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Vint Cerf on What the Net Needs Now


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Google Vice President Vint Cerf

"Sometimes I wish we could roll back the clock and put some things in [the Internet architecture] that weren't available at the time," says Google Vice President Vint Cerf.

Credit: Flickr.com

Google's Vint Cerf says the Internet needs better security across all of its levels, and he is a proponent of two-layer authentication. He says that common ground must be found concerning what constitutes Internet abuse, while trans-border pacts about law enforcement and possibly extradition and recourse for damages that may have transpired via the Net also are necessary. Cerf says these are all issues that require inter-governmental cooperation and should be informed by feedback from multiple stakeholders.

Another subject cited as thought-provoking by Cerf concerns the norms for construing state-sponsored damage perpetrated through the Internet as an act of war. Cerf argues that we must learn to come to grips with individuals obtaining the ability to do harm to state-level entities, otherwise "we will have created a brittle, fragile infrastructure for international commerce."

Other areas where Cerf has been focusing his energies include standards for international domain names, an interplanetary Internet being developed in collaboration with the Jet Propulsion Lab, serving on the governing board of the Smart Grid Interoperability Panel, and the challenge of cybersecurity on a national and global level.

From EE Times
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