Do we need a new Internet?

This was the title of an article in the New York Times published on Valentine’s Day.  The link is here http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/15/weekinreview/15markoff.html?_r=1.  The gist of the discussion is whether it makes sense to ditch the existing internet in favor of one with more control points and greater security.  In effect, to gain entrance, one would need to register and have their identity confirmed before being allowed in.  The current ability to remain anonymous online will no longer be possible with this new internet.

The issue is one that has been debated for some time and in fact I refer to it in my earlier blog post on how the Government could takeover the internet.  The question really is how acceptable will this be to the current users, and if not, why not?  I can’t really see how a responsible person who wants to use the internet for responsible activities and penning his thoughts could possible be against such a move.  That said, if the country in which the person resides does not allow certain liberties, then he/she would be similarly restricted online.  In effect, the online world becomes a mirror of the offline world.  In a more tightly restricted internet, the controls put in place by the law can be enforced easily.  It is still currently possible, but at great expense in time and money.  The benefit obviously is that it will be harder to perpetrate online scams (I’m not so ignorant that I believe a more tightly controlled internet will eliminate ALL crime) and that people will put in more thought and consideration before posting inanities on blogs, commentary, etc…..  It will also be easier to police the darker aspects of the internet such as child pornography, etc…..

In general, I am in favor of an internet that offers better security and would be willing to surrender my anonymity to partake in a more thoughtful network.  Having said that, I do realize that most people would not.  The internet in its current incarnation offers them a release from the real world and the one being touted is too much a mirror of the real world for them to like it.  So, while I see great benefits of such an action, I believe that it won’t happen anytime in the next ten years.  I mean, the UN can’t even agree as a body on some simple issues.  How do they plan on establishing a global change on the internet?  All it takes is for one or two countries not to accept the new conditions and everyone would flee to their servers and set up shop there from which they can go rogue.

As a sub thought, I seriously question how many of the 174 million Facebook users are unique users.  I know of many many friends who have more than five IDs on Facebook by registering with five different email accounts for a variety of reasons.  Could the growth of Facebook effectively just be the same users registering the new IDs?

 

Tong Hsien-Hui

Government taking over the net? Part 2

So now we have the infrastructure aspect done up.  Each country controls and runs their internal ISPs.  All net traffic thus passes through their servers before making their way out to the rest of the world.  There is now control of new online IDs being created although who is actually creating them may be harder to pin down.  I suppose the next step would be to create unique identifiers for each person before they can log on to the internet.  This would only be possible if the government themselves offered internet access free within their own country.  With the increasing prevalence of fingerprint recognition hardware, a person could log on to the net with his/her own bio ID.  Thus everything that person does on the net is now logged and retrievable.  It  is now possible to identify the person behind each action taken on the internet.  Sure, there are details to work out as to how to prevent or minimize fraud, etc….but this is already done imperfectly in the real world so I will gloss over that for the moment.

 

Tong Hsien-Hui

Government’s taking over the net? Part 1

This last week in Singapore, there have been quite a number of discussions regarding the role of Government within the domestic internet community.  The implication of the Government regulating the online community was met with derision, anger and not a few stupid comments that seemed to justify the Government’s stand.  In the end however, the relevant authority came out to state that this would not be the course of action they would take….for the moment.

This issue got me to thinking too however.  Should they really want to police the internet, how would any Government go about it?  I believe that its a matter of looking at what the internet really is.  Effectively, the internet to all intents and purposes is a world, no different from the world we live in.  That being the case, shouldn’t it be policed the real world is?  But how will this be done?  The NSA together with Homeland Security spends billions of dollars data mining the online traffic to pick out the nuggets of critical information that could lead them to a plot being hatched to destroy property or cause damage in the real world.  Does it make sense to do so however?  I think that with a fundamental shift in thinking, Governments can take automatic control of the key channels of the internet.  All they need to do is to takeover and run all the ISPs in the country.  If each country were to do this, it would be easy to impose strict guidelines on the users and the concept of anonymity would be significantly reduced.  Obviously it is not possible in practice to monitor every keystroke made by every user within the country, but it is no different from the real world where you can’t possible monitor all the conversations that take place in the country.

Fact is though, I love the internet as it is, with all the negative and sometimes gross things on it.  I’ve had more negative reviews and comments than positive ones, but that doesn’t make me want someone to control it.  However, this intellectual exercise is interesting and I will post more once I have had time to think through more of the issues.

Hsien-Hui, Tong