Defeatism

There are some who just want to give up, and restart the Internet from scratch. This is defeatism in a fairly pure form. Now I've dipped far too many times into the same well... and I've just realized it. It stops now.

The Internet is a network, just like the phone system, it is value neutral. There are technical limitations, which are being actively addressed already, with IP6 and standards coming down the well known pike. The long term stability of the Internet as a communications medium are in good hands. It's in the best interest of everyone to keep it going, and make it better.

Most of the problems that people blame on the Internet are actually with the hosts. It is not possible, given the dominant security model to have a host connected to the internet which will remain secure. I've written about this before...

We can secure the hosts, by encouraging the development of new systems which implement Capabilities. Once it's possible to keep the servers clean, the rest can be managed. I don't want to leave the impression that it'll be trival... but we'll have a very good step in the right direction.

We can clean it up... we just need to keep the long term goal in mind.

We will not be defeated.

--Mike--