The Internet has become a minefield across which it's necessary to tread cautiously.
Threats span both physical and virtual dimensions. Reliance on an intricate mesh of electronic devices and Byzantine cabling structures puts the Web at the mercy of any blow -- including storms in outer space -- that could disrupt countless services now reliant on the Net.
The dangers are virtually legion. As the Web has exploded over the last decade and users have signed on en masse worldwide, the network's infrastructure has reached a breaking point. Protocol capabilities have maxed out (the
assignment of the last remaining IPv4 addresses in 2011 being one example). And the software underlying what was once a restricted research network has been reworked so many times that its coherence has become precarious.
To make matters more alarming, the keepers of Internet infrastructure -- the ISPs -- have in many instances worsened the situation. Consolidation of ownership has limited innovation, and commercial priorities have put network evolution on the back burner.
Add to all this the threats introduced by the many hackers and miscreants who thrive on the Internet, and the situation looks very dire indeed.
Is the picture all bleak? to answer that question, we will take a look in this report at the Internet's weakest links and what, if anything, may be done to strengthen them.
Read the report sequentially, or click specific pages listed below. And please share your thoughts with us on the message boards below.
The battle between Good and Evil on this experimental "bi-medium" communication venue is about to be impacted greatly.
The Internet is not going to disappear and this time bomb phrase does however describe the fact that they way the Internet exists currently is nearly over.
My confidence is not in the digital achitecture that everyone is touting as being so vital to our very survival. my confidence is in the fact that we humans have the knowing of a great many things, and how to stay alive without internet is one such knowledge-set.
And after the computer literate world has cried "WOLF" so many times about the end of civilization, from Y2K to DoomsDay virus infections, can you blame the people in charge for ignoring you when you try to blame the extinction of society on "SUN SPOTS"?
Thank you George. But this was about the Internet being shut down by a space weather phenomenon and not a societal conflict, for which there is plenty of contingency planning available.
Fine, Kurtkeys, I won't worry about my Internet connected television guide, but I might be worried about a localised event in the Middle East taking down oil industry infrastructure, sending ripples through the global economic network, in which the Internet is an increasingly overloaded, vulnerable and vital link. That's an extreme example of the kind of foreseeable consequences at the local level that we and our governments should be aware of and be preparing for.
almost, but not quite. even in the far flung portions of the globe, your money's value is tied to the buying power assigned to it by the banks and countries that printed it. And even in the sook trading shops, when you buy a piece of jewelry, the merchant will weigh the piece to determine value, before asking you to pay. Only those in a true nomadic agragarian society are free of the global society's dependance on technology and enterprise. My point is, we should prepare as individuals, rather than carp about how to make everyone else pay to protect me.
Isn't the difference that countries without a major digital infrastructure - of which there are many - know how to exist without it. The States, however, has become largely dependent on it, and is therefore going to be vulnerable if it goes down.
In a country where everyone keeps their money under a mattress, the collapse of the "banking system" wouldn't much matter. But here...
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As Mitch Wagner discussed today, Yahoo is acquiring Tumblr. The big Internet debate at the moment is whether Tumblr will be good or bad for Yahoo. Regardless of their stances on the future of Yahoo itself, many claim that Yahoo will somehow ruin Tumblr.
Has China stolen a march on the West, developing an Internet architecture that is not only based on IPv6, but is also inherently secure from both internal and external attack?
Recently, the Obama administration has been of two minds where privacy rights are concerned. On one hand, you have an administration that vowed to veto CISPA and mandated open data for government websites. On the other hand, you have an increasingly out-of-control Department of Justice on a fishing expedition at AP and demanding legislation to let the FBI wiretap private, encrypted communications and levy fines if a company fails to comply.
The apartment and house sharing service, Airbnb, now requires members to verify their identities by demonstrating a presence on the web, and by either scanning a government ID or entering detailed personal details. Other enterprises should take a close look at Airbnb's verification policies.
New York's Metropolitan Transit Authority is conducting a pilot test of digital kiosks to guide subway users to where they want to go more efficiently and at lower cost.
The whole Amazon.reader debate is a double-stupid. It's stupid to think that there's any e-book buyer who doesn't know Amazon's URL, and it was stupider to let ICANN launch the whole free-form TLD initiative to start with.
While NFC's original goal was to enhance mobile commerce applications, it is finding its way into a number of other uses, which is creating both opportunity as well as challenges for IT departments.
Enterprises would like to move to cloud computing but are hesitant because they are concerned about providers’ ability to secure company data. Here are some tips that help to ensure that if breaches occur, the business is not left holding the bag.
Edmunds separates customers into segments based on the info it collects on its site and from partners, and uses that to push out custom content, said Brian Baron, director of business analytics for Edmunds.com, at Predictive Analytics Innovation Summit.
The automotive website uses propensity modeling to target ads and customer registration forms, said Brian Baron, director of business analytics for Edmunds.com, at Predictive Analytics Innovation Summit.
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