https://cyber.harvard.edu/iif/api.php?action=feedcontributions&feedformat=atom&user=JgruenspThe Internet: Issues at the Frontier (course wiki) - User contributions [en]2026-05-27T04:45:27ZUser contributionsMediaWiki 1.43.6https://cyber.harvard.edu/iif/?title=Open_Networks,_Closed_Regimes&diff=3118Open Networks, Closed Regimes2009-05-15T08:16:51Z<p>Jgruensp: /* Framing */</p>
<hr />
<div><!--<br />
How to make the yellow boxes:<br />
<br />
For the paragraph-sized boxes, use this code and place your text where it says "text":<br />
<br />
<div style="padding:1em; margin:1em 0 1em 31%; clear:both; background:#ffc; border:1px dashed #575744; width:66%; align:right;">text</div><br />
<br />
For the inline boxes, use this code and place your text where it says "text":<br />
<br />
<span style="border:1px dashed #575744; padding:0 .25em; margin:0 .25em; background:#ffc;">text</span><br />
<br />
/--><br />
<br />
<div style="float:right; padding:0 1em; margin-left:1em; clear:both; width:66%; background:#ffc; border:1px dashed #575744;"><p>This page documents a single class session on worldwide Internet restrictions taught by [[User:Jgruensp|Joshua Gruenspecht]], [[User:CKennedy|Conor Kennedy]], and [[User:Danray|Dan Ray]] in April 2009. We've filled it out with some background information and our reactions, in the hopes that it might be useful to someone else teaching a similar subject in the future. Special thanks go out to Caroline Nolan and Colin Maclay, who provided invaluable assistance both in the early days of planning the class and in the simulation setup. Thanks also to Andrew McLaughlin for taking time out of his schedule to join the class.</p><br />
<br />
<p>This page is a work in progress, and we encourage anyone to add to it. The wiki only permits registered users to edit it, but you can create a free, pseudonymous account using the link at the top right corner of the page. (You can copy our formatting or add your own; a template for the yellow annotations appears in an HTML comment at the top of the page source.)</p></div><br />
<br />
== Part I: Early Preparation/The Original Wiki ==<br />
<br />
=== Problem to be solved ===<br />
<br />
<br />
<div style="float:right; padding:0 1em; margin-left:1em; clear:both; width:66%; background:#ffc; border:1px dashed #575744;">Our students had access to an earlier version of this wiki page. For the information in this section, unformatted text indicates material that was available at the time of our presentation, and yellow boxes like this one are annotations added after the fact think of them like the director's commentary. The actual revision of the page at the time of the class session is [http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/iif/?title=Open_Networks%2C_Closed_Regimes&oldid=2204 here]</div>US-based internet services are used by citizens of every regime in the world. Western-based internet companies operate these services in many countries where governments routinely request or demand sensitive information about their citizens. How should high-level officers respond when their companies receive requests to turn over information which violate privacy and anonymity expectations? How can citizens, NGOs, and government actors influence the way these companies respond?<br />
<br />
=== Precis ===<br />
The idea of the internet service provider as a border-defying government-regulation-free jurisdiction was already dying in the 1990s, but the large-scale movement of internet services into regimes without free speech protections has raised serious concerns about managing cross-border privacy standards over the last five years. From Yahoo! turning over pro-democracy Chinese bloggers to the Chinese government, to Saudi Arabia tracking porn downloaders by pulling ISP records, to South Korea trying to arrest anonymous government critics, the problems are widespread and not restricted only to regimes that Americans are used to thinking of as "repressive." The globalization of internet services raises difficult questions: What requests for information are invasive? What kind of deference is due to local sovereignty? How can the competing demands best be balanced? How can the relevant stakeholders work toward achieving a proper balance?<br />
<br />
=== The Story So Far ===<br />
<br />
<div style="float:right; padding:0 1em; margin-left:1em; clear:both; width:66%; background:#ffc; border:1px dashed #575744;">This section constitutes the class's common ground, in that all students were expected to read it. It is intended to situate today's issues (including our simulated crisis) within the Internet's history, and to introduce the three major proposals we expected our simulation groups to cover.</div>Several weeks ago, our class read John Perry Barlow’s [http://homes.eff.org/~barlow/Declaration-Final.html Declaration of Independence of Cyberspace] <span style="border:1px dashed #575744; padding:0 .25em; margin:0 .25em; background:#ffc;">(this refers to the readings for an earlier class. It's probably not essential to assign it; this summary is plenty for our purposes.)</span>, written in 1996, in which he addresses the nations of the world and “declare[s] the global social space we are building to be naturally independent of the tyrannies you seek to impose on us.” For Barlow, perhaps the most important innovation of cyberspace was its ability to act as a great leveler: “We are creating a world that all may enter without privilege or prejudice accorded by race, economic power, military force, or station of birth. We are creating a world where anyone, anywhere may express his or her beliefs, no matter how singular, without fear of being coerced into silence or conformity.” As these lines imply, the key to this brave new world of Barlow’s was the possibility of anonymity (or pseudonymity): real-world barriers placed by normative biases or governmental controls could be hurdled by individuals joining online communities to express their provocative thoughts. Secure in the knowledge that their identities were divorced from their real-world selves, citizens of every nation could create the first truly free global marketplace of ideas.<br />
<br />
From well before Barlow’s Declaration, this idea of the Internet as an enabler of the anonymous expression of ideas was a well-established meme in the popular conception of the Internet, from Peter Steiner’s [http://www.unc.edu/depts/jomc/academics/dri/idog.jpg famous New Yorker cartoon] to the aphorism that “The net treats censorship as a defect and routes around it.” <span style="border:1px dashed #575744; padding:0 .25em; margin:0 .25em; background:#ffc;">This quote comes from [http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/archived_content/people/reagle/inet-quotations-19990709.html John Gilmore]</span> And just as quickly, people started to raise questions about whether a completely uncontrolled discourse was desirable – Larry Lessig famously [http://pdf.codev2.cc/Lessig-Codev2.pdf told the story] (see p. 102-106) of one anonymous student who single-handedly shut down Lessig’s first online classroom bulletin board by attacking his classmates with unstinting vitriol. The techno-libertarians remained adamant that online communities would develop mechanisms to cope with such problems, and that the benefits of being able to create a discussion area open to all comers – more freedom under repressive regimes, more frank discussion for every individual – would outweigh any drawbacks.<br />
<br />
However, the accuracy of the idea that the Internet need not respect terrestrial law was soon called into doubt. Tim Wu and Jack Goldsmith [http://books.google.com/books?id=Q01APcGmLB8C document] (see Chapter 1) the 2000 case in which Yahoo! attempted to resist a takedown request from the French government. After activists discovered Nazi merchandise for sale on a Yahoo! site, they appealed to the government to enforce the laws banning such material from being sold in France. Yahoo! protested that there was no way for it to identify traffic coming from France, and that to enforce the French laws would ultimately mean enforcing the lowest common denominator of all international law in all locations. However, having lost their case in the French courts in the face of expert testimony, and facing fines of 100,000 francs per day against their new French division, the company caved and admitted that IP addresses could be used to tell from what country a visitor came. This was a blow to the notion that the Internet was inherently resistant to national laws, but it was also a blow to the idea that users of the Internet were all faceless numbers – it soon became very clear that the companies that individuals did business with on the Internet knew plenty about their users, both in the form of information submitted by those users and in the form of other incidental data.<br />
<br />
Once those two facts were combined, it became clear that online service providers doing business internationally were vulnerable to economic threats if they failed to comply with local legal regimes by turning over nominally anonymous users. This acquired early public salience in 2004, when the Chinese government discovered that someone with a Yahoo! email account had forwarded to a US-based pro-democracy blogger an internal Communist party message warning of potential unrest which might arise from discussion of the fifteenth anniversary of the Tiananmen Square protests. China [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/4221538.stm demanded] that the company turn over any records relating to the disclosure of its state secrets, and Yahoo! complied without question. Chinese journalist Shi Tao was ultimately arrested and sentenced to ten years in prison. After the role played by Yahoo! was disclosed, the company became the subject of global outrage, castigated by pro-free-speech nonprofits and hauled before Congress to account for its actions. <span style="border:1px dashed #575744; padding:0 .25em; margin:0 .25em; background:#ffc;">As of 2009, Shi Tao remains imprisoned.</span> However, Yahoo! was merely the most visible of the companies involved in such disclosures – Amnesty International [http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/POL30/026/2006/en/dom-POL300262006en.pdf reports] that many of the largest international online service providers were implicated at the time and continue to wrestle with these issues.<br />
<br />
In recent years, similar cases have cropped up all over the world, from Africa to Asia to the Middle East, and even some American companies have [http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-10023104-71.html taken part] in using the disclosure-friendly laws of other countries to track down derogatory speakers. Many of these countries describe themselves as protecting themselves from the dangerous consequences of free speech: in January, South Korea [http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123178875223174403.html arrested] a blogger whose acerbic postings about government bureaucrats had supposedly undermined the population’s faith in the government’s ability to manage the global financial crisis. These governments say that free speech is always at war with social stability, as it was in Lessig’s classroom, and that they and Americans simply disagree on where the line must be drawn. At the same time, pro-democracy activists say that American companies and the American government aren’t doing enough work insisting upon the universality of American values.<br />
<br />
The most salient legislative response has been the [http://thomas.loc.gov/home/gpoxmlc110/h275_ih.xml Global Online Freedom Act] (GOFA), proposed by Representative Chris Smith (R-NJ). GOFA would require the State Department to track internet-restricting countries and then forbid US corporations from a) storing users’ personal data within the borders of those countries or b) turning over any personally identifiable information to law enforcement within those countries without first seeking the permission of the US Department of Justice. Many pro-free-speech non-profits have [http://www.rsf.org/print.php3?id_article=18304 praised] the GOFA bill as an [http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=24141 “advance for online free expression.”] Commentators have also [http://www.cdt.org/international/censorship/20080505gofa.pdf suggested], however, that it is unworkable in practice, and would in effect require US companies to cease doing meaningful business within such countries.<br />
<br />
Some corporations have pushed instead for a non-government-driven multi-stakeholder plan of action. Several of the largest American online service providers, including Microsoft, Google, and Yahoo!, have joined forces with the Berkman Center to develop the [http://www.globalnetworkinitiative.org/index.php Global Network Initiative] (GNI). The GNI lays out a set of universal [http://www.globalnetworkinitiative.org/principles/index.php principles] to be referenced when making difficult human rights decisions; it then gives [http://www.globalnetworkinitiative.org/implementationguidelines/index.php implementation guidance] to boards considering those principles on a case-by-case basis as requests for users' data come in. Some of the Congressional critics of these companies have been mollified by the evident progress. At the same time, some [http://writ.news.findlaw.com/ramasastry/20081212.html legal scholars] and [http://www.technewsworld.com/story/commentary/64972.html privacy specialists] (see Rotenberg quote <span style="border:1px dashed #575744; padding:0 .25em; margin:0 .25em; background:#ffc;">"It's good that companies are paying more attention to the need to safeguard fundamental rights on the Internet, but this proposal lacks specific recommendations and fails to address key concerns about the surveillance and censorship of Internet users"</span>) say the GNI is not widely enough accepted or equipped with severe enough penalties to make a serious difference.<br />
<br />
Meanwhile, countries wary of indiscriminate speech have started to look at alternatives of their own. This past year, the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), a specialized agency of the United Nations that deals with the regulation of international telecommunications issues, [http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10040152-38.html opened up] a study group on Question 6-17 (Q6/17). The Q6/17 group was chartered at the request of a state-owned Chinese telecommunications firm to [http://www.politechbot.com/docs/itu.china.internet.traceback.proposal.091108.doc investigate the feasibility] <span style="border:1px dashed #575744; padding:0 .25em; margin:0 .25em; background:#ffc;">link to .doc</span> of retrofitting the internet with Internet Protocol (IP) traceback technology. IP packets, the individual "envelopes" used to send information across the internet, are difficult, if not impossible, to follow back from their destination to their source. IP traceback technology would use new software and hardware to retrofit tracing mechanisms onto the internet as built, so as to make it easier to find the sender of a given message. The proponents of Q6/17 suggest that it could be used to make it more difficult to remotely infect computers with viruses or make anonymous threats online. Privacy specialists, however, suspect that the major purpose is to crack down on unwanted speech.<br />
<br />
=== Required Readings ===<br />
<br />
<div style="padding:0 1em; float:right; margin-left:1em; clear:both; width:66%; background:#ffc; border:1px dashed #575744;">In the spirit of a class in which different groups were meant to represent different constituencies with different backgrounds, we decided to move away from using the readings to get the class on the same page. Aside from the text above, which was assigned as introductory material, each group was assigned individualized readings to explain "their" point of view. As a result, we removed the Required Readings section of the page entirely, archiving it, as seen below. The Additional Readings section remained in place, for those students interested in a wider exploration of the issues. The individualized readings were emailed individually to the class groups, as discussed in [[#Part_II:_Planning_and_Execution.2FThe_Week_of_the_Class|Part II]].</div><br />
