Steps towards an ecology for the Internet: computing through crisis into the next decade of growth
File(s)
Published version
Author(s)
Type
Conference Paper
Abstract
he Internet has grown from a humble set of protocols for end-to-end connectivity into a critical global system with no builtin “immune system”. In the next decade the Internet will likely grow to a trillion nodes and need protection from threats ranging from floods of fake generative data to AI-driven malware. Unfortunately, growing centralisation has lead to the breakdown of mutualism across the network, with surveillance capitalism now the dominant business model. We take lessons from from biological systems
towards evolving a more resilient Internet that can integrate adaptation mechanisms into its fabric. We also contribute ideas for how the Internet might incorporate digital immune systems, including how software stacks might mutate to encourage more architectural diversity. We strongly advocate for the Internet to “re-decentralise”
towards incentivising more mutualistic forms of communication.
towards evolving a more resilient Internet that can integrate adaptation mechanisms into its fabric. We also contribute ideas for how the Internet might incorporate digital immune systems, including how software stacks might mutate to encourage more architectural diversity. We strongly advocate for the Internet to “re-decentralise”
towards incentivising more mutualistic forms of communication.
Date Issued
2025-08-17
Date Acceptance
2025-08-01
Citation
AAR '25: Proceedings of the sixth decennial Aarhus conference: Computing X Crisis, 2025
ISBN
979-8-4007-2003-1
Publisher
ACM
Journal / Book Title
AAR '25: Proceedings of the sixth decennial Aarhus conference: Computing X Crisis
Copyright Statement
© 2025 Copyright held by the owner/author(s). This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
License URL
Identifier
http://arxiv.org/abs/2506.06469v1
Source
AAR 2025: The sixth decennial Aarhus conference: Computing X Crisis
Subjects
cs.NI
cs.NI
cs.ET
Publication Status
Published
Start Date
2025-08-18
Finish Date
2025-08-22
Coverage Spatial
Aarhus N Denmark