Future Trends in Computing
civilizAtion as we've known it is over
The key problem with cybersecurity is that it can't be imposed top-down, at least not on the Internet, which was not designed with security in mind. Current password cracking speeds: just about any password is weak. Viruses stay ahead of pattern-matching virus detection software. Security will therefore need to be rethought drastically, as part of the new network that will replace the Internet.
Internet protocols simply aren't adequate for the changes in hardware and network use that will come up in a decade or so. Dave predicts that computers will be equipped with optical connections instead of pins for networking, and the volume of data transmitted will overwhelm routers, which at best have mixed optical/electrical switching. Sensor networks, smart electrical grids, and medical applications with genetic information could all increase network loads to terabits per second. When routers evolve to handle terabit-per-second rates, packet-switching protocols will become obsolete. The speed of light is constant, so we'll have to rethink the fundamentals of digital networking.
Lots of activities on the Internet reproduce circuit-like behavior, such as sessions at the TCP or Web application level. So theoretically we could re-architect the underlying protocols to fit what the hardware and the applications have to offer.
The First generation of programmers who developed the Internet are too tired ("It's been a tough fifteen or twenty years") and will have to pass the baton to a new group of young software engineers who can think as boldly and originally as the inventors of the Internet.
The poor state of networking in the U.S.
In advanced nations elsewhere, 100-megabit per second networking is available for reasonable costs, whereas here it's hard to go beyond a 30 megabits (on paper!) even at enormous prices and in major metropolitan areas. Furthermore, the current administration hasn't done much to improve the situation, even though candidate Obama made high bandwidth networking a part of his platform and FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski talks about it all the time. No company could make fiber pay unless it gained 75% of the local market. Instead, phone companies should string fiber to access points 100 meters or so from homes, and depend on old copper for the rest. This could deliver quite adequate bandwidth at a reasonable cost. Cable companies, he said, could also greatly increase Internet speeds. Fixed wireless ISPs offer Internet access to thousands of communities, mostly rural ones with no other access except dial-up. These ISPs face interconnection problems because they are distrusted or ignored by the incumbents carriers. Mobile wireless companies are pretty crippled by loads that they encouraged (through the sale of app-heavy phones) and then had problems handling, and are busy trying to restrict users'bandwidth. But a combination of 4G, changes in protocols, and other innovations could improve their performance.
The corrupt FCC tremendously weakened the chances for competition in 2002 when it classified cable Internet as a Title 1 service. This shielded the cable companies from regulations under a classification designed back in early Internet days to protect the mom-and-pop ISPs. The cable companies have brazenly sued the FCC to win court rulings saying the companies can control traffic any way they choose. The FCC and the Federal Trade commission, must still enforce anti-trust laws, and these agencies have been willing to act to shut down noxious behavior.
General deterioration of modern infrastructure, affecting water, electricity, traffic, public transportation, and more. Mathematicians lack models to describe the complexity of such systems as our electrical grid. There are lots of areas for progress in data science.
Data isn't really what we mean by "data science." A data application acquires its value from the data itself, and creates more data as a result. It's not just an application with data; it's a data product. Data science enables the creation of data products.
"Future Shock" People Suggest 40 Trends for Next 40 Years
Loving the Cyber Bomb? Pentagon's unquenchable thirst for ever-deadlier weapons systems--cyber, or otherwise. Botnets and Root Kits: What the HBGary Hack Revealed
http://www.pacificfreepress
When The Wall Street Journal informed readers that the "Pentagon's first formal cyber strategy ... represents an early attempt to grapple with a changing world in which a hacker could pose as significant a threat to U.S. nuclear reactors, subways or pipelines as a hostile country's military," what the Journal didn't disclose is that the Defense Department is seeking the technological means to do just that. Implying that hacking might soon constitute an "act of war" worthy of a "shock and awe" campaign, never mind that attributing an attack by a criminal or a state is no simple matter, where would the Pentagon draw the line? The Tech Herald revealed that the private security firms HBGary Federal, HBGary, Palantir Technologies and Berico Technologies were contacted by the white shoe law firm Hunton & Williams on behalf of corporate clients, Bank of America and the U.S. Chamber on Commerce, to "develop a strategic plan of attack against Wikileaks." n other words, these firms subsisted almost entirely on U.S. government contracts and, in close partnership with mega-giant defense companies such as General Dynamics, SRA International, ManTech International and QinetiQ North America, were actively building cyber weapons for the Defense Department. In the aftermath of the HBGary sting, investigative journalist Nate Anderson published an essential piece for Ars Technica which described how HBGary and other firms were writing "backdoors for the government."
2016 - The Computer Age Arrives, civiliztion as we've known it is over. It is over. Now over 90% of the US population is online. Internet access crosses the 90 percent mark that is only achieved by truly ubiquitous technology, such as television and the home telephone.[1]
The Web has changed the playing field. Even Rupert Murdoch admits it. The dropping of film cameras by Nikon and now this elimination of stock tables from newspapers (not only the L.A. "Times", but the "New York Times" and "Chicago Tribune"). It seems that the digital/Internet revolution that was supposed to come in 2000, yet never quite arrived and was laughed at by old wave businessmen, has finally come to roost. And it's wreaking havoc.
Oh, in the old days it was about being too early. But now with 68% broadband penetration, the time is nigh. Music is going to move to the Web almost overnight. You're going to see a DRAMATIC difference within twelve months.
- Echelon: Interception Capabilities 2000
- F*ck Big Media: Rolling Your Own Network
"Rethinking the design of the Internet:
The end to end arguments vs. the brave new world"