back to article The internet is going to hell and its creators want your help fixing it

If ever there was doubt that 2018 is the year of fear, it was confirmed by a panel discussion involving the two men that are credited with inventing the internet and the world wide web. Co-inventor of the internet protocols TCP/IP Vint Cerf and inventor of the web Sir Tim Berners-Lee have spent the past 20 years talking in …

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  1. Frumious Bandersnatch

    Fewer of those guys,

    more of Ingelbert Humperdink Doug Engelbart. Any text should attract dissenting markup, with the best-thought-out revisions anchovying immortality.

    1. jake Silver badge

      Re: Fewer of those guys,

      Sounds fishy to me.

    2. Andrew Orlowski (Written by Reg staff)

      Re: Fewer of those guys,

      I'm on it.

      I spoke at the London version of: https://doug-50.info

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      russia again, maybe china - weaponising data

      and interfering in over two hundred elections worldwide

      actually, wasnt that an enterprising british startup - (OK, with a Russian maths whizz)

      https://www.smh.com.au/world/north-america/data-and-dirty-tricks-channel-4-s-expose-on-cambridge-analytica-20180320-p4z56t.html

      Russian?, similar to this charidee

      https://www.thecourier.co.uk/fp/news/politics/scottish-politics/782399/fife-charity-investigated-by-foreign-office-over-alleged-attacks-on-jeremy-corbyn/

      https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/politics/foreign-office-funds-2m-infowars-13707574

      https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/dec/10/foreign-office-investigates-report-state-funded-body-targeted-corbyn

      and other recent psyop nudges, bloody russians causing brexit chaos!

      https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/12/10/government-spent-100000-facebook-adverts-promote-brexit-deal/

      I'm sure that Russia is 'nudging', but they are actually a bit more subtle over it, seemingly?

      1. Jellied Eel Silver badge

        Re: politics again - weaponising data

        I'm sure that Russia is 'nudging', but they are actually a bit more subtle over it, seemingly?

        Waaay back, I had an interesting chat with Bill Schrader, creator of PSINet about the Internet and politics. On the plus side, we have access to a lot of information. On the minus, we have access to a lot of misinformation. Whether that's state sponsored, individuals, corporates or just wiki-warring, it can be hard to figure out the truth. Google's Sundar Pichai has been lightly grilled in the US about political bias, people have been banned from Twitter & Facebook for having controversial views.

        Challenge I think is that gatekeeper function. In the old days, we had newspapers who wrote the truth, or sometimes retractions. We know the Guardian's 'extreme' left, the Daily Mail 'extreme' right.. But online, it's not so clear if big publishers or faciliators have their own bias. I want Google to find me the best results, not skew searches. Politicians are getting concerned about political bias, and may start regulating for content neutrality, or press-style regulation. There's also an issue of disclosure, so being able to identify the source of 'facts' to check. Astroturfing's easy on the 'net and there are plenty of lobbying groups actively creating grass roots campaigns.

        I also think a lot of it is about user education, ie don't blindy trust wiki or pretty much anything on the 'net.. As Reagan said, 'Trust, but verify'. Technically though, I think the 'net is holding up pretty well, other than the challenges of cash flows between content giants, and ISPs.

  2. Teiwaz

    The US, Europe and China.

    What?

    The UK wasn't one?

    Not a world leader after all, or merely content to follow (China)?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: The US, Europe and China.

      psssst. the UK is still part of the EU, and will always be in Europe

      1. Teiwaz

        Re: The US, Europe and China.

        psssst. the UK is still part of the EU, and will always be in Europe

        pssssst? You'd need to be if you think it ends there, remain, renegotiation, re-ferendum or re-election.

        Leave EU suddenly got expanded to leave ECHR also after all....and certain factions won't be content with EEA should that end up being a compromise.

        1. Voland's right hand Silver badge

          Re: The US, Europe and China.

