Like most of you, I am a big fan of the internet as it exists today. However, there are a number of things about it that are quite undesirable from a technical level. The most obvious example is probably that SMTP is authentication-free and allows the vast tragedy of the commons known as spam to flourish. Personally, I also wish that most open standards that allow for multiple implementations would always include some sort of implementation / version introspection (so that, for instance, one could get rid of the bevvy of hacks that are required to detect IE inside of a style sheet).

So if you had a blank slate and the ultimate goal of winding up with something approximately like the internet, only better, what would you change about the underlying technology?

Posted by whir