When the US Department of Defense created the infant network in the late 1950’s that that would later become the mega web of cyberspace that we inhabit today, they envisioned it as a useful tool for the government to share information across small point-to-point communication networks. As with most of our mainstream technologies and networks today, the World Wide Web originated in the heart of the US military who, with its access to research institutions and technological resources, was using a system years before the average civilian ever thought of “logging in.”Now the Internet as we know it has been built, populated, funded, and controlled by private investment, with a lot of its infrastructure being owned by a select few private corporations. Senator Ted Steven’s infamous statement back in 2006 that the Internet was a “series of tubes” may have spawned an onslaught of criticism and YouTube memes, but let’s face it: The guy was sort of painfully right.Today, we’re more aware than ever that the internet is truly a contested territory. Not just cyber territory either, but actual, real life, grab-it-with-your-hands political borders and boundaries territory that is some of the most hotly negotiated space in the world. And now, as it turns out, the Defense Department is interested in regaining control over this infrastructure and how it’s regulated.At the RSA computer security conference at the end of February, representatives of the White House, U.S. Department of Defense, and National Security Agency all expressed a need to increase the government’s investment and role when it comes to developing Internet infrastructure and security, according to an article in Technology Review. In other words, at a critical time when the Federal Government is slashing budgets left and right, investment in cyber infrastructure is one of the only areas where budgets are being increased.Indeed, in the keynote speech at the event, Deputy Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter said, “Ships, planes, ground forces, lots of other things are on the cutting room floor, not cyber,” he said. “The investments are at the level of several billion, [and] we are continuing to increase our investments.”“Our systems are dependent on security products and infrastructure from the private sector,” Debora Plunkett, director of the NSA’s Information Assurance Directorate, said. She said that the NSA wanted to encourage private companies to automate the tedious, manual, and often neglected basics of securing computer networks. “We need industry’s help,” she said. “We’re spending too much time on network hygiene: missing patches, poor passwords, known vulnerabilities.”Having a larger stake in the Internet’s infrastructure won’t mean that the government will all of a sudden control the good old World WIde Web. After all, even if the network originated within the confines of the Department of Defense, the infrastructure of fiber optic cables and servers much to large at this point for control by one entity, not to mention that these networks, exist on a global scale, and are owned by transnational corporations. It does mean that the US government is eager to increase their stake in a system where they have lost control, particularly in issues of national security, which has traditionally been in the hands of commercial and private interests.The Obama administration’s Howard Schmidt said that the organic nature of internet development, often without built-in security measures needed to end. “Let’s not just roll it out like we used to do and then fix the problem,” he said. “We really have to change that around, to give anybody trying to intrude into our systems a harder time. If we don’t do this, we all suffer.”Don’t expect the feds to be standing over your shoulder anytime soon and telling you how to use the Web. But, as journalist Melissa Gira Grant, recently featured in Free the Network, said, “Here we are… almost 40 years later, and the government has finally realized that they’ve created an [internet] monster.” And now they want their monster back.
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