          Leave EU suddenly got expanded to leave ECHR also after all

          I start thinking that this is the plan all along. Whatever level of stiffness the BrExit, if it has any form of formal agreement with the Eu ECHR has to stay. The only way to remove May's Pet Hate (tm), the jurisdiction of the ECHR is the complete lack of agreement. Call me a cynic, but it looks like she has been running down the clock to cause exactly that.

          1. Teiwaz

            Re: The US, Europe and China.

            I start thinking that this is the plan all along.

            It seemed fairly clear that the ECHR was the target all along, at least by some individuals or group with an agenda within government.

            May herself observed while on the remain campaign trail she'd prefer to stay in the EU, but leave the EHCR - I remember at the time how swept on by it was, news reported it, but didn't dwell on it.

            However, I think we can be fairly certain May herself was not one of the conspirators, she was in the remain camp as career-wise that was safe. It wasn't until after the referendum was in and the shit hit the fan that she saw the door open, the room empty, the steps up to the big chair clear and the crown sitting unattended.

        2. Alan Brown Silver badge

          Re: The US, Europe and China.

          "Leave EU suddenly got expanded to leave ECHR also after all...."

          Ah those pesky europeans, making us adhere to a convention on human rights that WE wrote.

          1. Teiwaz

            Re: The US, Europe and China.

            Ah those pesky europeans, making us adhere to a convention on human rights that WE wrote.

            Seems to happen a lot.

            There's been a significant amount of indignant huffing over the Galileo restrictions 'WE' insisted on before 'WE' decided to leave.

            We know it's not so much a u-turn or a reversal of policy, but instead an undeserved sense of exceptionism on behalf of our deluded political servants.

        3. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: The US, Europe and China.

          > pssssst? You'd need to be if you think it ends there, remain, renegotiation, re-ferendum or re-election.

          I meant geographically, or is Farage planning on towing us to NY? !

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        "... and will always be in Europe"

        Geographically, obviously, at least for a while as continents don't move too quickly - but under the political and economic perspective? Will it be aligned with continental Europe, or will shift towards other areas? US? China? India? Russia?

        1. jmch Silver badge
          Big Brother

          Re: "... and will always be in Europe"

          "Geographically, obviously, at least for a while as continents don't move too quickly - but under the political and economic perspective? Will it be aligned with continental Europe, or will shift towards other areas? US? China? India? Russia?"

          Airstrip One is part of Oceania. It has always been at war with Eurasia.

  3. jake Silver badge

    The early 90s called, they want their headline back.

    "Death of Usenet predicted! Film at 11!"

  4. FuzzyWuzzys
    Facepalm

    Dear fragile and wonderful academics...

    The fact of the matter is that if someone can find a way to use something to make money, it's already screwed and that's human nature. I remember using the internet around 1991, a very much different place. It's turned from a quaint little country village with people having a bit of harmless fun into something akin to a cross between Piccadilly Circus , Thai red light district and a warzone.

    I remember 10-15 years ago if you wanted a tutorial on a new language you wished to learn, the choices were limited but at least you could find things without trawling 17 sites to find one that has a coherent tutorial you can understand. You can't even look up the weather without first making sure your various plugins are up to date, anti-script, anti-flash, anti-malware, anti-ad, etc, the list goes on, just to make websites usable you need to strip out 60% of the crap on them, assuming you have an 8-core CPU and 64GB of memory 'cos you'll need that much beef just to run the bloated browser with all it's plugins!

    If you want a proper internet, I suggest you start a new one of your own 'cos we pissed all over the one we were given!

    1. jake Silver badge

      Re: Dear fragile and wonderful academics...

      "we pissed all over the one we were given!"

      Who is "we", Kemosabe?

      1. jonathan keith

        Re: Dear fragile and wonderful academics...

        "We" is humanity who, while capable of being really rather decent every once in a while are, on balance, a somewhat shabby bunch all told.

    2. bombastic bob Silver badge
      Stop

      Re: Dear fragile and wonderful academics...

