An editorial comment from Chicago Tribune, July 4, 2005:
In the beginning, the Internet was an experiment among a small group of government scientists and military folks who all seemed to know each other. They were friendly. Then the doors were thrown open to the public, and millions revved their engines and zoomed onto the Internet superhighway. All these technological pioneers marveled at the clever new ways to share information, find out stuff, buy things and connect with others who have common interests.
Unowned and virtually unregulated, the Internet functioned for a few years in the mid-1990s under self-governance, a certain live-free-or-die ethic of community responsibility. Most people were still friendly. The Internet's original design rested on the premise that all these new Netizens would be as law-abiding and conscientious in the privacy of their home offices as they would be strolling through a public park.
But even savvy computer users aren't monolithic. Some have a dark side.
In came the hackers, the viruses, worms, spyware, phishing, and spam; the purveyors of pharmaceuticals and p*rn sites; and Nairobi bank presidents and generals promising to wire millions of dollars into your bank if you'd kindly give them your account number.
According to a Washington Post report last weekend, Carnegie Mellon University CERT Coordination Center logged 3,780 new computer security vulnerabilities in 2004. In 2000 the center logged 1,090. In 1995, it was just 171.
Weeks ago, in one of the largest security breaches of the Internet to date, MasterCard International revealed that more than 40 million credit card numbers had been exposed to hackers and potential fraud.
"The Internet is stuck in the flower-power days of the 1960s during which people thought the world would be beautiful if you are just nice," computer scientist Karl Auerbach told the Post. Formerly with Cisco Systems Inc., Auerbach now volunteers with engineering groups to try to improve the Internet. Auerbach is part of a handful of groups now looking into whether the entire Internet needs an overhaul, or, in Web-speak, a Version 2.0.
What the existence of those groups tacitly acknowledges is that too many people aren't just nice. With more than a billion Internet users across the globe, and nearly everyone who surfs it vulnerable to hazards, a structural overhaul is not an outlandish idea.
Copyright 2005, Chicago Tribune
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