Last year, we celebrated the 50th anniversary of the ‘birth of the Internet’. What started as an educational tool in the 80s and became a global public resource in the 90s, now affects approximately 4 billion people directly and billions more indirectly. The Internet has impacted our society like no other revolution – in our economies, our societies, our cities, and in our homes. And this will only grow in the years to come – both in terms of new groups of people, and an increasing number of “things” that are connected to it.
This in turn, has reshaped the technical context and political significance of the Internet, resulting in real challenges to the safe and secure use of it.
Today, you can’t read the news without seeing a story about the “dangers” of the Internet. Brazen cyberattacks happen every day, including isolated but large-scale attacks on the Domain Name System (DNS) itself – a critical part of the Internet infrastructure, which my organization, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) helps coordinate. These attacks undermine trust in the Internet and the applications connected to it.
In many conversations about these issues, we hear that “the Internet” is the problem. While it is true that social media, search engines, online advertising, video streaming platforms, and numerous other applications are all accessed through a connection to the Internet, they are not the Internet. These are applications that sit on top of the Internet.
The problem is not with the Internet itself. And this is an important distinction to be kept in mind when trying to address these issues.
read more (ourworld)
This in turn, has reshaped the technical context and political significance of the Internet, resulting in real challenges to the safe and secure use of it.
Today, you can’t read the news without seeing a story about the “dangers” of the Internet. Brazen cyberattacks happen every day, including isolated but large-scale attacks on the Domain Name System (DNS) itself – a critical part of the Internet infrastructure, which my organization, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) helps coordinate. These attacks undermine trust in the Internet and the applications connected to it.
In many conversations about these issues, we hear that “the Internet” is the problem. While it is true that social media, search engines, online advertising, video streaming platforms, and numerous other applications are all accessed through a connection to the Internet, they are not the Internet. These are applications that sit on top of the Internet.
The problem is not with the Internet itself. And this is an important distinction to be kept in mind when trying to address these issues.
read more (ourworld)