      "The fact of the matter is that if someone can find a way to ABuse something to make money, it's already screwed and that's human nature"

      Fixed it for ya. Using something to make money is a GOOD thing. ABusing ANYTHING is bad. And that's the point. The fact that SOME of the ABuse is to make money [presumably in a dishonest way], it's no different than anything else in the past or present.

      Like travel technology, which has resulted in airplane hijackings, car jackings, and before that, train robberies, where opportunistic criminals and psychopaths use 'the new thing' to do the same KINDS of evil they've always done, you now have WORLDWIDE COMMUNICATION.

      There are tried and true ways of dealing with ABusers without punishing everyone ELSE. Usually it takes the form of law enforcement, honest individuals who assist with law enforcement, and some kind of judicial system with due process, etc. [otherwise it becomes totalitarian, oppressive, fascist, etc. - or worse, COMMUNIST].

      But yeah, the world's control freaks and "governing opportunists" will ALWAYS pick something that solves NOTHING, but increases THEIR power and influence over YOU.

      Personally, I'd rather have ANARCHY than a POLICE STATE on 'teh intarwebs'. We don't need a "great firewall" protecting us from "teh pr0nz" for our own good... (or more likely, keep us 'protected' from 'THE TRUTH' in place of gummint-approved 'fake news' etc.).

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        "find a way to ABuse something to make money,"

        Unluckily, I think we are already past it - it's not not only the money making, it's the lust for power, which could be far more destructive.

        You also fail to understand that fascism and communism are two faces of the same coin, just like anarchism and a police state. None is better than the other, and all of them lead to death and destruction, because all of them unleash the worst of the human being. Unluckily, the internet coupled with smartphones looks to be one of the best tool ever devised to aim at that worst.

        Democracy has always been an attempt to find a "balance of powers", especially when rights appear to be conflicting. It has always been a very difficult attempt, because it's far too easy to quickly fall into one of the extremes. And it's based on reasoning, so it can't work when too many people renounce to reason.

      2. Adrian 4

        Re: Dear fragile and wonderful academics...

        Authoritarianism start with well-meaning people seeing that something is wrong and thinking 'if only everybody acted like me, it would all be OK'.

        Anarchy is attractive, if you think the existing authorities are doing it wrong. Do it the way *you* want with no comeback. But it's just leadership by example instead of by law. It still needs good leadership.

      3. Dan 55 Silver badge

        Re: Dear fragile and wonderful academics...

        The internet doesn't scale up well. It works fine with a few harmless academic types and undergrads, but when you scale it up to half the planet you run the risk of collapsing society.

        You said you prefer anarchy to a police state on the internet, but the internet has real-world implications and you can't separate one from the other. If you have anarchy on the internet, you will more than likely have anarchy in the real world, and the same goes for police state. Russia realised this a while back and hence the Internet Research Agency.

        You can't leave it to "law enforcement", there's too much to deal with and they can't even be trusted to deal with it properly (swattng).

        The problem is how to put opinion back in its box without censorship (or as little censorship as possible). In more enlightened days opinion was not the same as fact, but now it is practically equivalent.

        The easiest suggestion is for people to lose their anonymity when posting, but that is also not an option as it just means they're going to get doxxed.

        I think Vince and Tim are glum because they've realised their inventions have turned out to be a Pandora's box and there's practically no way to close it.

        But privacy is the way forward. The article says "Europe has put privacy at the heart of its approach – but with what impact on its economy?" There is no impact on its economy, the impact of no privacy is in the US where there is something built on a castle of sand, an aberration, another bubble waiting to pop.

        Trolls and bots have no interest in privacy, real people do. People shouldn't be stalkable across the Internet, shouldn't have every post open to the world, should be able to mark replies to their posts as unwanted and unwelcome meaning something is done about it. Hopefully it'll lead to proper debate being promoted and trolling and bots being deleted.

