Is it time to press the internet's reset button?

[irneb]

Some very valid points made here: http://www.theguardian.com/commentis...ecure-internet

In addition to some scary thoughts!

[wynn]

I swear the whole penis growth industry is sending me emails, so many in fact that it is becoming tedious deleting all of them unopened.

[xcorporation]

there is of course a way.

rent a server from godaddy at 50 USD.
Build your own spam bot and email server - or downlaod from opensource repositories.
Then charge the target mailserver with 10 terabyte of data.

Boom Boom ...

[irneb]

Build your own spam bot and email server - or downlaod from opensource repositories.
Then charge the target mailserver with 10 terabyte of data.

Actually, it would be easier to write a virus which takes over all infected servers, then propagates itself via all the "spam" it generates to others. It's been done before, but usually caught early enough to be isolated before the entire internet went down.

Personally, I wouldn't like such to happen before there's a viable alternative - i.e. that imaginary "secure" network alluded to in that article. But I also fear it's a pipe dream: if someone (government / commercial add spammer / crook - basically same thing) wants to get to your personal info / preferences / vices / etc. ... they'll get to it, no matter how much security there is in the network. They'll find a way somehow. Greed will always prevail if not prosper, all you need for it to flourish is one single greedy guy in the entire planet's population.

[Dave A]

Personally, I wouldn't like such to happen before there's a viable alternative - i.e. that imaginary "secure" network alluded to in that article. But I also fear it's a pipe dream

Yeah, I tend to agree.

I chewed over the OP a bit last night, but didn't post anything because... well, where do you start?

Ultimately, until there's a workable proposal for a "from the ground up" system architecture that solves the weaknesses of the current system, at least what we've got now does work.

Some of the issues are probably solvable even within the current architecture - we just need to keep innovating.

Let's not be too harsh on what we've got now. After all, it's only been 20 years or so.
Yes, I know the IT crowd think a year is a long time - but when you consider the pace of developments, we're probably still near the bottom of the learning curve here.

[wynn]

we're probably still near the bottom of the learning curve here.

If you watched the first episode of 'Cosmos' he says if the development of the world were represented by a one year calendar, all of man's technology was invented in the last second of the minute after 23h59 of December the 31st