March 2019

A global reckoning around the future of the internet is underway as autocratic regimes look to censor the internet in their countries, and races to develop new internet technologies, such as blockchain and 5G, heat up between the US and China. The next version of the internet could be split between countries that embrace an open web and isolationists that don't. It could also be fractured by different technologies that could fundamentally change the interconnected nature of the network and limit who can do business where.

Cellphone numbers have become a primary way for tech companies like Facebook to uniquely identify users and secure accounts, in some ways becoming a proxy for a national ID. That over-reliance on cellphone numbers ironically makes them a less effective and secure authentication method. And the more valuable the phone number becomes as an identifier, the less willing people will be to share it for communication.