        1. quxinot

          Re: Dear fragile and wonderful academics...

          Anarchy is where there's no rules, so those with money/resources stomp all over everyone else's freedoms.

          We're there.

          1. MrMerrymaker

            Re: Dear fragile and wonderful academics...

            Anarchy is not big companies stomping the little man because "no rules" . It is decentralised and highly localised rules, especially from government, especially hewing to the freedom of the individual, and most certainly above and beyond those accorded to companies, corps, etc.

            Please don't call this anarchy. It's far worse than that - it is unbridled neoliberal capitalism

            1. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: Dear fragile and wonderful academics...

              This will sound CRAZY, I know, but if the online presence is going to change from what it is now (complete MegaCorp/Spy control), then governments might want to start a program that gives bandwidth allowances without cost... yeh it's a little crazy.

              Even if you have a great idea today for a web anything, bandwidth kills you to the point of reaching to MegaCorp stimulus (AdSense, Amazon, etc.l If you recieved a free allowance to startup, then maybe you might... do more.

      4. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Dear fragile and wonderful academics...

        "Using something to make money is a GOOD thing. ABusing ANYTHING is bad. And that's the point." - that explains why the US death rate is up so much because it works like this when all you care about is money:

        "Using fentanyl to make money is a GOOD thing. ABusing ANYTHING is bad. And that's the point." And that's why some people are very wealthy (good) and their users are dead, well, they were being bad so that's to be expected isn't it?

      5. strum

        Re: Dear fragile and wonderful academics...

        >Using something to make money is a GOOD thing.

        Always? Using a child? Using a police force? Using an army - to make money, a good thing?

        No. There are limits. And there are controls and constraints that society has a right and duity to impose.

      6. JohnFen

        Re: Dear fragile and wonderful academics...

        "Using something to make money is a GOOD thing."

        It can be, but this isn't a given. Even in the absence of abuse, when the profit motive is introduced to a thing, it changes the nature of that thing, making it no longer appropriate for some of the things it used to be good for.

    3. deconstructionist

      Re: Dear fragile and wonderful academics...

      Come i used the BBS way before AOL or compuserve where ISP's and still just BBS provider, we had it hacking , data theft, hacking, cracking, fakenews, witch hunts, bullying ....i remember the winace- winzip fiasco which 2 very nice people almost had there lifes ruined.

      Don't know what early NET people are remembering it was broke before it started...because of us .

  5. coconuthead

    Who cares what those guys think on those subjects?

    Cerf and Berners-Lee are engineers: why would anyone assume their opinions on geopolitical subjects like this are worth listening to?

    In the case of Berners-Lee, we *know* he could not spell "referrer". Do I think he's read more widely than I have on history, totalitarianism, politics and the social issues driving what's happening online? No, in fact I have no reason to think he's better read even than the average person.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Who cares what those guys think on those subjects?

      Cerf and Berners-Lee are engineers:

      Sir Tim has not done any proper engineering for a very long time. He has gone to Layer 9 in the ISO stack and has stayed there early on. That would have been fine if he had the knowledge of history, culture, etc - all the things you need to transition to Layer 9. He does not. I have listened to him at a couple of IETFs where he was a "visiting feature" and I was only inches away from heckling him to just retire and let people more qualified than him work on both the Layer 9 and the engineering.

    2. Semtex451

      Re: Who cares what those guys think on those subjects?

      @coconuthead & above AC

      "Vint Cerf, Tim Berners-Lee and other identify lots of problems, few solutions"

      If you believe they are wrong, and that everything's just great and will be, could you please expand on why you believe that?

      1. Pete 2 Silver badge

        Pub talk

        > If you believe they are wrong, and that everything's just great and will be, could you please expand on why you believe that?

        When you say "wrong" what it sounds like is whether others do / should agree with their politics. A field in which they are no better at thinking, analysing or solving than any other person of voting age. Being able to design packet protocols does not imbue a person with greater geopolitical insights.

