Steve Van Wert's Winter Study Site
The internet started out with the goals of being scaleable, evolveable, and reliable for all its users. THe social forces that drive the Internet now though hgrow in a different fashion through controlled "tussles", by legislation, judges, or societal opinions. Bringing this social force to match up with the porginial archistecture of the Internet to grow is posing a challenge today. These tussles occur between the users of the internet, end-users, commercial ISPs, government groups, intellectual property owners, and the like. If the internet is to grow in these tussles any plan for the growth must not be so rigid as to break, but must allow for some choice and modularity to allow for flex and survival. TO have this choice, the INternet needs to utilize open interfaces. This wil llend itself to further tussles, but these will be beneficial in that they will promote new ideas and competition of ideas. It matter whether the consequences of these choices are visible, and also these tussles may have different falvors, be they economic or social or otherwise. Economic tussles include such things as ISP lock-ins, which try and keep a customre with them. The spirit of the Internet though gives way to an IP address that refelcts connectivity not identity, and shifting of ISP's should be allowed by a user, for several reasons. Another tussel occurs in value pricing, over who is righit about the cost of sending data. Users want to send data and providers want to charge them, what the appropriate cost is becomes a tussle. Broadband internet access is another tussle, who should get it and at what costs. It is unsure how to beat the flawed "open access" ideas to encourage competition among high level providers. Another tussle is competitive wide area access, as the user should have the ability to control what route the packets he or she sends takes. One other major problem with the existing Internet is that by and large end-users do not trust each other. Identity confirmation is a tussle in itself between those who want to be anonymous and those who want accountability for actions. Openness is another tussel as it will breed innovation but challenges companies to make money without becoming a monopoly. Older fragments of the Internet that should stick around are the reliability and innovation inherent in the system. Transparency of the network followed from this, the idea that packets come in and come out, and nothing happened to them in the middle. These qualities of the internet will mature and evolve with time, and the most we can do to protect them in this growth is to bias the tussle towards them. Failures of transparency will happen, and designs will be neede at those times to handle them. Peeking is also an issue, and the best route to avoiding that is through use of encryption. In the end policy needs to be seperated from mechanism of design, so that true growth can occur. Designers need to be aware of all of these tussles and maintain the original ideas of the internet in planning for its growth.
Computer security may not be a technological downfall, it may be a problem of the wrong placing of economic motivations. Security in most computer systems that relate to users usually pays the cost of fraud down to the users and not the security systems designers. An additional problem is how diffuse the responsibility for attacks on security systems usually are. Insecure operating systems have come to exist becuase the economic effects and insecurities are taken up as the responsibility of the users not the operating system creator. The economists and the computer systems protectors need to and are now willing to talk more about these things to get protection to the point where it should be.
Spyware may not be such a bad thing, as it is onereason that free software is allowed to exist. Many peopel are okay with adware on their computer understanding it as a necessary cost for the software. This has almost become an assumption with any softawre additionally installed. One piece of spyware, Marketscore, filters all traffic, including credit card or identity information through their servers before sending it off to the destination. Many colleges, seeing this as a privacy threat, have either shut down or locked off computers with that software. Soem students are outraged that their computer activity is being controlled by the college. One reason Marketscore can be beneficial is in filtering the traffic it can offer a free anti-virus scanner, which is a plus for some. Though e-mails and information go through the Marketscore servers, some doubt that the company really has the capacity to filter out and read e-mails, which are not even that interesting anyway. The whole problem has been so invasive for so long that many are beginning to accept it as a necessary piece of their use in the internet.
Spyware is defined as a piece of software or code that is installed on a users computer without that users knowledge and moniotors their usage of the computer. There's several different kinds of spywares, from keystroke loggers, to browser hijackers, to remote access trojans, each of with alters the computer silently. These spywares are also cause of a lot of extra bandwith usage which costs money to manage. Spyware also slows down individual computing performance, which can add up to a lot of time and performance lost over time. There are obvious security threats to spyware tha can "steal data" or possibly be used in a distributed denial of service attack which could shut down large protions of a network. SOlutions that need to be enacted to fix the spyware problem are education for users, disclosure through legislation, active prosuction of violators, and better planning for the future.
