Another internet

DNS is dog dodgy, needs resilience and to offer domain authentication by default, the price of ssl certs is ridiculous, those credentials could be sorted at registration and transfer, maybe I'm going mad but I think built in security should be an easy option.

It's the organisations behind it that need to change. ISOC, ICANN, W3C should be UN-funded but independent of political or commercial meddling. If the vested interests or their political puppets drive change we can expect freedom to take a back seat to things like software patents and the war on terror. No thanks. I'd rather limp wherever I want than run with a chain gang. Guess I'm a Dapper Dan man.

All this could lead to is inconvenience.

This is a direct copy of my post on the same topic on Bruce Peren's Technocrat site.

Rebuilding the net is very much needed. The problem is... There are about 60 different, and often conflicting visions of what is "right".

For me, as a Free Software zealot and system administrator, I'd LOVE to see a protocol level shift from trust to mistrust. As it is now, you can send a message from anywhere, as anyone. In my ideal internet, you'd have to prove, without a doubt, that you were authorized to send from that address. And until I validated you as a legitimate sender (in a variety of ways), you'd bounce.

I'd also like the see a "return" to the days of strict regulations on commercial activity on the internet. A decentralized system of name/number assignment.

The problem is, the people with the ability to make that happen are now commerical companies, who want nothing more than to control the internet. Even universities now operate in a way strikingly similar to that, and I wonder if we're not better off keeping "legacy" concepts in place, merely to protect some of the ideas behind them; ideas of community and cooperation.

There's another issue. Oppressive states and the RIAA et al would welcome required authentication, I's like it as an option.