<br />
[[AnP Brainstorming|Early brainstorming on this topic]]<br />
<br />
=== Additional Readings ===<br />
<br />
(Some of these and additional readings will be broken down by simulation group)<br />
<br />
==== Audio: ====<br />
<br />
* http://rconversation.blogs.com/rconversation/2008/07/on-the-media-in.html (Episode of On The Media w/ Rebecca MacKinnon)<br />
<br />
==== Video ====<br />
<br />
* http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMorzIBHmrA (Conversation about GNI on CSPAN w/ Michael Samway and Julien Sanchez)<br />
<br />
==== Text ====<br />
<br />
===== “Just the Facts” Reporting =====<br />
<br />
* http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7696356.stm<br />
<br />
* http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/28/technology/internet/28privacy.html?_r=1&oref=slogin<br />
<br />
==== Critiques ====<br />
<br />
* http://writ.news.findlaw.com/ramasastry/20081212.html (Anita Ramasastry, Associate Professor at University of Washington School of Law)<br />
<br />
* http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=29117 (Reporters without Borders, an NGO that was part of the talks but didn’t sign onto the GNI at the end)<br />
<br />
* http://www.eff.org/files/filenode/gni/signon_letter.txt (Electronic Frontier Foundation, an NGO that was part of the talks and did sign onto the GNI at the end)<br />
<br />
* http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060313/mackinnon (Rebecca MacKinnon, writing in The Nation before the GNI existed, discusses four companies' culpability and diagnoses a major flaw with GOFA)<br />
<br />
=== Links ===<br />
http://blogs.wsj.com/chinajournal/2008/10/28/parsing-the-google-yahoo-microsoft-global-network-initiative/<br />
<br />
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/30/magazine/30google-t.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink&adxnnlx=1229749063-T7qNc5xv9ZLDiLcjc8AZxQ&pagewanted=print<br />
<br />
http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/04/republican-hous.html<br />
<br />
http://rconversation.blogs.com/rconversation/2007/01/google_yahoo_mi.html<br />
<br />
http://www.circleid.com/posts/print/20081028_global_network_initiative/<br />
<br />
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/oct/30/amnesty-global-network-initiative<br />
<br />
http://www.economist.com/world/asia/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12783609<br />
<br />
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-a-santoro-and-wendy-goldberg/chinese-internet-censorsh_b_156212.html<br />
<br />
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10040152-38.html (Declan McCullagh of CNet News on Q6/17, including links to several leaked ITU documents)<br />
<br />
== Part II: Planning and Execution/The Week of the Class ==<br />
<br />
<div style="padding:0 1em; margin-left:1em; clear:both; width:66%; background:#ffc; border:1px dashed #575744;">Parts II and III cover the class as it played out, and represent entirely new material on this wiki. As a result, there are no yellow commentary boxes in these sections.</div><br />
<br />
=== The Lead-up to the Class ===<br />
<br />
The class was divided into six role-playing groups representing six constituencies with complaints about the manner in which free speech issues on the internet are currently handled. Group assignments fell naturally out of the existing divisions within the class - each role-playing group represented two of the discussion topic groups on the syllabus. Each group was emailed individually approximately seven days before the class date. The email explained the concept behind the class:<br />
<br />
<blockquote>For the Anonymity and Privacy class this coming week, we're going to run things slightly differently. The class will be divided into six groups, and each group will be given an identity as a participant in the ongoing global battle over anonymous speech online, as well as a series of unique readings giving some specialized background. Then, in class, we'll introduce some general background and then have an exercise involving both y'all and our guest. See the last page of the attachment for your readings.</blockquote><br />
<br />
As the text of the email suggests, each one contained an individualized reading for the associated group. See below for the attached readings:<br />
<br />
[http://iifap.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/group1readings.doc Group 1: The Vietnamese Government]<br />
<br />
[http://iifap.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/group2readings.doc Group 2: Vietnamese Pro-Democracy Bloggers]<br />
<br />
[http://iifap.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/group3readings.doc Group 3: The US Government]<br />
<br />
[http://iifap.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/group4readings.doc Group 4: Yahoo! (the most popular blogging service in Vietnam)]<br />
<br />
[http://iifap.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/group5readings.doc Group 5: Amnesty International]<br />
<br />
[http://iifap.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/group6readings.doc Group 6: The Chinese Government]<br />
<br />
=== The Day of the Class ===<br />
<br />
The room was reworked in order to remove barriers between students and facilitate discussion. The central classroom table was broken into constituent tables, each of which was placed along the outside wall of the class and topped with a name tag indicating the individual group which was expected to use that table as its base of operations. Chairs were placed inside the tables, rather than outside, to bring the groups closer to one another and the central discussion space within the classroom. (See the room plan, [http://iifap.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/room-plan.jpg here]. While it didn't work out exactly as pictured, the idea is the key.) Students were asked to begin the classroom seated at the tables associated with their role-playing groups so that the transition from the presentation and discussion to the simulation would be as seamless as possible.<br />
<br />
Conor opened the class with a Power Point presentation that reviewed the basic outline of the issues at hand. This served both as a refresher of the introductory reading material and as a point of reference for the groups within the simulation.<br />
<br />
+ Clip<br />
<br />
After the introduction, Dan moderated a conversation between two stakeholders in the current international contretemps over networked speech control issues: Colin Maclay of the Berkman Center and Andrew McLaughlin from Google. Colin discussed difficulties involved in creating the Global Network Initiative and acquiring more signatories, especially in Europe. Andrew discussed changes that he thought would help make the GNI more useful to individual users.<br />
<br />
+ Clip<br />
<br />
Once everyone was caught up to speed on the tensions which would have to be navigated in the simulation, Joshua explained the simulation to the participants. Groups were asked to develop a strategy for creating a widely acceptable solution to the "Open Networks, Closed Borders" problem, to discuss their solution with other groups and acquire partners, and then to present their revised solutions to the class at large. After feedback, the solutions would be voted upon by the members of the class.<br />
<br />
+ Clip<br />
<br />
The first 40 or so minutes of the hour-long simulation period was scheduled as follows:<br />
<br />
* 2 minutes: Explanation from the team<br />
* 5 minutes: Intra-group meetings to elect a recorder/presenter and to set strategy<br />
* 10 minutes: Inter-group meetings. Recorder/presenters stay in place while other members of the team (ambassadors) venture out to discuss the acceptability of proposals with both ambassadors and recorder/presenters from other groups.<br />
* 2 minutes: Groups are presented with a disruptor to ensure that each one remembers that other groups have different interests: in this case, a letter offering the opinion of select members of Congress regarding the issues at hand (an actual letter; visit [http://www.viettan.org/spip.php?article8428 this site] to see the text).<br />
* 5 minutes: Intra-group meetings to report back and revise solution proposals<br />
* 10 minutes: A second round of inter-group meetings<br />
* 2 minutes: To write up final solutions<br />
<br />
Each group was then given two minutes to present their final proposals to the class, and then Colin Maclay, team lead on the GNI project at the Berkman Center, offered feedback as to the viability and utility of each solution.<br />
<br />
The proposals:<br />
<br />
+ Clip<br />
<br />
Colin's feedback:<br />
<br />
+ Clip<br />
<br />
Originally, the voting was scheduled for the last five minutes of class, but proposal presentations and feedback exceeded the available time as it was, and so voting was pushed off into post-class time.<br />
<br />
=== After the Class ===<br />
<br />
After class, we gave all of the participants an opportunity to vote on the proposals via email. The email, which summarized the proposals as explained in class, is excerpted here:<br />
<br />
<blockquote><br />
Each of you (individually, but remaining in your role from the simulation) should rank the solutions listed below from most to least acceptable, and draw a line between "tolerable" and "intolerable" solutions from your point of view. For example:<br />
<p><br />
6 3 | 4 5 2 1 would indicate that you liked China's answer the best, could also live with Congress's, and found Vietnam's utterly unacceptable.<br />
</p><br />
<p><br />
The carrot: Your votes will inform the final writeup that we do for the class and for the GNI team.<br />
</p><br />
<p><br />
The stick: We will hound you mercilessly until you vote.<br />
</p><br />
<p><br />
Thanks again,<br />
The United Nations of IIF<br />
</p><br />
<p><br />
___________________________________________________________________<br />
</p><br />
<p><br />
'''Solution 1 (Vietnam):'''<br />
Vietnam is willing to accept the GNI principles and best practices, but will carry them out using its own laws and and due process protections. Companies operating within Vietnam must follow all its laws and heed its national security policy.<br />
</p><br />
<p><br />
'''Solution 2 (Bloggers):'''<br />
Vietnam should enact a DMCA-style (domestic) law that absolves bloggers from criminal liability for objectionable posts so long as they are timely removed. ISPs are also immune from liability so long as they cooperate in taking down objectionable content.<br />
</p><br />
<p><br />
'''Solution 3 (US Congress):'''<br />
Any ICT company turning information over to a foreign government must clear that disclosure with the US government, which will apply a compelling need standard. ICT companies who turn over information without permission are subject to sanction.<br />
</p><br />
<p><br />
'''Solution 4 (Yahoo!):'''<br />
Yahoo! proposes that individual conflicts be informally arbitrated by the individuals involved through a standardized process, and that irreconcilable conflicts be referred for binding arbitration to a special subcommittee of the WTO<br />
</p><br />
<p><br />
'''Solution 5 (Amnesty):'''<br />
AI proposes a network of pro bono lawyers in Vietnam, who will sue on behalf of targeted bloggers when ICT companies inform AI that they have received information requests. A review board is in place to permit other nations to pressure Vietnam if necessary.<br />
</p><br />
<p><br />
'''Solution 6 (China):'''<br />
Nations are only bound by treaties, and China is happy to opt out of anything the other groups agree on that would limit its sovereignty. Instead, it advocates the Q6/17 program, which would limit anonymity on the Internet layer.<br />
</p><br />
</blockquote><br />
<br />
As our team would have predicted, the teams, when asked to vote in character, voted largely for their own solutions. However, even among the second-choice solutions, no alternative was a clear favorite:<br />
<br />
{| border="1"<br />
|'''Team 1 (Vietnam):'''<br />
<br />
1 6 | 2 3 4 5<br />
<br />
1 2 | 6 4 5 3<br />
<br />
5 2 3 4 | 1 6<br />
<br />
5 1 | 2 4 6 3<br />
<br />
|'''Team 2 (Bloggers):'''<br />
<br />
2 1 3 5 | 4 6 <br />
<br />
2 5 3 4 | 6 1 <br />
<br />
2 3 4 5 | 6 1<br />
<br />
4 2 1 | 6 5 3<br />
<br />
|'''Team 3 (US Congress):'''<br />
<br />
3 | 1 2 5 4 6<br />
<br />
3 2 4 5 | 1 6<br />
<br />
6 5 4 3 | 2 1<br />
<br />
2 3 4 5 | 1 6<br />
<br />
|-<br />
<br />
|'''Team 4 (Yahoo!):'''<br />
<br />
4 5 2 3 1 6<br />
<br />
4 5 2 | 3 1 6<br />
<br />
4 1 2 5 3 6<br />
<br />
4 1 | 2 5 3 6<br />
<br />
4 1 5 6 | 2 3<br />
<br />
|'''Team 5 (Amnesty):'''<br />
<br />
5 4 1 3 2 6<br />
<br />
5 2 4 3 1 6<br />
<br />
4 3 5 2 1 6<br />
<br />
4 5 3 2 | 1 6<br />
<br />
2 4 5 | 3 1 6<br />
<br />
|align="top" |'''Team 6 (China):'''<br />
<br />
6 1 2 | 5 4 3<br />
<br />
6 2 1 | 5 4 3<br />
<br />
6 1 2 | 5 4 3<br />
|}<br />
<br />
As the voting results suggest, China and Vietnam were most interested in each others' solutions, and the same was largely true of Yahoo! and Amnesty International. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the team representing the US Congress was hopelessly confused. There was, however, a clear loser: the team 6 (China) solution implementing Q6/17 was overwhelmingly rejected as unacceptable.<br />
<br />
== Part III: Reactions and Discussion/Suggestions to Future Class Leaders ==<br />
<br />
=== Successes and Failures ===<br />
<br />
The class's discomfort with our shakeup of the standard IIF classroom layout - open seating in a large room with the students facing the speaker rather than each other - was immediately apparent. Their interest in the topic seemed to bring them back, however, and they remained engaged throughout the introduction and the discussion portions of the session.<br />
<br />
Our in-class discussion... '''ANYTHING ABOUT ANDREW BEING DIFFICULT TO CONTROL? THE LACK OF Q&A BETWEEN HIM AND THE CLASS?'''<br />
<br />
The simulation was popular with the class and brought a lot of energy into the session. Its efficacy as a pedagogical tool is unclear; while it may not have imparted any additional awareness of the complicated problems faced by negotiators in this field which had not already been discussed in the introduction, it did serve as an incentive to read (lest players be exposed for ignorance in front of their classmates), and also as a way of driving home the problem and making the class memorable. No solution emerging from the simulation achieved any kind of workable consensus. While this is, perhaps, unsurprising, it also suggests room for improvement in simulation design (about which more below).<br />
<br />
=== Role of Technology ===<br />
==== Introduction ====<br />
<br />
For our presentation, we turned to PowerPoint. '''CONOR, IS THERE ANYTHING TO SAY ABOUT THE UTILITY OF PP IN DEVISING THE PRESENTATION?'''<br />
<br />
==== Discussion ====<br />
<br />
Given Andrew McLaughlin's schedule constraints, we ultimately were forced to have him join the class from the airport. As a result, rather than leveraging traditional videoconferencing software, we turned to a laptop-based video client. We considered both Google Talk and Skype, and ultimately turned to '''HELP ME, DAN RAY, YOU'RE MY ONLY HOPE'''. <br />
<br />
==== Simulation ====<br />
<br />
