The New York Times, July 27, 1997, Money & Business, p. 12. Viewpoint Building an Internet Free of Barriers Vinton G. Cerf Vinton G. Cerf is senior vice president for Internet architecture and engineering at MCI Communications. He is a co-inventor of the computer networking protocol TCP/IP, which has become the language for Internet communications. When the subject is global networks like the Internet, the magic word is "seamlessness." Seamless global communications represents the technological promised land of major network providers like mine. For the consumer, seamlessness means unimpeded, smooth, clear communications among all points within a network and among all networks. To the extent that it has developed, seamlessness has been the sine qua non, the essential element, behind the fast-growing Internet. It is the essence of the links of the World Wide Web. The Internet, after all, is not a network, or even a medium, in the traditional sense, but a network of nearly 200,000 networks and a medium of media, encompassing all the long-established ones while creating entirely new types. The more seamless we make the Internet and, for that matter, the global information infrastructure, the quicker we will harness the immense potential. Although high hurdles of technology and infrastructure stare us in the face, obstacles of the political and public policy variety are equally daunting. Many policy makers fail to grasp that the very seamlessness already found on the Internet, coupled with its basic digital nature, makes it almost impossible to monitor or regulate its flow of information in a hierarchical way. Notwithstanding the efforts of certain countries, Big Brother would have real problems doing his dirty work on the Internet. Still, well-meaning policy makers try to extend longstanding social goals to the Internet through heavy-handed, market-distorting mandates when industry-led strategies could be more effective. Of greatest concern to the Internet industry today are the many legal quagmires and incoherent policy patchworks that hinder Internet commerce. Achieving full seamlessness of Internet networks will be impossible if the networks' builders must maneuver through inconsistent laws and policies. Not only are the policies of many nations in conflict, but so are policies within nations -- and to such an extreme that some seem mutually exclusive. A good example is encryption policy. Encryption technology scrambles digital communications to make them indecipherable to anyone except the intended receiver. The users range from businesses that transmit confidential data to individuals who send personal E-mail messages. Widespread availability of encryption is a prerequisite for enhancing security and privacy on the Internet, for engendering a mature electronic marketplace and even for helping the work of law enforcement. Yet governments resist removing old restrictions on the export and use of encryption technology -- rules that date from the cold war -- even as they proclaim pro-market intentions and stress greater Internet privacy and security as priorities. Fortunately, growing numbers of key policy makers in the advanced democracies are showing a clearer, more technologically sophisticated understanding of the Internet. They grasp that while government financed the start of the Internet, the absence of government has largely allowed it to take off like a rocket. Within this group are members of Congress like Senators Conrad Burns, Republican of Montana, and Patrick Leahy, Democrat of Vermont, and Representative Bob Goodlatte, Republican of Virginia, who are pushing to liberalize encryption export controls. Another is Ira C. Magaziner, the White House adviser who oversaw the development of a major Administration policy paper, released earlier this month, on electronic commerce. The paper, which advocated a largely hands-off approach by Government to Internet regulation, is a breakthrough in electronic commerce policy. Its perspective is properly global; its delineated goals, highly commendable. Particularly laudable is its proposal to designate the Internet as a tariff-free zone. The Internet is now perhaps the most global and democratic form of communications. No other medium can so easily render outdated our traditional distinctions among localities, regions and nations. While the Internet increasingly knows no boundaries, it still knows barriers all too well -- obstacles that are too often born of technological ignorance leading to incoherent public policy. The world cannot afford policies that impede the development of the Internet, diminish its utility and limit its social reach. And much more could be at stake than seamless digital networks. We may find that the more we succeed in removing barriers to Internet communications, the more we may help reduce those other, far more important obstructions to human communications -- the ones that divide nations and estrange demographic groups. That, ultimately, could be the most far-reaching, enduring benefit of an unfettered global Internet. ----- Readers may submit opinion articles to Viewpoint and articles on personal experiences to From the Desk Of, Money and Business, The New York Times, 229 West 43d Street, New York 10036, or send E-mail in care of viewpts@nytimes.com or fromdesk@nytimes.com. 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