See our new commentary at CircleID:
The Internet has two billion global users, and the developing world is just hitting its growth phase. Mobile data traffic is doubling every year, and soon all four billion mobile phones will access the Net. In 2008, according to a new UC-San Diego study, Americans consumed over 3,600 exabytes of information, or an average of 34 gigabytes per person per day. Microsoft researchers argue in a new book, “The Fourth Paradigm,” that an “exaflood” of real-world and experimental data is changing the very nature of science itself. We need completely new strategies, they write, to “capture, curate, and analyze” these unimaginably large waves of information.
As the Internet expands, deepens, and thrives—growing in complexity and importance—managing this dynamic arena becomes an ever bigger challenge. Iran severs access to Twitter and Gmail. China dramatically restricts individual access to new domain names. The U.S. considers new Net Neutrality regulation. Global bureaucrats seek new power to allocate the Internet address space. All the while, dangerous “botnets” roam the Web’s wild west. Before we grab, restrict, and possibly fragment a unified Web, however, we should stop and think. About the Internet’s pace of growth. About our mostly successful existing model. And about the security and stability of this supreme global resource.
