A New internet (Hit refresh, you will not lose your changes, we promise)

Not to be alarmist or anything, but The New York Times reports that "there is a growing belief among engineers and security experts that Internet security and privacy have become so maddeningly elusive that the only way to fix the problem is to start over. What a new Internet might look like is still widely debated, but one alternative would, in effect, create a 'gated community' where users would give up their anonymity and certain freedoms in return for safety.

"... the current Internet might end up as the bad neighborhood of cyberspace. You would enter at your own risk and keep an eye over your shoulder while you were there."

Fascinating. Though to me that sounds like the current internet now. How many of us actually know which websites to trust? Someone must fall for those pop-up ads. Someone must believe the emails that offer something better, bigger, longer, or more effective if you'd just CLICK HERE. The other day I received a phone call - a real live person on the phone! - telling me that they knew from my IP address that my computer had downloaded malicious software and if I just gave them all my information and passwords and paid them money they could clear it up for me. So would I like to protect myself? Would I!

This new internet, then, might be a place where we were all safe. A utopia where you wouldn't have to be anonymous. Chat rooms full of first and last named individuals, music websites where you paid the correct price for every track, and important information doled out by the authorities, correct in every way they want it to be. Kind of like China, except of course we could trust our corporations and authorities not to censor, edit, or lie. Why would anyone else follow China, after all? They'd have no reason to! Er...

Wait a minute. "Certain freedoms?"

I think I'll stay right here and watch my back.