The death of the Internet

Scenario workshop, Kista, 2008Scenario 1

22/10/08 © 4WARD Consortium Confidential

WPx/Slide 2

The death of the Internet

Introduction– The current Internet is becoming the communications platform of

choice• Convergence, cost optimisation, etc.

– It carries some services which are critical for the world's economy• Communications between banks, stock exchanges, etc.

Objective– Find the threads to the Internet's evolution which might lead to its

collapse

22/10/08 © 4WARD Consortium Confidential

Scenario 1: The “old car” Commoditisation

– The network infrastructure becomes a commodity• You tend to believe it is there

– No incentives to invest in upgrading the infrastructure

• Unfavourable regulatory landscape– Any upgrade has to be made available by the

incumbents to the rest– Restricted possibilities to build a differentiated

service offering by innovating the infrastructure– Uncertain outlook on RoI

• Upgrades make no P-R

– But an over-aged infrastructure is an obstacle for innovation

– And, as an old car, will finally break beyond repair• Too hard to find replacements• Too hard to find the expertise to repair

Regulatory

environment

AgingInfrastructure

Incr

easi

ng

O/M c

osts

RoI???

22/10/08 © 4WARD Consortium Confidential

Scenario 2: “sudden meltdown”

Current threads– Too many open backdoors to control the IP infrastructure

• IPv4 is too patched to get the general picture• Easy to implement threads : DdoS, trojans, etc.

– Accidental misconfiguration• Pakistan's accidental hijacking of YouTube

– No real end-to-end• encryption is piggy-backed on Ipv4• Very high OPEX in operating network security devices

Attacks on critical infrastructure bring everything to a halt– e-government: Baltic countries in 2008, chinese cyber-army

demonstrations, etc.– Economic institutions: banks, stock exchanges

• Dow Jones is in the Internet (Madoff put it there)

22/10/08 © 4WARD Consortium Confidential

WPx/Slide 5

The death of the Internet

Conclusions– Commonalities between scenarios

• High dependance on the Internet• It runs, so why fix it?• And when it doesn't, a cheap fix will make it run again

– Addresses run out, so let's deploy IPv6– A problem with BGP-4 appears, let's find a quick fix for it, etc.– Cyberwar; attacks on national infrastructures: let's blame it on a couple of

simple minded youngsters misled by extremists

• Latent problems start to appear jointly and a domino effect produces heavy disruption of the Internet

– Similar to what has happened with the current economic crisis.– What is needed?

• Incentives to improve– innovation friendly regulatory environment (foster RoI in R&D)