Unprepared to Fight Worldwide Cyber Crime

I agree that some kind of a global governance body needs to put in place a set of laws for the digital land of the Internet.  However, as you mentioned, it is a challenging endeavor that will require honest cooperation from other nations.

It is hard to imagine a new Internet being created with the existing Internet continuing to rampantly grow every day.  I think people have become comfortable for the most part with this digital realm void of any major laws addressing cyber crime.  Then again, this new Internet could provide a sort of backwards compatibility to interact with the current Internet.

It is without a doubt, cyber crime is an important issue that needs to be addressed as it can have serious ramifications for anyone using the Internet.

I agree that a new Internet seems like an overwhelming task, and one that would make drawing the audience (really, what the Internet IS, now) that much harder. No anonymity? No thanks.

The punishment of cyber crime committed abroad also necessitates legal cooperation among countries, which brings up another set of issues. Internet diplomacy?

The author states "It’s obvious that the Internet requires some type of governance."

Statements that begin with "It's obvious" usually mean that the speaker cannot justify the premise, and is attempting to slip that fact past the unsuspecting reader.  That's certainly the case here.

The history of telecommunications makes it quite clear that a "governed Internet", with the capabilities of the current Internet, could NEVER HAVE COME TO EXIST!  It is only because the current TCP/IP internet is, technically speaking, "stupid", is fundamentally ungoverned and ungovernable, that innovation has been able to outpace the would-be gatekeepers.  (Examine the history of the various state telecomm monopolies in Europe in the 1950's through 1980's as a classic example.  They were uniformly horrible, overpriced, and easily monitored and perverted.)

Will crimes be committed in an ungoverned Internet?  OF COURSE THEY WILL!  Will crimes be committed in a country where freedom of speech is guaranteed?  OF COURSE THEY WILL!

The author could easily write, with the identical justification, that "It's obvious that free speech requires some sort of governance."

Niven's Law states that F * S = K.  I.e. Freedom times Security is a constant.  More freedom; less security.  More security; less freedom.

We may choose to reduce the freedoms available in a "governed" internet, in the hope of increasing security.  We may even succeed.  (Although personally I doubt it -- a governed internet may just replace thieves with masters.  Which ones are more dangerous?)

But the author is essentially asserting, like a stage magician who misdirects your attention, that the tension between freedom and security does not exist, that the need for governance is "obvious".

And he's lying. 

There is a very simple fact you are missing with your post: you can not beat technology with more technology. Were we to create a new internet, how would we do it? We'd still have to use TCP/IP, Ethernet, and all of the other basic technologies unless you want to set us back 50 years by scrapping it all. That technology needs to be implemented in software and hardware, and it is impossible to write perfect code. Human beings are imperfect along with everything we produce. However even the very best code can, and will eventually be broken. That's why 10% of the expense in software is creating it, then 90% in maintaining it. Those bugs lead to exploits, those exploits lead to cybercrimes.

So, if you can a) come up with a way to completely re-design and re-implement a world wide communications infrastructure, B) create a standardized model internationally to make it work, C) do this all for a lower cost than the 5% of the world's population who actually care about this are actually losing to cybercrime, then you may be on to something. But that brings us back to the fact that you can't defeat technology with more technology - as your research and development efforts can and will be completely confounded by a single bored geek with a soldering iron on one of your newly designed routers who then spreads the knowledge via sneakernet.

You must understand, the fact is that you can not control the internet. It is the first thing that human beings, as a species, have created that acts as such. It can't be given borders because it is designed to be amorphous. It is designed to work around holes you create. Any other internetwork you create will have these same features or practicality will render it useless. Look at China's great firewall. It has more holes than swiss cheese, and more are opening every day. Maybe, just maybe, a great equalizer has come. And the 5% of the population in every nation across the world who control 95% of the worlds money finally have something to fear because they can't control it. Australia already realized it when they admitted that technology has long ago passed the law by, and there is no way for the law to keep up. Now the rest of the world needs to see it.

If you apply the same logic to cars that this article applies to the internet, you'll see how really scary this idea is. Since cars make it easier for criminals to escape being caught, what if we scrapped all current cars, and replaced them all with cars that had a kill switch in them that police could activate? I don't think anyone would accept that for a minute, to say nothing of the presumption of guilt that is implied.

If this poster truly wants a worldwide network with required logins and no anonymity, they've already been built. They're called Telenet and BITNET. Unsurprisingly, they both have few users.

So where do we start?

I think a global internet governance needs to be publically scrutinised and accountable. Police, lawyers, politicians and security experts can't be trusted. Transparency and public exposure is the method to bring most types of crime and corruption to task.

Next is a global internet control structure with switches, routers and nodes which addresses and identifies all users, devices and streams of data. The control comes from the network interacting with itself and from the central authority, not from the edge.

Controlling cyber criminals starts with people reporting to a responsive body, tracing and investigating the criminals, responding by stopping their illegal online activities, then presenting the evidence to the correct legal authorities for prosecution and compensation.

When we drive our cars, it is only after we have been issued a drivers license. This requires numerous proofs of identity, issued only through a system of trust.

Companies supplying equipment for the network structure or nodes are licensed and continuously scrutinised. Users are licensed. All devices and nodes are addressed and identified. All devices are initially dumb and bootstrapped with firmware from the network. All hardware and code is tested and approved before devices can be used on the network. The network won't respond to illegal equipment or users.

I have waited 20 years for the internet to require ... more.

Confluence

There has been on going research on the concept of new internet design stretching back over a decade. A year ago or more, Stanford University launched a wite paper on the topic "Clean Slate Design for the Internet" and currently maintain a web site on their research. Much discussion on the idea followed on both Slashdot and Digg at the time. I was sufficiently motibated to do some in depth research on the topic and prepared a essay about this, available at http://www.tropicalcoder.com/BrokenInternet.htm

It provides a strong foundation of background material and research and raises some serious questions. Since that time, for unknown reasons reason Stanford University has removed the white paper that outlined their research program from their site .