Ask Slashdot: Would a Separate, Walled-Off 'SafeNet' Help Reduce Cybercrime? 284
dryriver writes: Imagine for a second that a second, smaller internet infrastructure is built parallel to, but separate from, the regular internet. Lets call this the SafeNet. The SafeNet, which does not allow anonymous use, is not intended for general purpose use like watching Youtube videos, downloading a Steam game, or going on Facebook. Rather, it is a safer, more policed mini-internet that you access through a purpose-built terminal device and use for security critical tasks like online banking, stock trading, medical data transfer and sending confidential business emails, text messages or documents or other things that you don't trust the general internet with.
For example, if you are buying a $250,000 home for your family, you would issue the payments and documents side of this via the SafeNet with a SafeNet terminal device, not over the internet, with a generic computing device. SafeNet requires every user to be government photo-ID registered -- you cannot use SafeNet anonymously like the internet. The network knows who you are, where you are, and you can't hide behind VPNs, proxies or other anonymizers on this network. SafeNet also has a police force that can be alerted if you are hacked, tricked or scammed in any way. Would an internet alternative -- a smaller, separate parallel network -- like this reduce Cybercrime? Again, you wouldn't use the SafeNet for everyday crap like ordering pizza, buying movie tickets, or arguing over something on an internet forum. SafeNet would be used in situations where you are concerned that hackers, cybercriminals or other malevolent agents could get hold of your personal data, steal money from you, impersonate you, or snoop into your confidential communications. Other uses would include letting minors communicate with each other in a controlled fashion without exposing them to the big bad internet itself. Basically, in many situations where you deem performing a task over the larger internet as risky or dangerous, you could perform that task over a SafeNet terminal instead. Shouldn't an "alternative internet" like this exist in some form by now?
For example, if you are buying a $250,000 home for your family, you would issue the payments and documents side of this via the SafeNet with a SafeNet terminal device, not over the internet, with a generic computing device. SafeNet requires every user to be government photo-ID registered -- you cannot use SafeNet anonymously like the internet. The network knows who you are, where you are, and you can't hide behind VPNs, proxies or other anonymizers on this network. SafeNet also has a police force that can be alerted if you are hacked, tricked or scammed in any way. Would an internet alternative -- a smaller, separate parallel network -- like this reduce Cybercrime? Again, you wouldn't use the SafeNet for everyday crap like ordering pizza, buying movie tickets, or arguing over something on an internet forum. SafeNet would be used in situations where you are concerned that hackers, cybercriminals or other malevolent agents could get hold of your personal data, steal money from you, impersonate you, or snoop into your confidential communications. Other uses would include letting minors communicate with each other in a controlled fashion without exposing them to the big bad internet itself. Basically, in many situations where you deem performing a task over the larger internet as risky or dangerous, you could perform that task over a SafeNet terminal instead. Shouldn't an "alternative internet" like this exist in some form by now?
Wtf (Score:5, Insightful)
Wtf
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Maybe if we gave it a more realistic name, the answer to this post would even more clear.
Something like..."Preynet"
Re:Wtf (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually it reminded me of the old AOL Online stuff, which wasn't "the internet" but a more controlled corporate online experience. It was created before "the internet" as we know it came into existence, but didn't survive it.
Ask anyone of a certain age, they'll remember the CDs....
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CDs? I remember the floppies.
AOL died because it was only available to AOL subscribers and all the good stuff was on the wider internet.
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I'd argue that it "died" because of Time Warner. But, FYI, it still has ~20 million daily users.
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Actually it reminded me of the old AOL Online stuff, which wasn't "the internet" but a more controlled corporate online experience. It was created before "the internet" as we know it came into existence, but didn't survive it.
Ask anyone of a certain age, they'll remember the CDs....
You mean the coffee cup holders?
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The scarecrows. CDs hung on strings over gardens, twirling in the wind, reflecting daylight kept birds away from fruit plants.
