Once again, the debate resurfaces over whether the Internet is built properly... Is it resilient enough? Is it sufficiently secure? Is that what its founders really intended? The New York Times is leading the charge here, pondering whether we need to scrap the existing Internet for something better and safer. To ignore this issue, according to this latest round of debate, is to invite a "digital Pearl Harbor."
Let's all take a deep breath, shall we?
I agree that there are a number of issues related to the security of the Internet and that there are a lot of individuals and entities causing harm and creating havoc. However, the Internet is a lot like space. It can't be governed or controlled by one entity. The fact that it has grown exponentially and successfully survived a number of attacks is a testament to its strength and flexibility. Furthermore, there are already solutions that will make the Internet inherently more secure -- like IP version 6 -- which has been around for quite a while but has not been able to gain the necessary support to be fully implemented.
However, there are always those that are never satisfied with what they have, and this applies to the Internet as well. A group of researchers at Stanford University is designing what they claim to be a more secure Internet. Project Clean Slate believes that the "Internet has significant deficiencies that need to be solved before it can become a unified global communication infrastructure." I am not sure about you, but I think the Internet is already doing this and doing it fairly well.
I've always been suspicious of government-funded projects. But I was also curious to see who would want to support a new, more secure Internet. So while reviewing the Clean Slate site, I went to its sponsor page. On this page we find Cisco Systems Inc. (Nasdaq: CSCO), Deutsche Telekom AG (NYSE: DT), NEC Corp. (Tokyo: 6701), as well as others. What I found interesting was that in addition to these large companies, there were two venture capital companies, Lightspeed Venture Partners and Mohr Davidow Ventures . When was the last time you saw a venture capital company support philanthropic work? Isn't the whole premise of a venture capital company to make money? Perhaps the organizers of Clean Slate have identified a way to make a profit from implementing a more secure environment. What also concerned me was the article did not even discuss some of the core questions related to this new Internet, like:
Who will own it?
Who will manage it?
Will it be free or will it cost?
What will I have to do or give up to be part of this community?
Will I have to be "assimilated"?
These are just some of the questions that will need to be answered before I would ever abandon the Internet of today for a venue that will most likely require me to forfeit all of my rights and privacy in exchange for security. I don't know about you, but I will take my chances with the Internet that we have.
— Tom Stamulis, Manager, Verizon's Business Security Solutions (formerly Cybertrust) Governance, Risk & Compliance Group
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RE: "Take some responsibility for yourselves and enjoy life on and off line." STOP making sense Burtm10! (ha ha - good post). If Internet DNS was patched properly, if organizations using the NET held their employees (all of them) feet to the fire, and EXPECTED personal accountability to address issues, if there was REAL vigilance in DEFENDING yourself and your organization online by the whole IT/Internet community (THAT COSTS $$$ though!), if China and India and Russia weren't using so many pirated copies of Windows to make the BOTNETS run rampant...yeah, the NET would quiet down.
Clean Slate - interesting idea though, and may be needed(?).
As I see it the problem is mostly with users requiring someone else to do their thinking for them. You decide what I should see, what web pages i should visit, what information I should read.
I like the dynamic and slightly dangerous nature of the wild wild web where risk and opportunity abound. Beats the risk free and opportunity free 3d world most of us are compelled to live in where all the fun stuff has been taken away to "protect" those who should be featuring in the Darwin awards.
Take some responsibility for yourselves and enjoy life on and off line.
Brent
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Small business tips to take advantage of the internet at
This thread, and Mary's on enterprises stepping up and fighting SPAM, and Jart's on Blacklists, are all inextricalby linked, at least under my silver haired scalp. I'm pretty sure that the usage model(s) of the 'Net have changed just a tad from Vint and his cohort's original vision--unless there are some more supercomputing centers coming online that I'm unaware of.
While the infrastructure has evolved over time, and certainly speeds have grown, the mix of public, commercial, private, educational, criminal, international, & all of the other -als traffic is an invitation to some of the chaos we experience today. DNS is problematic, but then, so are people like me who foolishly still tinker with sendmail when there are easier MTAs out there that don't cause you to blabber incoherently...
The problem does indeed seem to be funding, doesn't it in the end, though? And in the end, isn't that why some infrastructure providers and VCs want in on the ground floor?
Yes for me internet is just working find but i think if there's an improvement available let'sget it right , because many people are already victims of internet , for thoses people internet need extremely an improvment an an online policy to over seer what goijng on .
