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Anchor: The Internet now. We use it for practically everything, but when it was designed and began growing into what it is now, one little detail was left out to the architecture, virtually no built-in security. So could a new Internet and almost wholesale redesign solve the problem? Is that even possible now? In a FOX report from Molly Line.
Molly Line: You order plane tickets, movie tickets. Pay your bills all online.
It's taking over pretty much everything we do in entertainment and business and communication.
Molly Line: But hackers and viruses have programmers on the defence, leading some experts to argue that we face a collapse of internet stability and security. They say a revolution is needed.
When we built the internet over the last 30 or 40 years, we did not incorporate security. The fundamental protocols that make up the internet and make it work don't have any security.
Molly Line: As a result, the internet is a treasure-trove for criminals. Blackmail, ID theft, organized crime becoming more common online. The activity is monitored here at ACMI, wherein massive globe shines a light on billions of internet users.
Now our job is to try to make the internet work.
Molly Line: The Cambridge Company specializes in keeping online business up and running. They are the first responders fighting the hackers and worms, a job with no end.
Molly Line: American businesses spend billions of dollars a year just trying to protect their products. Firewalls, antivirus software - these patch methods are working for now, but internet experts argue that all the quick fixes will just complicate the problem.
Molly Line: MIT's David Clark, an early internet architect says:
David Clark: Every time you put a fix into the system, you have to make sure that the fix is compatible with all your other fixes, and it's a well-known phenomenon that you put in one fix and it breaks something else, so you put in a fix and it creates yet a new vulnerability.
Molly Line: So what's the solution? Start from scratch?
David Clark: If we've been trying to solve the problem incrementally for 15 years, maybe what we have to do is go back and revisit some of our fundamental assumptions.
Molly Line: Clark argues for redesign, creating a new internet where trust is assured, the clean slate approach. He is not alone. The National Science Foundation is exploring the idea. Ultimately, there is no easy solution.
David Clark: If there was a magic bullet, we would have fired it already.
Molly Line: In Boston, Molly Line, FOX News.
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