Why One Internet Pioneer Thinks the Original Model Broke
Barrett Lyon argues that the Internet’s original open model broke as communication consolidated around corporate servers and policy migrated into the network layer. Carrier-grade NAT weakened peer-to-peer applications, while identity and age controls wrongly treat “an IP address” like “a driver’s license.” His central question for WhatsApp, Signal, iMessage, Telegram, and VPNs is deceptively simple: “Whose server is that?”
Docs.net is Lyon’s attempt to restore direct, private communication through a programmable parallel network. Its internal ecosystem includes 196 domains that do not exist on the Internet, API-driven provisioning, mesh and public addressing, and peer-to-peer calls, video, chat, and file transfer. Lyon says phones can send files directly, while the system can transfer even 20GB files between branches over a private network with low latency and “up to 3 to 4 levels of encryption.”
The investable distinction is infrastructure ownership, because a privacy promise is only as credible as the hardware and counterparties beneath it. Lyon’s conclusion from examining VPN providers was categorical: “You cannot set policies if the equipment is not your own.” Docs.net therefore owns the stack “from software to wiring,” and Lyon describes separate US and European operations, with a Swiss company responsible for Europe. The company also makes its ownership and governance visible.
AI has allowed a roughly 12-person company to build 26 sites around the world in six months without network or system administrators. Agents handle network operations on company-owned hardware, with contacts and inferences processed internally. The security thesis is organizational as much as technical: fewer employees with access to the network means a smaller insider-threat surface.
Lyon sees the combination of ubiquitous telemetry and scalable, “coin-operated intelligent systems” as the genuinely dangerous AI transition. Individual tracking events may appear harmless, but aggregated data can expose income, routines, purchases, childbirth, divorce, and other life changes—sometimes “before your spouse does.” Once millions of intelligent units can interrogate that dataset, surveillance and targeted persuasion become dramatically cheaper.
The episode’s contrarian infrastructure call is to defend data centers while attacking the tracking systems built around them. Lyon and Joel de la Garza challenge portrayals of data centers as continuously “drinking” water, explaining that sealed systems require replenishment when equipment breaks down or water evaporates. They argue that these facilities create skilled jobs and improve nearby infrastructure. Their sharper conclusion: “What people should be targeting isn’t data centers, but tracking systems.”
Lyon’s latest project extends a career built around turning personally encountered Internet failures into shared infrastructure. A high-school DDoS problem led to Prolexic; DefenseNet became F5 Silverline; BitGravity addressed video-delivery waste; and a $50 bet produced the Opte Internet map, with two pieces in MoMA’s permanent collection. The recurring pattern is turning a personally encountered failure into shared infrastructure.
1. An engine failure made abstract risk brutally concrete
De la Garza opens with the story behind Lyon’s unusual commute: when a Bay Area drive expanded from 15 minutes to almost 45, Lyon began flying between work and his family near Tahoe. He accumulated about 1,300 hours on a Sirus aircraft before an engine failure after departing San Carlos forced him to decide where to crash so he would not harm people.
Lyon considered deploying the aircraft’s ballistic parachute—crash reports suggested pilots died because they declined to use it—but saw a large former military airport within gliding distance and landed there instead. Only when a firefighter took his hand did “a sudden wave of fear” arrive; until then, the problem had been procedural.
The failure was not a single clean event. Lyon says an intake-control component broke, metal entered the manifold and apparently affected cylinders 3 and 6, the newly installed electronic ignition failed, and the backup magneto also stopped working under higher RPM. He eventually sold the plane and concluded that any future aircraft should have “fewer moving parts.” De la Garza also suggested reserve pilots and systems, which Lyon endorsed.
2. The Internet’s policy layer is being asked to do the wrong job
Docs.net reconnects Lyon with his teenage hacker identity and first business: he sold shell accounts for $5 a month to as many as 1,000 users before cloud services existed, then left the domain in place after closing the company. The new venture grows from the same fascination with protocols, but against an Internet Lyon now sees as stagnant: “There isn’t much new, and everything is built on top of what already exists.”
His technical complaint is carrier-grade NAT, which “is destroying the ability of applications to perform cool functions” by obstructing direct connectivity. With powerful edge Wi-Fi, mesh protocols, and peer-to-peer networking now practical, Lyon wants to recover the earlier Internet’s promise as an unrestricted “marketplace of tremendous ideas.”
Lyon’s policy objection is equally architectural. Policy movements increasingly ask networks to enforce age, identity, and content restrictions even though “the network does not perform identity-verification functions” and “an IP address is not a driver’s license.” If access must be restricted, he argues, the decision belongs in another layer rather than being embedded indiscriminately in connectivity.
Misclassification makes those controls more dangerous: a local information provider can mistakenly identify a user’s location and apply the wrong jurisdiction’s policy, while automated filters may brand legitimate services as adult content. De la Garza cites a partnership-oriented chatbot business that half the classifiers treated as adult; the point is not merely inconvenience, but how brittle labels become infrastructure-level exclusion.
3. Docs.net replaces server-mediated messaging with private edge-to-edge exchange
Lyon describes conventional VPNs as encrypted connections to rented exit servers: useful for separating identity from an IP address, but fundamentally a workaround. Docs.net instead describes a network adjustable through APIs, allowing domains, public or mesh addresses, and policies to be created in milliseconds across an internal ecosystem containing 196 domains that do not exist on the Internet.
