Abstract

Thanks to the Internet and more recently, blockchain technology, the world is waking up to a political, economic, social and technological renaissance. The next two decades will result in a fundamental shift in human interaction, sharing, and freedom. All aspects of vertical and horizontal markets will be affected, including Finance & Banking, Healthcare, eGovernment, Communications, Information Technology (IT) and the Internet of things (IoT).

This series is presented in three parts and will analyze society’s paradigm shift in behavior and present a vision for the future. In this first part, the creation of virtual communities is explored, fueled by blockchain innovation and explores the evolution of the crypto sphere.

Pandemic Protocols

The borderless movement may be technology-led, but not all initiatives are thanks to cyber. For example, Global Positioning System[i] (GPS) technology was deployed by the USA military in 1973 to overcome limitations of navigation systems. This network was opened to citizens in 1980 and has since been integrated into virtually every communication device. Iridium was developed by Motorola and began deployment in 1993[ii]. It was designed to provide voice and data coverage over the Earth’s entire surface. These technologies are borderless, but they are centralized in the sense that they are either state or private-owned, with restricted rights of usage and geographical limitations. Meaning, they could be shut down at any minute, leaving every GPS device or Iridium phone in the dark.

It was just a matter of time before such vulnerabilities were overcome. Throughout the 1980s the internet was conceived, notably with the adoption of TCP/IP[iii] in 1983. The Internet was different from preceding communication services, in that its foundation was to create a network that could not be brought down by an enemy force. The TCP/IP protocol was first implemented in the Advanced Research Projects Administration[iv] (ARPANET). The controversy lies in the origins of ARPANET as a means to survive a nuclear attack. Its goals were apparently much broader, in “robustness and survivability, including the capability to withstand losses of large portions of the underlying networks”[v]. In hindsight, TCP/IP may be considered the first inception of the Pandemic Protocol era; Protocols that are persistent, pervasive and omnipresent; Protocols that are incredibly resilient from the shutdown, due to their decentralized nature, even by the creators themselves.

“Iteration Overcomes Limitations of Its Predecessor.”

Welcome to Pandemic Protocols. In 1999 Peer to Peer[vi] (P2P networks) were introduced. This evolved the notion of client-server architectures with more emphasis on client-to-client communications. But the first interactions of P2P, such as Napster still involved a server. Shutting down this device at the center of the entire system meant that all nodes were disconnected for each other. This vulnerability was soon overcome by Bram Cohen in 2001, through the introduction of BitTorrent[vii]. Cohen took the resilience of P2P to a new level, by removing the vulnerability of the server. The concept of Pandemic Protocols took on new resilience because torrents were now pervasive and omnipresent. Clients could swarm to a torrent, and maintain a presence, as long as there were seeders and leeches exceeding a single copy of the content.

Today’s Pandemic Protocol trend consists of technologies that are resilient to any centralized interference, meaning they cannot be shut down without considerable effort. In fact, they are so pervasive that shutting down these protocols means a complete shutdown of the internet – which itself is pandemic.

About the Author

Gabriel is the co-Founder and General Manager at Adel Ecosystem Ltd. He is a seasoned sales and marketing expert with over 25 years in senior positions at Motorola, VeriSign (acquired by Symantec in 2010), and SecureWorks (acquired by Dell in 2011), and Cognitive Security (acquired by Cisco in 2013). He is a blockchain entrepreneur, with strengths in international business strategy. Gabriel has a bachelor’s degree in Engineering Physics from McMaster University in Canada and expert knowledge in blockchain incubation, cloud computing, IT security, and video streaming, and Over the Top Content (OTT). Gabriel also runs his own company, Euro Tech Startups s.r.o, creator of MyKoddi, and manages a professional blog.