Unlike many of the other IIF groups, our team decided not to make technology tools a central part of our class plan within the interactive portion of the class. Feeling that the class's early experiences using the question tool and Twitter in-class had been somewhat isolating, we decided to look for an innovative pedagogical tool which would jumpstart class discussion and force students to confront each other. Ultimately, we decided that the best choice was to have the class close their laptops entirely, and that our tool would be a classroom exercise rather than a technological innovation.<br />
<br />
This decision ultimately led to our decision to create the simulation, whose successes and failures are discussed above. Generally, however, we feel that the simulation was at least as successful as any network tool in involving the class - in fact, many of our voting query responses stated that class members found the exercise particularly enjoyable.<br />
<br />
=== Additional Suggestions for Future Classes ===<br />
<br />
==== Discussion ====<br />
<br />
'''SOMETHING?'''<br />
<br />
==== Simulation ====<br />
<br />
===== Timing =====<br />
In any future run of the simulation, we would first like to see additional time allocated to that portion of the evening. Ideally, we would offer participants an opportunity to present, to vote, and then to realize that groups' first choices were all their own solutions and to renegotiate accordingly. In order to do so, future instructors will likely have to make more than an hour available for the simulation portion of the class.<br />
<br />
===== Framing =====<br />
More importantly, "success" for purposes of the simulation should be defined in such a way as to encourage more cooperation. We made an effort to frame the discussion in terms of Lessig's New Chicago School tools for societal manipulation, in the hopes that the class would consider legal, normative, architectural, and market solutions. Ultimately, they did, but this focus on the mechanics of the solutions distracted from the need to continue to push the need for a consensus on values.<br />
<br />
One possibility is to increase the salience of a discussion of the values that a solution needs to embody. By explicitly judging solutions along these axes, students can gain a clearer understanding of the pluses and minuses of their solutions. In his critiques of the solutions as discussed in class, Colin Maclay suggested several such values:<br />
<br />
<blockquote><br />
<p><br />
''Efficacy'' - Is it likely to strike a balance that protects and advances expression and privacy so that it falls roughly in line with international human rights standards (which include exceptions for security/order, and health/morals) as well as national law? Can it be designed to improve over time? How does the approach recognize that while governments around the world (certainly not just China or Vietnam) engage in practices ranging from questionable to clearly wrong, there are legitimate functions performed by (virtually) all governments (law enforcement), and we generally expect good corporate citizenship in conducting them. To the extent we can identify them, instances of imminent harm are the easiest case, but working into less certain territory, we need an approach that allows companies to push back against government demands on some occasions and to comply with them on others. A nuanced process must be able to account for the spectrum of 'legitimate' expression standards around the world. That is, one that adhere to Andrew's test while also being capable of identifying cases where robust democracies like US, Australia, Italy and others may overreach and therefore require thoughtful pushback. The trick is developing a process that distinguishes between these cases and contexts.<br />
</p><br />
<p><br />
''Accountability'' - Verifying that actors are doing what they say they are. Even if, as in the case of the GNI, they do what they *should*, we must still anticipate that there will be incidents with bad endings. We need a means to determine whether that was a poor implementation on the company's or government's part, or a deficit in the law / standard / approach. For the GNI, accountability is also one of the core factors driving the NGO backing and support. Rather than a company or US-driven approach, this guarantees that human rights groups remain in the room, helping to shape the process, applying pressure where necessary (and where companies can't necessarily reach) -- especially regarding learning, compliance, communications, etc. This was a key consideration for GNI from the start. Indeed, Andrew's characterization of Google's concern around GNI being toothless/suffering from free riders is explicitly addressed by a robust accountability regime.<br />
</p><br />
<p><br />
''Scalability'' - The numbers of Internet users and uses continue to grow rapidly (especially if you include mobile devices), and whereas there was arguably little reason for a government to fear the Net in the past (eg, if <5% of the population was online), that seems to be changing. Not only are more folks online, but they are doing more while online - thus creating and sharing more content and information (intentionally and not). Just as we've seen censorship increase (as shown through Berkman's work in the OpenNet Initiative), it seems reasonable to expect requests for private information to increase as well. The solution must be able to account for not only new products and services developing by companies, but also new tactics and tools for censorship and monitoring by govts. It needs to be able to adapt to a constantly evolving landscape, with emerging risks and new hotspots that change rapidly. Best practices/helpful interventions are likely to change over time. This means that any solution has to be able to scale and evolve like the Internet itself, which would challenge in-country legal responses at scale, decision by US committee (as per GOFA) or int'l body, technical fixes, companies (check out http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/30/magazine/30google-t.html and consider how one current might approach scale), etc.<br />
</p><br />
<p><br />
''Transparency'' - Conveying some or all of what is happening (with consideration as to unintended consequences and appropriate handling of information), including the risks, is important for effective intervention on the part of the policymakers, advocacy organizations, business, and ultimately users (who decide what, if anything, they do online). Ideally, the process should generate empirical information, directly informed by company experience, in order to understand what's happening at scale, rather than by anecdote (which is all too often the case). This can also create a chain of accountability and an understanding of new/potential pressure points as they emerge over time.<br />
</p><br />
<p><br />
''Political Neutrality / Palatability'' - From the perspective of a foreign sovereign, is it reasonable for the USG to determine what people say and do on the Net, which laws are enforced, etc.? If there is a USG list of repressive states, won't that determination be subject to political pressures just as are USG human rights reporting, and congressional requirements to list countries' performance vis-a-vis supporting terrorism and drug trafficking? Is a UN body any more appealing / realistic; what about capture, inefficiency and typical US concerns?<br />
</p><br />
<p><br />
''Sustainability'' - Beyond scaling, how will this approach last over time and in the face of technological, cultural, legal and market change? How do you build it to adapt as the challenges morph, and (hopefully) as the opportunities emerge? Eg, if it's focuses purely on Internet rather than mobile or OSPs instead of ISPs, if deep-packet inspection is implemented, if rule of law advances everywhere but does not supports privacy or expression... What's the plan to generate resources to accomplish it (who pays)? What impact will political change have over time? Are there ways that collective action by companies in certain markets can incentivize other companies (local, competitors, etc) to adhere to similar standards? In terms of norms, what combination of companies willing to adhere to certain standards, governments, NGOs and users can create an environment that's both competitive and observant of human rights?<br />
</p><br />
</blockquote><br />
<br />
More concretely, there is also the question of how the simulation could be designed to make students take these values into account, encourage more crossover voting, and ultimately promote the development of consensus solutions. As suggested above, we would recommend a second round of proposal writing after a first-round vote. An additional option would be to avoid fixed numbers of solutions, and to allow groups to come together and offer jointly authored answers to the problems raised in class. '''MORE THOUGHTS?'''<br />
<br />
===== Materials =====<br />
Many of our materials were keyed to the problems experienced in Vietnam over the course of the few months before our class session. We wanted to make our conflict as fresh as possible, and the readings that we offered to participants reflect that goal - almost all come from the last year, and many deal with extremely current events. To the extent that the questions raised in Vietnam in particular are overtaken by events, future instructors may wish to update the cases discussed therein, or to address problems in new and different international censorship regimes.<br />
<br />
To the extent that additional materials can be presented which will drive home the point of view of countries which view societal responsibility as a significantly more important value than freedom of speech, those materials will be particularly valuable. It is difficult for Americans, and particularly American law students, to realize exactly how far off the international consensus position on free speech the United States really is. Without some explanation of other countries' substantive challenges to our First Amendment jurisprudence, simulation participants may have some difficulty engaging with their roles. (Some of the participants viewed being Vietnam or China within the confines of the simulation as being "the bad guy," a statement which should at least be challenged by the materials, if not ultimately disproven.)</div>Jgruensphttps://cyber.harvard.edu/iif/?title=Open_Networks,_Closed_Regimes&diff=3117Open Networks, Closed Regimes2009-05-15T08:09:09Z<p>Jgruensp: </p>
<hr />
<div><!--<br />
How to make the yellow boxes:<br />
<br />
For the paragraph-sized boxes, use this code and place your text where it says "text":<br />
<br />
<div style="padding:1em; margin:1em 0 1em 31%; clear:both; background:#ffc; border:1px dashed #575744; width:66%; align:right;">text</div><br />
<br />
For the inline boxes, use this code and place your text where it says "text":<br />
<br />
<span style="border:1px dashed #575744; padding:0 .25em; margin:0 .25em; background:#ffc;">text</span><br />
<br />
/--><br />
<br />
<div style="float:right; padding:0 1em; margin-left:1em; clear:both; width:66%; background:#ffc; border:1px dashed #575744;"><p>This page documents a single class session on worldwide Internet restrictions taught by [[User:Jgruensp|Joshua Gruenspecht]], [[User:CKennedy|Conor Kennedy]], and [[User:Danray|Dan Ray]] in April 2009. We've filled it out with some background information and our reactions, in the hopes that it might be useful to someone else teaching a similar subject in the future. Special thanks go out to Caroline Nolan and Colin Maclay, who provided invaluable assistance both in the early days of planning the class and in the simulation setup. Thanks also to Andrew McLaughlin for taking time out of his schedule to join the class.</p><br />
<br />
<p>This page is a work in progress, and we encourage anyone to add to it. The wiki only permits registered users to edit it, but you can create a free, pseudonymous account using the link at the top right corner of the page. (You can copy our formatting or add your own; a template for the yellow annotations appears in an HTML comment at the top of the page source.)</p></div><br />
<br />
== Part I: Early Preparation/The Original Wiki ==<br />
<br />
=== Problem to be solved ===<br />
<br />
<br />
<div style="float:right; padding:0 1em; margin-left:1em; clear:both; width:66%; background:#ffc; border:1px dashed #575744;">Our students had access to an earlier version of this wiki page. For the information in this section, unformatted text indicates material that was available at the time of our presentation, and yellow boxes like this one are annotations added after the fact think of them like the director's commentary. The actual revision of the page at the time of the class session is [http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/iif/?title=Open_Networks%2C_Closed_Regimes&oldid=2204 here]</div>US-based internet services are used by citizens of every regime in the world. Western-based internet companies operate these services in many countries where governments routinely request or demand sensitive information about their citizens. How should high-level officers respond when their companies receive requests to turn over information which violate privacy and anonymity expectations? How can citizens, NGOs, and government actors influence the way these companies respond?<br />
<br />
=== Precis ===<br />
The idea of the internet service provider as a border-defying government-regulation-free jurisdiction was already dying in the 1990s, but the large-scale movement of internet services into regimes without free speech protections has raised serious concerns about managing cross-border privacy standards over the last five years. From Yahoo! turning over pro-democracy Chinese bloggers to the Chinese government, to Saudi Arabia tracking porn downloaders by pulling ISP records, to South Korea trying to arrest anonymous government critics, the problems are widespread and not restricted only to regimes that Americans are used to thinking of as "repressive." The globalization of internet services raises difficult questions: What requests for information are invasive? What kind of deference is due to local sovereignty? How can the competing demands best be balanced? How can the relevant stakeholders work toward achieving a proper balance?<br />
<br />
=== The Story So Far ===<br />
<br />
<div style="float:right; padding:0 1em; margin-left:1em; clear:both; width:66%; background:#ffc; border:1px dashed #575744;">This section constitutes the class's common ground, in that all students were expected to read it. It is intended to situate today's issues (including our simulated crisis) within the Internet's history, and to introduce the three major proposals we expected our simulation groups to cover.</div>Several weeks ago, our class read John Perry Barlow’s [http://homes.eff.org/~barlow/Declaration-Final.html Declaration of Independence of Cyberspace] <span style="border:1px dashed #575744; padding:0 .25em; margin:0 .25em; background:#ffc;">(this refers to the readings for an earlier class. It's probably not essential to assign it; this summary is plenty for our purposes.)</span>, written in 1996, in which he addresses the nations of the world and “declare[s] the global social space we are building to be naturally independent of the tyrannies you seek to impose on us.” For Barlow, perhaps the most important innovation of cyberspace was its ability to act as a great leveler: “We are creating a world that all may enter without privilege or prejudice accorded by race, economic power, military force, or station of birth. We are creating a world where anyone, anywhere may express his or her beliefs, no matter how singular, without fear of being coerced into silence or conformity.” As these lines imply, the key to this brave new world of Barlow’s was the possibility of anonymity (or pseudonymity): real-world barriers placed by normative biases or governmental controls could be hurdled by individuals joining online communities to express their provocative thoughts. Secure in the knowledge that their identities were divorced from their real-world selves, citizens of every nation could create the first truly free global marketplace of ideas.<br />
