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Do We Need a New Internet?
Richard.Tao and a number of other readers sent in a NYTimes piece by John Markoff asking whether the Internet is so broken it needs to be replaced. "...[T]here is a growing belief among engineers and security experts that Internet security and privacy have become so maddeningly elusive that the only way to fix the problem is to start over. What a new Internet might look like is still widely debated, but one alternative would, in effect, create a 'gated community' where users would give up their anonymity and certain freedoms in return for safety. Today that is already the case for many corporate and government Internet users. As a new and more secure network becomes widely adopted, the current Internet might end up as the bad neighborhood of cyberspace. You would enter at your own risk and keep an eye over your shoulder while you were there." A less alarmist reaction to the question was blogged by David Akin: "If you build a new Internet and you want me to get a license to drive on it, sorry. I'm hanging out here in v.1."
A World without Anonymous Cowards? I thought I'd never see the day!
Do we need a new internet? Yes, absolutely. My wife informs me that "the internet is down" probably two or three times a week on average.
#DeleteChrome
A "gated community" with fewer abilities for users? Why not call it "Access Owned by Large corporations" or AOL for short?
This comment was thought up very late at night and does not necessarily reflect my views at a more reasonable hour.
Nooooooooooooooooo.
Maybe. Sometimes though, I think a more appropriate response for the French military would be to just give up.
I have left slashdot and am now on Soylent News. FUCK YOU DICE.
give up their anonymity and certain freedoms in return for safety
so I'll be safer by exposing myself?
factor 966971: 966971
It is! And it is needed.
The current Internet is too hard to control. Just about anyone can get on and say anything. There is no class structure, no censorship, options for extracting money from users are limited and getting a cohesive message across to everyone who uses it is downright impossible.
What is needed is a tightly regulated Internet where only those with enough good wealth are able to control what is being said and payment is extracted in an easy and orderly fasion. One which all information is available to the right people who can use it to control the unruly mob and masses of the underclasses.
In the past couple centuries the ruling elites have been lax in their duties and the lower classes have risen, creating a "middle class" and fostering the wrongheaded idea that every man is equal. With a new Internet combined with other mass media such wrong ideas can be properly quashed.
It will also catch some pedophiles so it is for the children and anyone who doesn't want it to be this way is obviously a perverted child molester and unpatriotic coward.
I'll build my OWN internet...with blackjack...and hookers. In fact forget the internet and blackjack part.