Thursday, February 19, 2009
Techdirt: Can We Stop Asking For A New Internet?
Techdirt reacts to the NYT story, Do we need a new Internet? It's from their Chicken Little Department. It's a good story, hits the right issues (except that it misses rapid, inexpensive market discovery).
Techdirt makes one big mistake. It says, "there's no evidence that any users actually want such a new Internet," and that's wrong. There's plenty of evidence -- ask almost any user, and they'll say the Internet is difficult to use and malware makes it worse. That there's so much evidence is the danger. The problem is who benefits if we offer a locked down net, and the baby-bathwater nature of the proposed fixes.
Techdirt makes one big mistake. It says, "there's no evidence that any users actually want such a new Internet," and that's wrong. There's plenty of evidence -- ask almost any user, and they'll say the Internet is difficult to use and malware makes it worse. That there's so much evidence is the danger. The problem is who benefits if we offer a locked down net, and the baby-bathwater nature of the proposed fixes.
Technorati Tags: End-to-End, OpenAccess
Comments:
Malware can come from anywhere, from thumbdrives and new out of the box ipods to most famously SONY DVDs.
Blaming the internet for malware is blaming the air we breath for getting the flu.
While I can understand non-tech folks not understanding the difference between securing endpoints and filtering the network, I'm really surprised to see such a fundamental misunderstanding coming from you.
Blaming the internet for malware is blaming the air we breath for getting the flu.
While I can understand non-tech folks not understanding the difference between securing endpoints and filtering the network, I'm really surprised to see such a fundamental misunderstanding coming from you.
I disagree... I don't think anyone wants a new internet. I think they want the current one... without the malware and the annoyances. It's an important distinction. I would bet most people just want the current internet "cleaned up" not an entirely new internet.
One of the biggest problems in today's Internet is the fact that applications for it were designed without giving thought to potential security problems. For example, Web browsers would be far less subject to all sorts of exploits were it not for their ability to run executable code (ActiveX applets, Javascript, Flash, etc.). This is a feature that I, as an engineer, never would have added to the browser, because it opens up Turing and Goedel's infinitely deep can of worms.
# posted by 
: 2/21/2009 6:06 PM
: 2/21/2009 6:06 PM
you are not considering the source. the article was written by john markoff who has made a good living by scaring people who don't understand technology. his articles on kevin mitnick were sensationalist nonsense, and this NYT article is more of the same.
sure, security is and should be an endpoint issue, but consider the fact that markoff's article is about botnets, viruses and spam. these issues are a few years old, yet he is making them out to sound like some sort of new phenomena that will lead to some sort of internet collapse.
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sure, security is and should be an endpoint issue, but consider the fact that markoff's article is about botnets, viruses and spam. these issues are a few years old, yet he is making them out to sound like some sort of new phenomena that will lead to some sort of internet collapse.