        But their views on the state of the world are irrelevant (unless you do agree with their politics). They are technical architects and really should limit their punditry to things that they know more about than ordinary folk.

        That would be worth listening to. As far as opinions are concerned, they are like arseholes: everybody has one, but they are best not revealed in public.

        1. JohnFen

          Re: Pub talk

          "They are technical architects and really should limit their punditry to things that they know more about than ordinary folk."

          By that reasoning, almost nobody should be able to express their opinions on most things. That doesn't sound right. For one thing, it would mean the death of the comment section here (and everywhere else).

          1. Charles 9

            Re: Pub talk

            And some would consider that a blessing. If you could only talk about stuff you actually know (instead of think you know), we might not waste so much electricity.

    3. Teiwaz

      Re: Who cares what those guys think on those subjects?

      In the case of Berners-Lee, we *know* he could not spell "referrer"

      Ah, of course, the perfect opportunity to add another plug for 'Grammerly' - another slip and slide the snake that's taken us down into this particular internet hell.

  6. deadlockvictim

    Google, Facebook and friends

    (Wendy Hall) pointed to the impact and growing influence of China and Russia on our lives, highlighting their authoritarian impulses.

    To be fair to China, the impact of Facebook's & Google's influence on our lives is not entirely positive either. Their motives are at best profit-driven and at worst power-crazed. They have their own agenda and I don't see them much different to Russia or China — powerful actors protecting and extending their space.

    1. Alan Brown Silver badge

      Re: Google, Facebook and friends

      "Their motives are at best profit-driven and at worst power-crazed."

      This applies across the spectrum.

      Obsessive state control is no different to obsessive monopoly control when it comes down to it - and we've already had to deal with mercantile robber-barons more than once - they're actually worse to deal with than wannabe emperors because they tend not to have "territory" you can confine them to.

  7. Long John Brass
    Paris Hilton

    Optional

    To be fair, The internet provided all the things that were hoped for and much much more.

    You can watch training videos and find reference texts for anything from Blacksmithing or Plumbing to Compiler and Language design. Fancy some history or Nuclear Physics the net has you covered. It has amplified our abilities to communicate and collaborate in ways never heretofore dreamt of.

    It also created the "global village" for those old enough to remember that lovely piece of marketing wank; Turns out that is a bit of an issue for some, never mind the inevitable culture clashes and language issues. But it exposes people of one mindset to people of radically different mindsets and people have a bad habit of loosing their shit when that kind of thing happens

    It will take a while for human social norms to adapt to this new way of doing/dealing with things.

    I find it equally horrifying and funny that the same clowns that moan about Chinese censorship will in the very next breath demand protection from the "trolls". (Diversity and hate speech)

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Optional

      Actually, it became very difficult to find reliable, and trusted information. Frankly, who cares about trailer videos or cat videos. My real cat is enough - sure, you have to clean its litter box too, but it means you actually care.

      Sure, there are some reliable and trusted information around. The issue is to find them, and evaluate their reliability. Actually, only people with enough first hand knowledge of them can asses their reliability - most can only hope they are. Look at Wikipedia - how many misleading information it hosts? StackOverflow? Lot of litter there too. One million stupids don't make a clever one. Knowledge is not "democratic".

      Sure, it had amplified the communication ability - but a global soapbox was really what we needed? Collaboration too may not always be positive - you can collaborate for nasty ends. It won't be the first time a new communication and collaboration platform is used that way, especially when most users are unaware of how much they can be manipulated.

      What we see now it's not a clash of cultures - it's the deliberate exploiting of ancestral fears exactly to stir a clash.

      Every democracy has a level of "censorship" - defamation is an issue that can mine the very foundations of a democracy, and evidently breaks fundamental rights. And we unluckily undergo several periods when hate speech turned into real massacres.

      Comparing it to China censorship which is built just to ensure a ruling elite can't be changed, is really specious.

