THE INTERNET IS DEAD AND DANGEROUS. AND WE STILL USE IT.

Part 1. A history. Can laws protect us?

The internet as we know it is dead. You can no longer trust the internet to be a trustworthy communications platform. Worse, it has become an almost impenetrable safe haven for very smart terrorists, criminals, rogue actors who have built global enterprises which threaten the very fabric of our society, and new threats are created daily behind nearly impenetrable walls. A global shutdown of the internet is both possible and has to be prevented. The global public communications infrastructure enveloping the planet has a terminal disease. How did we get here?

Take a look at what could disappear overnight. Take a look at what happens in cyberspace in an internet minute in 2021. Industry statistics complied by https://localiq.com/blog/what-happens-in-an-internet-minute-2021/ tell us that ONE BILLION HOURS OF YOUTUBE ARE WATCHED EVERY DAY!! Not to be outdone by YouTube, Tik Tok also clocks in at One Billion videos watched per day! 4.3 Million searches happen on Google every minute! And 2 TRILLION texts are sent worldwide every day. And, we communicate and do business and interact online as though it is safe and governed by law. We don’t have to look past the daily news to know everything we do is visible to sophisticated hackers everywhere unless we change our ways.

New technologies are being built for all of us to use online and give us a better chance to build safe and trustworthy global marketplaces which are based on the reputations of each one of us. We will have to come together to recognize and learn the many different and acceptable ways that there are to measure reputation. By first coming together in the global public forums which will begin the research and discussion of how to use the new technologies to empower individuals with a multi-faceted digital identity that is trustworthy, the foundation for organizing like-minded communities and markets follows suit. We just have to accept the fact that governments as we know them can not make cyberspace laws by themselves – like international waters, or space, cyberspace is outside the jurisdiction of the laws of any nation-state. States’ power to govern cyberspace is derivative, not direct. It comes from writing rules to control only the lives and the assets of people within their territory to use cyberspace. To govern conduct that occurs online, we need a new way.

We have to reinvent how we make laws in cyberspace. Do you want to get involved with the work we are doing around the globe to make this happen? Reach out to me at [email protected]. Put the phrase “Reinvent Law” in the subject line so I can reply right away.