Account creation requires solving a simple puzzle to receive a token. Users can change the token or delete the account and create a new one. Inviting a friend quietly exchanges certificates and establishes trust without presenting users with cryptographic machinery—the design lesson being that “if you tell people PKI, it does not work properly.” Lyon jokingly calls the result “Private Key Infrastructure,” because the public-key layer is abstracted behind an ordinary chat interface.
Lyon’s critique of WhatsApp, Signal, iMessage, and Telegram is that they appear to send data to another person while actually uploading it to a server for retrieval. “Whose server is that?” is therefore the load-bearing question. On Docs.net, phones communicate over the mesh and act as servers themselves: “No intermediary or server is needed at all.”
He says this architecture supports direct calls, video, chat, and file transfers without exposing phone numbers, email addresses, or names. The system can transfer files as large as 20GB between branches over a private network with low latency, with up to 3 to 4 levels of encryption. Privacy, however, is not presented as immunity from law: Lyon explicitly says the network must still obey applicable laws “as much as possible.”
4. Privacy promises become credible only when the operator owns the stack
De la Garza’s trust challenge is sharper than a generic preference for encryption: a company claiming privacy is still unconvincing if it does not disclose who owns it, why it exists, or who is involved. The episode’s cautionary example is the secure-messaging service the FBI created and sold exclusively to organized-crime groups; exclusivity and security branding did not reveal the actual operator.
Free VPNs create the same unresolved principal-agent problem. “If you do not pay, you become the product,” Lyon says, but even a paid provider’s “no logging” policy leaves questions: are the servers owned or leased, who is the lessor, what happens beyond the cage, and can the provider truly enforce its stated rules?
Lyon’s eventual conclusion was that “you cannot set policies if the equipment is not your own.” Docs.net consequently controls software, equipment, wiring, routing, and the AI components running on its own hardware. Lyon also describes a regional split: the US operation is based under US law, while a Swiss company handles European operations. The team emphasizes transparent ownership and governance rather than asking users to trust a faceless privacy label.
5. AI compresses operations while telemetry magnifies the threat
Docs.net built 26 sites around the world with redundant routing in roughly six months using a team of about 12. Lyon says it employs neither a network administrator nor a system administrator: “Everything is handled by AI.” The agents operate inside a secure environment on Docs.net hardware, keeping contacts, inferences, and other operational data away from large external AI providers.
De la Garza says the most serious cyberattacks are tied to insider threats, and Lyon agrees. A small staff means fewer people can access the network; physical equipment is monitored, and the camera company’s agent raises alarms on movement or suspicious activity. The team even considered a Mission: Impossible-style laser system, but the data-center lights could not be turned off to make the beams visible.
The larger danger is AI joined with advertising telemetry. Lyon argues advertisers may already be “far ahead” of intelligence agencies: trackers across apps and websites can aggregate coffee habits, wake times, income, shopping patterns, and major life events. The objection is not whether anyone cares about one Target underwear purchase; it is that the combined record reconstructs a person’s life.
Scalable, “coin-operated intelligent systems” change the economics of exploiting that record. Millions of such units can be deployed alongside vast telemetry, with intelligence enabling effective targeting. Lyon’s prescription is to dismantle tracking at the application and network levels and restore an Internet where people can connect and build without continuous advertiser or government observation.
6. The data-center backlash targets the machinery society still needs
Lyon and de la Garza regard much data-center commentary as technically uninformed or manipulated. They challenge portrayals of facilities continuously “drinking” water: Lyon says water needs to be replenished when equipment breaks down or evaporation occurs, while de la Garza describes a sealed system that must be refilled if a chiller failure requires draining it.
Their economic case is equally direct. Large facilities bring well-paid technical jobs and attract high-tech talent; de la Garza argues that infrastructure and connectivity also improve around them. Despite public controversy, Lyon says visits to more than 20 sites revealed no crowds of protesters—sometimes little more than “a single rabbit in the field.”
The pair suspect public opinion can be manipulated for commercial gain when anti-data-center narratives appear systematically across platforms, although they do not identify a responsible party. Their stated conclusion is narrower and categorical: weakening data-center infrastructure at this technological turning point is “the wrong decision,” while eliminating ad tracking would make life substantially easier.
7. Lyon repeatedly turns personal failures into shared infrastructure
Lyon traces Prolexic to friends attacking his high-school server. His survival techniques became a SANS presentation, people began contacting him, and the problems escalated from attacks on two watch companies during Christmas sales to gambling sites disabled before the Super Bowl. Because few firms could afford the necessary equipment, Prolexic offered it as a rental service—one of the first cloud services. The business survives as Akamai Prolexic.
DefenseNet later became F5 Silverline, while BitGravity applied the same systems instinct to video delivery. Lyon recalls how progressive downloads wasted expensive bandwidth when viewers skipped into a video’s middle; the company built technology around large files, large objects, and video-specific distribution.
The Opte project began as a $50 lunchtime bet that Lyon could adapt internal-network mapping tools to the entire Internet. After a bicycle accident left him unable to walk, he had time to code it; the resulting project, including its maps and animation, toured museums, and two pieces entered MoMA’s permanent collection. His reaction the next morning was not triumph but impostor syndrome: “Will I ever feel like an artist again?”
