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The Internet Is Changing…Can You Feel It?
Manish Dalal
Today, consumers have ushered in the “Any Era” demanding access to any information, from any device, any time and anywhere they want it. And they not only want access; they want the ability to contribute, personalize and socialize. Consumer generated websites such as Facebook, Wikipedia and Flickr have elbowed out many traditional companies to rank in the top 20 websites in the country
We live in an exciting world. One that is changing dramatically every day. YouTube, Second Life, MySpace, iPhone. You probably hadn’t even heard of these a few years ago, but today they dominate the discussion about societal trends and the future of communications and the Internet. Once upon a time, e-commerce drove the Internet debate, but now it’s clear we have entered a new era and you can feel the Internet changing daily.
Today, consumers have ushered in the “Any Era” demanding access to any information, from any device, any time and anywhere they want it. And they not only want access; they want the ability to contribute, personalize and socialize. Consumer generated websites such as Facebook, Wikipedia and Flickr have elbowed out many traditional companies to rank in the top 20 websites in the country. These increasingly popular social-networking sites are accounting for such huge volumes of domain name system (DNS) queries and bandwidth consumption that carriers and corporations are scrambling to keep pace.
At VeriSign, we have been living this transformation for more than 12 years – from the early days of basic Internet access and web sites to the adolescent years of e-commerce and e-business to the high school years of Web 2.0, ubiquitous instant messaging, voice over IP, smart phones, RFID and broadband video delivery. It’s thrilling to consider the myriad possibilities for the Internet that have not even been thought of yet, but that same exciting unknown also holds equally dangerous pitfalls. Until recently, the Internet has grown largely based on services designed for the IP network, and that organic growth was visible and measurable. Now, with the migration of existing infrastructures such as telephony and TV to Internet Protocol – services that were not originally designed to migrate to the Net – we are seeing explosive, bursty growth.
This volume increase is reflected in the number of queries made of the .com and .net DNS infrastructure every day.
The following data further demonstrates this emerging use and growth of the Internet:
- YouTube consumes as much bandwidth as the entire Internet in year 2000
- Internet-based TV subscribers are expected to reach 100 million by late 2010, up from 3 million in 2006.
- There are 15,534,550 SMS transactions every 5 minutes
- Total VoIP subscribers worldwide are projected to grow to over 55 million in 2009 from 16 million in 2005
- The wireless industry is adding 40 million new connections a month
- Wireless gaming revenues will double from 2006 to 2008, to $1.6 billion.
These developments reflect what is likely to be the continued meteoric growth of the Internet user population.
It’s thrilling to consider the myriad possibilities for the Internet that have not even been thought of yet, but that same exciting unknown also holds equally dangerous pitfalls
Increasing Threats to the Internet
At the same time, the growth of Internet users, broadband capacity and number of Internet-enabled devices has created an opportunity for hackers, organized criminals and even more serious terrorists to attack our networks through SPAM, spyware, identity theft, viral attacks, and denial of service exploits. Some do so for technical trophies, some for political objectives, but today, most of the attacks on the Internet are done for financial gain.
Specifically, the very devices and increased bandwidth that make the Internet more robust and consumer-friendly are now deployed to compromise the Internet. Computers are always-on, so they are easily accessible for hijacking by hackers and other criminals. The increased bandwidth and computing power available literally gives hackers more ammunition to use against the infrastructure. While a Jupiter Research report in 2004 found that the typical home needed less than 3 Mbps of bandwidth, that level has steadily grown and given the demands of gaming and video that capacity is expected to grow to 57 Mbps by 2009. That means that hackers will have 19 times the computing capacity available to them in the PCs they hijack in that period.
Indeed, security exploits have grown by 700 percent since 2000 and in fact, we expect to see cyber attacks rise 50 percent in each of the next two years. A series of attacks on the Internet infrastructure in early 2007 reflect how these incidents have grown in frequency and sophistication – some 100 times more threatening than attacks conducted just a few years before.
The Internet is often taken for granted because it works so well. But we are now entering an unprecedented new era of the Internet and we can’t take for granted that it will remain always-on, let alone secure, with no effort on our part. Internet users must stay vigilant about cyber attacks. Infrastructure operators must prepare for their worst-case scenarios – and then prepare for even worse. And governments must work more closely with industry to ensure that the systems that protect our national security and economic prosperity are truly up to the task
Given the increased usage and mounting threats, the Internet infrastructure must be continually fortified. At VeriSign, we have the responsibility of ensuring that at any given moment in time, any and all Internet users can reach the .com and .net domain names worldwide. Just six years ago, we managed one million DNS queries a day. Today, we do that same volume in minutes. That number of DNS queries will only continue to grow, and likely skyrocket.
Keeping the Internet Always-On
The Internet is often taken for granted because it works so well. But we are now entering an unprecedented new era of the Internet and we can’t take for granted that it will remain always-on, let alone secure, with no effort on our part. Internet users must stay vigilant about cyber attacks. Infrastructure operators must prepare for their worst-case scenarios – and then prepare for even worse. And governments must work more closely with industry to ensure that the systems that protect our national security and economic prosperity are truly up to the task.
Manish Dalal is Vice President, APAC, VeriSign. He can be reached at Mdalal@verisign.com
Given the increased usage and mounting threats, the Internet infrastructure must be continually fortified. At VeriSign, we have the responsibility of ensuring that at any given moment in time, any and all Internet users can reach the .com and .net domain names worldwide
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