with all

the stories of all the people doing things, if people can’t trust your

networks, and all it takes is one release of critical data, then it can

cause devastation. Millions of Indians will lose their jobs or will not

gain them because of the loss of trust.

As far as outsourcing, if China succeeds in putting in its own IP

Sec and its own complete transparency and can track every person

and everything they are doing, and you are a government that is

a dictatorship, say you are one of the 100 countries in the world

that doesn’t have a democratically elected government, whose

Internet are you going to buy? Are you going to buy it from China

which has said look, we have proven we can take care of our dissidents or are you going to buy the American one which is designed

that way? There are a thousand political decisions to be made and

the problem for IPv6 that there has been no elected official, somebody who basically has the legitimacy as an elected official to do

this.

What makes the transitions in Korea and Japan so powerful is

that the people in charge of them are elected officials and they are

unique in the world. That is why these hearings are so important.

Outsourcing will ground to a halt if people can’t believe they will

be treated as honestly in India or China or anywhere else as they

would be treated at home. If we lose that trust, it is worth trillions

of dollars a year in our GDP.

I want to mention one other thing. We have been a Net high tech

importer for the last 2 years according to Business Week, so we are

not an exporter, we are an importer of high technology. This year

we have become an importer of food. What is left is services, subscriptions, transactions and media. That is it. IPv6 touches all of

them right at the very guts.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. We talked about mandating a transition

by a certain date. Mr. Curran, you answered. I didn’t to Mr. Khaki

and Mr. Barber. I would also ask should the United States fund

those transition efforts like other nations have done?

Mr. KHAKI. Our viewpoint is that the natural market forces

would be the right kind of forces to work out the transition issues.

There has to be careful thinking of the business case and the scenario planning along with all the transitional issues. So we strongly believe that the market forces will eventually lead the transition

of things.

There is a role the Government has to play in terms of encouragement which I alluded to earlier in my testimony with regards

to supporting the research and education sectors through procurement policies of the Government. I think those can be a good catalyst. So we believe the transition will take place left to the market

forces.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Mr. Lightman has argued for elected officials in government to take a lead.

Mr. LIGHTMAN. I explained it in an article I wrote recently which

I will send you a copy, which says ‘‘Twenty Myths and Truths

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about the IPv6 transition.’’ I leave two points to let the market decide. The Department of Commerce went out and got requests for

comment which said let the market handle it and they are so embarrassed about it that they won’t release the report because the

position is insupportable.

I will give you three examples. One, there is one man who is the

primary examiner in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office who

has 150,000 patent applications as of a month ago. It is probably

160,000 today where people and companies like Microsoft, like

AT&T, like many people are trying to say, I have a patent, I want

exclusive use on that so no one else can use it without my permission for 20 years.

The reason the Internet works at all is because the Federal Government paid for it, didn’t try to get a patent and gave it to the

world. How well do we think it is going to work if we leave it to

the market but leave it to 10,000 different patents, say you use this

security protocol for this kind of packet, so therefore you are infringing on my patent. It is not going to work.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. I didn’t want to start an argument, but

I hear you.

Mr. BARBER. I believe that the transition needs to have two components to it in the United States. The Government needs to transition its own operations to support its own mission. So if the Department of Defense believes they need IPv6 by such and such a

date, they should absolutely do that by whatever date that is that

meets their mission objectives.

The fact there are many agencies that don’t have their planning

far enough along to even project dates is of concern. So it is my belief that they should all establish some very firm transition plans

that include some sort of a date by which they will at least have

their transition far enough along to have IPv6 operational in their

networks.

Notice I didn’t talk about turn off IPv4, I only talked about turning on IPv6. When you turn off IPv4, I think is a different question

and has a different set of characteristics associated with that and

that will be driven by really attrition, in my opinion. When do you

turn IPv4 off should be an attrition driven question, not one driven

by some sort of deadline.

From a market perspective, I agree there should also be market

forces at work that encourage industry to deploy IPv6 as it is to

their advantage. Certainly the Government will influence that by

having each agency have a mission specific transition plan but I

don’t think we need to have some big date out there in the future

where everyone has to be on version 6 everywhere in every office

in the United States.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Mr. Khaki, how are you using IPv6 in

your products and services?

