All that aside, and I don’t want to go too deeply into the RIAA and all of that, I personally think we should just bag it and try again. What did you say? I’m insane? No, that’s just alcoholic dementia, it passes. But I honestly think we could have a shot at creating a subnet to the Internet. Read on!

Truth be told, there are thousands of subnets on the Internet. They are called Intranets and they are used for businesses and schools to provide a private network for employees and students. These are accessed using a VPN, or virtual private network, to ensure security is maintained and also to gain access to internal DNS servers, or domain name servers.

So, have you caught on yet? Why don’t we, and by that I mean a group of tech savvy and fed up 30 somethings, make a giant VPN network on the Internet, make our own DNS servers and bid a fond farewell to all the noise that the Internet has devolved into?

I am suggesting a migration. A human migration from one living space to another. It happens all the time. We are a migratory people, or at least we once were. When one area of land runs out of food or gets full up with a-holes, all the cool people get together and say “f-this, lets find some new digs”, or more accurately “Grunt, mrpgh, ugh, go, mmmmmm”. Well, I for one think the Internet is becoming a-hole central. Most of it is just fine, the blogosphere is fun but overrun with places like Huffington post and other commercial blogging sites that overshadow all the individuality out there.

Enter the Internet Mark II. Lets setup a VPN network at universities around the US. Once on the VPN we’ll redo DNS, point sites like www.google.com to anything we want, setup our own ICANN, redo it right. And we won’t let anyone in that doesn’t know what a ‘red shirt’ is, can’t spell their name in binary, and doesn’t have at least a modicum of geek cred.

All joking aside, I have to wonder if these little VPN networks don’t already exist. If they don’t, it’s not such a radical idea to create them. Only allowing in those that are allowed in. Keeping out the RIAA, spammers, virus websites, phishers, and every other douche that we don’t want. Net Neutral? Sure is. It’s our VPN and all the traffic is encrypted so the ISP’s won’t know what we’re doing, only that we are doing something.

The books Otherland by Tad Williams, one of the best scifi series books ever written, a group of future techies made a network like I described. It was kinda like the Babylon 5 of the Internet, except no law. Anyone is welcome, don’t damage the space, don’t try to hack. Their private network was kept safe by it being easily able to be deconstructed and reconstructed on a moments notice. When the feds came looking the would shut it down, dismantle the servers and remake it elsewhere. Something that could easily be done with today’s Cloud.

Am I off kilter on that one? Sounds like a good idea? Maybe. Maybe not. But it sure would be cool.