Privacy concerns regarding sites like Facebook came to a forefornt at Penn State University when several students were given disciplinary action for photographic evidence on Facebook of breaking school rules. Many schools are facing similar situations and are finding that they need to address issues of privacy on Facebook with their student body. States and counties are becoming more aware, especially after one recent Virginia story of a girl who was on LiveJournal was found dead in a rural Virginia. The problem is people, oyung adults and children especially, are becoming so used to the presence and use of computers and social networking sites that they just assume they are safe since that's how it's always been. This is indeed not the case, and schools want to help cahnge that. This problem is apparant in the fact that very few people take advantage of or are aware of the secuirty and privacy setting available to them on Facebook. They are putting themselves at risk by not taking effective action with these. People are also worried that stalking takes a nasty turn into cyberstalking, with the much easier means of procuring information about a person and the re whereabouts. Companies and potential employers will also have possible access to a lot of what people put on their facebook sites, and could possibly use that information in hiring decisions. The awareness of the ramifications for what gets put on the sites needs to be increased dramatically, and very soon.
The privacy that news feed options give is not as private as it claims to be. The presence of news feeds still brings to a forefront information that was available to everyone, but not information that you expected to be heard by everyone. It's like talking at a party loudly with everyone while music plays and then the poeple and the music cut out and your still yelling, embarassed. The news feed puts this kind of embarassment of public announcement, even though yes you were giving out information before that anyone could have heard had they been close enough to you. It's a matter of exposure that people don't expect to get from the information that is techinically public. It makes people uncomfortable as an invasion of privacy would. Feed readers are also engaging in a mass invasion of people's infomration, whether they are good friends with them or not, and this can begin to take a toll on the person, physically and emotionally. The gossip can be addictive and destructive to personal relationships. Facebook, by introducing the news feeds has left a mark on the users. Even if it is removed, which it most likely won't, an anger would still remain about the actions of the creator.
With about 90% of students enrolled at universities supported by facebook being part of the site, colleges are becoming increasingly aware of potential uses of the site. Specifically, colleges are beginning to wonder whether they should monitor the site for signs of illegal behaviour. One problem is that some schools have specifica departments that choose to monitor for means of helping the student, some use it as a means of judging the student, and others dissapprove of the activity all together. The growing consensus is that the social networking sites are too difficult to actively monitor, and people are already accountable for information they put up onto those sites in court, not the schools. Moreover the material that is put onto the site should be no additional shock to people who peruse it, as "sex, drugs, and rock'n'roll" have been going on for ages. Colleges still though are beginning to officially discuss policies about Facebook, and it doesn't seem to be too long before they put those policies into school regulations.
This articles the protections that may exist, if any, for users of bittorrent filesharing software. Bittorrent has users sending smaller fragments of whole files all throughtout a swarm of computers, and so is different from other typical and more direct downloading styles. There is a need for seeds, the people who host a whole file, and leechers, those who are downloading and uploading small parts. Reproduction rights specifically apply to the final copy that people eventually make as well as temporary copies that are made in the process, and these are of sole ownership to the authors. Becuase Bittorrent is a digital transmission system, the act of distribution is nullified, as distribution only conerns tangible copies. Copyright holders have the sole authorization under law to make works available to the public, but the broadcasters, performers, music and movie producers only have control over on-demand services. Furthermore, seeders definitely engage in this act of making available to the public but it is more complex for leechers, though possibly still the same due to the need for uploads. In the end a leecher has probably sent a substantial amount worth treating as a near whole work. Private copying exceptions allow for bittorrent users to make reproductions and download them, but this does not cover uploading. The temporary copy exception is of no help as the file would need to be used for lawful use, and each user would have to checkin with some jurisdictional body before makign the download. The impracticality of this offers no help to Bittorrent users. The mere conduit exception is of no help either as the users of BitTorrent are ending up wit hcopies of the files and are not just facilitating the download process for others. Basically, Bittorrent has little to few protections from existing legal standards.
Peer to peer sharing anturally ties up with itself legalities about copyright. First and foremost to blame are those on p2p networks, the end users, sharing unauthorized copyright materials. The networks themselves are indirectly involved. Inducement is the act of providing a service with the clear aim of supporintg or making it easier to engage in copyright infringement. Contributory infringement is aiding and abetting copyright infringement, occurring when someone who is aware that copyright infringemnt takes place, aids in that process. Vicarious liability of services is when the provider of the service that allowed copyright infringment has some sort of monetary gain from it, as well as had the power to monitor that activity. napster was tried for contributory infringement and vicarious liability, and was well on its way to losing the case before it went bankrupt and needed to be liquidated. Aimster reached a very similar charge and also had to be liquidated before trial, after getting an injuction passed against them. The Grokster case went all the way to the Supreme court who voted in favor of Grokster altering copyright law to state "[O]ne who distributes a device with the object of promoting its use to infringe copyright, as shown by clear expression or other affirmative steps taken to foster infringement, is liable for the resulting acts of infringement by third parties." Possible defenses to be used against these indriect liabilities are as follows. One, the p2p service provider could demonstrate how its users were not infringing. The Betamax defense argues that the service is capable of substanital noninfringing use, and so can not be held liable. The DMCA safe harbors also offer some protection to services that are not able or allowed to monitor the traffic on their services, and gain no profit from the service. If made aware of any infringing activity, the service must act quickly and appropriately.