Lyon also describes a book that he thinks covers the beginning of Prolexic and tracking Russian cybercriminals, though he says the events only looked ordinary at the time. That mixture of obsession and uncertainty closes the episode. Whether mapping the Internet, building Burning Man projects, or reconstructing private networking, Lyon’s recurring belief is that passion creates “an aura” others can feel. Docs.net, he insists, remains “just the beginning.”
Full transcript
We are currently standing at a truly critical turning point. Large-scale, literally coin-operated intelligent systems are being born. The Internet is quite stagnant in terms of protocol design. There isn’t much new, and everything is built on top of what already exists. I’m trying to change that very situation.
As you mentioned, you’ve established a temporary method that allows people to connect and converse without leaving a record.
The real problem lies in apps like WhatsApp, Signal, iMessage, and Telegram. These apps pretend to be sending a message to someone, but in reality, they’re sending it to a server. Whose server is that? That’s the point.
It’s regrettable that, at this critical turning point for the future of our country and technology, conversations are taking place that appear to be manipulated for some purpose.
It really feels like it’s been manipulated. In my opinion, for future technology, we need to build this kind of infrastructure right now.
1. Barrett's engine failure over Oakland
If we’re messing things up, today we have Barrett Lyon, perhaps one of the most interesting figures in the technology industry.
I have so many stories to share.
Every time we meet, I’m always amazed, because the new stories you tell make everything I’ve done so far look insignificant. The most interesting story I heard recently was one I had never heard before, and I think it was probably when we invested in your previous company.
Since you’re a pilot and have a pilot’s license, you said you decided to optimize your life through flying, right? I heard that you had an unpleasant experience on your way back after the meeting with us.
Yes. One day, I was driving to work in the San Francisco Bay Area, and I realized that a trip that used to take 15 minutes was now taking almost 45 minutes. My family lives in the Tahoe area, so I thought, “I could get there in about the same amount of time by plane. I can just commute that way.”
That was before working from home became official because of COVID-19. I had to go in person to get a physical examination.
So you started flying, and you flew every day?
Yes, that’s right. I had flown about 1,300 hours on a Sirus aircraft. One day, after finishing a meeting, I boarded the plane and took off from San Carlos.
The engine started having problems around Auckland Airport. I thought water might have gotten into the fuel, so I climbed, and it seemed fine after passing the Bravo level. But at that very moment, the engine stopped completely.
What were you thinking at that moment?
I texted my friends, “Guys, it’s Bisang. I love you.” I wasn’t sure what to do. I thought, “Just declare a state of emergency and think, ‘Okay, where should I crash so it doesn’t harm people?’”
I tried to think through my options. I found a field, but it turned out I was at a fairly high altitude, and there was a huge airport right next to it.
Was it Oakland?
No, it wasn’t Oakland. It was Buchanan Field. I can’t quite remember the name of the city. It was a huge old military airport—Alameda? No, it was a different place, the airport on the other side of the mountain range.
I think it was Buchanan Field, but anyway, I landed there. Before that, I went toward the field and asked myself, “Okay, I have a parachute. Should I deploy the ballistic parachute?”
From the crash reports I’ve read, the reason pilots die is that they don’t use their parachutes. The airport was right over there, but I was still in flight.
The real irony of that airplane is that, despite being technically the safest airplane in history, it’s involved in the most crashes because people don’t use the safety devices.
Right.
Of course, the safety device works, but it can also damage the airplane. A rocket is launched from the tail section, tearing off parts of the airplane and completely destroying it, so there’s no guarantee that you can land safely. The seat has a shock absorber, so it absorbs some of the impact when it hits the ground.
How quickly does all of this happen? How many minutes would it be? Or might it be shorter than that?
It might be shorter than that. Anyway, I made a landing call, landed, and drove straight into the temporary parking lot.
I was a bit flustered and bewildered when I got off the plane. You know those big fire trucks? There was a really big one. It looked like it had been made by a child, but it was enormous.
The firefighter got out of the truck and grabbed my hand. At that moment, a sudden wave of fear washed over me. I realized that this person was the one who was going to put out the fire. It was dizzying. Then I thought, “What do I do now? I have to get home somehow.”
I didn’t want to rent a car or drive home myself. With that thought in mind, I decided there was no need to worry anymore. The danger was too great.
I kept that plane for a while and eventually took it to Las Vegas to sell it.
Did you figure out what the problem was or what had caused it?
Yes. Three really strange things happened at the same time. One was an air-intake control valve—a kind of lever—where a piece of metal broke off and got sucked into the air-intake manifold. It went down to the oil pan, and I think it got stuck in cylinders 3 and 6.
That caused an electrical problem related to the spark, and that spark was controlled by the newly installed electronic fuel injector (electronic ignition system). It stopped working. The ignition failed halfway, and at the same time, the backup magneto on the opposite side also stopped working.
I see.
It was like a series of strange breakdowns occurred. The strange thing is that the magneto worked very slightly on the ground. The engine would start, but as the RPM went up, it would just shut off.
Anyway, that was the reason. It took some time to figure out the cause. It was quite an interesting experience on the way home.
That could happen. Now you know why the Pope kisses the ground when he gets off the plane, right?
Yes. If I were to have another airplane in my life, I would choose one with fewer moving parts.
It would be better to have reserve pilots and reserve systems, though.
Yes, and the more you fly, the higher the risk becomes.
