Fergus Cassidy

Firewall to all that

THE YEAR AHEAD LAST week marked the 20th anniversary of a milestone in the birth of the internet as it currently stands.

In January 1983 the tiny network of fewer than 1000 computers connected to the ARPANET switched from Network Control Protocol to TCP/IP, and from that point on the growth in connected computers was extraordinary. With the new protocol, any computer anywhere could communicate with any other computer.

Moving to TCP/IP laid the basis for the way the net architecture has functioned pretty much as it was envisaged. Nobody could have foreseen the impact the net was going to have, but the core of the protocols were designed to allow the network to grow in as unhindered a way as possible. It also allowed for a huge diversity of applications (such as the web) to be run across the network with little or no interference. TCP/IP provided the rails on which the carriages would run, regardless of their size or importance.

The coming year, however, will be an important one because it will mark the beginning of a break with the past. Not that TCP/IP is going away. In fact IPv6 is making steady progress, getting ready for millions of devices (phones, cars etc) to be connected to the net.

The heart of the network is okay but its head is in for some dramatic changes as the internet comes under greater scrutiny than it ever has. In internet years 2003 will be the year that the child turned into an adult, with all the attendant dilemmas of that transition. The internet is coming of age, acne and all.

It gets more serious from here on in. Not that there's no fun to be had. Far from it. But some of the decisions and processes that will come up this year, will shape the network for generations to come.

The net is facing into an unknown future. It can't look to traditional communications models, because it is unique and has no parallel in history. The ability of one person to communicate directly with another - or with millions of people - can't be compared with existing technologies.

But change has been the trend since the end of 2000 and the demise of the dotcoms. There are enough powerful and wealthy interests to ensure that efforts to superimpose existing broadcast models on to the net will continue for the foreseeable future. The turning of the internet into a predominantly transmission system would of course fit in well with the aims of the entertainment industry.

It might even suit business, especially if security and quality issues were resolved. But the internet is so much more than another transmission system. It carries information which can change peoples' lives for the better. It can put information into the hands of those that most need it. It transmits but it also receives in equal measure. It is about entertainment too, but it's not exclusively about that.

The hierarchical or top-down nature of existing media models means that fences are going up on the net, marking out territory for future development. With or without planning permission?

Well that's one of my main forecasts about this year: a decisive battle for the heart and soul of the net. Those who see much much greater potential in the internet, want as much transparency in its running as possible. When this happens, creativity and innovation know no bounds.

And boundaries are starting to appear. Already net access in the workplace, school, university and public libraries is subject to so much monitoring and filtering, that the home is the last refuge for unguided or unchaperoned access. Even there, the gap is closing fast as service providers force web pages through centrally-controlled pipes.

Jonathan Zittrain, a Harvard law professor who has studied online filtering extensively, told AP last week: "We could end up with an increasing amount of filtering in the middle [of the network] without anyone particularly raising much of a hue and cry about what impact it has". Fred Baker, engineer and chairman of the Internet Society, also said recently that it was becoming "much more difficult nowadays to deploy a new application. It's a very legitimate question whether we would have the web today if we had firewalls ten years ago".

Firewalls were supposed to bring security, but they have also brought customs posts. As politicians push for more and more security-related intelligence gathering, there is a realistic possibility that we could soon be accessing the net through centralised, sanitised and heavily monitored gateways. All in the name of security. The words of Benjamin Franklin never appeared more apt than now: "Those who would give up a little freedom for a little safety, deserve neither freedom nor safety".

These are some of the areas I would recommend keeping an eye on.

VoIP: sending voice calls over the internet poses one of the gravest threats to traditional telcos, so they louder they scream... . The government in Panama already tried to block such calls last year, but was overturned by its Supreme Court.

Spam: possible solutions will move the fight against spam into legislation. Paul McRae, a director of MessageLabs, told ZDNet that "there needs to be some powerful legislation. There's been a lot of talk, but it's going down the path of self-regulation, which is not necessarily a good thing".

Linux: A good year ahead for the open-source operating system. Analyst group IDC expects that Linux will become the number two desktop OS this year, dislodging Macintosh. Robin Miller of NewsForge predicts that some of the biggest advances will come from Asia, and not Europe or the US.

e-government: Two pressures are breathing down the necks of western governments. Firstly, the 2005 EU deadline for delivering services electronically is getting nearer and secondly, there is a serious amount of government money around which will prove highly attractive to a fund-starved private sector. Expect issues of privacy here also.

Mobile phones: continuing with their huge success, mobiles will provide more applications for fun and games. The privacy and legal side to, say, camera phones has already started the fun and games with even the Dail (Irish parliament) bringing in measures to curb their use.

The popularity of mobile phones will aid those companies producing or considering more advanced handheld devices or PDAs. Our thumbs have become used to playing around with buttons now. Strong rumours that Apple will unveil a handheld this year.

Broadcast flag: The US government will decide this summer whether the entertainment industry gets its wish and television programs are digitally water marked to stop copying. As a result of that, all manufacturers of any equipment (including computers) would be required to make their products conform to the broadcast flag.

Leslie Vadasz, executive vice-president of Intel, is fixing bayonets: "We object to government dictated mandates that will only serve slowing down technological progress. We will vigorously oppose any such efforts". Don't buy anything telly wise until this one is resolved.

Digital Video Recorders: with massive storage space, these recorders are a time-shifting and ad-skipping viewer's nirvana. As the price comes down, they'll be one of the year's big success stories. Three different formats, however, plus the possibility of television programmes being digitally watermarked, will mean that sharing or swopping will be a no-no. Wait until the end of the year before buying one.

Ireland: A new data retention bill arrives in June and if implemented would place internet service providers (ISPs) as the gatherers and custodians of a lot of personal information. There's also a bill due any day now, which is going to deal with what exactly ISPs are liable for. Their future role will certainly be controversial one way or another.

And lastly it wouldn't be right and proper not to mention the hardly annual of broadband. Sigh. There's plenty of fibre in the diet but it's still a cold, cold dish. Unless there's a road to Damascus somewhere around Kildare Street, I'm afraid it will be another year of gruel.

Happy New Year to you and thanks for reading in 2002.

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