      1. Alan Brown Silver badge

        Re: Optional

        "Comparing it to China censorship which is built just to ensure a ruling elite can't be changed, is really specious."

        Britsih censorship wasn't much different not that long ago - and for much the same kinds of reasons (a few hundred years of civil wars etc)

        I find it heartening that no matter what the chinese government tries to do, the chinese PEOPLE carry on regardless and ignore most of their restrictions (including endless dodges around the Great Firewall). It's pragmatism writ large and speaks well for the future.

        Elon's sky cloud (and others) are going to be the death knell of terrestrial firewalling anyway. It's bloody hard to force people to use "your" network when you can't tell what direction the antenna's pointing.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Optional

          "Elon's sky cloud (and others) are going to be the death knell of terrestrial firewalling anyway."

          Maybe.

          Does the distinction between internet and web not matter any more? I think it does, and will.

          When all people have got is smartphone apps, and no generic web access, who needs a firewall anyway?

          When all people have got is Zuckerberg's FreeBasicInternet, who needs a firewall anyway?

          When people no longer have meaningful web access, who will need web search engines? Google won't have to worry about censoring web searches, because there will be no web to search.

          When all roads to the Internet have to pass through the likes of Cambridge Analytica, Facebook, Paypal, Palantir, etc, are people going to realise that Zuckerberg's mate Peter T's career history should have been a warning?

          https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2018/12/09/peter-thiels-invasive-palantir-push-ramp-secretive-uk-government/

          see also (from 2010 here on El Reg)

          "The conclusion is fairly obvious, if fairly unpalatable to most of the chattering classes:

          World War III is over and done with, and China has defeated the West (specifically, the US/UK West) hands down, with hardly a tank having rolled (except perhaps in Tiananmen Square)."

        2. JohnFen

          Re: Optional

          "It's bloody hard to force people to use "your" network when you can't tell what direction the antenna's pointing."

          Not really, when we live in a world where jammers exist.

          1. Charles 9

            Re: Optional

            As well as the simple fact the signals have to get back to the ground. Meaning there are chokepoints. That's how China works its magic: it forces everything through chokepoints under its control. Easy enough for anyone else to do.

            1. Kiwi
              Boffin

              Re: Optional

              As well as the simple fact the signals have to get back to the ground. Meaning there are chokepoints. That's how China works its magic: it forces everything through chokepoints under its control. Easy enough for anyone else to do.

              Yeah um. NO. I've used ground-isolated transmitting and receiving equipment quite often, as do most people in the western world. I even use ground-isolated wireless internet equipment very often, including right now as I type this.

              Jamming works to a degree, but you need a lot of power to cover a large enough area to be effective.

              1. Charles 9

                Re: Optional

                "I've used ground-isolated transmitting and receiving equipment quite often, as do most people in the western world."

                So how do you link up to the rest of the world which uses terrestrial communications equipment? If you don't connect to anyone else, you're just another Darknet.

  8. Adrian 4

    Maybe we're just not very good at doing big communities ?

    Many communities work fine when they're small. As they grow they get out of control - the members stop caring about each other. Unlike many communities, the internet promotes communication but not contact.

    It makes me think the tower of babel is an illustration of treatment, not of punishment.

    1. Trilkhai

      I think that's actually a big part of why Usenet worked so well until it became temporarily overrun by spammers — the newsgroups tended to be subject-specific enough that a reasonably limited number were interested in participating in a particular group, and the threading further limited it by topic. Even beyond that, most programs let users easily banish trolls to their personal 'bozo bin' and auto-hide posts containing certain 'trigger' phrases, rather than needing others to police things for them.

  9. John Sager

    Too much pessimism

    BOB THE BOMBAST has it. All new things bring with them pluses & minuses, and society soon learns the trick of maximising + relative to -. I think the Net is a marvellous tool. The range of stuff to inform & entertain me is more or less inexhaustible. I'm glad I've been alive when it happened.

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