One of the cornerstones of the Internet since it was introduced to the public was anonymity, but now some people are calling for that to be done away with.

According to The Register, Eugene Kaspersky, CEO of Kaspersky Labs, is calling for all users of the Internet to have a passport that identifies them no matter where they go on the Internet.  His reasoning is that this would lessen security attacks as you would not be allowed to go anywhere on the Internet without your passport.

Everyone should and must have an identification, or internet passport.”The internet was designed not for public use, but for American scientists and the US military. Then it was introduced to the public and it was wrong…to introduce it in the same way.

I’d like to change the design of the internet by introducing regulation – internet passports, internet police and international agreement – about following internet standards.  And if some countries don’t agree with or don’t pay attention to the agreement, just cut them off.

While this is certainly a lofty goal, it is also about the most ignorant thing I have ever heard someone at his level say.

Does he really think that hackers wouldn’t figure out a way to generate fake passports?  All this would end up doing is encumbering your average user while the hackers would still just run around doing whatever they wanted as they would get a hold of other people’s passport codes.  Kaspersky Labs is a well respected company in the security software field, but apparently their CEO needs a muzzle before he goes off with ideas that show such an obvious lack of forethought.

And cutting off countries who don’t sign on to this idea?  Excuse me, I have to stop writing so I can go and finish laughing …