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The scarecrows. CDs hung on strings over gardens, twirling in the wind, reflecting daylight kept birds away from fruit plants.
The first time I saw one of that use, a local artist had put hundreds of them in a tree in his front yard. It was seriously beautiful.
The township had him move it though, because it was right beside a downhill sharp curve, and it was dazzling people going both ways. So he moved it back about 50 feet. Still pretty in it's new location
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Ask anyone of a certain age, they'll remember the CDs....
HAHAHAA ...the CDs. AOL newsgroups - *wink wink*
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Me, too!
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What do you mean that it didn't survive? AOL is still around. I know several people who use AOL email addresses still.
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Sounds like a way to get the US to have an official "National ID". And once that comes onboard, it will be required for pretty much ANYTHING or any transaction you want to do, whether online or not.
No thank you.
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I use AOL and I'm a guy.
I'm not gay, but my boyfriend is.
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Correction:
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You mean like gun free zones prevent mass shootings?
Also, Betteridge's Law. NO to both counts.
Betteridge's law of headlines is an adage that states: "Any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
in the vast majority of cases, that the story is tendentious or over-sold. It is often a scare story, or an attempt to elevate some run-of-the-mill piece of reporting into a national controversy and, preferably, a national panic. To a busy journalist hunting for real information a question mark means 'don't bother reading this bit'.
** Marr, Andrew (2004). My Trade: a short history of British journalism. London: Macmillan. p. 253. ISBN 978-1-4050-0536-4
Re:Wtf (Score:4, Funny)
Also, Betteridge's Law. NO to both counts.
Betteridge's law of headlines is an adage that states: "Any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no."
Here's a headline: Is Betteridge's law accurate?
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Thanks.
Insensitive clods think "sayings," are laws.
Early to bed and early to rise makes and man healthy, wealthy and wise.
Doesn't always apply, like 12 hours on; 12 hours off onboard an aircraft carrier.
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Thanks.
Insensitive clods think "sayings," are laws.
Early to bed and early to rise makes and man healthy, wealthy and wise.
Doesn't always apply, like 12 hours on; 12 hours off onboard an aircraft carrier.
That early early thing always confused me. Anyhow, I violate the hell out of that adage.
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Don't forget the parcel bomb, car, van and poison that all were effectively used within the last ten years in the UK.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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You point is valid. Humans are clever. If knives are banned, slingshots will be next.
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Exactly. And the only way to have a hope at maintaining security on this kind of thing is incredibly strict, centralized control over access. You can't have a network that is both widely accessible (as the notional "safenet" would be) and completely secure.
ha (Score:4, Insightful)
no, it wouldnt
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Maybe it would.
Imagine it was implemented as a VPN to your bank, some a separate secure browser that couldn't access anything else. It would be minimal, no plug-in support, and only work with the VPN and pinned certificates for the bank's servers. The VPN keys would be unique to each individual and distributed to them physically somehow, say by going to the bank with photo ID.
There would still doubtless be some fraud but it would cut down on things like fake bank sites and phishing emails.
Of course it would
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no, it wouldnt
The question isn't whether it would be more safe, secure, or resistant to cybercrime. Of course it would.
The real question is how much time and justification governments would need to convince/force people to use The Big Brother Internet and shut off (as best they can), and/or make illegal, access to The Real Internet.
We're not talking China-Taiwan levels of long game here. I give it max 6 years in the more repressive places and 12 everywhere else.
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Why assume that it would be the government doing so? If I owned a bank, and told my clients that all of their transactions would only occur on this network, I bet I'd get plenty of clients who were fearful of the regular internet. Same for virtually any financial institution. How about offering secure cloud storage to businesses on this network?...more clients. This doesn't mean that you do away with the regular internet. There'd be no need for Netflix or WoW, or many of the other businesses to move th
Infrastructure (Score:4, Interesting)
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Stuxnet
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There's really no need to build much. All the internet infrastructure is pretty open and barebones. All the security is built on top it.
