Microsoft’s Mundie calls for ‘internet driving licence’
The new comment Microsoft’s Mundie calls for ‘internet driving licence’ has been posted on the website “Internet Governance”
On Feb-5, 2010, v3.co.uk reported the proposal to introduce “driving license” for internet users made by the chief research and strategy officer at Microsoft Craig Mundie to introduce “unified driver’s license” for Internet users. The proposal was made at the World Economic Forum in Davos, and it came down to the fact that every PC user should have to undergo a mandatory training course and obtain the relevant certificate before going to the Internet. Technical support of the measure might be implemented on the basis of a three-tier authentication system, at the level of users, devices and applications. Probably, Microsoft is ready to offer its software for authentication and its educational resources for training courses and exams.
Whether the problem at issue is a new attempt to regulate the Internet at the international level? On the one hand, yes. The Mundie’s proposal would make it virtually impossible maintaining anonymity online. It makes a completely new rules, regulations and restrictions in the everyday lives of internet users.
Mundie is aware that such an approach will not go down a treat for users who prefer to be discreet online. However, law-abiding citizens will have to be sympathetic to this innovation. “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,” Mundie said.
Comparison given by Mundie does not seem quite correct. According to him, “People don’t understand the scale of criminal activity on the internet. Whether criminal, individual or nation states, the community is growing more sophisticated.”However, the internet activities (including information warfare) is not a direct threat to human life, as opposed to driving a car without proper training. It is unlikely that training courses and examination can wean fraudsters and other criminal elements away from using the Internet for criminal purposes. Those threats, which were mentioned by Mundie, do not come from inexperienced users. Whether inexperienced users make the internet the space that is not less dangerous than streets of large cities? Whether newbies hunt for confidential information and organize wars in cyber-space? Courses and exams are not able to solve these problems.
To reduce cyber-crime, indeed, a global system of registration of Internet users could be useful. Certificates proposed by Mundie, will contribute to its creation. But to obtain them, it is not necessary to take paid courses and exams. The system of overall “driving licenses” is just another way to earn additional income for a giant corporation. Thus, we can see how they are trying to use the important social issue of internet governance for commercial purposes.
In addition, the idea of introduction of such “licenses” provokes a question that has been raised in the comments to an article on v3.co.uk: “Whom the internet belongs to? Who may decide whether to let people in on the net or not?” Do it fall within the scope of Microsoft Corporation or within the jurisdiction of other participants in the Davos Forum where a similar topics have been expressed by Hamadoun Touré, secretary general of the International Telecommunications Union and by a McAfee spokesman? Internet is a freeway creating bridges amongst nations. We are not allowed to build any barriers on those bridges.
