The history of the internet is a fascinating one. But it’s the future of the internet — one potentially powered by a new $2 trillion Biden administration infrastructure bill — that’s going to benefit us in incredible ways and potentially mint new investing millionaires too.
Originally, our information superhighway was launched by DARPA researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to allow folks to share research on various projects around the world to collaborate.
Considering the misinformation and mindless content that pervade the internet today, I can see why some folks think we’ve squandered this technology.
But without a doubt, despite rampant bias, internet sectarianism, and all the other unintended ill wills the internet has helped create, we as a society are doing much better thanks to this technology.
You can’t deny its utility. We send money. We use telehealth. We make video conference calls with colleagues. We save lives and are more aware of problems, and yet the infrastructure of the internet hasn’t been upgraded since its inception.
The result of this inattention has been an unprecedented increase in cyberattacks.
According to GovTech.com, “The total number of records compromised in 2020 exceeded 37 billion, a 141% increase compared to 2019, and by far the most records exposed in a single year since we have been reporting on data breach activity.”
Of course, this is only an inconvenience for companies like Visa, Equifax, Yahoo, and others. The real damage from these cyber breaches falls on you, the consumer.
You’re in charge of replacing your credit cards, switching accounts, and dealing with the fallout. There’s just no incentive for the Googles, the Facebooks, and the Amazons of the world to change. They will continue to add new users, so old users’ concerns don’t seem to matter.
The Danger of Centralized Security
To understand the massive security nightmare the internet currently represents, we need to take a step back.
In order for information to be shared across the internet, it must be copied.
But when financial transactions entered the picture — sending huge sums of money across the internet — this insecure network couldn’t protect property rights, defend privacy, host safe and efficient transactions, permit micropayments to halt spam, or establish sure identities.
Outside intermediaries became involved — banks, credit card companies, digital certificate suppliers, etc.
That was the first vulnerability. When these transaction entities communicate across the internet, their communications ultimately have to be translated into readable forms.
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This led to the rise of the online marketplaces — Google, Amazon, Facebook, and eBay — creating walled forums for their own commercial domains. There they could accommodate commerce among their mostly locked-in users, all secured with an individual login and password.
In short, we saw the internet dividing into a handful of “safe” transaction spaces regulated by a few giant companies across the net.
Over the past few years, we’ve quickly learned this method of data protection is not working either. Instead, it actually solved the biggest problem that hackers face by putting all the hackable data in a huge database.
That’s like storing your entire nest egg in a safe with a blinking sign that reads “Take Me”… in your front yard.
This is the fundamental vulnerability of all centralized security and classification systems that are associated with it.
Centralized security is not the answer.
The solution? Decentralized security.
The Next Generation of Security Infrastructure
When I started working with PCs in the ’80s, computers that had a megabyte of memory were considered supercomputers. My laptop in the ’90s was 3 inches thick and weighed over 20 pounds.
Now there are gigabytes of memory in every smartphone, and they’re connected to terabytes of memory in the cloud. And here’s where the solution comes in — the new infrastructure of the internet.
Thanks to these advancements, we can distribute a compressed version of all the transactions that are conducted and put them into a particular blockchain.
Now, most people associate blockchain with Bitcoin, but it’s much more than that.
The blockchain is a publicly tracked ledger that distributes all the personal information across the network, just as human intelligence is distributed across the world.
It’s not agglomerated in giant databases in a central location. It provides a time-stamped, immutable record of all the transactions that have occurred in a particular transactional arena, verified by multiple stakeholders
And here’s why that’s a major breakthrough for security.
Because the record is distributed to every node in the network, the information isn’t in one place — it’s in all places at all times. It’s the alpha and omega all at once.
To corrupt this network, a hacker would have to attack all the records of the transactions across the whole internet before they could change anything or steal anything. That is simply not possible today.
That’s why my colleague Christian DeHaemer and I are both currently focusing a lot of research on the blockchain.
The time has come that this technology is needed not for speed but for trust.
After all, there can be no commerce without trusted networks driving them.
Learn more about the benefits and profit opportunities associated with blockchain and a decentralized internet by clicking here.
To your wealth,
Sean McCloskey
Editor, Energy and Capital
@TheRL_McCloskey on TwitterAfter spending 10 years in the consumer tech reporting and educational publishing industries, Sean has since redevoted himself to one of his original passions: identifying and cashing in on the most lucrative opportunities the market has to offer. As the former managing editor of multiple investment newsletters, he's covered virtually every sector of the market, ranging from energy and tech to gold and cannabis. Over the years, Sean has offered his followers the chance to score numerous triple-digit gains, and today he continues his mission to deliver followers the best chance to score big wins on Wall Street and beyond as an editor for Energy and Capital.
