Do We Need a New Internet?

Recently I was reading an article in the New York Times titled, Do We Need a New Internet? The article was very disturbing and quite shocking to me. I am not much of a computer geek and I don't keep up with all the news that is surrounding the issue of Internet security and safety. After reading this article, I think that I definitely will as it is a major growing problem and getting worse as we speak. According to the article, the Internet is not as safe and secure as people think it is and it hasn't been for a long time if ever. The Internet is actually very vulnerable to millions of hackers and malicious software everyday and a lot of people, companies, businesses, and organizations are suffering as a result. Internet privacy has become a word of the past as most information, whether you want it to be private or not, is public and can be accessed with a few key strokes. The Internet has become so non-private and vulnerable that the only way to fix it it to start all over again. According to the article, a new Internet, like a "gated-community" needs to be established where people are going to have to give up certain cyber or Internet freedoms in return for safety.

Last year a malicious software program, Conficker, was unleashed by a criminal gaining in Eastern Europe, which penetrated the Internet and sidestepped past some of the world's best cyberdefenses. Like I said I don't know much about computers and hacking or malicious software, but it doesn't sound right that a criminal organization could bypass our Country's best security defense programs, leaving our Country completely vulnerable to anything. Conficker is such a powerful malicious software that it had the capability and could very well be used to shut off entire sections of the Internet. This is obviously a huge deal and could be so severe as to affect an individual citizen and entire businesses in performing the necessary tasks they need to survive as a company and remain successful. It essentially could cripple successful organizations and send millions of people into a state of panic and chaos. No one really knows what exactly could happen and the severity and damage this malicious software could cause or any malicious software for that matter. Last November our military networks proved vulnerable as well as they discovered that their network was purposely infected with software that may have permitted a devastating espionage attack. It's hard to believe that our military, using the most advanced and technological equipment known to man, can be hacked and vulnerable. These are the organizations whose main goal is to solely protect our country and our lives and yet they need to be protected. Scientists at Stanford are currently working on this problem and are trying to design a system to make it possible to slide a more advanced network quietly underneath today's Internet and it should be up and running by the end of the summer.

This is an issue that is not going to go away quietly and needs to be dealt with immediately and efficiently. Simply patching our existent Internet is too time consuming, costly, and just simply not worth it. The need for a new, highly secure Internet has arisen and arisen fast. Stanford, along with other organizations is working on building a new Internet with improved security and the capabilities to support a new generation of not yet invented Internet applications. Of course no matter what we do, the Internet will never be 100% secure, but we can sure as hell try and get as close to that number as possible. Reading this article really sparked my interest as to how vulnerable our country really is and I am sure millions of people like myself don't even realize it.