The Internet Is Broken

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Dewayne Hendricks <dewayne () warpspeed com>
Date: December 19, 2005 9:58:23 AM EST
To: Dewayne-Net Technology List <dewayne-net () warpspeed com>
Subject: [Dewayne-Net] The Internet Is Broken
Reply-To: dewayne () warpspeed com

[Note:  This item comes from reader Mike Cheponis.  DLH]

Monday, December 19, 2005
The Internet Is Broken

The Net's basic flaws cost firms billions, impede innovation, and  
threaten national security. It's time for a clean-slate approach,  
says MIT's David D. Clark.
By David Talbot

<http://www.technologyreview.com/InfoTech/wtr_16051,258,p1.html?trk=nl>

This article -- the cover story in Technology Review’s December 2005/ 
January 2006 print issue -- has been divided into three parts for  
presentation online. This is part 1; part 2 will appear on Tuesday,  
December 20 and part 3 on Wednesday, December 21.

In his office within the gleaming-stainless-steel and orange-brick  
jumble of MIT's Stata Center, Internet elder statesman and onetime  
chief protocol architect David D. Clark prints out an old PowerPoint  
talk. Dated July 1992, it ranges over technical issues like domain  
naming and scalability. But in one slide, Clark points to the  
Internet's dark side: its lack of built-in security.

In others, he observes that sometimes the worst disasters are caused  
not by sudden events but by slow, incremental processes -- and that  
humans are good at ignoring problems. "Things get worse slowly.  
People adjust," Clark noted in his presentation. "The problem is  
assigning the correct degree of fear to distant elephants."

Today, Clark believes the elephants are upon us. Yes, the Internet  
has wrought wonders: e-commerce has flourished, and e-mail has become  
a ubiquitous means of communication. Almost one billion people now  
use the Internet, and critical industries like banking increasingly  
rely on it.

At the same time, the Internet's shortcomings have resulted in  
plunging security and a decreased ability to accommodate new  
technologies. "We are at an inflection point, a revolution point,"  
Clark now argues. And he delivers a strikingly pessimistic assessment  
of where the Internet will end up without dramatic intervention. "We  
might just be at the point where the utility of the Internet stalls  
-- and perhaps turns downward."

Indeed, for the average user, the Internet these days all too often  
resembles New York's Times Square in the 1980s. It was exciting and  
vibrant, but you made sure to keep your head down, lest you be  
offered drugs, robbed, or harangued by the insane. Times Square has  
been cleaned up, but the Internet keeps getting worse, both at the  
user's level, and -- in the view of Clark and others -- deep within  
its architecture.

[snip]
Weblog at: <http://weblog.warpspeed.com>



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