A Deep Look at the State of the Internet

The Internet wasn’t developed to be a dangerous place. It wasn’t developed for spammers/scammers which Australia-based Marshal’s Threat Research and Content Engineering Team estimates will represent up to 90% of the email by the end of the year. It wasn’t developed for you to use to buy/sell stuff on eBay, Amazon and the tens of thousands of web-based storefronts. It wasn’t developed for folks to put dumb/dumber and viral ads on for you to download from YouTube. It wasn’t developed so you could buy/sell/steal music, videos, movies from iTunes, Real, Napster, radio stations, TV networks, Hollywood and the myriad of indie sites.

But like its original design concept, it has adapted to new business models, new user demands. Or as Prof. Pierre Aronnax said in 2000 Leagues, “There is great genius behind all this.”

It’s one of the few government projects that really succeeded because they started it, stood back and let people who were really smart make it work. Most of the folks who now want to make huge bucks off Web 2.0 never waded through the difficulty of CompuServe. Only the “real” members of the press had addresses at The Well. And none of these folks ever thought that the network of networks would have so many cannibals out there ready to have them for lunch!

Never seen the Internet? It’s a frickin masterpiece of ingenuity. People like Vint Cert, Push Mohta and the other early implementers couldn’t have possibly imagined its impact. First they wired up research institutions and college campuses. Then they shared the instant communications capabilities with businesses. Then they put it into the hands or ordinary folks like us. There’s no going back. Despite the doomsday prophets there is no killing it.

Some “people” try though. They develop insidious rootkits that mess up a few servers, bring people down periodically and in general mess up your life. Fortunately there are too many of us and too few of them. And there are more and more of us every day doing business, gaining our education, and being entertained every day. Really creative people use the pipes and technology for commerce, music, TV and new/newer applications.