Internet Generativity

Harnessing the Generative Internet for Good

The generativity of the internet is its greatest strength, and also its greatest weakness. How can we harness the collective power of generativity to combat the uglier side of what openness brings to the net? StopBadware aims to use community action to fight badware. How have other groups used, are currently using, and could potentially use the Internet's generativity to help protect users from malware and related issues?

[Note to fellow Berkmaniacs: We'd be interested in collaborating with folks working on broader online safety issues too (Digital Natives folks & child protection? Diane R and domestic violence via spyware? etc.). We're kinda thinking fighting the dark side of the Force with light-side Jedis, here.]

Coordinated by: StopBadware team (esp. Max & Erica)

Potential panelists (this is brainstorm, no invites or confirmations yet):

• JZ as moderator
• someone from a security vendor
  • someone from Trend Micro
  • Alex Eckelberry or Eric Howes from Sunbelt
• Paul Laudanski from CastleCops
• maybe someone from Google - Eric Davis?
• someone from Cult of the Dead Cow (a gray-hat hacking group)
• someone successful at harnessing Internet crowds
  • Jimmy Wales
  • SJ Klein
  • Project Gutenberg?
  • Arianna Huffington?
  • Amanda Michel from Off the Bus
• someone from Digital Natives or Second Life, etc.
• someone from SiteAdvisor
• Jeff Williams
• Vandana from Herdict
• Someone from SETI or other Herdict-esque distributed system?

Questions for discussion:

• What is already being done to use mass collaboration against badware?
• What can we learn from other issues and groups using crowdsourcing or technical means to harness the Internet's power?
• How active does the distributed involvement need to be? Can we counter bad botnets with distributed "botnets" of our own?