The Internet

On my home page I mentioned that the decision to start using the Interent to carry business data was the most challenging step. This is because it changed and severly weakened my ability as a Service Manager to deliver a safe predictable service to the users of our companies I.T. systems that were a vital part of our critical business processes.

To understand why this was the case it is necessary to have a basic understanding of what the Internet is and how it works, not so much in technical way but in a functional way, and also how it is managed, and who manages it.

What is it and how does it work

The internet connects computers across the world in a World Wide Web so that they can exchange data whenever they want to. Any computer can connect with a suitable telecomms connection. Data is routed from the sending computer to the receiving computer using various bits of information including an I.P. address. The path the data follows may pass through any number of other computers before reaching its destination. These computers are owned by many different companies and individuals who do not guarentee how long data will take to pass through them or whether the data will even be sent on to its destination. Data sent one day may follow a completely different path the next day.

As a Service Manager you can imagine I was not impressed by the concept of changing from a process where I sent data via a dedicated telecomms link of known capacity and speed, to sending it in to a CLOUD of computers not knowing when it would come out the other side. How could I offer any sort of Service Level Agreement(SLA) to anyone using the service I was responsible for, unless they were using it in the same building. Both security and response times were an issue. The introduction of Virtual Private Networks(VPN), Secure Sockets Layer(SSL) and Transport Layer Security(TLS), fibe, and encryption, all helped with security but response times and data loss remain an unresolveable issue and security is actually getting worse.

How is it managed

Control of routing data through the internet is "managed" by an independant organistaion in the USA. This organisation issues the addresses that are required to find any computer on the Internet. Current addresses are held in a heirachy of special servers across the globe. At the top of the hierachy are 13 root servers, 9 of which are in the USA. The routing information required for an entry in these servers used to be relatively simple, but over recent years has become more complex and has been greatly influenced by the top USA based tech companies, arguably for security. Suffice to say governance of the Internet is still in the hands these rganisations. Beyond that the Internet is not really managed as such because it just connects loads of computers

So that leaves the question of where does the responsibility for Security really lie. The answer is with the person managing the computer connected to the Internet. If this computer is holding sensitive data or running critical services, and this computer is also connected to a Local Area Network with people connecting to work from home or using their own Internet enabled devices in or for work, then full security is impossible to achieve without very restrictive practises which people regard as unacceptable in todays working environment. Ultimately full security can only be achieved by physical seperation of an organisations or individuals private systems from the Internet and removal of Internet capabilities from computers used to access and hold private data. Very expensive and not user friendly.

So now partly because of this, not only is the Internet under the control of a few large companies/people, but the hardware and software we use for storing and managing private data has now largely transferred to these same few companies. So access to OUR data and security of OUR data is now under their control. This has been happening gradually over the last 20+ years and recent "A.I." developments have just accelerated this complete transfer of governance of our lives to a few large non-elected companies and individuals.

Just think about where you back up your data? Most people back up their data to "the Cloud"... that means Google, Microsoft, Amazon? I still back up my phone and data to my own device but given the way our public services are transferring to these companies I am sure that won't be possible for much longer.

So What Next?

TO BE COMPLETED............................Please come back later...