If big players like government/banks or whoever want to build a secure ecosystem, they can knock themselves out. Get some kind of digital ID from a 'secure' partner. Use that ID on all 'secure' websites.
On the client side, having a dedicated terminal doesn't do much either. Real trouble makers can hack the device or emulate it. Trying to secure the client is as big a task a
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I think the very fact that this doesn't already exists points to how useless this is to discuss.
People prefer free access and commodity systems.
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CaptainDork's 7th Corollary: "For every motherfucker out there with a computer, there's another mother fucker out there with a computer."
The US government is using essentially the same goddam hardware I am and the software they have is not far removed from what I can get my hands on.
Plus, there's the Dilbert Effect where Pointy Haired Boss observes, "Temporary and contract employees are not loyal to the company."
To make something like this work, we need some really weirdly different hardware that's restrict
Obtuse is obtuse (Score:4, Interesting)
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Again, you wouldn't use the SafeNet for everyday crap like ordering pizza, buying movie tickets, or arguing over something on an internet forum.
Anyone care to guess how long that's going to last? Once it's there, online merchants might well take advantage of the added security. The big social media companies would just love an internet where no one is anonymous and cannot hide. And government might at some point mandate the use of SafeNet for any online discussion, to control subversive discussions and controversial opinions (I mean kiddy porn and terrorism, of course)
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It would tell the bad guys 'this is your target' (Score:5, Insightful)
John Dillinger apparently said he robbed banks because that was where the money was. A walled off internet designed clearly for financial transactions might as well be wearing a 'rob this place' sign.
How the Hell would it be of any value to anyone if it didn't connect to the outside world?
Nope. Anything can be compromised. (Score:5, Insightful)
All calling a walled garden "safe" does is lull users into a false sense of safety.
The MS Store, the Google Store, The Apple Store.
All of these are walled gardens and actively curated.
Yet there are still bad actors getting through.
The only thing that is "safe" is something NOBODY has access to. Electronically or physically.
At which point, why have it?
No one is going to have two internets in their hom (Score:3)
Itâ(TM)s just not going to happen. The moment you tell people that is your plan theyâ(TM)ll figure out someway to bridge them so they only need one computer and then itâ(TM)s game over.
Physically separated networks do exist, just not for consumer use.
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Actually the world market for the size of computers he was talking about is 0. Context. Try it sometimes. Will change your life.
I saw this movie already. (Score:3, Interesting)
Make a "safe" internet that is locked down, censored, and surveiled by its nature. Then declare anyone e using the "unsafe" internet must be up to nefarious purposes, so that internet must be shut down.
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I've always believed that our continued enjoyment of unfettered access is due to the fact that the corporate world found uses for it too.
If they hadn't, it would have died with the copper phone line.
If corporations are given an avenue to abandon it now, you'll be fine for a while, but the next series of innovations will gradually render the internet obsolete. Out of convenience many consumers will abandon it all together. Its dwindling market will continue to make it harder for people to find ways to access
The next step.. (Score:5, Insightful)
The next step is naturally declaring every use of the "non safe" internet a criminal.
Why is everyone so keen to emulate what China is doing for civil liberties? They do a lot of other stuff, why go and pick their worse examples?
The endpoints are what's most vulnerable (Score:5, Insightful)
In addition to the problems with public access to a "secure" network that others have pointed out - the fact is that we already have secure point-to-point communications over the internet. Sure, if you're stupid enough to engage in what should be secure communications over an untrusted public wi-fi connection you may be silently redirected to a counterfeit site, but in practice virtually all data breaches happen at one of the endpoints. Either due to hacking of corporate databases, or due to malware on your computer. Neither would be defended against by a titular "secure" public network.
There is something to be said for a dedicated terminal to avoid malware on your end, but you don't need anything special. An old laptop running Linux, without any other software, browser add-ons, etc. will do the job just fine.