Mr. KHAKI. We are a Windows operating system platform provider. It was very important for us to provide platforms that would

enable software innovation for scenarios that are yet to be imagined. We have had a strong commitment in IPv6. We include IPv6

support in the Windows XP operating system. Our primary focus

was to enable developers to develop new kinds of scenarios and

those operating systems are being used worldwide today.

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For your information, we have a global IPv6 network that integrates all our development centers spread across the world. We are

using the transition technologies that I mentioned earlier in

achieving this connectivity. The biggest applications we see are the

ones that require pervasive collaborative communications because

today’s limitations of added space prevent data being transmitted

and created undue burden on the network.

I would like to respond to a point made earlier on intellectual

property. The 30 years of leadership the U.S. Government has

shown in IPv4 was important to the academic work that was done.

There is a similar role the Government has to play to make sure

that academic research continues so that we have good prior art,

that we remain competitive, that we do encourage industry to innovate. There are incentives, commercial incentives, tax incentives,

government matched funding to enable these commercial forces to

work.

I think the biggest thing we will see is the Government procurement itself be a key driver. As I have been active in the IPv6 efforts since 2001 visiting Japan and China and other places, clearly

the announcement by the Department of Defense in 2003 was a

major event that actually made a lot of companies in the United

States more aware and brought more urgency to the issue.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. What fields do you think will most directly benefit from the exploitation of IPv6?

Mr. KHAKI. If I can give you an example, you can think of the

IPv4 address limitation today in some ways similar to the memory

limitations in the early days of the PC. In the early days of the PC,

there was a 640K memory limit. A lot of developer creativity, a lot

of IT creativity enabling new capability was being used to overcome

the limitation that was there using things like LEM M, EMM and

High MEM. The IPv4 address space limitation is similar to that

limitation that was there.

A lot of energy is being spent in drawing on new capability, IT

departments and developers are working around limitations, so we

are not really moving ahead, we are kind of making what we have

work slowly. That would be a key benefit. Another important one

is security. IP SEC is an important addition to the IPv6 protocol,

it is better integrated. Those capabilities will help us build a much

more secure communications infrastructure.

Besides IP SEC there is also other lower layer technologies that

are in IPv6 that help IPv6 networks to be more secure than IPv4.

It is important that we look at that. Things like wireless networks,

LANS were not really around when the original IPv4 was invented.

So there are limitations on those protocols and IPv6 addresses that.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Let me ask this to each of you. Mr.

Curran made his comment. Do you think there is no short term

shortage of IP addresses in the United States?

Mr. LIGHTMAN. As Mr. Curran admitted, they don’t give them to

you if they don’t feel they like your business plan, so it is not a

market based decision. For instance, if I wanted to have 50 million

addresses, say I work for General Motors, I am consultant and I

want to get a block of addresses, they can say, well, we don’t really

like the idea of IPv4 addresses in cars, so here is the basic point.

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If you don’t give away the addresses, you never have a problem

with them.

In any case, you can always come back and blame the United

States for hoarding them because the U.S. DOD has a very large

block and we could give it back, then there would be no shortage.

It is not a commercial thing, it is not a market based solution. On

the one hand, people say, leave it to the market but on the other

hand, the market is not working in the way addresses are allocated

today.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Anyone else?

Mr. BARBER. I think for the future of the Internet application, for

ubiquitous connectivity to everything, we will run into a limitation

at some point. If we make the investment in trying to make this

work for IPv4, we are investing in a lot of patchwork to get the

same kind of innovation that we would have with IPv6 because of

its native architectural features. I believe the innovation future as

someone in the previous panel said from OMB, the innovation future is with IPv6, not with IPv4, regardless of the number of addresses available.

Mr. KHAKI. The way I feel about the current situation is we are

making do with the limitations we have and in the process, we are

slowing things down. The IPv6 address space will relieve concerns

that are there and the way I think about this is restoring the hygiene, the end to end computing model on which the Internet was

founded. Today the hygiene of the network is not there because you

end up with these devices that prevent communications taking

place end to end and a lot of breakage is an extra cost.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Do you think the United States has the

necessary infrastructure, wireless and broadband, to exploit any of

the key features of IPv6 on a national level today?

