The problem is attributability and accountability and the internet, i.e. the subject of the OP. Let's not try to obfuscate that. That DARPA designed it without anticipating malware, etc. is a fact. That's what needs fixing, and it can be and should be fixed. That isn't "fixing humanity". That's just fixing a product which has been exploited for crime and espionage, and there's absolutely nothing wrong in doing that. Nothing at all.

It won't happen, though, because of the power of the interested agencies, just as fixing software vulnerabilities isn't always in their interest...

Saying it doesn't make it so, doc. This is the same argument being made by the law enforcement folks. They insist there must be some way to hold bad actors to account, but they don't know what they're actually asking for because they don't understand how things actually work. It's like telling a homeless person that the only problem is they need to buy a house.

Any network traffic today can already be traced to its immediate source. Email (as given by Mr Ben-Israel) is a bad example because that's a disconnected one-way protocol, where there isn't actually a live connection end to end all at once (SMTP relays act as proxies, though they do add themselves to the headers as they pass a message on). It's also not used for attacks other than infected machines passing spam or infections on, and as such isn't really relevant to the concerns at issue. And there are many techniques already in use today for blocking emails originating from SMTP gateways which can't be trusted to verify their users (DKIM, etc.).

However, if someone access a website, or logs into a server, etc., the IP that traffic came from is right there in every single packet of that communication. It has to be in order to do two-way communication, after all. And ISPs already know what subscriber they've issued an IP to. This is how people get sued for peer-to-peer copyright infringement.

The problem is that in these cases where you have professional criminal activity going on, the immediate source is not the original source; you have nodes in the middle sending traffic on others' behalf. So even if a victim observes the traffic coming in, and sees where it is coming from, that tells them little of value unless the bad actor is a really low-level sort who doesn't even try to hide their tracks. And there is absolutely nothing you can do about that short of controlling or recording ALL communications AND what is done with them on individual nodes. Given we're not omniscient/omnipotent beings, that is impossible on its face.

This has nothing to do with the internet being redundant, or how TCP/IP works. So long as users or nodes on a network can act freely (impossible to prevent-people have free will and can write their own software) and communicate securely (impossible to prevent-you can't un-invent encryption, steganography, etc.), you cannot get what you want.

Except in this case...and in fact it should be for everyones' welfare. Much like a defective traffic light.

It's clear at this point you're not even reading a word I type. Asserting the impossible should be possible because it's in peoples' best interest doesn't make it any more true. No matter how many times you repeat the claim.

I sincerely hope you never get the totalitarian/surveillance state you're ignorantly wishing for (because that is the closest humans could ever get to solving the 'problem', and is exactly the solution that will be pushed if we try, and it still won't actually work). But I'm done trying to explain to you just what you're asking for.

Really, I think you've made your point ad-nauseam and any continuation is more "mine is bigger than yours is".

No need to continue with this.

Hehe, ah shit.  

I think those who created the Internet perfectly understood the danger of "someone" controlling the Internet. We should be very grateful for the freedom Internet has given to billions of people.

I think the title of this thread is very disturbing. Since when has giving up freedom for "security" been a good idea? Important systems like power production, aviation and others should always be offline anyway. Only a closed system is secure.

Internet is actually one of the few areas where I think governments, tech-corporations and ISPs are doing a good job. Internet in its current form is pretty much the only reason I am hopeful about the future of this world.

They understood how to make it virtually indestructible. They had no conception of malware nor of cybercrime since they did not exist. 

Since never. However no one would be giving up freedom. They would be giving up anonymity. We all would be gaining attributability. Cybercriminals know they are anonymous and can hide with the net being as it is at present. The correlate of freedom is responsibility. There is no responsibility with anonymity and without attributability. Freedom without responsibility is anarchy.

Wouldn't you feel better if criminals couldn't rob a bank by leaky code and never get caught? Wouldn't you sleep better if no one could steal your identity and be virtually certain of getting away with it?

 There is one way and one way only to solve the attributability problem, and that is to make every person uniquely identifiable to any computer.  Bio-tag, arm tattoo, universal surveillance - take your pick. 

Mark of the Beast, anyone?

and then some of us will unplug from the internet and go back to fidonet.

As an individual whose work deals specifically with network traffic security/integrity I am still constantly reminded just how much I,  even as an "IT person" still don't know/understand about same.

I can however agree with everything kryo said above.  The individual referenced in the OP most definitely has little to no "real idea" what he is talking about and unfortunately without knowing "why" something works it is pretty pointless to debate changes to the "how".

Anything can be changed. It was created to be one way, but it is not immutable. Nothing really is except entropy...and being the head of Israeli cyber security - probably means he knows a little something. Maybe even more than you guys. If he says it can be re-engineered, it certainly can be. Which was my original point.

Yes, anything can be changed.  The argument revolves around should it and how?  These questions however cannot and should not be debated by people like 'the professor' who simply see the internet as a 'series of tubes'.  

In the world of physical security we secure things via (my favourite principle) 'least privilege'.  We secure rooms, floors and even entire buildings via this principle.  It is when an individual human is compromised (ie. a security guard etc.) that breaches in our systems happen.  The same happens in the digital world.  The only way to truly secure anything in the digital world is using the 'least privilege' computing principle (anyone worth anything in the industry knows this) so then why are breaches still so common and seemingly becoming more so?  Because the individual users are still being compromised faster than they are being secured.  The individual users and their digital machines are the weakest link in world 'internet security', not actually 'the internet' (network infrastructure) itself.  This is the 'key something' real network engineers understand and something Mr. Professor does not.

More often than not, the 'heads of security' I've encountered in my many many years of service in IT, resemble the fat doughnut-eating security guards who are seen to 'protect' our sensitive buildings when the reality is the 'least privilege' enforced by the elevator card-access systems, fingerprint/retina scanners etc. are the ones actually doing the protecting.

Once again, there is little to no point in debating how to change something, when you really know next to nothing about why it works in the first place.  The good professor should stay good at what he knows, and leave the other things up to those who specialize in the correct field(s).

'least privilege' might be all well and good (iff everyone uses it, and if anyone would post about it ), but attributability would do plenty in catching the evil doers (another global ransomware attack in progress as we speak).

The good professor is running a prestigious cybersecurity conference as we dither about something which (as I've noted ad nauseum won't happen anyway). And, you and I should realize we're getting the non-linear conversation via a non-tech reporter who might, just might have needed verbally inaccurate descriptions of things. 

To think the Israelis would make someone ignorant of IT a Major General in charge of it, and that a University like Tel Aviv U. would do the same is ridiculous.

Hey, I know Fido!  Used to run one of his kennels.