<br />
From well before Barlow’s Declaration, this idea of the Internet as an enabler of the anonymous expression of ideas was a well-established meme in the popular conception of the Internet, from Peter Steiner’s [http://www.unc.edu/depts/jomc/academics/dri/idog.jpg famous New Yorker cartoon] to the aphorism that “The net treats censorship as a defect and routes around it.” <span style="border:1px dashed #575744; padding:0 .25em; margin:0 .25em; background:#ffc;">This quote comes from [http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/archived_content/people/reagle/inet-quotations-19990709.html John Gilmore]</span> And just as quickly, people started to raise questions about whether a completely uncontrolled discourse was desirable – Larry Lessig famously [http://pdf.codev2.cc/Lessig-Codev2.pdf told the story] (see p. 102-106) of one anonymous student who single-handedly shut down Lessig’s first online classroom bulletin board by attacking his classmates with unstinting vitriol. The techno-libertarians remained adamant that online communities would develop mechanisms to cope with such problems, and that the benefits of being able to create a discussion area open to all comers – more freedom under repressive regimes, more frank discussion for every individual – would outweigh any drawbacks.<br />
<br />
However, the accuracy of the idea that the Internet need not respect terrestrial law was soon called into doubt. Tim Wu and Jack Goldsmith [http://books.google.com/books?id=Q01APcGmLB8C document] (see Chapter 1) the 2000 case in which Yahoo! attempted to resist a takedown request from the French government. After activists discovered Nazi merchandise for sale on a Yahoo! site, they appealed to the government to enforce the laws banning such material from being sold in France. Yahoo! protested that there was no way for it to identify traffic coming from France, and that to enforce the French laws would ultimately mean enforcing the lowest common denominator of all international law in all locations. However, having lost their case in the French courts in the face of expert testimony, and facing fines of 100,000 francs per day against their new French division, the company caved and admitted that IP addresses could be used to tell from what country a visitor came. This was a blow to the notion that the Internet was inherently resistant to national laws, but it was also a blow to the idea that users of the Internet were all faceless numbers – it soon became very clear that the companies that individuals did business with on the Internet knew plenty about their users, both in the form of information submitted by those users and in the form of other incidental data.<br />
<br />
Once those two facts were combined, it became clear that online service providers doing business internationally were vulnerable to economic threats if they failed to comply with local legal regimes by turning over nominally anonymous users. This acquired early public salience in 2004, when the Chinese government discovered that someone with a Yahoo! email account had forwarded to a US-based pro-democracy blogger an internal Communist party message warning of potential unrest which might arise from discussion of the fifteenth anniversary of the Tiananmen Square protests. China [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/4221538.stm demanded] that the company turn over any records relating to the disclosure of its state secrets, and Yahoo! complied without question. Chinese journalist Shi Tao was ultimately arrested and sentenced to ten years in prison. After the role played by Yahoo! was disclosed, the company became the subject of global outrage, castigated by pro-free-speech nonprofits and hauled before Congress to account for its actions. <span style="border:1px dashed #575744; padding:0 .25em; margin:0 .25em; background:#ffc;">As of 2009, Shi Tao remains imprisoned.</span> However, Yahoo! was merely the most visible of the companies involved in such disclosures – Amnesty International [http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/POL30/026/2006/en/dom-POL300262006en.pdf reports] that many of the largest international online service providers were implicated at the time and continue to wrestle with these issues.<br />
<br />
In recent years, similar cases have cropped up all over the world, from Africa to Asia to the Middle East, and even some American companies have [http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-10023104-71.html taken part] in using the disclosure-friendly laws of other countries to track down derogatory speakers. Many of these countries describe themselves as protecting themselves from the dangerous consequences of free speech: in January, South Korea [http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123178875223174403.html arrested] a blogger whose acerbic postings about government bureaucrats had supposedly undermined the population’s faith in the government’s ability to manage the global financial crisis. These governments say that free speech is always at war with social stability, as it was in Lessig’s classroom, and that they and Americans simply disagree on where the line must be drawn. At the same time, pro-democracy activists say that American companies and the American government aren’t doing enough work insisting upon the universality of American values.<br />
<br />
The most salient legislative response has been the [http://thomas.loc.gov/home/gpoxmlc110/h275_ih.xml Global Online Freedom Act] (GOFA), proposed by Representative Chris Smith (R-NJ). GOFA would require the State Department to track internet-restricting countries and then forbid US corporations from a) storing users’ personal data within the borders of those countries or b) turning over any personally identifiable information to law enforcement within those countries without first seeking the permission of the US Department of Justice. Many pro-free-speech non-profits have [http://www.rsf.org/print.php3?id_article=18304 praised] the GOFA bill as an [http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=24141 “advance for online free expression.”] Commentators have also [http://www.cdt.org/international/censorship/20080505gofa.pdf suggested], however, that it is unworkable in practice, and would in effect require US companies to cease doing meaningful business within such countries.<br />
<br />
Some corporations have pushed instead for a non-government-driven multi-stakeholder plan of action. Several of the largest American online service providers, including Microsoft, Google, and Yahoo!, have joined forces with the Berkman Center to develop the [http://www.globalnetworkinitiative.org/index.php Global Network Initiative] (GNI). The GNI lays out a set of universal [http://www.globalnetworkinitiative.org/principles/index.php principles] to be referenced when making difficult human rights decisions; it then gives [http://www.globalnetworkinitiative.org/implementationguidelines/index.php implementation guidance] to boards considering those principles on a case-by-case basis as requests for users' data come in. Some of the Congressional critics of these companies have been mollified by the evident progress. At the same time, some [http://writ.news.findlaw.com/ramasastry/20081212.html legal scholars] and [http://www.technewsworld.com/story/commentary/64972.html privacy specialists] (see Rotenberg quote <span style="border:1px dashed #575744; padding:0 .25em; margin:0 .25em; background:#ffc;">"It's good that companies are paying more attention to the need to safeguard fundamental rights on the Internet, but this proposal lacks specific recommendations and fails to address key concerns about the surveillance and censorship of Internet users"</span>) say the GNI is not widely enough accepted or equipped with severe enough penalties to make a serious difference.<br />
<br />
Meanwhile, countries wary of indiscriminate speech have started to look at alternatives of their own. This past year, the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), a specialized agency of the United Nations that deals with the regulation of international telecommunications issues, [http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10040152-38.html opened up] a study group on Question 6-17 (Q6/17). The Q6/17 group was chartered at the request of a state-owned Chinese telecommunications firm to [http://www.politechbot.com/docs/itu.china.internet.traceback.proposal.091108.doc investigate the feasibility] <span style="border:1px dashed #575744; padding:0 .25em; margin:0 .25em; background:#ffc;">link to .doc</span> of retrofitting the internet with Internet Protocol (IP) traceback technology. IP packets, the individual "envelopes" used to send information across the internet, are difficult, if not impossible, to follow back from their destination to their source. IP traceback technology would use new software and hardware to retrofit tracing mechanisms onto the internet as built, so as to make it easier to find the sender of a given message. The proponents of Q6/17 suggest that it could be used to make it more difficult to remotely infect computers with viruses or make anonymous threats online. Privacy specialists, however, suspect that the major purpose is to crack down on unwanted speech.<br />
<br />
=== Required Readings ===<br />
<br />
<div style="padding:0 1em; float:right; margin-left:1em; clear:both; width:66%; background:#ffc; border:1px dashed #575744;">In the spirit of a class in which different groups were meant to represent different constituencies with different backgrounds, we decided to move away from using the readings to get the class on the same page. Aside from the text above, which was assigned as introductory material, each group was assigned individualized readings to explain "their" point of view. As a result, we removed the Required Readings section of the page entirely, archiving it, as seen below. The Additional Readings section remained in place, for those students interested in a wider exploration of the issues. The individualized readings were emailed individually to the class groups, as discussed in [[#Part_II:_Planning_and_Execution.2FThe_Week_of_the_Class|Part II]].</div><br />
<br />
[[AnP Brainstorming|Early brainstorming on this topic]]<br />
<br />
=== Additional Readings ===<br />
<br />
(Some of these and additional readings will be broken down by simulation group)<br />
<br />
==== Audio: ====<br />
<br />
* http://rconversation.blogs.com/rconversation/2008/07/on-the-media-in.html (Episode of On The Media w/ Rebecca MacKinnon)<br />
<br />
==== Video ====<br />
<br />
* http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMorzIBHmrA (Conversation about GNI on CSPAN w/ Michael Samway and Julien Sanchez)<br />
<br />
==== Text ====<br />
<br />
===== “Just the Facts” Reporting =====<br />
<br />
* http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7696356.stm<br />
<br />
* http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/28/technology/internet/28privacy.html?_r=1&oref=slogin<br />
<br />
==== Critiques ====<br />
<br />
* http://writ.news.findlaw.com/ramasastry/20081212.html (Anita Ramasastry, Associate Professor at University of Washington School of Law)<br />
<br />
* http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=29117 (Reporters without Borders, an NGO that was part of the talks but didn’t sign onto the GNI at the end)<br />
<br />
* http://www.eff.org/files/filenode/gni/signon_letter.txt (Electronic Frontier Foundation, an NGO that was part of the talks and did sign onto the GNI at the end)<br />
<br />
* http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060313/mackinnon (Rebecca MacKinnon, writing in The Nation before the GNI existed, discusses four companies' culpability and diagnoses a major flaw with GOFA)<br />
<br />
=== Links ===<br />
http://blogs.wsj.com/chinajournal/2008/10/28/parsing-the-google-yahoo-microsoft-global-network-initiative/<br />
<br />
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/30/magazine/30google-t.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink&adxnnlx=1229749063-T7qNc5xv9ZLDiLcjc8AZxQ&pagewanted=print<br />
<br />
http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/04/republican-hous.html<br />
<br />
http://rconversation.blogs.com/rconversation/2007/01/google_yahoo_mi.html<br />
<br />
http://www.circleid.com/posts/print/20081028_global_network_initiative/<br />
<br />
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/oct/30/amnesty-global-network-initiative<br />
<br />
http://www.economist.com/world/asia/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12783609<br />
<br />
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-a-santoro-and-wendy-goldberg/chinese-internet-censorsh_b_156212.html<br />
<br />
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10040152-38.html (Declan McCullagh of CNet News on Q6/17, including links to several leaked ITU documents)<br />
<br />
== Part II: Planning and Execution/The Week of the Class ==<br />
<br />
<div style="padding:0 1em; margin-left:1em; clear:both; width:66%; background:#ffc; border:1px dashed #575744;">Parts II and III cover the class as it played out, and represent entirely new material on this wiki. As a result, there are no yellow commentary boxes in these sections.</div><br />
<br />
=== The Lead-up to the Class ===<br />
<br />
The class was divided into six role-playing groups representing six constituencies with complaints about the manner in which free speech issues on the internet are currently handled. Group assignments fell naturally out of the existing divisions within the class - each role-playing group represented two of the discussion topic groups on the syllabus. Each group was emailed individually approximately seven days before the class date. The email explained the concept behind the class:<br />
<br />
<blockquote>For the Anonymity and Privacy class this coming week, we're going to run things slightly differently. The class will be divided into six groups, and each group will be given an identity as a participant in the ongoing global battle over anonymous speech online, as well as a series of unique readings giving some specialized background. Then, in class, we'll introduce some general background and then have an exercise involving both y'all and our guest. See the last page of the attachment for your readings.</blockquote><br />
<br />
As the text of the email suggests, each one contained an individualized reading for the associated group. See below for the attached readings:<br />
<br />
[http://iifap.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/group1readings.doc Group 1: The Vietnamese Government]<br />
<br />
[http://iifap.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/group2readings.doc Group 2: Vietnamese Pro-Democracy Bloggers]<br />
<br />
[http://iifap.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/group3readings.doc Group 3: The US Government]<br />
<br />
[http://iifap.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/group4readings.doc Group 4: Yahoo! (the most popular blogging service in Vietnam)]<br />
<br />
[http://iifap.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/group5readings.doc Group 5: Amnesty International]<br />
<br />
[http://iifap.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/group6readings.doc Group 6: The Chinese Government]<br />
<br />
=== The Day of the Class ===<br />
<br />