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[snip]...in practice virtually all data breaches happen at one of the endpoints. Either due to hacking of corporate databases, or due to malware on your computer. Neither would be defended against by a titular "secure" public network.
There is something to be said for a dedicated terminal to avoid malware on your end, but you don't need anything special. An old laptop running Linux, without any other software, browser add-ons, etc. will do the job just fine.
What you are trying to describe here already exists in nascent form, many of the specialized hardware components were even incorporated into consumer computer products with just such intentions, but the program was put on indefinite hold due to public pushback (thank God!). Stallman was a very vocal opponent at the time as was the EFF and others.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Strat
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Nah, "trusted" computing has very little to do with anything I'm talking about - it was an almost-naked power grab that would have very little to do with end-user security in practice.
What I described was just a plain, ordinary "trusted"-free computer that you never use for anything except secure financial transactions. No visiting porn sites, news sites showing compromised ads, or anything else that's likely to infect you with web-based malware. No installing free games, cursors, wallpapers, coupon-colle
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Unless it comes with an 24-hour guard too, what's to stop someone from just doing a little hardware hacking? It's still easy to build a keylogger.
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Unless it comes with an 24-hour guard too, what's to stop someone from just doing a little hardware hacking? It's still easy to build a keylogger.
You forgot an endless line of snipers to be certain that the 24 hour guard doesn't do any hacking. or the first sniper shoots the guard and hacks in, or the.....
Slashdotters.... always making perfect the mortal enemy of good.
Of course, I think you were being facetious there, it was just a good place to jump in.
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Either due to hacking of corporate databases, or due to malware on your computer.
Increasingly, "inside job," works well, too.
No one checks the lunch boxes anymore.
Not practical (Score:5, Insightful)
It's an interesting thought experiment, but let's be honest; at some point, someone, somewhere, would have the brilliant idea of hooking the internet and safenet up to each other and that'd be game over; you'd end up with little more than a weird extension of the internet.
Don't believe me? SCADA systems are on the internet...why? In almost all cases it's a bad idea, yet there they are just hanging out, waiting to be exploited.
A single device would ruin everything... (Score:2)
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As I mentioned above, a start (I, like you, am pessimistic) is to use hardware that's totally alien to anything the Internet has. To truly isolate and make a SafeNet, the two have to be incompatible in all ways.
There's an additional layer that's extreme, but necessary and I'll explain it in terms we can relate to:
You and I can't own a hand grenade. We can't own explosive devices. In this case, we should not be allowed to own a SafeNet box.
That would be true of all hop boxes from here to there and all across
How about a browser extension? (Score:2)
What about a browser extension that puts your browser into a special mode for banking/financial institutions only, which would toggle dis/allowing connections to (a subset of) those sites? It could at least help prevent PEBCAK problems and similar social engineering attacks, especially for friends and family less familiar with Internet infrastructure.
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If someone calls you up and tricks you into paying them from your online account, you're just going to put it into that mode anyway. Seems like adding complexity for no real gain.
If it's ONLY allowing connections to those domains, say for ensuring that you're really going to PayPal and not being phished, then online payments become tricky. You enable it to ensure that shadyweeddealer.com isn't directing you to a WorldPay to grab your card details, but then have to disable it in a hurry once payment goes thr
Sounds like a snooper's dream (Score:4, Insightful)
From TFA
via the SafeNet with a SafeNet terminal device, not over the internet, with a generic computing device. SafeNet requires every user to be government photo-ID registered -- you cannot use SafeNet anonymously like the internet. The network knows who you are, where you are, and you can't hide behind VPNs, proxies or other anonymizers on this network. SafeNet also has a police force that can be alerted if you are hacked, tricked or scammed in any way.
This sounds like a perfect way for a government to legally monitor what you do. In the name of Safety of course.
No. Fuck you. Next in line!
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Do you routinely buy big ticket items like a house (also from TFA) without the government or any certified institutions involved?