A Russian programmer created a program in Russia that violated no copyright laws, and a company sold the software in Russia that violated no copyright laws. When sold on the interent however, it was available to Americans, where the software could be used to crack existing software that protects copyright on Adobe software. When he came to America to give a presentation, the FBI put him in jail for violation of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act. This act punishes programmers for creating code that may be legal in their country, but also threatens copyright enforcing software in America. It also is detrimental to the advancement of encryption by cracking and reporting, by making a majority of activity in that realm illegal.
A member of Viacom's counsel presents their issue with youtube. The DMCA protects organizations and sites that don't have the right or benefit of monitoring the material used on their site. It also protects sites that don't gain financial benefit from their services. FIle uploading sites and e-mail clients can't monitor all traffic and gain no finiancial benefit with no advertisers. YouTube does both of these things. It has channels and favorites that must use monitoring, and hate and pornogrpahic material are also filtered out by some monitoring, so they are very aware of whats on their site. YouTube also makes a large amount of money via advertisements. Because of these differences, YouTUbe (and Google) are not protected by DMCA. We thus learn a few lessons for constructing "better" p2p services that won't come under attack from copyright owners. Firstly, copies should not be made or stored. Secondly, do not promote, ecourage or foster infringing activities, for obvious reasons. The service must also either take tota lcontrol or no control so as to have appropriate liability. Standalone software is also better that ongoing services so that no amount of continued monitoring or control is offered that can be tied into liability. Disaggregate functions can help so that one service is not responsibile for all the steps in sharing a file, making an argument less convoluted against copyright infringement. No money should also be made off of the project and no contra t or EULA should be made with the user as these both make for a deeper relationship between you and the users of the software. Avoidance of direct customer support and the taking on of an open source model will also keep liability issues to a minimum, as you neither connect to the users or really have a true idea of who created the software.
Digital Right Management (DRM) has been growing more and more popular causing debate as to whether it should be used or not. The debate is between pro-DRM in favor of artists and producers, and anti-DRM, who don't want to be treated like criminals. The opening remark is that DRM lets companies tailor digital media and it's use better toward the users so that money is more appropriately moved. The response is that the problem exists with DMCA's decision to stifle any innovation that possibly circumvents DRM's protective software. DRM is calimed ot encourage more services and free downloads to users because of the protection gauranteed. This isn't exactly the same though as innovation of the technological sort, it is more of a service innovation. It comes down to the philosphical issue of who has the freedom to control the products fate, the makers of the product or the users. The users don't need to be treated like would be criminals and stifled in usage of a product, but the producers of digital media should have a say in how it is used, and the debate stands at that point.
A software programmers forum, the website Slashdot recently encountered copyright issues with Microsoft. The topic of one forum was Microsoft Kerberos, Microsoft's implementation of a web security standard. The software was faulty in it's interactions with Windows 200 and the programmers wanted a closer look, which Microsoft promised. Microsoft then put up an access page to the specifications that required the viewers to agree to an End User License Agreement, which Slashdot saw as wholly nonpublic. The forum was the filled withlinks to the copies of the specifications and ways to circumnavigate the agreement, which brought Microsoft to use the DMCA to demand all copywrite protection violations be removed. This brought out questions of violation against freedom of speech. Microsofts claims are allowed via the DCMA though in any other business practices such criticisms could not be censored. Thus the DCMA is being used for censorship, which it was not supposed to violate by constituational law. Copyright law and trade secret law have always kept freedom of speech intact, but DCMA, even though it is in the same spirit of these laws, does not, and this is a glaring inconsistency. A new act, the Uniform Computer and Information Transactions Act (UCITA), would make copying priveleges from fair use clauses in copyright laws still possibly breaches of contract, and punishable. These two combined malform government protection and begin to put more government force in censorship than has ever been tolerated in the past.