The room was reworked in order to remove barriers between students and facilitate discussion. The central classroom table was broken into constituent tables, each of which was placed along the outside wall of the class and topped with a name tag indicating the individual group which was expected to use that table as its base of operations. Chairs were placed inside the tables, rather than outside, to bring the groups closer to one another and the central discussion space within the classroom. (See the room plan, [http://iifap.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/room-plan.jpg here]. While it didn't work out exactly as pictured, the idea is the key.) Students were asked to begin the classroom seated at the tables associated with their role-playing groups so that the transition from the presentation and discussion to the simulation would be as seamless as possible.<br />
<br />
Conor opened the class with a Power Point presentation that reviewed the basic outline of the issues at hand. This served both as a refresher of the introductory reading material and as a point of reference for the groups within the simulation.<br />
<br />
+ Clip<br />
<br />
After the introduction, Dan moderated a conversation between two stakeholders in the current international contretemps over networked speech control issues: Colin Maclay of the Berkman Center and Andrew McLaughlin from Google. Colin discussed difficulties involved in creating the Global Network Initiative and acquiring more signatories, especially in Europe. Andrew discussed changes that he thought would help make the GNI more useful to individual users.<br />
<br />
+ Clip<br />
<br />
Once everyone was caught up to speed on the tensions which would have to be navigated in the simulation, Joshua explained the simulation to the participants. Groups were asked to develop a strategy for creating a widely acceptable solution to the "Open Networks, Closed Borders" problem, to discuss their solution with other groups and acquire partners, and then to present their revised solutions to the class at large. After feedback, the solutions would be voted upon by the members of the class.<br />
<br />
+ Clip<br />
<br />
The first 40 or so minutes of the hour-long simulation period was scheduled as follows:<br />
<br />
* 2 minutes: Explanation from the team<br />
* 5 minutes: Intra-group meetings to elect a recorder/presenter and to set strategy<br />
* 10 minutes: Inter-group meetings. Recorder/presenters stay in place while other members of the team (ambassadors) venture out to discuss the acceptability of proposals with both ambassadors and recorder/presenters from other groups.<br />
* 2 minutes: Groups are presented with a disruptor to ensure that each one remembers that other groups have different interests: in this case, a letter offering the opinion of select members of Congress regarding the issues at hand (an actual letter; visit [http://www.viettan.org/spip.php?article8428 this site] to see the text).<br />
* 5 minutes: Intra-group meetings to report back and revise solution proposals<br />
* 10 minutes: A second round of inter-group meetings<br />
* 2 minutes: To write up final solutions<br />
<br />
Each group was then given two minutes to present their final proposals to the class, and then Colin Maclay, team lead on the GNI project at the Berkman Center, offered feedback as to the viability and utility of each solution.<br />
<br />
The proposals:<br />
<br />
+ Clip<br />
<br />
Colin's feedback:<br />
<br />
+ Clip<br />
<br />
Originally, the voting was scheduled for the last five minutes of class, but proposal presentations and feedback exceeded the available time as it was, and so voting was pushed off into post-class time.<br />
<br />
=== After the Class ===<br />
<br />
After class, we gave all of the participants an opportunity to vote on the proposals via email. The email, which summarized the proposals as explained in class, is excerpted here:<br />
<br />
<blockquote><br />
Each of you (individually, but remaining in your role from the simulation) should rank the solutions listed below from most to least acceptable, and draw a line between "tolerable" and "intolerable" solutions from your point of view. For example:<br />
<p><br />
6 3 | 4 5 2 1 would indicate that you liked China's answer the best, could also live with Congress's, and found Vietnam's utterly unacceptable.<br />
</p><br />
<p><br />
The carrot: Your votes will inform the final writeup that we do for the class and for the GNI team.<br />
</p><br />
<p><br />
The stick: We will hound you mercilessly until you vote.<br />
</p><br />
<p><br />
Thanks again,<br />
The United Nations of IIF<br />
</p><br />
<p><br />
___________________________________________________________________<br />
</p><br />
<p><br />
'''Solution 1 (Vietnam):'''<br />
Vietnam is willing to accept the GNI principles and best practices, but will carry them out using its own laws and and due process protections. Companies operating within Vietnam must follow all its laws and heed its national security policy.<br />
</p><br />
<p><br />
'''Solution 2 (Bloggers):'''<br />
Vietnam should enact a DMCA-style (domestic) law that absolves bloggers from criminal liability for objectionable posts so long as they are timely removed. ISPs are also immune from liability so long as they cooperate in taking down objectionable content.<br />
</p><br />
<p><br />
'''Solution 3 (US Congress):'''<br />
Any ICT company turning information over to a foreign government must clear that disclosure with the US government, which will apply a compelling need standard. ICT companies who turn over information without permission are subject to sanction.<br />
</p><br />
<p><br />
'''Solution 4 (Yahoo!):'''<br />
Yahoo! proposes that individual conflicts be informally arbitrated by the individuals involved through a standardized process, and that irreconcilable conflicts be referred for binding arbitration to a special subcommittee of the WTO<br />
</p><br />
<p><br />
'''Solution 5 (Amnesty):'''<br />
AI proposes a network of pro bono lawyers in Vietnam, who will sue on behalf of targeted bloggers when ICT companies inform AI that they have received information requests. A review board is in place to permit other nations to pressure Vietnam if necessary.<br />
</p><br />
<p><br />
'''Solution 6 (China):'''<br />
Nations are only bound by treaties, and China is happy to opt out of anything the other groups agree on that would limit its sovereignty. Instead, it advocates the Q6/17 program, which would limit anonymity on the Internet layer.<br />
</p><br />
</blockquote><br />
<br />
As our team would have predicted, the teams, when asked to vote in character, voted largely for their own solutions. However, even among the second-choice solutions, no alternative was a clear favorite:<br />
<br />
{| border="1"<br />
|'''Team 1 (Vietnam):'''<br />
<br />
1 6 | 2 3 4 5<br />
<br />
1 2 | 6 4 5 3<br />
<br />
5 2 3 4 | 1 6<br />
<br />
5 1 | 2 4 6 3<br />
<br />
|'''Team 2 (Bloggers):'''<br />
<br />
2 1 3 5 | 4 6 <br />
<br />
2 5 3 4 | 6 1 <br />
<br />
2 3 4 5 | 6 1<br />
<br />
4 2 1 | 6 5 3<br />
<br />
|'''Team 3 (US Congress):'''<br />
<br />
3 | 1 2 5 4 6<br />
<br />
3 2 4 5 | 1 6<br />
<br />
6 5 4 3 | 2 1<br />
<br />
2 3 4 5 | 1 6<br />
<br />
|-<br />
<br />
|'''Team 4 (Yahoo!):'''<br />
<br />
4 5 2 3 1 6<br />
<br />
4 5 2 | 3 1 6<br />
<br />
4 1 2 5 3 6<br />
<br />
4 1 | 2 5 3 6<br />
<br />
4 1 5 6 | 2 3<br />
<br />
|'''Team 5 (Amnesty):'''<br />
<br />
5 4 1 3 2 6<br />
<br />
5 2 4 3 1 6<br />
<br />
4 3 5 2 1 6<br />
<br />
4 5 3 2 | 1 6<br />
<br />
2 4 5 | 3 1 6<br />
<br />
|align="top" |'''Team 6 (China):'''<br />
<br />
6 1 2 | 5 4 3<br />
<br />
6 2 1 | 5 4 3<br />
<br />
6 1 2 | 5 4 3<br />
|}<br />
<br />
As the voting results suggest, China and Vietnam were most interested in each others' solutions, and the same was largely true of Yahoo! and Amnesty International. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the team representing the US Congress was hopelessly confused. There was, however, a clear loser: the team 6 (China) solution implementing Q6/17 was overwhelmingly rejected as unacceptable.<br />
<br />
== Part III: Reactions and Discussion/Suggestions to Future Class Leaders ==<br />
<br />
=== Successes and Failures ===<br />
<br />
The class's discomfort with our shakeup of the standard IIF classroom layout - open seating in a large room with the students facing the speaker rather than each other - was immediately apparent. Their interest in the topic seemed to bring them back, however, and they remained engaged throughout the introduction and the discussion portions of the session.<br />
<br />
Our in-class discussion... '''ANYTHING ABOUT ANDREW BEING DIFFICULT TO CONTROL? THE LACK OF Q&A BETWEEN HIM AND THE CLASS?'''<br />
<br />
The simulation was popular with the class and brought a lot of energy into the session. Its efficacy as a pedagogical tool is unclear; while it may not have imparted any additional awareness of the complicated problems faced by negotiators in this field which had not already been discussed in the introduction, it did serve as an incentive to read (lest players be exposed for ignorance in front of their classmates), and also as a way of driving home the problem and making the class memorable. No solution emerging from the simulation achieved any kind of workable consensus. While this is, perhaps, unsurprising, it also suggests room for improvement in simulation design (about which more below).<br />
<br />
=== Role of Technology ===<br />
==== Introduction ====<br />
<br />
For our presentation, we turned to PowerPoint. '''CONOR, IS THERE ANYTHING TO SAY ABOUT THE UTILITY OF PP IN DEVISING THE PRESENTATION?'''<br />
<br />
==== Discussion ====<br />
<br />
Given Andrew McLaughlin's schedule constraints, we ultimately were forced to have him join the class from the airport. As a result, rather than leveraging traditional videoconferencing software, we turned to a laptop-based video client. We considered both Google Talk and Skype, and ultimately turned to '''HELP ME, DAN RAY, YOU'RE MY ONLY HOPE'''. <br />
<br />
==== Simulation ====<br />
<br />
Unlike many of the other IIF groups, our team decided not to make technology tools a central part of our class plan within the interactive portion of the class. Feeling that the class's early experiences using the question tool and Twitter in-class had been somewhat isolating, we decided to look for an innovative pedagogical tool which would jumpstart class discussion and force students to confront each other. Ultimately, we decided that the best choice was to have the class close their laptops entirely, and that our tool would be a classroom exercise rather than a technological innovation.<br />
<br />
This decision ultimately led to our decision to create the simulation, whose successes and failures are discussed above. Generally, however, we feel that the simulation was at least as successful as any network tool in involving the class - in fact, many of our voting query responses stated that class members found the exercise particularly enjoyable.<br />
<br />
=== Additional Suggestions for Future Classes ===<br />
<br />
==== Discussion ====<br />
<br />
'''SOMETHING?'''<br />
<br />
==== Simulation ====<br />
<br />
===== Timing =====<br />
In any future run of the simulation, we would first like to see additional time allocated to that portion of the evening. Ideally, we would offer participants an opportunity to present, to vote, and then to realize that groups' first choices were all their own solutions and to renegotiate accordingly. In order to do so, future instructors will likely have to make more than an hour available for the simulation portion of the class.<br />
<br />
===== Framing =====<br />
More importantly, "success" for purposes of the simulation should be defined in such a way as to encourage more cooperation. We made an effort to frame the discussion in terms of Lessig's New Chicago School tools for societal manipulation, in the hopes that the class would consider legal, normative, architectural, and market solutions. Ultimately, they did, but this focus on the mechanics of the solutions distracted from the need to continue to push the need for a consensus on values.<br />
<br />
One possibility is to increase the salience of a discussion of the values that a solution needs to embody. By explicitly judging solutions along these axes, students can gain a clearer understanding of the pluses and minuses of their solutions. In his critiques of the solutions as discussed in class, Colin Maclay suggested several such values:<br />
<br />
<blockquote><br />
<p><br />
''Efficacy'' - Is it likely to strike a balance that protects and advances expression and privacy so that it falls roughly in line with international human rights standards (which include exceptions for security/order, and health/morals) as well as national law? Can it be designed to improve over time? How does the approach recognize that while governments around the world (certainly not just China or Vietnam) engage in practices ranging from questionable to clearly wrong, there are legitimate functions performed by (virtually) all governments (law enforcement), and we generally expect good corporate citizenship in conducting them. To the extent we can identify them, instances of imminent harm are the easiest case, but working into less certain territory, we need an approach that allows companies to push back against government demands on some occasions and to comply with them on others. A nuanced process must be able to account for the spectrum of 'legitimate' expression standards around the world. That is, one that adhere to Andrew's test while also being capable of identifying cases where robust democracies like US, Australia, Italy and others may overreach and therefore require thoughtful pushback. The trick is developing a process that distinguishes between these cases and contexts.<br />
</p><br />
<p><br />
''Accountability'' - Verifying that actors are doing what they say they are. Even if, as in the case of the GNI, they do what they *should*, we must still anticipate that there will be incidents with bad endings. We need a means to determine whether that was a poor implementation on the company's or government's part, or a deficit in the law / standard / approach. For the GNI, accountability is also one of the core factors driving the NGO backing and support. Rather than a company or US-driven approach, this guarantees that human rights groups remain in the room, helping to shape the process, applying pressure where necessary (and where companies can't necessarily reach) -- especially regarding learning, compliance, communications, etc. This was a key consideration for GNI from the start. Indeed, Andrew's characterization of Google's concern around GNI being toothless/suffering from free riders is explicitly addressed by a robust accountability regime.<br />
</p><br />
<p><br />
''Scalability'' - The numbers of Internet users and uses continue to grow rapidly (especially if you include mobile devices), and whereas there was arguably little reason for a government to fear the Net in the past (eg, if <5% of the population was online), that seems to be changing. Not only are more folks online, but they are doing more while online - thus creating and sharing more content and information (intentionally and not). Just as we've seen censorship increase (as shown through Berkman's work in the OpenNet Initiative), it seems reasonable to expect requests for private information to increase as well. The solution must be able to account for not only new products and services developing by companies, but also new tactics and tools for censorship and monitoring by govts. It needs to be able to adapt to a constantly evolving landscape, with emerging risks and new hotspots that change rapidly. Best practices/helpful interventions are likely to change over time. This means that any solution has to be able to scale and evolve like the Internet itself, which would challenge in-country legal responses at scale, decision by US committee (as per GOFA) or int'l body, technical fixes, companies (check out http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/30/magazine/30google-t.html and consider how one current might approach scale), etc.<br />
</p><br />
<p><br />
