Internet driving school proposed

AT THE WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM in Davos, Switzerland last week, Microsoft executive Craig Mundie stirred up a hornet's nest when he proposed a three-tier system of authentication for people, devices and applications on the Internet.

In other words, people would need to have some form of licence in order to use the Internet.

Mudie's argument strikes at the very heart of the debate on free speech and regulation. It has raised many bloggerati hackles in defence of free speech on the Internet and prompted huge concerns about government bureaucrats and third-party agencies having the power to patrol and police digital communications.

Mundie's opening salvo sets the scene for his licence suggestion based on the fact that Internet users are blissfully unaware that cybercrime takes place:

"People don't understand the scale of criminal activity on the Internet. Whether criminal, individual or nation-states, the community is growing more sophisticated."

Unfortunately Mundie's timing couldn't have been worse - cybercrime and international security have been highlighted in the popular media in the past couple of weeks. Two weeks ago the Google accounts of human rights activists were hacked into from somewhere in China causing a minor chill in US-Sino relations.

However Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's speech last week favoured Internet freedom in addressing the responsibilities of American technology companies in a global market. "We are urging U.S. media companies to take a proactive role in challenging foreign governments' demands for censorship and surveillance," she said.

While Clinton's words about safeguarding freedom of expression are admirable enough, it's this backdrop of fear that led to Mundie's declaration in favour of regulation. But Mundie hamstrung his own cause by describing his argument with a stretched analogy that will probably haunt him to his grave. Yes, he proposed the Internet Driving Licence. "If you want to drive a car you have to have a licence to say that you are capable of driving a car, the car has to pass a test to say it is fit to drive and you have to have insurance," he said.

Mundie also said that people should have mandatory training before being allowed online, even though that would mean a loss of anonymity for online users. He rested his argument on the fact that people already need identification so the Internet should be no different. He said that although it's fine to have anonymity when walking down the street you need identification every time you travel or use a bank.

But that analogy is more than a bit chilling. When did free societies turn into ones where people need documents just to travel within their own countries? It reflects a lurch into full-blown fascism that people even seem to accept such a hallmark of a totalitarian police state.

But indulge him for a second here. If Mundie follows his own logic, will we be banned from using the Internet if we break a law? Will our licence be revoked by the authorities if we visit websites that they don't like? Will we be awarded penalty points for minor infractions as we are if we're caught speeding?

If Mundie's car has to pass a test does this mean he is suggesting that there will be an Internet school so we can attend Internet lessons? I could go on but I can do without the apoplexy.

Suffice to say, Mundie's Internet driving licence runs contrary to everything the US is trying to achieve with its policy of promoting Internet freedom and plays directly into the hands of dictatorial police states.

The Internet is an ever-shifting organic mass of flotsam and jetsam that can't be prodded into some kind of rigid conformity by ill-considered legislation and draconian regulatory proposals. It is a borderless and free mass communications device and its anonymity is something that must remain part of its nature. µ