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Vint Cerf Says It's Every Machine For Itself

Posted by timothy on from the and-works-for-google dept.

Hugh Pickens writes "The Guardian has an interesting story on Vint Cerf, the 'father of the internet,' in which he says there's no silver bullet for scammers, spammers and criminals running zombie networks and porn-to-porn file swapping because 'the internet was designed that way.' Cerf adds, 'Like every medium, the internet can be abused. When we think about it, we can commit fraud locally and internationally using the telephone system and postal service.' However, Cerf is also convinced that it's the internet's openness — in allowing people with new ideas to do their thing without getting anyone's permission — that is the main source of its power, and he is against the idea of a two-tier internet with a trusted, controlled 'overnet' for commercial and business use, and an 'undernet' where anything goes. 'My bias right now tends to be "It's every man for himself" — you need to be suspicious whether you're inside the trusted cloud or not, and when it fails, the house of cards tends to collapse.'"

14 of 82 comments (clear)

  1. Man != Machine by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    Or has he already crossed that line?! It would explain soooo much.

    1. Re:Man != Machine by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      See? Even Vint Cerf says the Internet was designed for porn. I feel very exonerated now.

  2. Porn-to-porn? by solafide · · Score: 2, Funny

    What's porn-to-porn fileswapping? We know what the submitter had on his mind.

    1. Re:Porn-to-porn? by Gat0r30y · · Score: 3, Funny

      its like regular file swapping - but with twice the porn!

      --
      Prediction: The real iPhone killer is going to be sex robots from Japan. Think about it.
    2. Re:Porn-to-porn? by PPH · · Score: 5, Funny

      What's porn-to-porn fileswapping?

      You show her yours and she (or more probably Stone Phillips) shows you a jpeg of some hot 15 year old.

      --
      Have gnu, will travel.
    3. Re:Porn-to-porn? by PitaBred · · Score: 2, Funny

      Twice the porn? My god... that's like, 120% of the bytes being filled with porn...

      --
      My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
    4. Re:Porn-to-porn? by techno-vampire · · Score: 2, Funny

      We may or may not know just what the submitter had on his mind when he suggested porn-to-porn fileswapping, but I'll be we known what he had in his hand!

      --
      Good, inexpensive web hosting
    5. Re:Porn-to-porn? by sketerpot · · Score: 2, Funny

      On old modems, I suppose you could get 112.5% of the bytes filled with porn if your modem misuses the parity bit as an extra porn bit. I've been thinking about RS-232 all day.

  3. Re:Gated Communities by Divebus · · Score: 3, Funny

    Both Heaven and Hell have gates. Not sure which one I'd prefer...

    We got hell from Gates on Earth and I didn't like it... but that's done now.

    --

    Most of the stuff on /. won't survive first contact with facts.
  4. Goldy, Silvery, Irony by Sponge+Bath · · Score: 4, Funny

    ...no silver bullet for scammers, spammers and criminals

    Maybe we should fall back to the lead variety.

    So says anonymous internet tough guy Sponge Bath.

  5. Re:Too late, gated communities exist, and always h by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    You don't host a bank of servers on your home DSL connection.

    Speak for yourself!

  6. Ah yes, nothing worse by just_another_sean · · Score: 3, Funny

    ... you need to be suspicious whether you're inside the trusted cloud or not, and when it fails, the house of cards tends to collapse.

    There's nothing worse then when your cards are in the clouds and the house falls down. Was Vint a partial inspiration for Zapp Brannigan by any chance?

    If we hit that bull's eye, the rest of the dominoes will fall like a house of cards. Checkmate.

    --
    Creationist Textbook Stickers Declared Unconstitutional by CowboyNeal
  7. Re:Every machine for himself?!? by db32 · · Score: 2, Funny

    You clearly didn't see the the alternate ending involving the electric blanket burning down the house.

    --
    The only change I can believe in is what I find in my couch cushions.
  8. Re:Overnet and Undernet by maglor_83 · · Score: 2, Funny

    I don't really wanna think about cloud computing in this Undernet.