''Transparency'' - Conveying some or all of what is happening (with consideration as to unintended consequences and appropriate handling of information), including the risks, is important for effective intervention on the part of the policymakers, advocacy organizations, business, and ultimately users (who decide what, if anything, they do online). Ideally, the process should generate empirical information, directly informed by company experience, in order to understand what's happening at scale, rather than by anecdote (which is all too often the case). This can also create a chain of accountability and an understanding of new/potential pressure points as they emerge over time.<br />
</p><br />
<p><br />
''Political Neutrality / Palatability'' - From the perspective of a foreign sovereign, is it reasonable for the USG to determine what people say and do on the Net, which laws are enforced, etc.? If there is a USG list of repressive states, won't that determination be subject to political pressures just as are USG human rights reporting, and congressional requirements to list countries' performance vis-a-vis supporting terrorism and drug trafficking? Is a UN body any more appealing / realistic; what about capture, inefficiency and typical US concerns?<br />
</p><br />
<p><br />
''Sustainability'' - Beyond scaling, how will this approach last over time and in the face of technological, cultural, legal and market change? How do you build it to adapt as the challenges morph, and (hopefully) as the opportunities emerge? Eg, if it's focuses purely on Internet rather than mobile or OSPs instead of ISPs, if deep-packet inspection is implemented, if rule of law advances everywhere but does not supports privacy or expression... What's the plan to generate resources to accomplish it (who pays)? What impact will political change have over time? Are there ways that collective action by companies in certain markets can incentivize other companies (local, competitors, etc) to adhere to similar standards? In terms of norms, what combination of companies willing to adhere to certain standards, governments, NGOs and users can create an environment that's both competitive and observant of human rights?<br />
</p><br />
</blockquote><br />
<br />
Our group would also add a few more:<br />
<br />
''Flexibility'' - How well does the solution <br />
<br />
More concretely, there is also the question of how the simulation could be designed to make students take these values into account, encourage more crossover voting, and ultimately promote the development of consensus solutions. As suggested above, we would recommend a second round of proposal writing after a first-round vote. An additional option would be to avoid fixed numbers of solutions, and to allow groups to come together and offer jointly authored answers to the problems raised in class. An alternative would be to <br />
<br />
===== Materials =====<br />
Many of our materials were keyed to the problems experienced in Vietnam over the course of the few months before our class session. We wanted to make our conflict as fresh as possible, and the readings that we offered to participants reflect that goal - almost all come from the last year, and many deal with extremely current events. To the extent that the questions raised in Vietnam in particular are overtaken by events, future instructors may wish to update the cases discussed therein, or to address problems in new and different international censorship regimes.<br />
<br />
To the extent that additional materials can be presented which will drive home the point of view of countries which view societal responsibility as a significantly more important value than freedom of speech, those materials will be particularly valuable. It is difficult for Americans, and particularly American law students, to realize exactly how far off the international consensus position on free speech the United States really is. Without some explanation of other countries' substantive challenges to our First Amendment jurisprudence, simulation participants may have some difficulty engaging with their roles. (Some of the participants viewed being Vietnam or China within the confines of the simulation as being "the bad guy," a statement which should at least be challenged by the materials, if not ultimately disproven.)</div>Jgruensphttps://cyber.harvard.edu/iif/?title=Open_Networks,_Closed_Regimes&diff=3116Open Networks, Closed Regimes2009-05-15T07:40:52Z<p>Jgruensp: </p>
<hr />
<div><!--<br />
How to make the yellow boxes:<br />
<br />
For the paragraph-sized boxes, use this code and place your text where it says "text":<br />
<br />
<div style="padding:1em; margin:1em 0 1em 31%; clear:both; background:#ffc; border:1px dashed #575744; width:66%; align:right;">text</div><br />
<br />
For the inline boxes, use this code and place your text where it says "text":<br />
<br />
<span style="border:1px dashed #575744; padding:0 .25em; margin:0 .25em; background:#ffc;">text</span><br />
<br />
/--><br />
<br />
<div style="float:right; padding:0 1em; margin-left:1em; clear:both; width:66%; background:#ffc; border:1px dashed #575744;"><p>This page documents a single class session on worldwide Internet restrictions taught by [[User:Jgruensp|Joshua Gruenspecht]], [[User:CKennedy|Conor Kennedy]], and [[User:Danray|Dan Ray]] in April 2009. We've filled it out with some background information and our reactions, in the hopes that it might be useful to someone else teaching a similar subject in the future. Special thanks go out to Caroline Nolan and Colin Maclay, who provided invaluable assistance both in the early days of planning the class and in the simulation setup. Thanks also to Andrew McLaughlin for taking time out of his schedule to join the class.</p><br />
<br />
<p>This page is a work in progress, and we encourage anyone to add to it. The wiki only permits registered users to edit it, but you can create a free, pseudonymous account using the link at the top right corner of the page. (You can copy our formatting or add your own; a template for the yellow annotations appears in an HTML comment at the top of the page source.)</p></div><br />
<br />
== Part I: Early Preparation/The Original Wiki ==<br />
<br />
=== Problem to be solved ===<br />
<br />
<br />
<div style="float:right; padding:0 1em; margin-left:1em; clear:both; width:66%; background:#ffc; border:1px dashed #575744;">Our students had access to an earlier version of this wiki page. For the information in this section, unformatted text indicates material that was available at the time of our presentation, and yellow boxes like this one are annotations added after the fact think of them like the director's commentary. The actual revision of the page at the time of the class session is [http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/iif/?title=Open_Networks%2C_Closed_Regimes&oldid=2204 here]</div>US-based internet services are used by citizens of every regime in the world. Western-based internet companies operate these services in many countries where governments routinely request or demand sensitive information about their citizens. How should high-level officers respond when their companies receive requests to turn over information which violate privacy and anonymity expectations? How can citizens, NGOs, and government actors influence the way these companies respond?<br />
<br />
=== Precis ===<br />
The idea of the internet service provider as a border-defying government-regulation-free jurisdiction was already dying in the 1990s, but the large-scale movement of internet services into regimes without free speech protections has raised serious concerns about managing cross-border privacy standards over the last five years. From Yahoo! turning over pro-democracy Chinese bloggers to the Chinese government, to Saudi Arabia tracking porn downloaders by pulling ISP records, to South Korea trying to arrest anonymous government critics, the problems are widespread and not restricted only to regimes that Americans are used to thinking of as "repressive." The globalization of internet services raises difficult questions: What requests for information are invasive? What kind of deference is due to local sovereignty? How can the competing demands best be balanced? How can the relevant stakeholders work toward achieving a proper balance?<br />
<br />
=== The Story So Far ===<br />
<br />
<div style="float:right; padding:0 1em; margin-left:1em; clear:both; width:66%; background:#ffc; border:1px dashed #575744;">This section constitutes the class's common ground, in that all students were expected to read it. It is intended to situate today's issues (including our simulated crisis) within the Internet's history, and to introduce the three major proposals we expected our simulation groups to cover.</div>Several weeks ago, our class read John Perry Barlow’s [http://homes.eff.org/~barlow/Declaration-Final.html Declaration of Independence of Cyberspace] <span style="border:1px dashed #575744; padding:0 .25em; margin:0 .25em; background:#ffc;">(this refers to the readings for an earlier class. It's probably not essential to assign it; this summary is plenty for our purposes.)</span>, written in 1996, in which he addresses the nations of the world and “declare[s] the global social space we are building to be naturally independent of the tyrannies you seek to impose on us.” For Barlow, perhaps the most important innovation of cyberspace was its ability to act as a great leveler: “We are creating a world that all may enter without privilege or prejudice accorded by race, economic power, military force, or station of birth. We are creating a world where anyone, anywhere may express his or her beliefs, no matter how singular, without fear of being coerced into silence or conformity.” As these lines imply, the key to this brave new world of Barlow’s was the possibility of anonymity (or pseudonymity): real-world barriers placed by normative biases or governmental controls could be hurdled by individuals joining online communities to express their provocative thoughts. Secure in the knowledge that their identities were divorced from their real-world selves, citizens of every nation could create the first truly free global marketplace of ideas.<br />
<br />
From well before Barlow’s Declaration, this idea of the Internet as an enabler of the anonymous expression of ideas was a well-established meme in the popular conception of the Internet, from Peter Steiner’s [http://www.unc.edu/depts/jomc/academics/dri/idog.jpg famous New Yorker cartoon] to the aphorism that “The net treats censorship as a defect and routes around it.” <span style="border:1px dashed #575744; padding:0 .25em; margin:0 .25em; background:#ffc;">This quote comes from [http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/archived_content/people/reagle/inet-quotations-19990709.html John Gilmore]</span> And just as quickly, people started to raise questions about whether a completely uncontrolled discourse was desirable – Larry Lessig famously [http://pdf.codev2.cc/Lessig-Codev2.pdf told the story] (see p. 102-106) of one anonymous student who single-handedly shut down Lessig’s first online classroom bulletin board by attacking his classmates with unstinting vitriol. The techno-libertarians remained adamant that online communities would develop mechanisms to cope with such problems, and that the benefits of being able to create a discussion area open to all comers – more freedom under repressive regimes, more frank discussion for every individual – would outweigh any drawbacks.<br />
<br />
However, the accuracy of the idea that the Internet need not respect terrestrial law was soon called into doubt. Tim Wu and Jack Goldsmith [http://books.google.com/books?id=Q01APcGmLB8C document] (see Chapter 1) the 2000 case in which Yahoo! attempted to resist a takedown request from the French government. After activists discovered Nazi merchandise for sale on a Yahoo! site, they appealed to the government to enforce the laws banning such material from being sold in France. Yahoo! protested that there was no way for it to identify traffic coming from France, and that to enforce the French laws would ultimately mean enforcing the lowest common denominator of all international law in all locations. However, having lost their case in the French courts in the face of expert testimony, and facing fines of 100,000 francs per day against their new French division, the company caved and admitted that IP addresses could be used to tell from what country a visitor came. This was a blow to the notion that the Internet was inherently resistant to national laws, but it was also a blow to the idea that users of the Internet were all faceless numbers – it soon became very clear that the companies that individuals did business with on the Internet knew plenty about their users, both in the form of information submitted by those users and in the form of other incidental data.<br />
<br />
Once those two facts were combined, it became clear that online service providers doing business internationally were vulnerable to economic threats if they failed to comply with local legal regimes by turning over nominally anonymous users. This acquired early public salience in 2004, when the Chinese government discovered that someone with a Yahoo! email account had forwarded to a US-based pro-democracy blogger an internal Communist party message warning of potential unrest which might arise from discussion of the fifteenth anniversary of the Tiananmen Square protests. China [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/4221538.stm demanded] that the company turn over any records relating to the disclosure of its state secrets, and Yahoo! complied without question. Chinese journalist Shi Tao was ultimately arrested and sentenced to ten years in prison. After the role played by Yahoo! was disclosed, the company became the subject of global outrage, castigated by pro-free-speech nonprofits and hauled before Congress to account for its actions. <span style="border:1px dashed #575744; padding:0 .25em; margin:0 .25em; background:#ffc;">As of 2009, Shi Tao remains imprisoned.</span> However, Yahoo! was merely the most visible of the companies involved in such disclosures – Amnesty International [http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/POL30/026/2006/en/dom-POL300262006en.pdf reports] that many of the largest international online service providers were implicated at the time and continue to wrestle with these issues.<br />
<br />
In recent years, similar cases have cropped up all over the world, from Africa to Asia to the Middle East, and even some American companies have [http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-10023104-71.html taken part] in using the disclosure-friendly laws of other countries to track down derogatory speakers. Many of these countries describe themselves as protecting themselves from the dangerous consequences of free speech: in January, South Korea [http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123178875223174403.html arrested] a blogger whose acerbic postings about government bureaucrats had supposedly undermined the population’s faith in the government’s ability to manage the global financial crisis. These governments say that free speech is always at war with social stability, as it was in Lessig’s classroom, and that they and Americans simply disagree on where the line must be drawn. At the same time, pro-democracy activists say that American companies and the American government aren’t doing enough work insisting upon the universality of American values.<br />
<br />
