COMMENT
Authorities. This represents an elaborate infrastructure and one that is centralised. This is, by definition, less robust than the kind of decentralised system that could be developed using blockchain technology. Not only is a decentralised system more robust, but it’ s also more secure and dynamic.
This would mean that packets would replace PKI certificates with newly formed segments of the blockchain. This flexibility would not only secure data moving across the internet, but it could be used to dynamically change internet routing or audit traffic across the internet.
By its nature, especially when constructed in a consensus model, blockchain is more secure against malicious activity, so trying to disrupt or maliciously manipulate a blockchainmanaged routing infrastructure is exponentially more difficult.
That’ s because fundamental to the consensus model is that nothing is“ true” until the community provides consensus on that“ truth” via cryptographic algorithms crunched by computers in the community. It makes it virtually impossible for cyber criminals to process elements of the chain faster than the positive consensus community can come up with the same answer.
It also makes it possible to safely manage the Internet and take rapid action in a secure manner, even under intense attack. Through blockchain, changes can be implemented at virtually any level of the routing network to address a threat.
The recent Dyn DDoS attack is a perfect example. Through dynamic routing using BGP, operators could send a flurry of instructions to reroute the botnet traffic away from the target servers and into a virtual internet black hole.
Part of what’ s so exciting about this concept is that it creates a highly autonomous, rapid response environment that would be able to mitigate a DDoS attack quickly and far downstream, closer to source – where traffic volumes are smaller and more manageable. Long before it gets to the main backbone infrastructure of the internet in volumes impossible to manage.
Blockchain is critical to this, because it provides the assurance to the switches and routers across the internet that those requests to reroute traffic can be trusted.
So while there’ s almost nothing we can do to change the overly trusting nature of my microwave, we can prevent bad actors from taking advantage of that trust by turning a digital currency into digital trust. www. intelligentcio. com INTELLIGENTCIO
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