Ivan Zasursky, Head of New Media & Communications Theory Department, Moscow State University

Shane Tews, Vice President for Global Public Policy and Government Relations, VeriSign, Inc.

The Rise of Digital Fortresses and the end of the Digital Republic
A Futures Scenario

Government, businesses, civil society and citizens everywhere have recognized the transformational power of the Internet as it creates a new world that is connected as never before – culturally, politically, economically and in dozens of other ways.

Millions of new users join the Internet revolution every day, mostly through the proliferation of mobile devices like web-enabled cell phones. Some 8-10 million new users a month go online in Asia alone, and the explosive growth extends to Africa and other areas, making Internet a reality for many “bottom of the pyramid” women and men. New undersea cables landing in East and West Africa, combined with new broadband policies and the diffusion of technology advances such as WiMax have created a true “tipping point”.

Governments now offer new e-services to their citizens, paving the way for real advances toward the “Millennium Development Goals”. NGOs mobilize citizens through social networking tools, responding to situations from stolen elections to natural disasters like the earthquake in Haiti, and promoting education and online privacy. And businesses reach out to their customers like never before, learning more about customer needs and preferences and building robust e-businesses.

Internet governance is provided through a loose network of multi-stakeholder organizations like ICANN, the ITU and the Internet Governance Forum, with volunteers doing much of the work. Though budgets for ICANN and the ITU continue to grow, private sector actors still play a strong role. Privacy and Intellectual Property issues receive significant attention, and slowly, the influence of new voices such as delegates from Africa and Latin America are growing. The system is unorthodox by historical standards, but it is working, supporting one, unified Internet for all.

However, storm clouds are on the horizon. By 2015 the world will be very different…

Following a series of attacks from a series of radical groups, a group of African states – citing the use of the net by terrorist groups and the need for national security – moves to increasingly monitor access to the web, eventually suspending traffic originating from suspect nations.

At the same time, the once-booming world of e-commerce has become “contaminated” by a tsunami of phishing, pharming, and an exponential increase in spam. Scams and outright theft, run by competing international crime syndicates, lead to widespread consumer concern. A new, more virulent form of the Conficker worm temporarily shuts down nearly all the banks in a large developing economy. Loud calls can be heard in the US Congress and around the world for “safe spaces” to work, play and purchase goods.

And, while some countries had slowly recovered from the economic crisis of 2009-2010, in 2015 most OECD nations still face record levels of unemployment and huge budget deficits. Populist politicians and businesses alike embrace calls for protectionism and other trade preferences, calls that extend to all corners of the web and e-commerce. The equivalent of e-commerce “toll booths” are set up for cross-border transactions as a way of encouraging firms to “buy local”. Companies – concerned about IP protection – move aggressively to data mine their best customers and give them incentives to stay within company websites, while Governments take advantage of the web as a source of revenue, increasingly taxing e-commerce and trying to establish the equivalent of tariffs for internet transactions outside national borders.

International, stakeholder-driven Internet governance institutions are increasingly marginalized, as pressure from all sides overwhelm the deliberative, bottom up, consultative nature of the process. A coalition of countries seeking more Government control loudly push for action in these forums, leading the coalition to walk out when NGO and privacy groups stall a move for greater state control.

The American higher education system struggles to remain competitive and relevant faced with the increase of commercial education offerings, as the employment market increasingly demands lifelong learning and training – irrespective of geography or time.

Finally, a radical Middle Eastern government, reacting to continual challenges from groups pushing for modernization and information access, takes action. They express concerns about cultural, religious and linguistic “contamination” brought on by the Internet. They decry the slow roll out of local-script IDNs and follow the lead of China and Israel in offering locally-recognized IDNs that are not part of the global root table. National religious leaders argue that, to preserve their culture and language, they should create a “culturally pure” local Internet space.
By 2020 the Internet of 2010 is a distant memory…

The Internet of 2010, a care-free childhood where you could go nearly anywhere and do nearly anything is no more. The unitary Internet is a memory, replaced by Internet Islands protected by government-run agencies and closely-allied corporate empires.

By 2020, security concerns have forced all countries to adapt an Internet “Kill Switch” capability to keep out attacks. Protected by their own firewalls – and by differing standards and protocols, politicians take credit for protecting their citizens and economies against various external and internal threats.

In the name of security, data about online transactions is carefully tracked by national security agencies in nearly every nation. Commerce and even communication originating in countries suspected of being an online threat are blocked from entry outright, snuffing out a nascent e-commerce boom in fast-growing Emerging Markets countries and effectively cutting off the populations of entire nations around the world.

Once the hope for economic growth, the Internet has become just another way to put up and patrol trade barriers. Walled community economics increases the frequency of trade wars, and even risks the development of a new Cold War.

A dispute over the award of the .com IDN in Arabic leads the newly radicalized government in the region to create its own duplicate and competing Arabic.com. Local searchers looking for Facebook.com, for example, are redirected to the Government-sponsored Arabic version. Additional countries in the region adopt this “intercept and deflect” approach, leading to massive confusion among Arabic speaking consumers.

Meanwhile, the combination of “intercept and deflect”, IP and security issues, and trade barriers lead companies to shelve plans to expand aggressively into Emerging Markets. More and more emphasis is placed on share of wallet – pulling the last Dollar, Yen or Euro out of customers who are safe inside the “walled garden” of security set up by large firms. Companies need to know everything about their customers, and privacy – long gone in the political sphere – is overwhelmed in the commercial sphere as well. The Internet of things, companies AND Governments know everything about us.

“Iron Curtains” for information spring up, and with them a series of “black markets” for information – complete with data smugglers, the 2020 version of the gun runners and drug smugglers of 2010. Iran’s Internet becomes the wholly owned province of the state. High-tech criminals help increasingly desperate consumers and small businesses find “back doors” into the safe zones as a way to get into new markets and seek shelter. Sophisticated criminal gangs demand "protection money" from small and medium sized companies fearing cyber terrorism.

Finally, the circle is narrowed. Despite the promise of the open Internet, trade barriers begin closing off markets for goods and information. The digital divide grows quickly as poorer nations and smaller companies cannot afford to keep up with the new security requirements and the entry fees to join the “safe zones” mandated by OECD legislation. Large parts of the world find themselves “outside the wall” and are left to fend for themselves, facing a combination of rapacious criminals, radical groups and bottom-feeding enterprises selling high cost security services.

For those on an island, life goes on, albeit in a more limited way than before. For those on an Internet Island, life goes on, albeit in a more limited way than before. Those without access are literally adrift, as advances in finance, education, healthcare and transportation – all dependent on the free moving data – are cut off.

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