Open Internet : <-Past|Present|Future->

Life exists in different forms but for humans, it exists in the age of the Internet and within the internet.

Open Internet for All — Internet is a global resource. | Image shows People standing against FCC in support of Net Neutrality. | Source: flicker

Invention of the Internet, that dates back to the 1970’s with the development of Open standard protocol, TCP/IP(Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol) by Vin Cerf and Robert E. Khan but, its use for civilian started with the development of Open standards for the World Wide Web (WWW) by Sir Tim Berners-Lee in the year 1980. From then, the rise of the Internet has started for almost every need and purpose.

World Wide Web [WWW] | Image Source: Wikipedia

How Open standardization of the Internet helped its growth for use?

“Open Internet indicates the transparency in its implementation.”

Open Internet has helped the community to develop the Internet-based applications both technologically and culturally with the increase of globalization. Although its initial development is primarily focused for the purpose of defence, it gave powers to Corporates for its infrastructural development within the civilian use. However, the contributions from the community for the development of community-based applications through the Internet is never seen as a barrier because of its openness.

In one way it has not only helped in the development of technology but also to increase the knowledge base of the people and their cultural integration across the regions.

• Development of universal policies and Internet guidelines.
• Reducing the infrastructural burden with the ease of implementation on agreed universal Internet policies and protocols.
• Enabling the individual and Organizational service development in the IT sector without the need for seeking any permission.
• Trustworthy in software usage: in event of openness in the source code.
• The motivation for Free and Open Source Software[& Open Hardware] initiatives.
• Upholding the individual privacy with network and system security.

What would have been happened if the Internet is Not-Open?

If Robert E. Khan, Vin Cerf and Tim Bern had not made their decision for open, then the development of the internet would have been slated.

• Internet would have been a pure blend of commercialization. Most of the developments would have been copyrighted and patented leaving less chance for community-based contributions.
• An increase in Centralized infrastructure: Which eventually results in loss of information and services in the event of a disaster.
• Footstep on freedom for information and speech.
• Unknown deep web: Chance for accessing the information in the deep web would have been less.
• A barrier of learning: Most of the vital Knowledge resources and the policies framed for accessing these resources under open access [such as Creative Commons License] would have been a nightmare.

“ Net Neutrality makes internet free and open, in which it enables everyone to access and share information of their own choice.”

Net Neutrality | Image Source: Pixbay

It was in the year 2015, One of India’s biggest cellular network has thought of implementing “ Differential pricing” in order to increase profits. Differential pricing is like, you pay for internet and besides being that you have to pay to access some specific websites (and/or Apps, other than some web or app services listed in the regular Internet usage package). This doesn’t mean that you are also paying for the individual or the company hosting that website. Which means that you are paying twice to your network operator for accessing the Internet(for some web or app services listed in the regular Internet usage package) and also to that specified website(or app) for accessing it, which is something Unlawful. TRAI (Telecom Regulatory Authority of India) has asked for recommendations and comments from citizens, with huge criticism from citizens it got nailed down. But, after few months, free basics ( the rebranded version of Internet.org which is trashed by citizens) by Facebook tried to disrupt India’s Internet ecosystem with an evil plan of offering free Internet access to People for accessing services of its allied companies and while the rest of the Internet services remains paid.

This is a strong violation of Net neutrality, in which you may need to comply with the terms and conditions of Facebook for hosting your own website with differential bandwidth. This imposes restrictions on bandwidth allocation for different services while treating all the data with an unequal speed of access. This mostly favours Facebook and its allied services while the rest is affected by bandwidth restrictions.

But the Indian Hacktivists in support of Open Internet raised agitations and started educating the fellow people about the evil effects of “free basics by Facebook”. Free Software Movement of India(FSMI) played a major role in defeating the implementation of “ free basics by Facebook”, while the TRAI itself rejected the “free basics by Facebook” for protecting Net Neutrality on seeking recommendations from Multi-Stakeholders and also criticized Facebook for misleading the People with its advertisements.

How will the future be affected if the Internet and its related technologies are Not-Open?

“Past is traditional, present is modern and the future is AI.”

When the future is about artificial decision making, natural decisions are considered least. As there is an increase of trustworthiness in Artificial Intelligence than Human truthiness, it’s more important to design open data systems and to implement transparency in informational data processing. Otherwise, it poses a great threat to the essence of individual costing their freedom of speech and choices.