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NSA: We have evidence.
Defense: How did you get the evidence? Did you spy on my client?
NSA: No, we simply bought it from SafeNet.
A fax machine (Score:2)
The copper phone service supported many different networks that had to be secure.
The "alternative internet" existed for decades with different networks like pagers, fax machines, a seperate work phone line into a home.
Wanted to trade on the international markets? Networks existed for that for home use.
No (Score:3)
Whoever came up with this idea severely underestimates the creativity and tenaciousness of bad actors out to steal information and money.
and rent each system like the old phone companies (Score:2)
and when you change ISP's you have to give up add owned content and rebuy
-1 Another stupid half-baked idea (Score:5, Insightful)
Policed by who?
Whose rules? America? China? Russia?
Criminals in the "Real World" aren't anonymous. i.e. Insider traders, scandals, etc. What makes you think this will be any different at stopping "bad" human behavior?
Can we mod this article -1 Fucking stupid.
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Good question. Now here's a thought. Go open a bank account. Go buy a house. How do you "police" what happens when you hand over a fuckton of money? How do you police that you're getting what you pay for?
Did you ask for government ID?
Did you get the government issued deed in return?
When you did your tax return did you get a government receipt tied to your SSN?
Criminals in the "Real World" aren't anonymous
What a stupid comment. The vast majority of criminals are anonymous. This isn't at all about stopping bad behaviour, it's about identifying it. And th
No (Score:2)
However it would make the suckers easier to identify.
This would kill the internet as we know it (Score:3)
SAFENET would start small but slowly more and more governments and monopolies(ie FB,GULAG,AMAZON, etc)would move some then all of their online operations there since they despise anonymity. At some point you wouldn't be able to do anything productive outside the safe zone.
Also, there would be no way to innovate within this kind of smothering bureaucracy. The governments and monopolies would get to decide the entrance requirements. Boatrockers are not welcome.
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At some point you wouldn't be able to do anything productive outside the safe zone.
Sorry but no. The monopoly here is the internet. Thinking the likes of Amazon leaving the normal internet to join a much smaller Safenet is like those people who suggest Google should just pull out of the EU to avoid a fine. It's a theory that is based on a complete lack of understanding of economics.
There is just no way this system could ever hope to grow to the normal internet regardless what governments want.
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Actually it's as much of a monopoly as oxygen is *for* plants. You did it backwards, just like the GP. But feel free to start your own internet, with blackjack and hookers. Let me know how you go.
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Gopher is still alive.
gopher://gopher.floodgap.com
What makes anyone think they could make it secure? (Score:3)
This has got to be one of the stupidest ideas I've heard yet.
Also as someone else [slashdot.org] said in their comment: "A walled off internet designed clearly for financial transactions might as well be wearing a 'rob this place' sign." A flashing neon sign. With chaser lights.
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Mod +1 Sanity
Like an ATM (Score:4, Insightful)
What's the point of driving to find a Safenet Terminal that's connected over secure networks to do my banking when I can theoretically do that at an ATM that is hardened by the bank on their VPN?
I would trust something over the internet far more than SafeNet. In our organization we try as often as possible to assume someone has a malicious device on our network. We treat every device as if it's connected to the wide internet, because it probably is. Start from the position "Assume everyone is an antagonistic malicious actor" and you'll design a system that's actually secure not some feel good "Safe" network.
There is always a balance between convenience and security. Sure we could be required to go through an xray machine and be under double guard in a secure room in an underground bunker with a secured terminal that resets itself every 10 minutes. But... like... do I have $20 in my bank account right now to venmo my friend? I'm not going to leave the restaurant to my nearest fallout shelter to look that up.
Terrible idea... (Score:2)
This is a terrible idea. First it would be introduced as a "secure option", then over time more and more services would end up on it instead because wouldn't you want all that sweet sweet user identifiable data? Then it will get legislated a requirement because "OH MY GOD, THINK OF THE CHILDREN!"
