In INTERNET: Access we discussed how secure, private and anonymous your connection to the Internet probably isn’t and then in INTERNET: Usage we covered how you use the Internet probably isn’t that secure, private or anonymous either! But where is the Internet going, what is next for the old ocean we regularly surf and how secure, private and anonymous will we be?

Before we look forward – let’s take a whistle stop tour on the history of the Internet, starting in 1965 when the first two computers communicate with one another, leading to 1973 when global networking is born along with the term Internet! 1983 gives way to a naming system Domain Name System(DNS) and in 1990 the HyperText Markup Language (HTML) was created and paved the way for the public World Wide Web (WWW) in 1991. By 1993 connected computers grew to over 2 million, 1999 gave us peer-to-peer file sharing and 2000 demonstrated how vulnerable the Internet is with a large-scale denial of service attack.

Since 2000 technology advances slowed and shifted to the browsers needing the ability to access more and more dynamic and interactive sites. Increased amounts of distributed copyright material drove countries policy changes on legal usage of the Internet. Finally the digital tapping of communication systems has been demonstrated and accused in a variety of situations and increased hacking with large releases of private user information.

There was one technological advance in 1998 that we didn’t cover as it still only accounts for ~30% of the Internet and that is Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) which will eventually replace the current IPv4 addressing schema. Although stable is not the word to describe IPv6 just yet, so it will come in time and arguably will have little affect on your use of the Internet, but will affect your privacy, security and anonymity online!

Another issue becoming bigger is the expectation (requirement in some cases) to be constantly online, giving systems and applications the ability to ‘call home’ as often as they want sending all sorts of user telemetry data. The next biggest advance is the ‘cloud’ – which is bringing all these technologies together in an ephemeral (transient) manner. By itself, not necessarily an issue, but as these technologies are made more and more available it requires the expertise to understand the security, privacy and anonymity implications that most do not possess.

Overall there are advantages and disadvantages to these technological movements, we have never been so connected and free to share with the world, yet we have never been so monitored and controlled either! Not all companies out there are evil or actively trying to circumvent your security, privacy and anonymity online – but they are all profiting from doing so! If you are not already, I would recommend becoming an EFF.org member to learn more!

Next we’ll discuss how these services collect your data and arrange it in an exploitable manner with INTERNET: Fingerprints.

History: https://www.livescience.com/20727-internet-history.html