Prediction time.
Here are some things I’ve been reading:
Read how cyber warfare, via social media over something like FB is ever so much cheaper than buying a top quality fighter plane.
Read that the Equifax hack is beginning to look like state-sponsored actors were behind it. maybe Chinese intelligence services.
Read that Russian Twitter trolls have jumped all over the controversy between Trump and the NFL players. Their aim being to increase the differences and tensions among Americans over such disputes.
This is all a form of asymmetric warfare.
In asymmetric warfare, the defenders have to defend against every possible point of attack while the attackers have only to find one attack point that they can use effectively.
As our cyber worlds get more and more complicated, the ability to defend ourselves against all possible attacks can only diminish.
One way for nation states and multinational corporations to increase their security would be to abandon use of the global Internet in favor of internets that are local to themselves and which only make external connections through rigorously guarded portals.
Thus, my prediction here is that the global Internet will be divided into smaller units in response to these increasing vulnerabilities. When? When the pain gets high enough.
These thoughts are not original to me. I first read about them in Peter Watts’ book “Starfish”; which is part of the Rifters Trilogy.
Here’s information that indicates that the idea of beginning to ‘split up’ the Internet is gaining some credibility.
https://www.fastcompany.com/90229453/get-ready-for-the-splinternet-the-web-might-not-be-worldwide-much-longer
Another even stronger confirmation that Russia is, in fact, doing this:
https://www.cnet.com/news/putin-reportedly-approves-creation-of-an-independent-internet/