Going Dark: measurement when the Internet hides the detail
About this episode
Geoff Huston discusses the challenges of independent measurement in an increasingly privacy-concerned Internet.
In the final podcast for 2025, APNIC Chief Scientist Geoff Huston discusses the problem of independent measurement in an Internet which is increasingly “going dark”. Communications has always included a risk of snooping, and a matching component of work to enhance privacy, from the simplest ciphers used in ancient times, techniques of hiding and discovering messages, attempts to prevent and detect intrusion of the mail, to adoption of telegraph codes, the cutting of telegraph wires in wartime (to force messages into radio where they could be listened to) and the development of modern encryption algorithms typically using the public-private keypair model. There has always been a story of “attack” and “response” in how we communicate privately. Aside from matters of state security, banking and finance at large depend on a degree of privacy and now require it under legislation to enable use of creditcard information online. Many other contexts have an assumption of privacy, and use technology to try and preserve it. Fundamentally, individuals in their use of the Internet are entitled to expect a level of privacy where the state permits it. The publication of RFC7258 “Pervasive…
People in this episode
Host: Geoff Huston
Topics covered
- Internet privacy
- encryption
- measurement
- communication
- snooping
- data security
Keywords
- Internet
- privacy
- encryption
- measurement
- snooping
- RFC7258
- data security
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: APNIC
Books & works: RFC7258
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