I think that incident triggered various things. We gathered today to talk about your new business. It seems like a very unusual thing for you—something more deeply related to your life and more important.
So, shall we talk a little about Docs.net? Could you explain why you decided to create Docs.net? First, could you tell me what Docs.net is and what motivated you? I’d also appreciate it if you could share your thoughts on why it’s important and why you created it now.
2. What Doxxnet actually is
Yes, that’s good. First, let me explain the name. When I was young, my hacker nickname was Docs. I started a business called Docs.net with a friend when I was in high school, before cloud services came out.
It was a business that rented servers and provided user accounts for a fee. I made a pretty good profit during my high school years.
Were these shell accounts?
Yes, they were shell accounts. I sold shell accounts for $5 a month, and there were as many as 1,000 users. The service offered various features, and people liked it, so a small community formed for a while.
However, after graduating from high school and closing my business, I started working. I left the domain as it was.
I’m also very interested in protocol design, and I find it intriguing that the Internet is somewhat stagnant in terms of protocol design. There isn’t much new, and everything is built on top of what already exists.
As I watched censorship intensify, people’s privacy being violated, and various other things happening, the emergence of VPNs made it really interesting to try creating a kind of alternative network.
A VPN is a network designed from the ground up to protect people from advertisers, trackers, malware, and foreign forces attempting to detect user activity.
The original promise of the Internet was that it was a marketplace of tremendous ideas—a market without restrictions and without censorship. It seems that many of the early founders of the Internet were extreme advocates of freedom of expression.
That was for a very specific user base, but as you mentioned, the situation has changed dramatically over the past few years, hasn’t it?
Yes, and now it has fallen into the hands of several companies. China is a good example, with companies like China Netcom and China Telecom.
Where is China Netcom?
Anyway, they’re using that network to manipulate the entire population and force a different decision-making process upon people.
The Internet was originally designed with a more open concept, so reviving that openness is one of the things I wanted to do. Think about the pre-Internet era—that is, a very old wireless network like ALOHAnet. It was wireless communication using packet modems and similar technology.
Now that we can use really powerful Wi-Fi at the edge, there’s a tremendous opportunity to create better mesh protocols and peer-to-peer networks.
One of the biggest problems with the entire Internet is carrier-grade NAT. NAT is destroying the ability of applications to perform cool functions. I’m trying to solve this very problem.
All right.
3. When censorship comes home to the US
Another interesting point is that we always talk about foreign governments restricting Internet access. They mainly mention China and Russia. However, recently I went somewhere where a customer-identity-verification system was being implemented, and access to certain websites was being blocked.
If it is a website they define as inappropriate, it could be anything. It could be a health-related website or any other website. So we are witnessing censorship becoming increasingly severe even within the United States.
Yes, it is slowly spreading in the United States as well, but it is proceeding in a somewhat strange way. There are many cases where people ask the network to resolve identity-verification issues. But the network does not perform identity-verification functions, does it?
The network is not holding a hammer and driving nails. An IP address is not a driver’s license. It does not make sense to restrict network usage based on things like age. That is a problem that needs to be approached from a different layer.
If you want to restrict usage for a specific reason, you need to do it in a very different way rather than leaving it to the network. Such movements have started to appear in the United States as well and are already emerging in other countries.
In addition to age restrictions, there was an incident not long ago in which Google, Cisco, and Umbrella filed lawsuits against French telecommunications companies. Even though they are not based in France, a regulation was introduced there to block more than 100 piracy sites. Then they said, “No, we are going to launch a scorched-earth operation. We are going to blockade all of France.”
If you do that, the repercussions will inevitably be greater. If a local information provider mistakenly identifies a user’s location, that user will also be subject to the same policy. It is really terrible. Those kinds of classification problems are always the worst.
For example, we were reviewing an investment opportunity in a company that builds chatbots focused on partnerships or collaborations, but half of the classification engines classified the site as adult content. This is a legitimate online dating and marriage site. It is not as though they are doing anything illegal.
Yes, we also had a bit of trouble because of Dox. I think it is because the word “Dox” has two x’s in it.
Ah, so you are heading that way now.
Yes. However, in the end, it worked to our advantage. Claude recognized us, so after we completed the proper registration process and applied, everything became available. It was really good.
4. Why VPNs don't cut it
I think that as this information totalitarianism gradually spreads, various products that we are all familiar with have come into existence. VPNs are probably the most common example. So I think it would be good to hear in more detail why existing tools are insufficient, why Dox was created, and how it differs from existing tools. It would be good to share our thoughts on that process in more depth.
It seems like VPNs mostly just serve as connection and exit points. They rent a server from a landlord, install software on it, and access the internet through an encrypted connection. Then all requests and operations on the internet are carried out through that server.
This is intended to resolve the issue of using IP addresses as identities, as we discussed earlier. You could say it is a kind of workaround. People also think that this method is more helpful for security. Of course, you could argue against it, but it is actually a very basic principle.
Such a network can be adjusted in real time. By applying APIs to everything, you can say, “Okay, here is an API that the agent can use. The agent can build the entire network.”
A VPN protocol is merely a means of accessing that area. Within it, you can build a whole mesh network, whether you call it a “closed ecosystem,” a “parallel internet,” or whatever else.
There are 196 different domains that do not exist on the internet. You can process all kinds of tasks—registering domains, leasing IP addresses, leasing mesh-network or public addresses, and creating policies—in milliseconds. The inside is a completely different ecosystem.