Minitel (Score:2)
It started in 1978 in France, and when it was finally retired in 2012 it still had more than 10 million connections.
Meet Minitel [wikipedia.org].
LOL, seriously? (Score:2)
"SafeNet requires every user to be government photo-ID registered..."
Oh yeah, no way you could EVER fake that, just like you can't fake driver's licenses, passports, birth certificates, professional licenses, phone numbers, photo IDs, etc etc etc.
This will be penetrated or worked around. Traffic will be intercepted or subject to MITM attacks, spoofing, impersonation and the like. It will give a nice, warm, false sense of security.
I bet there are people salivating at the idea of cracking this right now.
It would help, but not much (Score:2)
It would help, but by definition people will want to be on both networks. If you really want verified identities, then generate government-issued cryptotokens. Issue them at post offices and DMVs. Use a cheap and readily available device and interface like smart card or iButton.
Safenet would be nice for marketing but not safe (Score:2)
You can call it whatever you want, but we have to face the facts of modern computing life.
From the BIOS to the CPU to the browser to the network infrastructure, it is all insecure and full of security holes.
While safenet might make grandma feel safer, just like a credit monitoring service, it would be a huge target for criminals because all the good stuff would be on safenet.
Itâ(TM)s been tried (Score:2)
Already on the way (Score:2)
Fiber / MPLS (Score:3)
This sounds like this guy just wants a private line... like... a private fiber line... with a different protocol... like MPLS. This already exists. And companies are moving AWAY from it, because it is too expensive. The current internet with modern encryption is already better.
The government can't (Score:2)
I love this "government photo-ID registered" the government can't run the welfare, food stamp, medicaid systems without accepting 20-30+% fraud levels and just saying hey it is only a few millions in fraud and waste. And making sure no one ever actually looks to see how bad things are.
The saving grace is if this were to happen, it would fail as most things in government do and die a
It could work! (Score:2)
It's a good idea, I think it could be workable.
It just needs a clever name to catch on, like "Virtual Private Network". Maybe call it "VPN" for short.
The Parallel Univese is already installed.... (Score:2)
I think it's in Orlando.
Are you my boss? (Score:2)
Because my boss has been asking pointed questions and driving a discussion on this very thing.
The money would be in the hardware... sort of. After design... implementation mean giving away a lot of free tamper proof hardware to even get the ball rolling.
It sounds like a good idea to a 85 year old billionaire, but it sounds like a big digital kick-me sign to me.
I told him the story of the life-lock retard that gave away his ssn# and he still just wont get it.
OP, if your doing market research for somebody, yo
Be careful what you wish for... (Score:2)
What one side considers a hardened, secure defensive structure,
The other side sees as a target-rich environment...
It's been tried with cryptocurrenncy and DarkNets (Score:2)
A "secure", parallel network will have law enforcement, and intelligence agencies, demanding the keys. These will not remain secure. Neither will the networks, since every cheap local administrator will cross connect them repeatedly at the switch level, at the system level, and via hosted VM's or containers that are in improperly segregated hosts.
It's a laudable idea that will inevitably be done wrong. much as the "Homeland Security" has never effectively shared intelligence gathering among agencies, and HI
HTTPS? (Score:2)
Wasnt HTTPS supposed to be the safenet of its day. Didnt work nor would a Safenet. There are no silver bullets to internet security. Only constant vigilance.
Welcome to SafeTown, USA! (Score:3)
Imagine for a second that a second, smaller town is built parallel to, but separate from, the regular cities in America. Lets call this the SafeTown. The SafeTown, which does not allow anonymous citizens, is not intended for general purpose life like watching movies, playing football, or socializing with friends. Rather, it is a safer, more policed community that you access through a front registration gate when wanting to use money or visit a doctor or calling friends or when you don't trust a regular town.
