Re: what would it mean to build a internet threat model?

> On 12 Jun 2025, at 01:16, Tom Jones <thomasclinganjones@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> The Internet really is a dead man walking. Most email is junk, Wikipedia bot energy load has risen from 20% to 65% with no end in sight. The question we need to ask ourselves is "what comes next for human attention-grabbing technology?"
> W3C security members were thinking about a threat model for the Internet, but I declare that this is a complete waste of time. Let's spend our time trying to come up with a replacement as soon as possible.
> Peace ..tom jones


Hi Tom,

I understand your point of view. In general, at W3C we work to make the web a safe place (in collaboration with the IETF, which focuses on the internet!).

The problem is obviously not just technological, but social and business-related, so collaboration is needed from various stakeholders (including regulators).

Is well described by Gerd Gigerenzer [1] in his 2022 book “How to Stay Smart in a Smart World” [2], particularly in the second part.

I'll spoil the conclusions here:
[[
The original dream of the internet was to open the door to the information age. Now we find ourselves in a world that is both an information and a disinformation age. 
[...]
We need to fix the internet; eliminate surveillance business models; resuscitate privacy and dignity. We should be able to look at digital technology with level-headed admiration rather than unwarranted awe or suspicion. To make the digital world a world in which we want to live.
]]
 
That is why W3C is driven by Ethical Web Principles [3] working on privacy [4][5], disinformation [6], sustainability [7] both in terms of resource consumption and dark patterns and on the attention side. And also the otherhorizontals (Accessibiliy, Internationalization).

On the latter topic, there is an interesting paper by Fabien Gandon [8] that lists a series of principles for attention [9].

So, there's work to be done.

Thank you,

Simone


[1] https://www.mpib-berlin.mpg.de/staff/gerd-gigerenzer 
[2] https://openlibrary.org/books/OL38813829M/How_to_Stay_Smart_in_a_Smart_World
[3] https://www.w3.org/TR/ethical-web-principles/ 
[4] https://www.w3.org/groups/wg/privacy/
[5] https://www.w3.org/groups/wg/pat/ 
[6] https://www.w3.org/community/credibility/ 
[7] https://www.w3.org/groups/ig/sustainableweb/ 
[8] https://www-sop.inria.fr/members/Fabien.Gandon/  
[9] https://arxiv.org/abs/2402.16670

Received on Thursday, 12 June 2025 08:31:27 UTC