Mary Jander: I was thinking of exactly the same thing! But wait! Maybe CleanSlate SHOULD hire one of those defrocked televangelists.... they were venture capitalists long before the phrase was invented! Seriously, with the amount of infrastructure and appliances attached to the internet at this point, and with the economy in freefall, does anyone really believe that there's any capital left in the pockets of the consumers or businesses for such a large undertaking? I for one won't be putting my hand on my video monitor and praying for a new internet while writing a check with my other hand.
I agree that we could do some renovations to fix the problem spots and leave the other working parts alone. However I think that we have to have government involvement (as long as it isn't lobbyist backed).
The problem that we have now that we didn't have 30 years ago is that people see the commercial value in the "virtual" world. Because of that you have Cisco and other companies trying to make their own and we'll either never have any improvements made, or we'll end up with another VHS/Betamax or BluRay/HD DVD fight. The government (or a governing body) needs to be involved in order to make sure it isn't designed specifically for a few special interests.
Yes, there are parts of the internet that are broken and unsecure. Anyone who says otherwise is just plain crazy.
I don't think that we need to scrap everything and start over from scratch with a whole new system for a whole new internet.
As mentioned in the article there are things like IPv6 that can be part of the fixes, along with the scraping and redesigning of some commonly used protocols such as SMTP, plus all the big telecoms replacing and upkeeping all their equipment and systems to a specific set of standards which would certainly help with the problems and security flaws that exist out there on the internet.
While I am against Government involvement with many things and not like being part of a "Nanny State", I think that there is room for some oversight to make sure that anyone who is an ISP be held to some standards well above the current accepted standards.We do live in a fully connected world via the World Wide Web, and our governments are the only ones who really talk to one another, they need to work together to fix many of the problems, and be willing to look at some countries and put a WWW embargo on countries who don't have or don't enforce standards in the telecoms who are ultimately responsible for the WWW. Yes, if your country is a haven for spammers, hackers, virus writers or others like that then yes, other countries will cut off your access to the outside world via the WWW.
I think fixing the flaws and problems in the current system is better than trying to put a whole new system in place, especially since that system won't be fully tested and it too will have problems, and hackers will find the holes. Nothing is perfect, there will always be holes and issues that need to be worked on.
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Daylight savings, spring cleaning, getting your oil changed, and replacing smoke detector batteries -- all have something in common; they all are completed on a schedule. So it’s about time those of us brandishing iPhones, BlackBerrys, and other PDAs like they are body parts start to embrace some scheduling that can protect our identity and build a more secure Internet environment.
Do you remember that famous cartoon from The New Yorker in 1993 with two dogs in front of a computer, one saying to the other, “On the Internet, Nobody Knows You’re a Dog”?
Being from Boston, I hold a special place in my heart for Paul Revere, who famously rode to alert the countryside of impending British attack. Since Paul can no longer raise the alarm, I feel it my duty to do it myself -- this time to warn the information security professional that the lawyers are coming.
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In the final episode of this series about the death of Internet anonymity, Saunders describes how the Internet of the future will start to attain a level of intelligence that requires no human intervention. Scary.
What can users today do to protect their online privacy? The simplest and most obvious option is to not use the Internet – at all. However, once all digital information is consolidated over the Internet, trying to protect digital identity by simply unplugging from the Internet becomes impossible – a fact that has manifest implications for civil liberties, Saunders says.
By 2011 the number of Internet-connected sensors will exceed 1 trillion, making your chances of doing anything or going anywhere unnoticed pretty much zero. Saunders talks about how the 'sensortization' of the Internet is eliminating the traditional divide between online and offline populations.
The 20th Century Internet was characterized by the ability to interact with other people and information on the Internet largely without anyone knowing who you were. The Internet of this century, conversely, will be defined by identity. Saunders explains how Internet users are unwittingly contributing to the demise of the anonymous Internet.
It is 20 years since the invention of the World Wide Web, and the Internet has changed beyond recognition since then. Steve Saunders peers into the future to predict what the Web will look like in another 20 years time – and he doesn’t like what he sees.
Data mining of social networks means people might face unforeseen consequences as a result of their seemingly innocuous personal choices and associations.
BTI sent Steve a card calling him a tool. Unsurprisingly, he’s not happy, and he dons his Martha Stewart hat to show us how corporate holiday greetings should be done.
Microsoft reportedly has plans to integrate Windows Live and even Xbox with Windows Mobile. That may provide them a strategic advantage, but what will the cost be to your privacy? Tom explains all.
Research shows that the youth of today like Facebook – but not blogging or Twitter. Does that mean Facebook has won, or just that it's not yet out of favor? Will all the services we see today fade into Ovaltine-or-Wheaties status in just a few years?
What kinds of companies are doing the most innovation in the data center? Turns out it's midtier enterprises that are taking the "Just Right" approach.
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