Mr. KHAKI. I believe we have a good infrastructure in this country and more is being done each day. I think the work the Government did with regards to unregulated wireless spectrum was excellent. It actually has helped us deploy new capabilities with YFI. I

think those are great things. There is a lot of movement in the industry around wireless technologies. That is healthy. Broadband

deployment is increasing by the day. So those are good things.

I do believe that the existing version 4 Internet infrastructure is

suitable also for migrating us to version 6. The way we think about

this is to separate out the infrastructure migration and the application migration because oftentimes they can be thought of as a

chicken and egg. Is it the chicken or the egg? By using appropriate

transition technologies and using appropriate conversion tools, you

can migrate either the infrastructure or the application.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Anyone else?

Mr. CURRAN. I would like to respond to something said earlier.

To the extent an organization doesn’t get an IP address space,

it is because the ISPs in that region have formed policies and those

policies for that region simply state these are the valid purposes for

assigning them. There is no question or judgment of business plan.

If a business in the Far East got turned down for address space,

it is because the ISPs that make up that region came up with allocation policies to balance availability and stewardship. So there

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isn’t per se a shortage, we are simply enforcing the policies that the

Internet providers worldwide have adopted.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. But you would agree that there comes a

time when you do end up with a shortage?

Mr. CURRAN. Absolutely. In fact, as we go forward, it only makes

sense to make sure the policies for allocation of address space get

increasingly frugal to ensure that people know yes, you need to balance the business case between transition versus going forward on

version 4.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. I get it.

Mr. LIGHTMAN. I would like to make one comment on infrastructure. The Soviet Union is still alive and well, living in American

networks. There was a Russian invention which was made for people living in apartment buildings where they had one phone number for the apartment building and a phone on all ten of the floors

where it would ring on every floor. The person living with that system made up something called NAT, Network Address Translation,

so people say, you have Network Address Translation, good Russian technology and it enables you to take one IP address and have

100 different people use it or even go to 100 NATs and go on and

on and on. So you can have a NAT behind a NAT.

Basically if you buy into that flawed argument, you don’t need

any IP addresses but the refutation to that is the telephone that

you have. You have a number and you can see what it is. That is

end to end. It is not going to an operator. The whole invention of

the switch was because the guy who had a funeral home thought

he was missing calls from the operator who was switching his calls.

Why are we stuck with this Soviet technology in America’s networks instead of having end to end and having everyone be identified? I would love to know that everybody who went into the Internet was part of what Microsoft brilliantly calls a trusted bubble. I

want for the U.S. Federal Government and all of its commercial

providers of services to be inside the trusted bubble and leave the

people who don’t watch their hackers and want anonymity to be in

the untrusted bubble.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Plus, the rest of the world is innovating

off an IPv6 model. They are getting new products off that and we

are still sitting here with the Russian telephone. Is that your

point?

Mr. LIGHTMAN. Yes. Also, it is important to say IPv6 is only

about 20 percent finished. There are hundreds of what are called

RFCs which still have to be decided on and the U.S. Government

has made no more than five comments in the last decade of what

it wants and doesn’t want. We have checked out and gone brain

dead about participating in those standards efforts.

There was one in particular the gentleman before mentioned

which is the sensor nets for doing nuclear hazardous materials.

That is what they are discussing right now, how do you do ultra

low power, ultra low bandwidth sensors because you don’t want to

put a lot of power into billions of sensors. There is no government

participation. There is not even any government contractor. We

have just abandoned this which leaves it other governments to go

and monkey with it.

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Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you all very much. This has been

a great hearing. I think other committees will be looking at this as

well but we have the responsibility for intragovernment, within the

Government itself as we move forward. This has been very, very

helpful.

Thank you very much and the hearing is adjourned.

[Whereupon, at 12:40 p.m., the committee was adjourned.]

[The prepared statements of Hon. Jon C. Porter and Elijah E.

Cummings and additional information submitted for the hearing

record follow:]

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