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gorlist@int0x80:~$ cat news.txt

Internet Design
Eugene Kaspersky on internet anonymity:
Interviewer: If you had the power to change up to three things in the world today that are related to IT security, what would they be?
EK: Internet design--that's enough.

Interviewer: That's it? What's wrong with the design of the Internet?
EK: There's anonymity. Everyone should and must have an identification, or Internet passport. The Internet was designed not for public use, but for American scientists and the U.S. military. That was just a limited group of people--hundreds, or maybe thousands. Then it was introduced to the public and it was wrong...to introduce it in the same way.

I'd like to change the design of the Internet by introducing regulation--Internet passports, Internet police and international agreement--about following Internet standards. And if some countries don't agree with or don't pay attention to the agreement, just cut them off.

Bruce Schneier on internet anonymity:
The problem is that it won't work. Any design of the Internet must allow for anonymity. Universal identification is impossible. Even attribution -- knowing who is responsible for particular Internet packets -- is impossible. Attempting to build such a system is futile, and will only give criminals and hackers new ways to hide.

Imagine a magic world in which every Internet packet could be traced to its origin. Even in this world, our Internet security problems wouldn't be solved. There's a huge gap between proving that a packet came from a particular computer and that a packet was directed by a particular person.

Moreover, centralizing information like this actually hurts security because it makes identity theft that much more profitable a crime.

The whole attribution problem is very similar to the copy-protection/digital-rights-management problem. Just as it's impossible to make specific bits not copyable, it's impossible to know where specific bits came from. Bits are bits. They don't naturally come with restrictions on their use attached to them, and they don't naturally come with author information attached to them.

Accept that there will always be anonymous speech on the Internet.
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Posted on 16 May 2010 by gorlist


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