net

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Essay

applications from the data they produce. Solid is both a

form of self-regulation and adaptation of the internet.

Solid was founded in response to the growing hegemony

of the big internet players. Facebook, for example, now

has over two billion active users – it is effectively the

filter through which nearly two thirds of the world’s

internet users access the internet. These platforms

control much of what is done on the internet and their

platforms are accessories to the widening problem of

‘fake news’.

The ambition of Solid is to self-regulate the internet

by chang ing the w ay data is handled. Today, most inter net

compan ies requi re you to hand over your data before you

use their services. For example, every picture you post

on Facebook belongs to Facebook because the company

is the one that stores it. By contrast, an application built

on the Solid infrastructure will ask users where they

want to store their data – with the application requesting

access to it. T he cr ucial di f ference in this scenario is that

data remains in the ownership of the individual, not the

application using it. While you may decide to store your

data on Dropbox, it remains always under your control,

and you can prevent the application from accessing it at

any time you choose.

And this isn’t the only technical solution devised by

those who operate the modern internet. In December

2016, Google, Facebook, Twitter and Microsoft also

unveiled an information-sharing initiative to tackle

extremist content on the internet. They pledged to work

together to create a database of un ique dig ital f inger prints

(hashes) for videos and images that promote terrorism,

so that when one firm flags and removes a piece of content

for featuring violent terrorist imagery or a recruitment

video for example, the other companies can use the hash

to remove the same content on their platforms.

Another technological solution to the internet’s

challenge is being devised by the technology research

company InterDigital. Its ICN (Information-Centric

Network) proposes to eliminate the client-server

topolog y that is responsible for much of the latenc y and

duplication of data experienced across the internet.

An ICN-based internet would do away with URLs

(Uniform Resource Locators) that tell us where on the

network the information is and swap them for URIs

(Uniform Resource Identifiers), which tells us what the

information is. The contrast here is that when you want

a piece of information, you leave it to the network to find

it. It w i l l more l i kely be much closer to you than a remote

server somewhere.

The advantages of the ICN is a reduction in latency –

since data would be accessed f rom a locat ion much closer

to the user – but it can also improve trust because it

removes the ability to use fake URLs, a common tactic

for deceiving users with fake websites used for phishing

attacks or distributing fake news. These are two very

significant improvements.

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Solid and ICN are just a couple of the possible examples

of self-regulation and technical changes that can be

made to the inter net in order to refor m it. T he hear ten ing

point of all this is that those responsible for the internet

are also the ones looking to improve it. Self-regulation

is already happening.

As visionary internet pioneer, John Perry Barlow

(author of, amongst other things, A Declaration of the

Independence of Cyberspace), once said: “[A] good way to

invent the future is to predict it.” This might sound

slightly naive in today’s world, where the freedom of the

internet is the centre of such a huge ongoing debate, but

it might just turn out to be true.

Self-regulation might not be a perfect solution just

yet, but it is still better than knee-jerk legislation that

could stifle creative and commercial innovation and

infringe upon people’s civil liberties.

Through the spirit of openness and collaboration –

principles that are so core to the internet itself – I am

confident that the technology-led, self-regulation

solutions being proposed by those in the industry will

be delivered far more quickly and effectively than any

government-led approach.

The internet will continue to regulate and redesign

itself. It has never stopped evolving to address its

chal lenges. By continuing to do so, it w i l l manage to find

its own solutions.

Simon Yeoman is general manager and

financial director at Fasthosts. He is an active

advocate for trust and transparency in the

industry. Follow Simon on: @siyeoman

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“Facebook now has over two billion active users – it is

eļectively the Ľlter through which nearly two thirds of the

world’s internet users access the internet”