Furthermore, we were able to develop a working P2P application by using that system. All app-based functions, such as phone calls, video calls, and chatting, are executed through the mesh network, and all the data is encrypted. No information such as phone numbers, email addresses, or names is exposed. It is a truly amazing thing.
This is because both of us are quite well-versed in security. As you know, I have been told countless times that when having personal conversations, I should never do so where there are batteries or electrical signals.
So what you are saying is that they created a temporary method that allows people to connect and chat without leaving any records, right?
Yes. When creating an account, you have to prove your identity by solving a simple puzzle. Once you complete that, you receive a token, and that token is yours. You can change the token, or delete the account and create a new one.
Once you create an account, you can generate a certificate and share it with your friends. In reality, you do not realize that you are doing it. It just says “Invite Friend” and looks like a regular chat, but the users are actually exchanging encrypted information with each other. You also receive additional permissions.
In my opinion, the key lesson of PKI is that if you tell people “PKI,” it does not work properly. We need to abstract that layer. Actually, it is not PKI—it is private-key infrastructure. It is not a public key.
Let us assume that you and your friend decide, “Okay, let’s trust each other.” Then mobile phones can communicate directly with each other through the mesh network. Suddenly, cool file-transfer features with no file-size limits become possible.
The real problem lies with WhatsApp, Signal, iMessage, and Telegram. By the way, Telegram is a bit creepy. All these apps disguise themselves as though you are sending something directly to someone else. In reality, they send the file to a server, and that server allows someone else to retrieve it.
When you upload a file, you are actually uploading it to a server. The upload infrastructure is not always well distributed, and the speed can be slow. For example, when uploading files from one region to another within the United States, the upload speed can be slow.
Using our application solves all of these problems. No intermediary or server is needed at all. Your mobile phone acts as a server and sends files directly to your friend. It is fast and works very well.
Even 20 GB files can be transferred between branches through a private network, and the latency is very low. It has up to 3 to 4 levels of encryption applied.
I see. It also has quantum mechanics-level security, and it is a really useful tool.
Putting all of this together, it could be said that Doxnet is like a massive collection of tools for freedom of expression and freedom from surveillance.
5. The FBI's trojan messaging app
Yes, we should talk about this part as well. That is exactly the interesting point. As you mentioned, Telegram is a bit spooky.
I think all VPN services are like that. It is a bit of a stretch to say that all VPNs are like this, but many VPN services seem very creepy. I do not mean to criticize any specific company, but the example that resonates with me the most is something I saw in the news recently.
Organized criminals have been arrested worldwide. I heard that a few were arrested in Australia and the United States as well. It turned out that the FBI had created a secure messaging app and sold it exclusively to organized-crime groups.
These people said, “Do not trust Signal because the NSA uses it. This app is safe and has only 5 users.” That is what they said. Eventually, they were all indicted, and I think most of them are in prison now.
So you saw these kinds of activities in the United States as well, right?
If you search for VPNs in the App Store, you will probably find about 50 VPNs.
Yes, most of them are overseas.
Just because something is free does not mean it is.
Yes, that is correct. If you do not pay, you become the product. It means being eaten alive.
The United States has excellent laws. We can use those laws to protect people. The dark net is based in the United States, but there is also a Swiss company responsible for European operations. Therefore, the operations of the 2 regions are separated. Other regions operate in this way as well.
So in this kind of situation, corporate governance is actually important. Honestly, I am reluctant to have my data handed over to a company that does not talk about its ownership or its reason for existence, other than privacy protection.
We consciously decided to be very transparent about what we do, the people involved, and why we made those decisions. This also helps to revitalize the community.
Yes, I know that too. The thing is, there are suspicious VPN companies.
Yes, that is right. The funny thing is that we like talking about the state or intelligence agencies. Agencies like the CIA and the NSA all look cool, do they not? However, in reality, there is a much lower level of risk.
For example, during the early cryptocurrency craze, there were cases in which money was withdrawn from people’s accounts, and those people were using services located in other countries. It turned out that in some countries, national intelligence agencies and organized crime are intertwined. So I could see these things mixing together.
When people look at VPN policies, they often say “no logging,” so the question arises: Whose servers are those? Are they owned by a famous VPN company, or are they leased? If they are leased, from whom did the company borrow them? How does it handle the data? What is its policy?
That raises a question.
There is such a dark side to the VPN industry. Personally, it wasn't easy to learn about these aspects because I didn't have the capacity to quickly build infrastructure worldwide. What I eventually realized was that you cannot set policies if the equipment is not your own. It's just impossible.
The next policy layer is the telecommunications operators and interconnections beyond the cage. As you know, it took a tremendous amount of effort to resolve the hidden side of service-type bare metal. I think this is one of the big differences between us and many other people: We own the entire stack, from the software to the wiring and routing. Even all the AI components that run it are on our own hardware.
6. Running a network with AI, no sysadmin
One of the funny things about when we first talked about this was that you were very distrustful of large-scale reasoning and AI providers. You built your own AI stack.
Yes. GPUs are insufficient, and it's difficult to secure data-processing capabilities.
Now everyone is using data centers. How were you able to accomplish all of this in just 6 months?
It was done very efficiently. We have built 26 sites around the world so far, all equipped with a redundant routing system.