The most salient legislative response has been the [http://thomas.loc.gov/home/gpoxmlc110/h275_ih.xml Global Online Freedom Act] (GOFA), proposed by Representative Chris Smith (R-NJ). GOFA would require the State Department to track internet-restricting countries and then forbid US corporations from a) storing users’ personal data within the borders of those countries or b) turning over any personally identifiable information to law enforcement within those countries without first seeking the permission of the US Department of Justice. Many pro-free-speech non-profits have [http://www.rsf.org/print.php3?id_article=18304 praised] the GOFA bill as an [http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=24141 “advance for online free expression.”] Commentators have also [http://www.cdt.org/international/censorship/20080505gofa.pdf suggested], however, that it is unworkable in practice, and would in effect require US companies to cease doing meaningful business within such countries.<br />
<br />
Some corporations have pushed instead for a non-government-driven multi-stakeholder plan of action. Several of the largest American online service providers, including Microsoft, Google, and Yahoo!, have joined forces with the Berkman Center to develop the [http://www.globalnetworkinitiative.org/index.php Global Network Initiative] (GNI). The GNI lays out a set of universal [http://www.globalnetworkinitiative.org/principles/index.php principles] to be referenced when making difficult human rights decisions; it then gives [http://www.globalnetworkinitiative.org/implementationguidelines/index.php implementation guidance] to boards considering those principles on a case-by-case basis as requests for users' data come in. Some of the Congressional critics of these companies have been mollified by the evident progress. At the same time, some [http://writ.news.findlaw.com/ramasastry/20081212.html legal scholars] and [http://www.technewsworld.com/story/commentary/64972.html privacy specialists] (see Rotenberg quote <span style="border:1px dashed #575744; padding:0 .25em; margin:0 .25em; background:#ffc;">"It's good that companies are paying more attention to the need to safeguard fundamental rights on the Internet, but this proposal lacks specific recommendations and fails to address key concerns about the surveillance and censorship of Internet users"</span>) say the GNI is not widely enough accepted or equipped with severe enough penalties to make a serious difference.<br />
<br />
Meanwhile, countries wary of indiscriminate speech have started to look at alternatives of their own. This past year, the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), a specialized agency of the United Nations that deals with the regulation of international telecommunications issues, [http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10040152-38.html opened up] a study group on Question 6-17 (Q6/17). The Q6/17 group was chartered at the request of a state-owned Chinese telecommunications firm to [http://www.politechbot.com/docs/itu.china.internet.traceback.proposal.091108.doc investigate the feasibility] <span style="border:1px dashed #575744; padding:0 .25em; margin:0 .25em; background:#ffc;">link to .doc</span> of retrofitting the internet with Internet Protocol (IP) traceback technology. IP packets, the individual "envelopes" used to send information across the internet, are difficult, if not impossible, to follow back from their destination to their source. IP traceback technology would use new software and hardware to retrofit tracing mechanisms onto the internet as built, so as to make it easier to find the sender of a given message. The proponents of Q6/17 suggest that it could be used to make it more difficult to remotely infect computers with viruses or make anonymous threats online. Privacy specialists, however, suspect that the major purpose is to crack down on unwanted speech.<br />
<br />
=== Required Readings ===<br />
<br />
<div style="padding:0 1em; float:right; margin-left:1em; clear:both; width:66%; background:#ffc; border:1px dashed #575744;">In the spirit of a class in which different groups were meant to represent different constituencies with different backgrounds, we decided to move away from using the readings to get the class on the same page. Aside from the text above, which was assigned as introductory material, each group was assigned individualized readings to explain "their" point of view. As a result, we removed the Required Readings section of the page entirely, archiving it, as seen below. The Additional Readings section remained in place, for those students interested in a wider exploration of the issues. The individualized readings were emailed individually to the class groups, as discussed in [[#Part_II:_Planning_and_Execution.2FThe_Week_of_the_Class|Part II]].</div><br />
<br />
[[AnP Brainstorming|Early brainstorming on this topic]]<br />
<br />
=== Additional Readings ===<br />
<br />
(Some of these and additional readings will be broken down by simulation group)<br />
<br />
==== Audio: ====<br />
<br />
* http://rconversation.blogs.com/rconversation/2008/07/on-the-media-in.html (Episode of On The Media w/ Rebecca MacKinnon)<br />
<br />
==== Video ====<br />
<br />
* http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMorzIBHmrA (Conversation about GNI on CSPAN w/ Michael Samway and Julien Sanchez)<br />
<br />
==== Text ====<br />
<br />
===== “Just the Facts” Reporting =====<br />
<br />
* http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7696356.stm<br />
<br />
* http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/28/technology/internet/28privacy.html?_r=1&oref=slogin<br />
<br />
==== Critiques ====<br />
<br />
* http://writ.news.findlaw.com/ramasastry/20081212.html (Anita Ramasastry, Associate Professor at University of Washington School of Law)<br />
<br />
* http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=29117 (Reporters without Borders, an NGO that was part of the talks but didn’t sign onto the GNI at the end)<br />
<br />
* http://www.eff.org/files/filenode/gni/signon_letter.txt (Electronic Frontier Foundation, an NGO that was part of the talks and did sign onto the GNI at the end)<br />
<br />
* http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060313/mackinnon (Rebecca MacKinnon, writing in The Nation before the GNI existed, discusses four companies' culpability and diagnoses a major flaw with GOFA)<br />
<br />
=== Links ===<br />
http://blogs.wsj.com/chinajournal/2008/10/28/parsing-the-google-yahoo-microsoft-global-network-initiative/<br />
<br />
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/30/magazine/30google-t.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink&adxnnlx=1229749063-T7qNc5xv9ZLDiLcjc8AZxQ&pagewanted=print<br />
<br />
http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/04/republican-hous.html<br />
<br />
http://rconversation.blogs.com/rconversation/2007/01/google_yahoo_mi.html<br />
<br />
http://www.circleid.com/posts/print/20081028_global_network_initiative/<br />
<br />
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/oct/30/amnesty-global-network-initiative<br />
<br />
http://www.economist.com/world/asia/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12783609<br />
<br />
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-a-santoro-and-wendy-goldberg/chinese-internet-censorsh_b_156212.html<br />
<br />
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10040152-38.html (Declan McCullagh of CNet News on Q6/17, including links to several leaked ITU documents)<br />
<br />
== Part II: Planning and Execution/The Week of the Class ==<br />
<br />
<div style="padding:0 1em; margin-left:1em; clear:both; width:66%; background:#ffc; border:1px dashed #575744;">Parts II and III cover the class as it played out, and represent entirely new material on this wiki. As a result, there are no yellow commentary boxes in these sections.</div><br />
<br />
=== The Lead-up to the Class ===<br />
<br />
The class was divided into six role-playing groups representing six constituencies with complaints about the manner in which free speech issues on the internet are currently handled. Group assignments fell naturally out of the existing divisions within the class - each role-playing group represented two of the discussion topic groups on the syllabus. Each group was emailed individually approximately seven days before the class date. The email explained the concept behind the class:<br />
<br />
<blockquote>For the Anonymity and Privacy class this coming week, we're going to run things slightly differently. The class will be divided into six groups, and each group will be given an identity as a participant in the ongoing global battle over anonymous speech online, as well as a series of unique readings giving some specialized background. Then, in class, we'll introduce some general background and then have an exercise involving both y'all and our guest. See the last page of the attachment for your readings.</blockquote><br />
<br />
As the text of the email suggests, each one contained an individualized reading for the associated group. See below for the attached readings:<br />
<br />
[http://iifap.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/group1readings.doc Group 1: The Vietnamese Government]<br />
<br />
[http://iifap.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/group2readings.doc Group 2: Vietnamese Pro-Democracy Bloggers]<br />
<br />
[http://iifap.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/group3readings.doc Group 3: The US Government]<br />
<br />
[http://iifap.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/group4readings.doc Group 4: Yahoo! (the most popular blogging service in Vietnam)]<br />
<br />
[http://iifap.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/group5readings.doc Group 5: Amnesty International]<br />
<br />
[http://iifap.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/group6readings.doc Group 6: The Chinese Government]<br />
<br />
=== The Day of the Class ===<br />
<br />
The room was reworked in order to remove barriers between students and facilitate discussion. The central classroom table was broken into constituent tables, each of which was placed along the outside wall of the class and topped with a name tag indicating the individual group which was expected to use that table as its base of operations. Chairs were placed inside the tables, rather than outside, to bring the groups closer to one another and the central discussion space within the classroom. (See the room plan, [http://iifap.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/room-plan.jpg here]. While it didn't work out exactly as pictured, the idea is the key.) Students were asked to begin the classroom seated at the tables associated with their role-playing groups so that the transition from the presentation and discussion to the simulation would be as seamless as possible.<br />
<br />
Conor opened the class with a Power Point presentation that reviewed the basic outline of the issues at hand. This served both as a refresher of the introductory reading material and as a point of reference for the groups within the simulation.<br />
<br />
+ Clip<br />
<br />
After the introduction, Dan moderated a conversation between two stakeholders in the current international contretemps over networked speech control issues: Colin Maclay of the Berkman Center and Andrew McLaughlin from Google. Colin discussed difficulties involved in creating the Global Network Initiative and acquiring more signatories, especially in Europe. Andrew discussed changes that he thought would help make the GNI more useful to individual users.<br />
<br />
+ Clip<br />
<br />
Once everyone was caught up to speed on the tensions which would have to be navigated in the simulation, Joshua explained the simulation to the participants. Groups were asked to develop a strategy for creating a widely acceptable solution to the "Open Networks, Closed Borders" problem, to discuss their solution with other groups and acquire partners, and then to present their revised solutions to the class at large. After feedback, the solutions would be voted upon by the members of the class.<br />
<br />
+ Clip<br />
<br />
The first 40 or so minutes of the hour-long simulation period was scheduled as follows:<br />
<br />
* 2 minutes: Explanation from the team<br />
* 5 minutes: Intra-group meetings to elect a recorder/presenter and to set strategy<br />
* 10 minutes: Inter-group meetings. Recorder/presenters stay in place while other members of the team (ambassadors) venture out to discuss the acceptability of proposals with both ambassadors and recorder/presenters from other groups.<br />
* 2 minutes: Groups are presented with a disruptor to ensure that each one remembers that other groups have different interests: in this case, a letter offering the opinion of select members of Congress regarding the issues at hand (an actual letter; visit [http://www.viettan.org/spip.php?article8428 this site] to see the text).<br />
* 5 minutes: Intra-group meetings to report back and revise solution proposals<br />
* 10 minutes: A second round of inter-group meetings<br />
* 2 minutes: To write up final solutions<br />
<br />
Each group was then given two minutes to present their final proposals to the class, and then Colin Maclay, team lead on the GNI project at the Berkman Center, offered feedback as to the viability and utility of each solution.<br />
<br />
The proposals:<br />
<br />
+ Clip<br />
<br />
Colin's feedback:<br />
<br />
+ Clip<br />
<br />
Originally, the voting was scheduled for the last five minutes of class, but proposal presentations and feedback exceeded the available time as it was, and so voting was pushed off into post-class time.<br />
<br />
=== After the Class ===<br />
<br />
After class, we gave all of the participants an opportunity to vote on the proposals via email. The email, which summarized the proposals as explained in class, is excerpted here:<br />
<br />
<blockquote><br />
Each of you (individually, but remaining in your role from the simulation) should rank the solutions listed below from most to least acceptable, and draw a line between "tolerable" and "intolerable" solutions from your point of view. For example:<br />
<p><br />
6 3 | 4 5 2 1 would indicate that you liked China's answer the best, could also live with Congress's, and found Vietnam's utterly unacceptable.<br />
</p><br />
<p><br />
The carrot: Your votes will inform the final writeup that we do for the class and for the GNI team.<br />
</p><br />
<p><br />
The stick: We will hound you mercilessly until you vote.<br />
</p><br />
<p><br />
Thanks again,<br />
The United Nations of IIF<br />
</p><br />
<p><br />
___________________________________________________________________<br />
</p><br />
<p><br />
'''Solution 1 (Vietnam):'''<br />
Vietnam is willing to accept the GNI principles and best practices, but will carry them out using its own laws and and due process protections. Companies operating within Vietnam must follow all its laws and heed its national security policy.<br />
</p><br />
<p><br />
'''Solution 2 (Bloggers):'''<br />
Vietnam should enact a DMCA-style (domestic) law that absolves bloggers from criminal liability for objectionable posts so long as they are timely removed. ISPs are also immune from liability so long as they cooperate in taking down objectionable content.<br />
</p><br />
<p><br />
'''Solution 3 (US Congress):'''<br />
Any ICT company turning information over to a foreign government must clear that disclosure with the US government, which will apply a compelling need standard. ICT companies who turn over information without permission are subject to sanction.<br />
</p><br />
<p><br />
'''Solution 4 (Yahoo!):'''<br />
Yahoo! proposes that individual conflicts be informally arbitrated by the individuals involved through a standardized process, and that irreconcilable conflicts be referred for binding arbitration to a special subcommittee of the WTO<br />
</p><br />
<p><br />
'''Solution 5 (Amnesty):'''<br />
AI proposes a network of pro bono lawyers in Vietnam, who will sue on behalf of targeted bloggers when ICT companies inform AI that they have received information requests. A review board is in place to permit other nations to pressure Vietnam if necessary.<br />
