Last week Google [NASDAQ: GOOG] became a US$1,000 stock. Its market cap punched through US$335 billion. It’s now on track to surpass Exxon Mobile [NYSE: XOM] and Apple [NASDAQ: AAPL] as the world’s biggest company.
Their balance sheet is healthy, revenues are as strong as ever and they’ve got more cash than they know what to do with. Last week Larry Page was talking about the billions Google spend on research. He said, ‘I think [shareholders] should actually be asking me to make more significant investments. I wish I knew how to do that.‘
In other words, the billions spent on research is chicken feed and he thinks they need to spend more. More on moon-shot projects like ‘Google Loon’. More on humanity-based projects like ‘Calico’.
With all these non-core business-based projects I get the feeling Google is starting to reposition the entire business.
The Evolution of a Giant
I don’t wish to evoke thoughts of Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, but I’m curious about Google’s big picture plan. I have my own idea which I’ve mentioned before. To remind you, I think Google will eventually be as powerful as any G20 nation state.
That’s to say one day you might find yourself living in the Republic of Google – a place where laws and rules are reflective of the modern world. It would be a place where technology, science and the arts meet to accelerate humankind. And where human rights like freedom of expression are a foundation of society.
It might sound crazy. But the pieces of the puzzle keep falling into place. Page has even said previously, ‘In tech, we should have some safe places where we can try out some new things and figure out what is the effect on society and what is the effect on people, without having to deploy them in the whole world.‘
In addition to the push to spend more on research, Google is taking aim at the most important human right of the 21st century – the right of Freedom of Expression. But why is Google throwing billions of dollars into a project like this? Well, there’s a back story to it all.
Wind back to January 2011. Tunisia is in the midst of a revolution. President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali is still at the helm of an oppressive government. Social unrest is high and protests are breaking out to have the government removed from power.
In reaction to the protests the government begins to control the internet. They block internet traffic, hack Facebook pages, infiltrate blogs and straight out take down websites.
All this managed to do was annoy online communities. More specifically, these breaches of human rights ‘p***ed off’ the hacktivist group Anonymous.
To cut a long story short, the Anonymous group and other hacktivists provided vital support to the Tunisian protesters. Their help and their ability to reconnect protesters online was integral in removing the government from power.
Tunisia was the first visible indication that the world is entering a new era of conflict. The days of ground troops, shootouts and battles across sprawling plains are drawing to an end. The new breed of war is digital and online. The soldiers of tomorrow are the computer scientists and engineers of today.
We’re literally in the midst of all-out digital warfare. We call it World War D, and there’s no sign it will cease any time soon. Of course we should all be concerned with this because it impacts everyone.
But for those of us who live in ‘democratic’ countries just how does it really affect us? Well on one hand you have to worry about your government keeping tabs on you. That’s right even in supposedly democratic western countries.
Then you’ve got to worry about the thousands, if not millions of online shadows trying to steal your data and infiltrate your systems. It could be your phone, your laptop, your PC or even your car.
Anything and everything that has a computer and is connected somehow online is vulnerable. Vulnerable to hackers, to cyber crooks, to pranksters and even to governments.
World War D
It’s these vulnerabilities and risks that present enormous opportunity to a select few revolutionary technology companies. These companies are mobilising their own hacker armies to fight the good fight. Their fight is against ‘black hat’ hackers, cyber criminals and nation states.
[Ed note: ‘Black Hat’ hacker is a term used to describe the bad guys in the hacking world. The good guy hackers are known as ‘White Hat’ hackers.]
These cyber security companies are of course focused on shareholder returns. By all means that’s part of the job. But the biggest picture in play is the long-term battle to protect the freedom of the Internet.
Google has joined these companies in the fight to protect the internet. They just announced three new cyber security projects.
‘uProxy’ is the most significant of their new projects. uProxy is ‘is a new browser extension under development that lets friends provide each other with a trusted pathway to the web, helping protect an Internet connection from filtering, surveillance or misdirection.‘
In other words, imagine you live in a country that filters the internet and blocks websites from you. For example, let’s say you live behind the ‘Great Firewall of China’.
Instead of simply being told what to do and where to go online, if you have a friend in the Netherlands that has a safe and secure internet connection you can connect to his/her proxy. This means you can freely browse, blog and surf the internet without restriction.
uProxy is certainly not the Tor network. uProxy can’t keep you anonymous. Its purpose is to prevent cyber-eavesdropping or middle-man attacks. (A middle-man attack is when your data is intercepted mid-stream by a third party).
The other major security initiative is Project Shield. This is similar to what CloudFare does in helping to re-route DDoS attacks to keep websites online. What Google will do is host websites on their servers which are prone to large scale DDoS attacks.
Assume a website has a single door to access it. A DDoS attack tries to send thousands of people through that door all at once. Obviously they don’t all fit. In effect this shuts down a website as no one can get through the door.
What Google and companies like CloudFare do is create thousands of little doors for the traffic to use. This spreads the load and enables all the traffic to freely come and go without issue.
This helps to lessen the load on the main website server. In turn, it keeps the target website up and running.
Because of their scale it’s more than likely Google will end up hosting a number of U.S government sites, as they are prime targets for DDoS attacks.
I believe the saying is ‘keep your friends close and your enemies closer’? Take that as you will but Project Shield is a part of the overarching principle that no matter who you are, everyone has a right to freedom of expression online. And these projects are just a few more pieces of the puzzle in World War D.
Be aware of the cyber threats that we all face. But also be aware of the cutting edge technology certain companies are pioneering.
This battle, World War D, will continue for a long time, and with it will spawn an enormous industry and opportunity. It’s just about making sure you’re on board with the right team.
Sam Volkering+
Technology Analyst, Revolutionary Tech Investor
