[silk] Power and the Internet

[Udhay Shankar N]

Bruce Schneier on what worries him about the state of the net today.

Money quote:

"The Internet is what we make it, and is constantly being recreated by
organizations, companies, and countries with specific interests and
agendas. Either we fight for a seat at the table, or the future of the
Internet becomes something that is done to us."

https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2013/01/power_and_the_i.html

January 31, 2013
Power and the Internet

All disruptive technologies upset traditional power balances, and the
Internet is no exception. The standard story is that it empowers the
powerless, but that's only half the story. The Internet empowers
everyone. Powerful institutions might be slow to make use of that new
power, but since they are powerful, they can use it more effectively.
Governments and corporations have woken up to the fact that not only can
they use the Internet, they can control it for their interests. Unless
we start deliberately debating the future we want to live in, and
information technology in enabling that world, we will end up with an
Internet that benefits existing power structures and not society in general.

We've all lived through the Internet's disruptive history. Entire
industries, like travel agencies and video rental stores, disappeared.
Traditional publishing -- books, newspapers, encyclopedias, music --
lost power, while Amazon and others gained. Advertising-based companies
like Google and Facebook gained a lot of power. Microsoft lost power (as
hard as that is to believe).

The Internet changed political power as well. Some governments lost
power as citizens organized online. Political movements became easier,
helping to topple governments. The Obama campaign made revolutionary use
of the Internet, both in 2008 and 2012.

And the Internet changed social power, as we collected hundreds of
"friends" on Facebook, tweeted our way to fame, and found communities
for the most obscure hobbies and interests. And some crimes became
easier: impersonation fraud became identity theft, copyright violation
became file sharing, and accessing censored materials -- political,
sexual, cultural -- became trivially easy.

Now powerful interests are looking to deliberately steer this influence
to their advantage. Some corporations are creating Internet environments
that maximize their profitability: Facebook and Google, among many
others. Some industries are lobbying for laws that make their particular
business models more profitable: telecom carriers want to be able to
discriminate between different types of Internet traffic, entertainment
companies want to crack down on file sharing, advertisers want
unfettered access to data about our habits and preferences.

On the government side, more countries censor the Internet -- and do so
more effectively -- than ever before. Police forces around the world are
using Internet data for surveillance, with less judicial oversight and
sometimes in advance of any crime. Militaries are fomenting a cyberwar
arms race. Internet surveillance -- both governmental and commercial --
is on the rise, not just in totalitarian states but in Western
democracies as well. Both companies and governments rely more on
propaganda to create false impressions of public opinion.

In 1996, cyber-libertarian John Perry Barlow issued his "Declaration of
the Independence of Cyberspace." He told governments: "You have no moral
right to rule us, nor do you possess any methods of enforcement that we
have true reason to fear." It was a utopian ideal, and many of us
believed him. We believed that the Internet generation, those quick to
embrace the social changes this new technology brought, would swiftly
outmaneuver the more ponderous institutions of the previous era.

Reality turned out to be much more complicated. What we forgot is that
technology magnifies power in both directions. When the powerless found
the Internet, suddenly they had power. But while the unorganized and
nimble were the first to make use of the new technologies, eventually
the powerful behemoths woke up to the potential -- and they have more
power to magnify. And not only does the Internet change power balances,
but the powerful can also change the Internet. Does anyone else remember
how incompetent the FBI was at investigating Internet crimes in the
early 1990s? Or how Internet users ran rings around China's censors and
Middle Eastern secret police? Or how digital cash was going to make
government currencies obsolete, and Internet organizing was going to
make political parties obsolete? Now all that feels like ancient history.

It's not all one-sided. The masses can occasionally organize around a
specific issue -- SOPA/PIPA, the Arab Spring, and so on -- and can block
some actions by the powerful. But it doesn't last. The unorganized go
back to being unorganized, and powerful interests take back the reins.

Debates over the future of the Internet are morally and politically
complex. How do we balance personal privacy against what law enforcement
needs to prevent copyright violations? Or child pornography? Is it
acceptable to be judged by invisible computer algorithms when being
served search results? When being served news articles? When being
selected for additional scrutiny by airport security? Do we have a right
to correct data about us? To delete it? Do we want computer systems that
forget things after some number of years? These are complicated issues
that require meaningful debate, international cooperation, and iterative
solutions. Does anyone believe we're up to the task?

We're not, and that's the worry. Because if we're not trying to
understand how to shape the Internet so that its good effects outweigh
the bad, powerful interests will do all the shaping. The Internet's
design isn't fixed by natural laws. Its history is a fortuitous
accident: an initial lack of commercial interests, governmental benign
neglect, military requirements for survivability and resilience, and the
natural inclination of computer engineers to build open systems that
work simply and easily. This mix of forces that created yesterday's
Internet will not be trusted to create tomorrow's. Battles over the
future of the Internet are going on right now: in legislatures around
the world, in international organizations like the International
Telecommunications Union and the World Trade Organization, and in
Internet standards bodies. The Internet is what we make it, and is
constantly being recreated by organizations, companies, and countries
with specific interests and agendas. Either we fight for a seat at the
table, or the future of the Internet becomes something that is done to us.

This essay appeared as a response to Edge's annual question, "What
*Should* We Be Worried About?"


-- 
((Udhay Shankar N)) ((udhay @ pobox.com)) ((www.digeratus.com))


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