Controlling the New Internet

Posted on Aug 12, 2010 in IPv6, News and Announcements | 0 comments

Okay… Stop me if you’ve heard this before: We only have 6% of the world’s supply of IPv4 address left to hand out and if we don’t do something really fast… (sounds of Todd screeching to a halt!) Phew…Thanks for stopping me. This just isn’t breaking news anymore, and it’s becoming a pretty tired topic being discussed to death in the ever-growing number of tech blogs that interestingly, are just now starting to bring it up.

I’ve gotta say, cheers mates… it’s about time! I mean really, where have they been? I’ve only been writing and talking about impending IPv4 address exhaustion for years now, which means that it’s no longer something I want to blog about. Still, I have to admit that pretty much everything that we’ll be doing at work or on The Net from here on out will have at least something to do with that IPv4 lack of addresses issue. It’s true, I’m not kidding, but I promise to explain without digressing into “The IPv4 Event Horizon” thing.

Because we need to use a new, larger addressing scheme, many companies and world government agencies are taking advantage of this IPv4 issue to create a new, controllable internet, so although this blog may sort of resemble a techno-thriller movie script, it’s all too real to ignore. Believe it or not, if you dig around enough, you’ll find that most of this is straight out of the newspapers, though it may be buried deeply and certainly blurred a bit.

With the government now having complete and absolute power to shut down the existing Internet “in the name of national security” (referring to the 197-page senate bill entitled, “Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act”), Google has commandeered a /32 IPv6 address, effectively crowning themselves an ISP with hundreds of millions of IPv6 addresses (see figure of where Google’s IPv6 address starts by clicking here).

Want to get on the new Internet? No worries! Just pay Google and you get to go to any of the new sites that they’ve deemed safe and desirable for you—a decision based upon your past search results, of course. Want to set your business up so people can see and maybe even buy your products? Again—no worries… Just pay that piper, and once you’re on the “white list” of government approved sites, people with a credit card used for an Internet subscription—much like your cable provider uses today—can get to your site and bleed some cash.

So it’s pay to play or no Net for you! Sounds like SciFi, doesn’t it, but sadly, it’s all too true. And it’s not even that big of a reach. Not all that long ago, people would have been totally shocked at the thought of paying anything except the electric bill for TV. Now it’s complete reality—no TV without paying…Period! Pretty good analogy except for the fact that the subscriber-only TV conversion happened slowly, over many years, and we just don’t have that kind of time because of “that subject” we’re oh-so tired of yammering about here.

Google (of course) denies this whole pay to get to the Internet thing, yet their hush-hush talks with Verizon seem to keep inconveniently popping up and making the news. This, while both organizations keep emphatically denying any and all of it and loudly singing the “net-neutrality must be protected” anthem. As always though, actions sing much louder, and their words are empty as my wallet probably will be after blogging this because their clandestine deals are getting closer and closer to closing down our current Internet as I write!

Now back to the government for a second. Large ISPs are somehow okay with this new senate bill because it contains language that will give them immunity from civil lawsuits and also reimburse them for any costs incurred if the Internet just so happens to be shut down for a period of time. Wow-hey, nice work if you can get it right? Get paid to not work, or even to shut your company down for a breather—sweet! Anyone who has ever been in line/on hold to a government office or service agency knows this does in fact curiously resemble how efficiently or not our current government tends to work.

Seriously—this is some real power we’re talking about. Think about it for minute… Just regulate free Internet speech and control the media and you gain unprecedented control over an entire country! Don’t think this is a unique U.S. idea, no way. It’s been “borrowed” from China and New Zealand, Australia and even the U.K are very much behind it too! Personally, I’m thinking the U.K. will be the first to pull the plug on the existing Internet, but only time can tell. It’s just really hard to ignore because it is a fact that they passed an unprecedented censorship bill in April of this year, which will pretty much kill their current Internet whenever they decide to. This little detail is pretty blasted ominous, and tells me I’m probably not too far off the mark with this little prediction.

Recent releases under the Freedom of Information Act has revealed that social media outlets such as YouTube, Google, Facebook, Myspace, Flickr and Yahoo have waived rules on monitoring users and permitting companies to track visitors to government web sites for advertising purposes. At the same time, the U.S. military has invested more than $30 billion towards its own understanding and ability to control the new Internet (the DoD, which creates defacto standards was suppose to have IPv6 on all their backbones by 2008, but hey, they did it by 2010 — and their new goal of an end-to-end IPv6 Internet is what they are spending all this money on!). To me, these factors clearly indicate that this information is unquestionably important and we shouldn’t just be blowing it off as hype for sure!

Well, knowledge is power right? Right… So use this information to create a solid plan to bag some sharp new skills, fine tuned specifically for this new controlled environment now, while you’re still ahead of the pack. I know I am! I can’t get enough of studying anything and everything IPv6 like crazy, and since I am a network guy, I’m working with as many government agencies and companies as possible to keep in step with the latest Intel and info on our ‘Brave New Internet.” And I’m not doing all this because I’m into techno-thrillers. I’m doing it all because I see it as a really exciting, new and lucrative business opportunity in what is honestly, a comparatively bleak landscape. You should too!

More on this as time progresses…

… In the meantime, be sure and check out GlobalNet Training & Consulting, inc for some really sweet training specials (including some up and coming new IPv6 classes!) and where you can find the best and only Todd Lammle Cisco® Authorized training.

Cheers!
Todd Lammle