How Blockchain Security Will Solve The Internet Infrastructure Debt

Over the weekend I listened to the latest episode of Waking Up Podcast by Sam Harris where his guest is Zeynep Tufekci, a professor, author and writer who focuses on social movements and civics, privacy and surveillance, and social interaction.

It’s a fantastic listen as she brings up many topics that lend themselves well to all of us in the blockchain space. The issue I’ll summarize here is about internet security and what she termed as companies having created an infrastructure debt. She starts out by re-stating for Sam that the internet began as a small network meant for trusted parties and therefore it didn’t really need to have any security built into the protocol. But as the use of the internet grew to outside parties, companies began building software for it, and they got very good at building the software fast. So even though everything worked, the attention to security was never there. And because there was never any real accountability for producing un-secure software, software companies had every incentive to push products out quickly and not focus on security. This has created an infrastructure debt.

Now in the enterprise software world, companies are using very old systems that are embedded with other older systems. As Tufekci says, “sure it might work but in reality it’s a faulty system held together by duct tape.” These older systems have many vulnerabilities and are just waiting to be exploited. Tufekci then brings up the conundrum: use older software at the price of poor security or use newer software that may come with some privacy invasion.

After listening to terms like trust, accountability, multiple parties, network takeovers, and an estimated 50 Billion IoT devices expected in the world in 2020, it’s important to re-visit how Blockchain can address the mass security problems we are about to face.

“Blockchain technology is the missing link to settle scalability, privacy, and reliability concerns in the Internet of Things. Blockchain technologies could perhaps be the silver bullet needed by the IoT industry.” — Ahmed Banafa, IoT Expert

IoT Expert, Ahmed Banafa, points out the following ways Blockchain can prevent a new generation of infrastructure debt:

• The decentralized Blockchain approach would eliminate single points of failure, creating a more resilient ecosystem for devices to run on.
• The cryptographic algorithms used by blockchains, would make consumer data more private.
• By leveraging the Blockchain, IoT solutions can enable secure, trustless messaging between devices in an IoT network.
• Using the blockchain will enable true autonomous smart devices that can exchange data, or even execute financial transactions, without the need of a centralized broker
• The Blockchain is essential to enable the many compliance and regulatory requirements of industrial IoT applications without the need to rely on a centralized model.

If you are still doubting the need for blockchain enhanced security for the next stage of the Internet, I should remind you of the massive botnet attacks from last fall resulting from hundreds of thousands of IoT cameras used in baby monitors.

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