Michael Hayden, head of the CIA under former President George W. Bush, says the U.S. should create a totally new Internet infrastructure to thwart cyber attacks that increasingly plagues the current Internet.
The proposed new system, with the domain name ".secure" instead of ".com," would get rid of the anonymity protected by the privacy guarantees of the Fourth Amendment. Users would need "certified credentials" to access the .secure system, according to Nextgov.com, which monitors the use of technology in the federal government.
It would allow the federal government and financial institutions, for instance, to operate behind the secured infrastructure, while users who wish to remain anonymous could continue to use the present .com domain.
Some cyber security specialists fret that Fourth Amendment privacy rights prevent the federal government from securing its information technology as tightly as other, more restrictive countries, like China, that monitor all Internet usage in the country for both viruses and anything critical of the government.
Others are critical of the .secure idea, however, arguing that the new network will be too big to manage and will actually help hackers go after government computers, by gathering all the important information in one place.
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Ex-C.I.A. Chief Says U.S. Should Create A New Internet To Avoid Cyber Attacks
