50 years ago, I helped invent the internet. How did it go so wrong?

When I was a young scientist working on the fledgling creation that came to be known as the internet, the ethos that defined the culture we were building was characterized by words such as ethical, open, trusted, free, shared. None of us knew where our research would lead, but these words and principles were our beacon. We did not anticipate that the dark side of the internet would emerge with such ferocity. Or that we would feel an urgent need to fix it. How did we get from there to here?

We could try to push the internet back toward its ethical roots. However, it would be a complex challenge requiring a joint effort by interested parties — which means pretty much everyone. We should pressure government officials and entities to more zealously monitor and adjudicate such internet abuses as cyberattacks, data breaches and piracy. Governments also should provide a forum to bring interested parties together to problem-solve. Citizen-users need to hold websites more accountable. Scientists need to create more advanced methods of encryption to protect individual privacy by preventing perpetrators from using stolen databases. We are working on technologies that would hide the origin and destination of data moving around the network, thereby diminishing the value of captured network traffic. Blockchain, the technology that underpins bitcoin and other digital currencies, also offers the promise of irrefutable, indisputable data ledgers. If we work together to make these changes happen, it might be possible to return to the internet I knew.

[Leonard Kleinrock is distinguished professor of computer science at the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering.]