This worked fine at first when there were only a few dozen machines on the
Internet. And even when the Internet first started to grow, it was used pretty much
only to connect together researchers and other networking professionals. New sites
were added to the network slowly at first, and at least someone knew the identity of
each new site added to the growing internetwork. However, as the Internet continued
to increase in size and was eventually opened to the public, maintaining security
of the network as a whole became impossible. Today, the “great unwashed masses”
are on the Internet. Many routers—owned by “who knows” and administered by
“who knows”—stand between you and most other devices you want to connect with.
You cannot assume that the data you send or receive is secure