Inventing a New Internet: Learning from Icarus

Dewayne Hendricks
Tetherless Access

From a future historical perspective, are we descendants of Icarus? Is our Internet like Icarus' wings? Are our protocols, ciphers and codes, brilliant capabilities built on immature engineering, which like Icarus' wax and feathers, are capable of taking us to great heights, but systematically flawed? For a brief historical moment, humanity has flown high like Icarus, on a vulnerable first generation Internet platform. Which as been used for securing and using distributed ideas, arts, media science, commerce, and machines. Promising brilliant futures with the arrival of networked things, autonomous personalized services and immersive media. But, now our first generation Internet , built on a fragile global network of vulnerable codes and protocols, is falling apart, like Icarus' wings, through a triple shock from:

• Massive dotcom data stalker economy built on mining of terabytes personal data.
• Ubiquitous criminal penetration of financial and identity networks, on our devices, in the cloud.
• Pervasive state intruders at all levels and every encrypted hardware and software node.

• How prepared is the Internet for future human benefit?
• What are the attributes of a future more durable internet?
• What are the existing assets that could be harnessed?
• What needs to be developed?

Slides:

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About the speaker:

Dewayne Hendricks is currently CEO, of the Tetherless Access, Inc., based in Fremont, California, USA. Tetherless Access offers a comprehensive range of products and services, including research and product development, for wireless communications via the Internet. He is also an past member of the Federal Communications Commission's Technological Advisory Council (FCC/TAC), serving for eight years. In 2002, 'Wired Magazine' did a profile on him, titled 'Broadband Cowboy'. Prior to forming Tetherless Access, he was the General Manager of the Wireless Business Unit for Com21, Inc. He joined Com21 following an opportunity to participate as the Co-Principal Investigator in the National Science Foundation's Wireless Field Tests for Education project. The project sucessfully connected remote educational institutions to the Internet. The test sites ranged from rural primary schools in Colorado, USA to a University in Ulaan Bataar, Mongolia.

Dewayne was the CEO and co-founder of Tetherless Access Ltd., in 1990. Tetherless Access was one of the first companies to develop and deploy Part 15 unlicensed wireless metropolitan area data networks using the TCP/IP protocols. He has participated in the installation of these networks in other parts of the world including: Kenya, Tonga, Mexico, Canada and Mongolia.

Back in 1986, he ported the popular KA9Q Internet Protocol package to the Macintosh, allowing the Macintosh platform to be used in packet radio networks. Today, thousands of amateur radio operators worldwide use the NET/Mac system he developed to participate in the global packet radio Internet. This system continues to be developed and deployed by the amateur radio service.

He has been involved with radio since receiving his amateur radio operator's license as a teen. He currently holds official positions in several national non-profit amateur radio organizations and is a co-founder and past Director of the Wireless Communications Alliance, an industry group representing manufacturers in the unlicensed radio industry.

Contact information:

Dewayne Hendricks
Tetherless Access
dewayne@tetherless.com