Why the Internet is broken

"Much of the Internet is, in some senses, 'broken,' and will continue to be so," argues Joss Wright.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

Editor's note: Joss Wright is a research fellow at the Oxford Internet Institute, where he focuses on cryptography, privacy-enhancing technologies and anonymous communications. He is working on the "Being There" project, which looks at privacy in public spaces, and a Google-funded project analyzing Internet censorship. The opinions expressed in this commentary are his.

(CNN) -- Our modern global communications infrastructure still relies on core principles that were defined when the Internet had only a few thousand users.

We have faster computers, more storage space, and more people using the network, but worryingly, some of the key assumptions haven't changed.

Joss Wright

As an example, take the protocol that helps determine how data gets to its destination. Different networks in the Internet "advertise" routes to deliver data to other networks, with the most efficient candidate being chosen.

In early 2010, a mistaken advertisement from China Telecom caused a small but significant proportion of global Internet traffic to be mistakenly routed through China.

Concerns such as these were not foreseen by the early designers; back then, the Internet was operated by people who knew and trusted each other.

The same cannot be said today.

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Why the Internet is broken