For example, if you're buying a home outside SafeTown for your family, you'd drive to SafeTown and fill out a form or two-- not from your current home, but from SafeTown. SafeTown requires every citizen to have a government Photo-ID-- you can't visit SafeTown without it.
The SafeTown authorities know who you are, where you are, and you can't wear disguises or pretend to be anyone but yourself. SafeTown also has a police force that can be alerted if you are robbed, tricked or scammed in any way. Would an alternative city -- a smaller, separate parallel community -- like this reduce crime? Again, you wouldn't visit SafeTown for everyday crap like ordering pizza, buying movie tickets, or arguing over something at a bar. SafeTown would be used in situations where you are concerned that criminals or other malevolent agents could get hold of your personal data, steal money from you, impersonate you, or snoop into your confidential communications. Other reasons to visit would include letting minors communicate with each other in a controlled fashion without exposing them to the big bad world itself. Basically, in many situations where you deem performing a task in the "regular world" as risky or dangerous, you could perform that task in SafeTown instead. Shouldn't an "alternative community" like this exist in some form by now?
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A Special Browser Mode For Insured Websites (Score:2)
Everyone else has already pointed out a number of problems with this idea but I think there is a worthwhile idea somewhere in this proposal.
While I don't see any advantage to trying to segregate low level network operations it is true that a huge amount of the problems with phishing, social engineering, unicode domain name bugs and even cross-site authentication exploits is a consequence of the fact that we use the same tools to interact with both banks and random blogs. It wouldn't be a bad idea for brows
"from the internet-2.0 dept" (Score:2)
It might even solve the spam problem? (Score:2)
Seems like a kind of silly story, but it did remind me of one of the possible solutions I advocated for the spam problem some years ago. If you didn't want spam, then you would use an email address within the non-SMTP email system. The main difference would be accounting so that the spammers would never be able to pretend that the marginal cost of another million spams was effectively zero.
Email under SMTP would go on as before, but the critical question would be the gateway between the two email systems. B
Perhaps less crime, but... (Score:2)
any crime that did happen on this network would be much more effective.
The average end user is well aware that there are criminals and scams in the internet. They are not always any good at spotting or preventing them. If there is something called a "safe net", their guard will be so far down that it won';t actually prevent fraud by mole men! Criminals, whether they are ones the government actually calls criminals or completely legal ones like the NSA/CIA/MAFIAA or whatever will find it easier to do thei
No! (Score:2)
First, because Betteridge commands it and second, half the population has an IQ under 100, they'll always find a way to fuck up.
It's a trap! (Score:3)
Don't say 'yes' to this idea.
People might be inclined to say yes to it, who doesn't want to have guaranteed safety?
But if you think it is a great idea, there won't be a 'safenet', they will just say - see, that is why we need to be able to track everybody/everything on the internet, that is why we need to break encryption, that is why we need to invade your online privacy, etc.
Besides the point that it won't fix anything at all anyway.
No (Score:2)
Because we all know that it won't remain optional.
Could work (Score:2)
Fuck you dryriver Seriosly (Score:2)
ummm, VPN? (Score:2)
People who want this level of control, like companies with remote employees, issue devices with locked configs and connect over VPNs which they control. Companies dealing with the general public fully realize that the public uptake of a dedicated device and a dedicated connection, all of which will cost the user money, and will be very rarely used if the parameters are as described in the post, will not get sufficient uptake to justify the extremely high cost of development.
"Protecting the children" is a r
would restrict use (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Many of us have something towards that solution in the form of NoScript plugins in our browser. It breaks a lot of web pages that I don't really care about.
Re: (Score:2)
The fallacy of your solution is the weasel wording, "most."
SafeNet needs, "all."
Re: (Score:2)
Why won't /. report ...
Listen you goddam twit: /. doesn't report. /. is a news aggregator whereby members and staff discover interesting stories found, "out there," and bring those stories to our attention so we can post comments on them.
Fortunately for you, /. does not delete twit shit.
Shut up.