What we call the Internet, was not our first attempt at making a global data network that spanned the globe. It was just the first one that worked.
Why?
In this talk, I'll lay out what I see as how the Internet actually works. It's increasingly likely that there will be attempts to change the principles of the net, and the reality is that widespread hacking is the exact sort of force that brought us this working-ish system in the first place.
We need to talk about the values of cryptography, of open software and networks, of hackers being a force for measurable good. We need to talk about how infrastructure like DNS -- it was there 25 years ago, we can imagine it will be there 25 years from now -- acts as foundation for future development in a way that the API of the hour doesn't.
Things do need to be better, and we need to talk about the role of Government in that. The things that need to be better are technical in nature, and guide research priorities that are outright not being addressed at present.
Essentially, I'd like to provide a model for comprehending the Internet as it stands, that prevents harm to it (how much could we have used EC2 if SSH was illegal) while providing the useful resources to promote its continued operation.
We can't keep screwing this up forever. NTIA has noted half (!) of the population warily backing away. Let's talk about how it really works, so we can discuss how we can do it better.