danny hillis

The Internet is Fragile and We Need a Plan B

Danny Hillis gave a TED talk in February discussing how the notion of trust is ingrained in the protocols that form the Internet, and why that leaves the Internet vulnerable. He says that because of the network’s trusting nature and the increasing number of critical services and systems that rely on the Internet, the network itself - not just the serivces using it - is fragile. His argument is that, in addition to putting greater effort into protecting the network, we need to develop a completely separate “plan B” in case the Internet were to crash.