Time for a new Internet?

Some think the fabric of our current Web is fatally flawed and the heady days of our wild, wild cyber west are numbered.

What a new Internet might look like is still widely debated, but one alternative would, in effect, create a “gated community” where users would give up their anonymity and certain freedoms in return for safety. Today that is already the case for many corporate and government Internet users. As a new and more secure network becomes widely adopted, the current Internet might end up as the bad neighborhood of cyberspace. You would enter at your own risk and keep an eye over your shoulder while you were there.

Good thing? Bad thing? I have no clue. Something tells me, though, we'll be giving "The Authorities" more control over what we do and how we do it, and that means a net loss of freedom. (Pun intended.)

Then again, if it helps shutdown child porn and rampant intellectual property theft...?

Tough call.