• Implementation of AI for efficient traffic data routing, for providing Internet services to the global community has to be transparent. So, use of AI can only be advisable when implemented through open policies such as Mutually Agreed Norms for Routing Security (MANRS), vital routing security can be enhanced while enhancing the coordination and Global Validation by traffic filtering and Anti-spoofing.
• ISP’s and Government’s impose strict Internet censorship blocking access to the anti-government services using AI bots.
• ISP’s can play with your data for commercial purpose and even blocks their competitor products from reaching you.
• Through Content Delivery Networks (CDNs) most of the apps prioritize in-app advertisements with high-speed packet delivery limiting user-chosen content. This scenario is common while watching a video where most of the bandwidth is utilized for sponsoring advertisements with rich quality than the user-chosen content.
• A decline in Science and Technological Innovation with the lack of available free resources on the web.
• In coming near future, smart TV’s becomes even smarter carrying targeted advertisements with the help of the Internet and the behaviour analysis of the viewer based on his/her movements. This makes viewer not to get escaped from watching the advertisement in which ads are played upon the viewer presence only. This is an act of imposing bandwidth discrimination between user-chosen content and the targeted content that is presented to the viewer.
• Linux kernel, introduced by Linus Torvalds along with the philosophy of GNU project(GNU General Public License), launched by Richard Stallman has brought some significant revolutions in the path of Open Access Success Story. These core Open Source Technologies helped for massive development of Internet connectivity infrastructure in the urban and partially in the rural areas. For more efficiency and automation of connectivity, the future Internet is composed of numerous AI[Artificial Intelligent] bots which are developed using Open Source Software(If AI bots source code is completely closed then, that would be a devastation for mankind in rectifying errors in the event of network disaster caused by AI bots). So, the Internet should be open, as it itself is developed from the Open Source technologies.

GNU/Linux logo | Image Source: Wikipedia

• As Internet is a global resource, it is possible to minimize(possibly with only processing fee) the cost of allocation of the IPv6 address space to the user when the Internet continues to be Open. IPv6 is a huge address space nearly accounting to 3.4 *10³⁸ IP addresses.

Image showing IPv4 and IPv6 | Image Source: Wikipedia

• In the age of Surveillance: Every piece of information that we post on the web belong to us. We are responsible for what we post. We have a right to decide on how it can be used and finally, we [should] own it to protect it. But, your data including text chats, Telephone calls, VoIP calls, web, device metadata, voice and video data through your smart devices are continuously monitored and reviewed by several governments across the globe in the name of National Security. In addition to this, your physical movements are also under constant threat with the huge mass surveillance engines watching us from the roads to offices and to the living areas. Revealed by Edward Snowden, as of 2013–2015 statistics, NSA (National Security Agency, USA) reviews (reviewing the stored metadata of Internet users) “1TeraByte(TB)” of data per “SECOND”. While it is said that the spy rate on Americans is tripled by the end of 2017 with a collection of 530mn phone calls recordings. As a lack of open transparency in the devices and its software, it makes easy for the Governments and the manufacturer to spy on users by introducing backdoor software, which can neither be intercepted by the user nor the middleman. In the future, the chance of AI-based Internet surveillance can harm human and their rights.

Internet is not something which is created by single entity, it’s a wish, work and infrastructural development of every stakeholder, but unfortunately most of the internet infrastructure is owned by private corporations rather than the civil society. Majority of Internet infrastructure is copyrighted . So it’s the responsibility of governing bodies to make the basic infrastructure which builds the internet under the Open access and accessible to the public.

Final Note:

Open Internet is one which enables everyone to empower, express and access the global resources from any corner of the world. Internet as a global resource should be accessible to everyone with the equal privileges and it rests on every shoulder to continue and uphold the healthy Internet. Although there are several issues in the Internet Governance, today’s Internet privileges that we enjoy is because of the sacrifices did by great Internet Hacktivists such as Aaron Swartz[The Internet’s Own Boy], Edward Joseph Snowden, Julian Assange, Richard Stallman and many more..

Some of the Organizations that supports Open Internet and Open Access are Mozilla, Wikipedia, Open Access Button, The Linux Foundation, Creative Commons, Electronic Frontier Found .

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Suggestions and Contributions are gladly accepted!

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This article is published under Open Access Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.