How many employees does the company have? It seems there are about 12 people in total. Wow, that's really amazing.
Yes. We have neither a network administrator nor a system administrator. Everything is handled by AI, and it's actually working very well because I understand the situation well. The good thing is that we don't have thousands of employees with access to our network.
Yes, that's right. It means that the impact within the corporate structure is very minimal. That's really impressive. There's a part that we don't often talk about because it makes us uncomfortable: the severity of insider threats.
Yes.
I would like to point out that the most serious cyberattacks are always related to insider threats. You're saying that using the agent you just mentioned can eliminate a significant portion of those risks, right?
Yes. This system operates in a secure environment on its own and does not leak data to large AI companies. All data, such as contacts and inferences, is processed internally. Security is strict, and all equipment is monitored by cameras. No one accesses or touches the equipment without permission.
Is there an agent that checks the camera footage?
Strictly speaking, we don't verify it directly, but the camera company that produced the agent does.
Ah, I see.
Yes. An alarm sounds if movement is detected or suspicious circumstances are found. We even considered installing lasers at some locations.
Just like Mission: Impossible. Why wouldn't it work? It looks like it would be fun.
We need at least 1 cool data center to take people to, right?
Yes, that's the only way to leave a deep impression on people. Places like the Switch data center in Las Vegas. There are also Jeeps equipped with .50-caliber machine guns. There should be something like that.
I really like lasers, so I went ahead with this project anyway. Simply put, we even looked into the laser operating switch. I set it so that an alarm would go off if the laser beam was cut off. However, the problem was that we couldn't turn off the lights in the data center, so we wouldn't be able to see that amazing laser show.
There shouldn't be any dust, and no fine particles should be floating around.
7. The data center misinformation campaign
Yes, things like talcum powder cannot be brought in. I don't like that kind of thing. Let's create smoke in the data center for a laser show.
Another thing that drives me crazy is that people don't understand data centers at all.
Ah, that's right. It's really ridiculous. You must have seen things like that in the mainstream media, right?
Ah, yes. Like, “Data centers drink water.” That makes no sense. Data centers have existed for a very long time, and while water needs to be replenished when equipment breaks down and evaporation occurs, they don't operate without water.
That's really amazing. If you were to rank the most impressive machines created by humans, commercial aircraft would probably be number 1, right?
Second place would probably be data centers. It's a really incredibly sophisticated and closed system.
Yes, although the data center itself looks like just an ordinary building.
Yes. Another surprising thing is that there are sounds that have never been heard outside of a data center. It might be something like a horror movie, but I saw people watching the video and saying, “Look at that hell.” It turned out the audio in the video had been dubbed from an internal recording.
I think people don't know it's fake because they aren't smart enough to notice.
Yes, that's right. It's contained within every data center. People are being manipulated because of these data centers.
Isn't that surprising? I think that as time goes by, it will be revealed that all of this was manipulated by certain groups or interest organizations.
Yes, but it is quite interesting to realize later, after understanding the situation, that people were completely wrong.
You've visited over 20 data centers in the last few months, haven't you? Have you ever seen people protesting outside?
No, I didn't see anything. Most data centers, especially large data center complexes like the one in Virginia, have nothing but a single rabbit in the field. There's just a large building and a spacious parking lot.
But that area is one of the wealthiest counties in the United States thanks to the data center, isn't it?
That's right, because jobs are created. The people working there aren't getting paid peanuts, and high-tech talent is also being drawn in.
Infrastructure is important too. Infrastructure is essential to everything we do, isn't it?
Yes.
If you're near a data center, the internet speed is faster and various things work better. And while it may vary depending on the data center, the claim that data centers use water for drinking is entirely fabricated.
Yes. There was a Switch data center near Reno, and they built a big lake there. So people think that the data center uses the lake water for drinking.
Yes. The reality is that, for example, if the chiller breaks down and you have to drain all the water from a sealed system, you have to refill it.
Yes. You have to put it in the loop.
Yes.
So, anyway, I work in a building like this, and I find conspiracy theorists quite interesting. It feels like a typical conspiracy theory, just like people who believe the moon landing was faked. However, I believe this is a very important turning point for the future of our country's technology and for society as a whole.
It feels like this conversation was manipulated for some purpose. It seems very fabricated.
In my opinion, the future of our technology depends on building this infrastructure now. If we weaken this infrastructure, we're making the wrong decision.
You're making the wrong decision in your Instagram post.
Ah, yes. It's the same with TikTok, right? Who knows where such content is created? Something like a ridiculous music video opposing data centers.
8. Ad trackers know you better than your spouse
Yes. It seems like public opinion is being manipulated by things like that. This is the second reason. We talked about intelligence agencies or scary governments, didn't we? But now we're talking about a scheme to manipulate public opinion for commercial gain. That's exactly the second reason you created Docks, which is related to advertising.
Yes. People think the NSA is incredibly sophisticated, but advertisers are probably far ahead of them.
Now we can see that intelligence agencies are using data brokers and employing the techniques of advertising agencies.
Yes, that's why every app has a tracker. WhatsApp has dit.whatsapp.net. Even Apple has something called Apple Telemetry.
Whether you call it telemetry or metadata, it can be called a tracking tool anyway. You can block it, but apps or most websites don't have problems because of telemetry data. The rest of the websites load normally.
A certain controversial wealthy person said this to me: “So what? Nobody's going to know that I bought underwear at Target.com.”