Governments do indeed have the ability to control the internet. There is much controversy over whether the US should maintiain itself as the sole regulator of the Internet, but we at least know that they are able to. Primarily in the realm of domain names, control and orginzation is needed. Domain names, internet protocols, root servers, and technical standards all need some amount of control to keep the internet chugging. ICANN was the first early step that the US government took to regulate the internet, attempting to keep the spirit of freedom of ideas and low cost access, being privately run and so politically unbiased. In a recent summit, other nations called for a change for this nonprofit to hand its poiwer over ot international leadres, to make things more fair. The US government, however, refuses. Though this may be a bad decision in the short term, it can at least be sustainable in the long term. Giving other countries control gives way to some obvious difficulties in orginazation for the future, and we will still have to wait to see whether that kind of control ever comes about.
In this letter, the United States maintains that an inter-governmental control policy would plague internet maintenance and cut it's effectiveness. The existing set-up in the hands of the US government is ideal for its decentralization and security, so that the Internet can grow effectively. The US is just as worried as the EU about future globilzation of the Internet, but an inter-country governance is not the appropriate way to see that happen.
The US government is approaching a World Summit about how policy of controlling the internet will continue. The US government currently controls ICANN the orginazation in charge of maintaining DNS addresses. Many are wondering whether the US can really keep the control that they hope ot have based of the decentralized nature of the internet. The very structure was designed around this concept, and attempting to control it could potentially fragment and destroy it. On top of this, as a large single orginzation in control, there may be decisions made that are in the best interest for the group and not the end users of the internet.
The government regulation of the Internet to date has largely been very successful. ICANN mostly maintains the DNS address tables that control how the main root servers in the US handle traffic on the Internet. If other governemn's like those of China or the UN get control of the Internet that they now use also, we may run into problems with which pages are allowed and which aren't. Webpages to date have had no such discrimination against them. Allowign the UN control would potnetially raise costs of internet for everyone, assuming they would go through with the Internet tax they've been proposing for years. Any other option then what we have now would be censored, politically biased or taxed, and none of these are helpful to anyone.
The telecommunications industry have long been hands off in providing their connections to the internet, but no look to change that. In order to earn more money to fuel more advancements in their service, these companies would like to tier their service. This would give some web content providers certain privileges that they'd pay for, and would possibly slow down the speed of content providers that weren't paying such costs. Online comnpanies like google or amazon oppose this idea, as their success was largely built on the ability for neutrality in traffic control, and charging them fees would additionally dock them more money and business. Additionally, Small and ingenuitive companies similar to a younger google would not have the ease of rising to the top of internet success as the meritocracy of the internet content providers would crumble. Congress is beginning to step in, rewriting the Telecommunications Act which is largely concerned with Internet policy, amongst other communication policies, but this act has not been easy to rewrite.
Congress is about to vote on the neutrality of the internet. Big buinesses that provide the links in the internet want the ability to control who has privileges of secure and fast connections and who gets delegated to slower and less reliable paths. The internets success has largley been reliant on the neutrality that treated all traffic equally. This allowed for any idea, no matter how small, to have a chance in a highly competitive environment. Giving control to the internet service providers would instread let the business decide what goes on in the internet. They are essentially trying to convince congress and the american people that they know best and will behave appropriately. The large sums of money they would earn though are more than obvious and one can't be sure these companies would stop at anything to make those profits through tariffs and tolls and other additional fees. Many orginizations are rallying against this violation of net neutrality, including the web founders themselves, and they hope to combine their voices to keep the internet free.
There will be in the future some online services that most definitely need reliable service. One of these such services is online monitoring of those with medical conditions over the internet. Such a service though would need an end to the long time favored net neutrality, giving mroe reliable service to those that need it more. Additionally, there is an economic standpoint that dictactes that companies are most efficent, gaining the most benefit at the least cost, when their prices reflect all the costs. Pollution for instance in real-world companies needed to be dealt with, otherwise, prices would be lower for products that pollute the planet, and this cycle would continue. Monitoring the net thus becomes an appropriate way to price services appropriately and give the most economically efficient service. Not everyone will need to pay the same fees, making it not as outrageously difficult. Similar to how heavy commercial trucks don't pay the same amount for toll roads as users of smaller cars do. If companies did try and give the same high prices to everyone, they would be dead in the water, and would not choose to go this route for sake of their profits and future success. Net neutrailty, though it may sound nice, is not as beneficial to the internet as tiering would allow.