Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Ed Felten says, "New Internet? No Thanks."
Professor Felten writes:
Felten concludes,
The problem is not that the Net is broken or malfunctioning, it's that the endpoint devices are misbehaving -- so the best solution is to secure the endpoint devices. To borrow an analogy from Gene Spafford, if people are getting mugged at bus stops, the solution is not to buy armored buses.This is a mere excerpt -- the whole thing is worth reading. [Source]
Felten concludes,
As I have said before, the Internet is important enough that it's worthwhile having people think about how it might be redesigned, or how it might have been designed differently in the first place. The Net, like any large human-built institution, is far from perfect -- but that doesn't mean that we would be better off tearing it down and starting over.Very good. I might append, ". . . or changing it to keep the powerful from losing power," but even without such words, the point is made.
Technorati Tags: EdFelten, End-to-End
Comments:
It doesn't make sense to talk about how to "secure the endpoint devices" when most of the problems in today's Internet are due to intentional misbehavior on the part of endpoint devices. Spammers, scammers, etc. know exactly what they're doing with their endpoint devices, and these devices are working as intended. P2Pers know that they're illegally pirating intellectual property and that they're hogging bandwidth.
The only way to rein them in is to implement security, terms of service, and quality of service in the middle of the network.
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The only way to rein them in is to implement security, terms of service, and quality of service in the middle of the network.
# posted by 
: 2/17/2009 2:23 PM
: 2/17/2009 2:23 PM