Then I said, “Well, actually, it's not just 1 problem. Everything is a problem. If you combine all the tracking happening on every app or website you use, that data accumulates. Without knowing who stores it or where it's sold, when you aggregate all that data, they can tell you whether you drink coffee, what time you wake up in the morning, how much you earn, where you shop, and even how often you buy things.
“If you're facing childbirth, divorce, or other major life events, they might even find out before your spouse does.”
Yes, that's right.
Turning off those features isn't a problem at all. In fact, I prefer them to be turned off. I really hate that kind of tracking. Dismantling these tracking features is a crucial part of apps and networks. It's not just an app problem; it's a problem for the entire network.
It's about getting rid of those things. It's about returning to an internet where you can connect with objects and create things, just like the old internet, without being monitored by advertisers, the government, or anyone else.
However, I think we're currently standing at a really important turning point. coin-operated intelligent systems have appeared on a large scale, haven't they? We can deploy millions of units, and preventative measures are also possible. It's like the proverb that millions of monkeys are holding an infinite number of typewriters.
So we're facing a world with more telemetry data, where every action is tracked. If you combine intelligence with that, you can reach a truly terrifying conclusion.
Yes, you can put all this information into the LLM (Local Lifecycle) and say, “Please tell me about this person.”
You get the answer. I think you can do really effective targeting even against things like data centers, right?
Yes. When you see large-scale movements happening systematically across multiple platforms, you think, “Oh, that’s pretty clever.”
Yes. What people should be targeting isn’t data centers, but tracking systems. Life would be much easier if things like ad tracking really disappeared.
Yes. The key is to revive the vibe the internet used to have and then see how far we can develop that. If we utilize larger resources, we could create protocols that don’t exist yet.
Yes, that’s right. The reason the internet succeeded was because it was free.
Thank you for trying to make it free again.
I tried, but you still have to pay me.
9. Prolexic, Russian hackers, and MoMA
Yes, that’s right. Just kidding. That’s cool. I don’t know if you know this, but we met a long time ago. I dug through some old files, and it turns out you did a lot of work related to DDoS bots starting in the early 2000s. So I’m going to drive up the stock price.
There was TFN, TFN2K, and, of course, large-scale DDoS (Denial of Service) attacks. You took the lead in developing solutions to prevent such attacks at Prolexic, didn’t you? How did you get started?
In fact, it goes back to the dark net era. My friends attacked my server when I was in high school, so I had to research better ways to protect the server—techniques and tricks to survive DDoS attacks. I started organizing ways to survive, and I presented them at SANS, which ended up in Google search results.
From then on, people started contacting me. Then I started dealing with real cybercrimes: threats, for example, involving attacks on 2 watch companies during the Christmas sale. There were also cases where all the gambling sites were paralyzed right before the Super Bowl started.
As such incidents became increasingly serious, I established a company to protect businesses from these attacks. In my opinion, a large-scale system was needed. We needed the largest and most expensive equipment, but not everyone could afford it, so we created it as a kind of rental service—one of the first cloud services.
It was quite successful and still exists. I mean, Akamai Prolexic.
Yes, that’s correct. They even kept the name exactly the same.
It’s a very rare case. Later, I created DefenseNet, which became F5 Silverline. In addition to that, I worked on several other projects.
I was very interested in large-scale systems and bandwidth, so I founded a company called BitGravity, which was one of the video-centric CDNs. It was specialized for transferring large files and large objects. We secured a lot of really good customers in the beginning. People understood our service, and we also developed many technologies to reduce costs.
It was something people didn’t know, but when you pressed the play button, a progressive file would be downloaded and transmitted before everything was finished. There were media-management features of this kind, but scrolling to the middle of the video just ended up wasting bandwidth.
Yes, that’s right. Besides, it was expensive, so we made all sorts of cool things related to video.
Well, speaking of building a new network for consumers, it actually includes some features for bots as well.
Actually, it contains a lot of network-related elements. I enjoy building large-scale infrastructure, so this field suits my aptitude perfectly. I like building scalable systems.
However, now we’ve changed direction from being for companies to being for people. I haven’t seen many attempts like this done properly yet. I think it will be interesting to see how people adapt.
The more interesting point is that your network could be subject to DDoS attacks. You’re probably ready, right?
Although it’s an attack coming from the internet, it’s someone blindly approaching and attacking. I started using my network internally, but I had to deal with those stupid people.
Yes. However, the truth is that even if privacy is guaranteed, laws exist, and we must obey them as much as possible.
There’s another interesting point I learned from talking with you for a few years: your work has been exhibited at MoMA.
Yes. 2 pieces are on display as part of the permanent collection. It was a university project. I majored in philosophy.
It might sound strange, but I studied philosophy. I studied things like aesthetics and some other subjects, but most of it was theoretical AI.
Wow, I finally understand a philosophy degree.
Really? It was very helpful. The reason I started mapping the network was because I was in the middle of a penetration test as a penetration tester. It involves hacking another company, so it’s ethical hacking.
I thought the easiest way to start was to look inside the company. You create a network diagram to figure out where everything is, how it works, and what needs to be where. I started automating that.
Then, one day at lunchtime, I made a bet with my friends that I could map the entire internet using the same technology. It started with a $50 bet, and I was almost certain I would lose. But I was hit by a car while riding my bicycle.
