A Strategic Analog (pt. 2)
I, for one, take no pleasure in being correct. Usually when that happens that means the world is ending. But when the universe proves me right less than a week later, it's hard not to feel vindicated.
Yesterday, The Free Press (a publication I adore) produced a piece explaining that the solution to this outage was to "design smarter" internet infrastructure rather than de-couple. I'm not sure if this Daoudi and I are on the same planet, but I can't think of a time where the failure of a system meant that we should double-down on it.
Let's be clear, the internet system is already de-centralized. The way that our networks operate, there are different servers and providers which generate the internet that we know and hate love. To this point, Daoudi points out that the problem is largely about "bottlenecks" in the infrastructure, and he highlights some key areas around the world.
With all due respect, Mr. Daoudi, you're wrong.
The problem is not about bottlenecks. He is correct in that the problem is one of "bad design," but given that he argues against de-coupling from the internet I suspect that he and I have different definitions of what makes design bad.
Simply put: the more convenient something is, the less secure it becomes.
The internet is a glorious piece of technology. It unites people across borders, connects us with loved ones, and provides instant access to the entire body of human knowledge (at minimal cost!). The internet itself is not the bad guy. However, the internet has since morphed into something more than it was originally designed for. For example, our phone lines are just VoIP lines now. In the event that our internet access becomes unusable, there is no fallback. The telegraph cables are gone. The old phone lines are gone. Gods above, even my local TV provider uses the internet instead of cable.
Daoudi argues the internet is not a "fragile" piece of technology, but I would argue it is vulnerable.
The reason our internet is vulnerable is precisely related to the degree to which it has become the great panacea for every problem modern life has faced. If the internet were to go down in its entirety tomorrow morning, the stock market would crash, airplanes would be unable to land, banks would be unable to do business, and my own restaurant would be inoperable. The entire world would break just because a handful of cables did.
That is the "bad design" problem.
Well, that plus the fact that it seems every screen is determined to spy on us, catalog our lives, and then mishandle that same information. Oh, and there's no recourse.
I also can't help but note that Mr. Daoudi has a vested interest in making sure that we ignore the true dangers.
A strategic analog, as I argued for in a previous post, is the best remedy to this nightmare. It is not that technology is inherently evil (it's not!), but we need more than exposed servers to protect ourselves from real-world threats. We are not machines; let's all do the world a favor and remember that.