Patrick Dempsey (former FBI agent) recently wrote on his blog that one of the ways to make the Internet safer for users might be to create a second Internet& .

The solution might be to establish two Internets — the current Internet and a new, more secure Internet where users would be required to register prior to gaining access.

Technical and practical considerations aside, it’s an idea that wouldn’t enhance security for anyone. A second Internet might in fact make thing even worse.

• What Do We Mean By Security? – We often hear people, politicians, people on the news, and military saying we’re going to make something “secure”…crime online is too general for a single solution.

• The Solutions Are The Same – Dempsey proposes that people would have to authenticate to Internet #2 with a username/password. Even if people were required to use a hardware token it wouldn’t matter – we already have these technologies and cyber crimes still happen. Moving existing technologies to a new Internet would solve nothing.

• I’m In, Now What? – Is every transaction encrypted? Are there cyber police checking every transaction? None of it matters, all of your online accounts are still stored in a database (Amazon, Citibank, etc) somewhere. Any attacker who can get access to those database’s contents make Internet 2 useless.

• Give People A Choice And They Could Care Less – Even if all people had to do was snap their fingers each time they got online to make everything “secure” hardly anyone would do it. Internet 1 vs. Internet 2 is the same thing as Click “Ok” and “Cancel”.

• Nobody Will Agree How To Secure Or Regulate It – Imagine how many people, companies, nations, and jurisdictions would be involved.

The Internet is flexible and not just a series of connecting nodes in terms of security. There are various applications, databases, and users who get online in a million different ways. A second Internet is not only infeasible, but “sec-useless”.

Finally, what if your magic all-access Internet 2 credentials get stolen?

This entry was posted on Friday, February 29th, 2008 at 6:44 am by Anil Polat and is filed under rants. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.