I couldn’t walk. Suddenly, life slowed down so much that I sat down and started coding, and that became the Opte project. That project went on to tour not only at MoMA but also at places like the Boston Museum of Science and many other locations around the world.
I also made an animation. It’s a really great project. It received a lot of attention not simply because it looked cool, but because the video contained truly interesting history. All sorts of things happen, such as companies going bankrupt and collapsing.
Luckily, I had the opportunity to talk with Vint Cerf, and it was really great to be able to ask him my questions directly.
That’s really cool. Now you’ve accomplished the 2 hardest things in the world. One is founding a successful IT company, and the other is becoming a successful artist. Becoming a successful artist is probably much harder than starting an IT company.
Yes, that’s right. Actually, I felt a bit strange. I went to the opening at MoMA, and it was like a huge party.
I was also one of the participating artists, and my work was displayed in a new exhibition, which was a really wonderful experience. There was a DJ, we drank alcohol, and curators came too. I was able to look around a few other interesting places owned by MoMA, and it was a really wonderful experience.
But the next day, I felt like I had fake syndrome. I was really depressed. I thought, “Wow, will I ever feel like an artist again? This was really just a coincidence.”
I was able to have that experience again, though it was a really strange and surreal moment. I’m probably the only person who can say that in the technology field.
Yes, it’s interesting.
I have many artist friends who are much more talented than me, and they all ask, “How did you get into MoMA?”
Yes, I’m curious how this happened. Plus, it’s really cool that it was included in the permanent collection.
Yes, it’s 1 in hundreds or thousands. Sometimes I forget. I even forgot about the book.
That’s right. We haven’t talked about the book yet. Do you want to talk about it?
Dealing with that story is fine. I guess I should add this to the list of absurd stories. I keep forgetting that I have it, too.
Recently, there’s been an AI-based webcam that monitors boats in Miami. It operates 24 hours a day. I’ve had it installed for almost a year, and there’s a small chat community there, too.
One of them found out who I was and not long ago said, “I just finished reading the book about you.” That’s what they said.
So I said, “What did you say?”
“What do you mean?”
“Ah, right. You figured it out.”
Then I said, “So, is that book about you, and what is it about?”
I think it’s about the beginning of Prolexic and tracking down Russian cybercriminals. In particular, there were a few former employees who severely threatened and harmed our clients. We couldn’t take it anymore and decided, “This can’t go on like this.”
We ruined Christmas because of customer service and network outages, but these people were real criminals. They weren’t just simple hackers. They engaged in human trafficking and drug smuggling and committed other crimes as a side job. They were doing something suspicious.
They were real criminals. I think they were sentenced to about 8 years of hard labor and went to prison. I don’t know what happened after that, but we went to Russia and lost our way. We were in Moscow for a while, and we detected some very interesting signals.
Then it was, “We have to leave right now.”
So we left. The entire book is a story covering everything that happened during that time. The really strange thing is that, at the time, it all seemed ordinary, but looking back, I think, “Wow, it was really chaotic.”
That’s right. As I say, every time we talk, we hear a new story. Let’s stop talking about Burning Man. We could make a whole episode out of just that.
When was the first Burning Man?
It’s next week.
Yes, this weekend. Are you going again this year?
Yes.
That’s cool.
It’s probably the 14th year. It’s about that long. I don’t remember exactly. I couldn’t go a few times because of COVID, so I don’t remember which ones I skipped.
And you have a famous car, right?
Yes, my partner has a famous car. Pablo made the Mind Warrior, and we built Mind Warrior Camp. We were partners in that crazy project for a while, and that car went from just a fun project into a global phenomenon.
People even paid to go see it. It’s really amazing. But so many things happened. What I was thinking this morning is that when you pour your passion into something, that passion creates an aura around you, and others feel it too. We were really passionate about that project, and I think that inspired a lot of people, leading us to do similar interesting projects.
We aren’t going to Playa this year.
Oh, you’re not going?
Oh, it’s over. Are you going to do a laser show?
No.
Wow, okay.
No. There will be something, but not mine. Pablo is bringing some cool artwork. The 2 pieces he’s bringing this year are going to be really cool.
That’s cool.
But there are no more mobile, super-powerful sound stages. They’re gone now.
Starlink internet access is available now. What’s the atmosphere like?
Actually, you could argue with that, but maybe—I suppose so. I think it’s really helpful for organizing the camp, or for things like when the art car runs out of water, because it allows for communication.
Yes, that’s right. We always carry high-powered Motorola walkie-talkies.
Yes, that’s correct. They even use shortwave broadcasting.
Having a walkie-talkie is fun, and it brings back childhood memories. After all, it is a means of communication. It helps a lot when finding things or organizing.
It also reduces the long wait times at the entrance.
Yes. However, using a walkie-talkie just to sit and watch movies isn’t appropriate. You aren’t going to Burning Man to just spend time watching Netflix, are you?
Absolutely not. If you use it for purposes other than local communication, that might be the wrong way to use it. But things have changed a lot.
Yes, yes. That’s cool. As you said, it seems that chasing your passion leads to amazing discoveries. You are clearly someone who always chases your passion.
Thank you so much for visiting.
I am very satisfied with using docs.net, and thank you for creating it. It brings back the atmosphere of the old internet.
It’s great to be able to do this.
Yes, this is just the beginning, and thank you for trusting me so that we can build this together.