The Future of the Internet

I met Zittrain, a Berkman fellow, while interning at the Berkman Center and did some blogging for him during the launch of this book. Three years later, its highly influential. A long overdue read.

Bibliographic Deets
Zittrain, Jonathan. The Future of the Internet, And how to stop it. 2009. Penguin Books. London. ( Originally published by Yale in 2008).

Overview

 * Zittrain argues that the internet developed chaotically with great freedom to tinker and develop new uses of the fundamental technology a phenomenon he calls 'generativity.' But this chaotic system that has empowered such unique innovation is continually threatened by 'sterile' technology that wants to lock-down opportunities to develop, exploit, and expand the use of web and PC technology, which would lead to a corporate-driven (non-generative) world of tomorrow.

Intro

 * Apple II as the "quintessentially generative technology" while "The iPhone is the opposite. It is sterile." (2)
 * The arc between these is the where the internet "has been" and "where it's going" (3)

Rise and Stall of Generative Net

 * Failure of proprietary networks i.e. AOL (7)
 * Chapter 1 - Hollerinth & IBM into PC (history arc) -> about development/division of hardware & software


 * "The Crucial element of the PC's success is not that it has a cheap processor inside, but it is generative: it is open to reprogramming and thus repurposing by anyone" (19)


 * "The Morris worm was the first large-scale demonstration of a vulnerability of generativity" (37)
 * Worms and viruses as exploitation of open platforms and connectivity.
 * In fact, networked in means vulnerable through the network


 * Dangers of worms & viruses will come to a head in one of two ways
 * 1) Watershed moment -> dramatic lose/attack on data (what Richard Clarke calls a "digital pearl harbor") (52)
 * 2) Glacial Shift -> Aka death by a thousand cuts. When enough becomes "enough" (53)


 * Also, shift from PC to "information appliance" or "internet-enabled appliance" like phones or game consoles, that co-opt the generativity of the net (58)

After the Stall

 * Zittrain models networks as having three layers
 * 1) Application Layer (where "content" and "social" interactions take place)
 * 2) Protocol Layer (formatting activity)
 * 3) Physical Layer (Hardware, wires, infrastructure)


 * Important thing about this model is that as a system changes can take place in each layer without affecting the others
 * i.e. network can be made faster, but applications and protocols remain unchanged


 * DEFINITION OF GENERATIVITY: "A System's capacity to to produce unanticipated change through unfiltered contributions from broad and varied audiences" (70)


 * FEATURES OF GENERATIVE SYSTEM (71 - 73)
 * 1) Leverage: more powerful the system, more potential for change
 * 2) Adaptability: aka flexibility
 * 3) Ease of Mastery: anti-professional only stuff
 * 4) Accessibility: easy to get into it, find, use
 * 5) Transferability: development distribution and interconnectedness


 * Generativity borrows from
 * 1) Free Software Philosophy (77)
 * 2) Affordances Theory (78) -> an environment has certain "affordances"
 * 3) Theories of the Commons (78 - 79) -> Creative Commons


 * TETHERED APPLIANCES: "The ongoing communication between this new generation of devices and their vendors assures users that functionality and security improvements can be made as new problems are found" (10!)
 * but this also means devices "spy" on uses and are locked down (non-generative)


 * WHY WEB 2.0 IS NON-GENERATIVE:
 * "because it allows coders access to its map data and functionality, Google's mapping service is generative. But it is also contingent: Google assigns each Web developer a key and reserves the right to revoke that key at any time for any reason- or to terminate the whole Google Maps service" (124)


 * CHAPTER ON WIKIPEDIA


 * CHAPTER ON PRIVACY

Conclusions

 * "We must use the generativity of the Net to engage a constituency that will protect and nurture it. That constituency may be drawn from the ranks of a new generation able to see that technology is not simply a video game designed by someone else, and that content is not simply what is provided through a TiVo or an iPhone." (246)

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