[Chapter-delegates] VIDEO: Geoff Huston on the future directions of the Internet

[Walid AL-SAQAF]

Thanks Joly for sharing this interesting article video.

The point raised by Geoff Houston about the concentration of power in the
hands of some global intermediaries (Google, Facebook, Amazon, etc.) is
something I personally believe is the antithesis of the basics of
decentralization upon which the Internet was built.

To bring the ownership of data and services from intermediaries to the
end-user may require another disruptive technology that would make it
possible to democratize the process.

While I don't know what that technology is for sure, I personally think
that the blockchain and smart contracts are one thing that is worth
investigating. Read this useful article by Hicham Ezzahid on this matter:

https://medium.com/@e_hicham/blockchain-and-smart-contracts-will-eat-online-marketplaces-ce86c56e62c0

As the ISOC Blockchain SME, I'll be at the IEEE Blockchain Summit in
Vancouver on April 4 to bring up those thoughts for discussion. I've  been
studying this area for a while and would welcome your thoughts and how/if
the blockchain technology and smart contracts could be connected to our
work as ISOC.

Just like the Internet founders did, thinking outside the box is sometimes
necessary to bring radical change on a global level. The Blockchain SIG
that was recently approved by ISOC is trying to study if this technology
has some promise in answering some of the challenges faced by the Internet
today. So at least there is some effort done by ISOC and its community to
look into different things that may help address those critical questions
about the present and future of the Internet.

Best

Walid Al-Saqaf
ISOC Trustee

On Mar 17, 2017 11:26, "Joly MacFie" <joly at punkcast.com> wrote:

> To my own credit. I actually raised the 'content castles' issue with the
> Dynamic Coalition on Core Internet Values way back in 2012 at the
> Azerbaijan IGF. https://youtu.be/Je36zEtQSvk?t=2811 Unfortunately I did
> not get much of a response.
>
>
> joly posted: "At the recent APRICOT Conference in Ho Chi Minh City,
> Vietnam, Geoff Huston, Chief Scientist at APNIC, gave a rather dystopian
> view of the Internet's future, referring to the current period as a "gilded
> age" - a late 19th century trope, coined by Mark Twa"
>
>
>
> At the recent *APRICOT Conference <https://2017.apricot.net/>* in Ho Chi
> Minh City, Vietnam, *Geoff Huston*, Chief Scientist at APNIC, gave a
> rather dystopian view of the Internet's future, referring to the current
> period as a "*gilded age <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilded_Age>*" - a
> late 19th century trope, coined by Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner,
> that described the rise of an oligarchic veneer that masked underlying
> social malaise. What provokes Huston is after the Internet disrupted  the
> Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN), it is now in danger of being
> disrupted itself. The rise consolidation of ubiquitous major Content
> Delivery Network nodes connected via private networks, is 1) belaying the
> need for, and thus investment in, global Open Internet infrastructure, and
> also 2) removing all options for public oversight of these networks. His
> closely argued views are well summarized by *Don Dambandaraska* in *this
> news story <https://disruptive.asia/transit-dead-content-literally-rules/>*,
> and are expounded on at length by Huston himself in a *Circle ID post
> <http://www.circleid.com/posts/20170311_the_internet_gilded_age/>*, and
> expressed succinctly in the video interview below.
>
> *View on YouTube*: https://youtu.be/447HL2ePPBU
>
>
> Comment <http://isoc-ny.org/p2/9067#respond>    See all comments
> <http://isoc-ny.org/p2/9067#comments>
>
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> *​Permalink*
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> http://isoc-ny.org/p2/9067
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> --
> ---------------------------------------------------------------
> Joly MacFie  218 565 9365 Skype:punkcast
> --------------------------------------------------------------
> -
>
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