Industry News Desk
Cloud Computing: Forget the Darknets, Make Way for The Dark Cloud
The term Darknet was originally coined in the 1970s to designate networks which were isolated from ARPANET
Aug. 8, 2008 05:00 PM
Reuven Cohen's Blog
For nearly as long as the internet has been around there have been private
subnetworks called the darknets. These private, covert and often secret networks
were typically formed as decentralized groups of people engaged in the sharing
of information, computing resources and communications typically for illegal
activities.
Recently there has been a resurgence in interest of the
darknet ranging from the more unsavory such as P2P filesharing and botnets as
well as more mainstream usages such as inter-government information sharing,
bandwidth alliances or even offensive military botnets. All of these activities
are pointing to a growing interest in the form of covert computing I call "dark
cloud computing" whereby a private computing alliance is formed. In this
alliance members are able to pool together computing resources to address the
ever expanding need for capacity.
According to my favorite source of
quick disinformation, The term Darknet was originally coined in the 1970s to
designate networks which were isolated from ARPANET (which evolved into the
Internet) for security purposes. Some darknets were able to receive data from
ARPANET but had addresses which did not appear in the network lists and would
not answer pings or other inquiries. More recently the term has been associated
with the use of dark fiber networks, private file sharing networks and
distributed criminal botnets.
The botnet is quickly becoming the tool of
choice for governments around the globe. Recently Col. Charles W. Williamson
III. staff judge advocate, Air Force Intelligence, Surveillance and
Reconnaissance Agency, writes
in Armed Forces Journal for the need of botnets within the US DoD. In his
report he writes " The world has abandoned a fortress mentality in the real
world, and we need to move beyond it in cyberspace. America needs a network that
can project power by building an af.mil robot network (botnet) that can direct
such massive amounts of traffic to target computers that they can no longer
communicate and become no more useful to our adversaries than hunks of metal and
plastic. America needs the ability to carpet bomb in cyberspace to create the
deterrent we lack."
I highly doubt the US is alone in this thinking. The
world is more then ever driven by information and botnet usages are not just
limited to governments but to enterprises as well. In our modern information
driven economy the distinction between corporation and governmental organization
has been increasingly blurred. Corporate entities are quickly realizing they
need the same network protections. By covertly pooling resources in the form of
a dark cloud or cloud alliance, members are able to counter or block network
threats in a private, anonymous and quarantined fashion. This type distributed
network environment may act as an early warning and threat avoidance system. An
anonymous cloud computing alliance would enable a network of decentralized nodes
capable of neutralizing potential threats through a series of counter
measures.
My question is: Are we on the brink of seeing the rise of
private corporate darknets a.k.a. dark clouds? And if so, what are the legal
ramifications, and do they out weight the need to protect ourselves from
criminals who can and will use these tactics against us?
About Reuven CohenAn instigator, part time provocateur, bootstrapper, amateur cloud lexicographer, and purveyor of random thoughts, 140 characters at a time.
Reuven is an early innovator in the cloud computing space as the founder of Enomaly in 2004 (Acquired by Virtustream in February 2012). Enomaly was among the first to develop a self service infrastructure as a service (IaaS) platform (ECP) circa 2005. As well as SpotCloud (2011) the first commodity style cloud computing Spot Market.
Reuven is also the co-creator of CloudCamp (100+ Cities around the Globe) CloudCamp is an unconference where early adopters of Cloud Computing technologies exchange ideas and is the largest of the ‘barcamp’ style of events.