</p><br />
<p><br />
'''Solution 6 (China):'''<br />
Nations are only bound by treaties, and China is happy to opt out of anything the other groups agree on that would limit its sovereignty. Instead, it advocates the Q6/17 program, which would limit anonymity on the Internet layer.<br />
</p><br />
</blockquote><br />
<br />
As our team would have predicted, the teams, when asked to vote in character, voted largely for their own solutions. However, even among the second-choice solutions, no alternative was a clear favorite:<br />
<br />
{| border="1"<br />
|'''Team 1 (Vietnam):'''<br />
<br />
1 6 | 2 3 4 5<br />
<br />
1 2 | 6 4 5 3<br />
<br />
5 2 3 4 | 1 6<br />
<br />
5 1 | 2 4 6 3<br />
<br />
|'''Team 2 (Bloggers):'''<br />
<br />
2 1 3 5 | 4 6 <br />
<br />
2 5 3 4 | 6 1 <br />
<br />
2 3 4 5 | 6 1<br />
<br />
4 2 1 | 6 5 3<br />
<br />
|'''Team 3 (US Congress):'''<br />
<br />
3 | 1 2 5 4 6<br />
<br />
3 2 4 5 | 1 6<br />
<br />
6 5 4 3 | 2 1<br />
<br />
2 3 4 5 | 1 6<br />
<br />
|-<br />
<br />
|'''Team 4 (Yahoo!):'''<br />
<br />
4 5 2 3 1 6<br />
<br />
4 5 2 | 3 1 6<br />
<br />
4 1 2 5 3 6<br />
<br />
4 1 | 2 5 3 6<br />
<br />
4 1 5 6 | 2 3<br />
<br />
|'''Team 5 (Amnesty):'''<br />
<br />
5 4 1 3 2 6<br />
<br />
5 2 4 3 1 6<br />
<br />
4 3 5 2 1 6<br />
<br />
4 5 3 2 | 1 6<br />
<br />
2 4 5 | 3 1 6<br />
<br />
|align="top" |'''Team 6 (China):'''<br />
<br />
6 1 2 | 5 4 3<br />
<br />
6 2 1 | 5 4 3<br />
<br />
6 1 2 | 5 4 3<br />
|}<br />
<br />
As the voting results suggest, China and Vietnam were most interested in each others' solutions, and the same was largely true of Yahoo! and Amnesty International. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the team representing the US Congress was hopelessly confused. There was, however, a clear loser: the team 6 (China) solution implementing Q6/17 was overwhelmingly rejected as unacceptable.<br />
<br />
== Part III: Reactions and Discussion/Suggestions to Future Class Leaders ==<br />
<br />
=== Successes and Failures ===<br />
<br />
The class's discomfort with our shakeup of the standard IIF classroom layout - open seating in a large room with the students facing the speaker rather than each other - was immediately apparent. Their interest in the topic seemed to bring them back, however, and they remained engaged throughout the introduction and the discussion portions of the session.<br />
<br />
Our in-class discussion... '''ANYTHING ABOUT ANDREW BEING DIFFICULT TO CONTROL? THE LACK OF Q&A BETWEEN HIM AND THE CLASS?'''<br />
<br />
The simulation was popular with the class and brought a lot of energy into the session. Its efficacy as a pedagogical tool is unclear; while it may not have imparted any additional awareness of the complicated problems faced by negotiators in this field which had not already been discussed in the introduction, it did serve as an incentive to read (lest players be exposed for ignorance in front of their classmates), and also as a way of driving home the problem and making the class memorable. No solution emerging from the simulation achieved any kind of workable consensus. While this is, perhaps, unsurprising, it also suggests room for improvement in simulation design (about which more below).<br />
<br />
=== Role of Technology ===<br />
==== Introduction ====<br />
<br />
For our presentation, we turned to PowerPoint. '''CONOR, IS THERE ANYTHING TO SAY ABOUT THE UTILITY OF PP IN DEVISING THE PRESENTATION?'''<br />
<br />
==== Discussion ====<br />
<br />
Given Andrew McLaughlin's schedule constraints, we ultimately were forced to have him join the class from the airport. As a result, rather than leveraging traditional videoconferencing software, we turned to a laptop-based video client. We considered both Google Talk and Skype, and ultimately turned to '''HELP ME, DAN RAY, YOU'RE MY ONLY HOPE'''. <br />
<br />
==== Simulation ====<br />
<br />
Unlike many of the other IIF groups, our team decided not to make technology tools a central part of our class plan within the interactive portion of the class. Feeling that the class's early experiences using the question tool and Twitter in-class had been somewhat isolating, we decided to look for an innovative pedagogical tool which would jumpstart class discussion and force students to confront each other. Ultimately, we decided that the best choice was to have the class close their laptops entirely, and that our tool would be a classroom exercise rather than a technological innovation.<br />
<br />
This decision ultimately led to our decision to create the simulation, whose successes and failures are discussed above. Generally, however, we feel that the simulation was at least as successful as any network tool in involving the class - in fact, many of our voting query responses stated that class members found the exercise particularly enjoyable.<br />
<br />
=== Additional Suggestions for Future Classes ===</div>Jgruensphttps://cyber.harvard.edu/iif/?title=Open_Networks,_Closed_Regimes&diff=3115Open Networks, Closed Regimes2009-05-15T07:09:57Z<p>Jgruensp: /* Part II: Planning and Execution/The Week of the Class */</p>
<hr />
<div><!--<br />
How to make the yellow boxes:<br />
<br />
For the paragraph-sized boxes, use this code and place your text where it says "text":<br />
<br />
<div style="padding:1em; margin:1em 0 1em 31%; clear:both; background:#ffc; border:1px dashed #575744; width:66%; align:right;">text</div><br />
<br />
For the inline boxes, use this code and place your text where it says "text":<br />
<br />
<span style="border:1px dashed #575744; padding:0 .25em; margin:0 .25em; background:#ffc;">text</span><br />
<br />
/--><br />
<br />
<div style="float:right; padding:0 1em; margin-left:1em; clear:both; width:66%; background:#ffc; border:1px dashed #575744;"><p>This page documents a single class session on worldwide Internet restrictions taught by [[User:Jgruensp|Joshua Gruenspecht]], [[User:CKennedy|Conor Kennedy]], and [[User:Danray|Dan Ray]] in April 2009. We've filled it out with some background information and our reactions, in the hopes that it might be useful to someone else teaching a similar subject in the future. Special thanks go out to Caroline Nolan and Colin Maclay, who provided invaluable assistance both in the early days of planning the class and in the simulation setup. Thanks also to Andrew McLaughlin for taking time out of his schedule to join the class.</p><br />
<br />
<p>This page is a work in progress, and we encourage anyone to add to it. The wiki only permits registered users to edit it, but you can create a free, pseudonymous account using the link at the top right corner of the page. (You can copy our formatting or add your own; a template for the yellow annotations appears in an HTML comment at the top of the page source.)</p></div><br />
<br />
== Part I: Early Preparation/The Original Wiki ==<br />
<br />
=== Problem to be solved ===<br />
<br />
<br />
<div style="float:right; padding:0 1em; margin-left:1em; clear:both; width:66%; background:#ffc; border:1px dashed #575744;">Our students had access to an earlier version of this wiki page. For the information in this section, unformatted text indicates material that was available at the time of our presentation, and yellow boxes like this one are annotations added after the fact think of them like the director's commentary. The actual revision of the page at the time of the class session is [http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/iif/?title=Open_Networks%2C_Closed_Regimes&oldid=2204 here]</div>US-based internet services are used by citizens of every regime in the world. Western-based internet companies operate these services in many countries where governments routinely request or demand sensitive information about their citizens. How should high-level officers respond when their companies receive requests to turn over information which violate privacy and anonymity expectations? How can citizens, NGOs, and government actors influence the way these companies respond?<br />
<br />
=== Precis ===<br />
The idea of the internet service provider as a border-defying government-regulation-free jurisdiction was already dying in the 1990s, but the large-scale movement of internet services into regimes without free speech protections has raised serious concerns about managing cross-border privacy standards over the last five years. From Yahoo! turning over pro-democracy Chinese bloggers to the Chinese government, to Saudi Arabia tracking porn downloaders by pulling ISP records, to South Korea trying to arrest anonymous government critics, the problems are widespread and not restricted only to regimes that Americans are used to thinking of as "repressive." The globalization of internet services raises difficult questions: What requests for information are invasive? What kind of deference is due to local sovereignty? How can the competing demands best be balanced? How can the relevant stakeholders work toward achieving a proper balance?<br />
<br />
=== The Story So Far ===<br />
<br />
<div style="float:right; padding:0 1em; margin-left:1em; clear:both; width:66%; background:#ffc; border:1px dashed #575744;">This section constitutes the class's common ground, in that all students were expected to read it. It is intended to situate today's issues (including our simulated crisis) within the Internet's history, and to introduce the three major proposals we expected our simulation groups to cover.</div>Several weeks ago, our class read John Perry Barlow’s [http://homes.eff.org/~barlow/Declaration-Final.html Declaration of Independence of Cyberspace] <span style="border:1px dashed #575744; padding:0 .25em; margin:0 .25em; background:#ffc;">(this refers to the readings for an earlier class. It's probably not essential to assign it; this summary is plenty for our purposes.)</span>, written in 1996, in which he addresses the nations of the world and “declare[s] the global social space we are building to be naturally independent of the tyrannies you seek to impose on us.” For Barlow, perhaps the most important innovation of cyberspace was its ability to act as a great leveler: “We are creating a world that all may enter without privilege or prejudice accorded by race, economic power, military force, or station of birth. We are creating a world where anyone, anywhere may express his or her beliefs, no matter how singular, without fear of being coerced into silence or conformity.” As these lines imply, the key to this brave new world of Barlow’s was the possibility of anonymity (or pseudonymity): real-world barriers placed by normative biases or governmental controls could be hurdled by individuals joining online communities to express their provocative thoughts. Secure in the knowledge that their identities were divorced from their real-world selves, citizens of every nation could create the first truly free global marketplace of ideas.<br />
<br />
From well before Barlow’s Declaration, this idea of the Internet as an enabler of the anonymous expression of ideas was a well-established meme in the popular conception of the Internet, from Peter Steiner’s [http://www.unc.edu/depts/jomc/academics/dri/idog.jpg famous New Yorker cartoon] to the aphorism that “The net treats censorship as a defect and routes around it.” <span style="border:1px dashed #575744; padding:0 .25em; margin:0 .25em; background:#ffc;">This quote comes from [http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/archived_content/people/reagle/inet-quotations-19990709.html John Gilmore]</span> And just as quickly, people started to raise questions about whether a completely uncontrolled discourse was desirable – Larry Lessig famously [http://pdf.codev2.cc/Lessig-Codev2.pdf told the story] (see p. 102-106) of one anonymous student who single-handedly shut down Lessig’s first online classroom bulletin board by attacking his classmates with unstinting vitriol. The techno-libertarians remained adamant that online communities would develop mechanisms to cope with such problems, and that the benefits of being able to create a discussion area open to all comers – more freedom under repressive regimes, more frank discussion for every individual – would outweigh any drawbacks.<br />
<br />
However, the accuracy of the idea that the Internet need not respect terrestrial law was soon called into doubt. Tim Wu and Jack Goldsmith [http://books.google.com/books?id=Q01APcGmLB8C document] (see Chapter 1) the 2000 case in which Yahoo! attempted to resist a takedown request from the French government. After activists discovered Nazi merchandise for sale on a Yahoo! site, they appealed to the government to enforce the laws banning such material from being sold in France. Yahoo! protested that there was no way for it to identify traffic coming from France, and that to enforce the French laws would ultimately mean enforcing the lowest common denominator of all international law in all locations. However, having lost their case in the French courts in the face of expert testimony, and facing fines of 100,000 francs per day against their new French division, the company caved and admitted that IP addresses could be used to tell from what country a visitor came. This was a blow to the notion that the Internet was inherently resistant to national laws, but it was also a blow to the idea that users of the Internet were all faceless numbers – it soon became very clear that the companies that individuals did business with on the Internet knew plenty about their users, both in the form of information submitted by those users and in the form of other incidental data.<br />
<br />
Once those two facts were combined, it became clear that online service providers doing business internationally were vulnerable to economic threats if they failed to comply with local legal regimes by turning over nominally anonymous users. This acquired early public salience in 2004, when the Chinese government discovered that someone with a Yahoo! email account had forwarded to a US-based pro-democracy blogger an internal Communist party message warning of potential unrest which might arise from discussion of the fifteenth anniversary of the Tiananmen Square protests. China [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/4221538.stm demanded] that the company turn over any records relating to the disclosure of its state secrets, and Yahoo! complied without question. Chinese journalist Shi Tao was ultimately arrested and sentenced to ten years in prison. After the role played by Yahoo! was disclosed, the company became the subject of global outrage, castigated by pro-free-speech nonprofits and hauled before Congress to account for its actions. <span style="border:1px dashed #575744; padding:0 .25em; margin:0 .25em; background:#ffc;">As of 2009, Shi Tao remains imprisoned.</span> However, Yahoo! was merely the most visible of the companies involved in such disclosures – Amnesty International [http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/POL30/026/2006/en/dom-POL300262006en.pdf reports] that many of the largest international online service providers were implicated at the time and continue to wrestle with these issues.<br />
<br />
In recent years, similar cases have cropped up all over the world, from Africa to Asia to the Middle East, and even some American companies have [http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-10023104-71.html taken part] in using the disclosure-friendly laws of other countries to track down derogatory speakers. Many of these countries describe themselves as protecting themselves from the dangerous consequences of free speech: in January, South Korea [http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123178875223174403.html arrested] a blogger whose acerbic postings about government bureaucrats had supposedly undermined the population’s faith in the government’s ability to manage the global financial crisis. These governments say that free speech is always at war with social stability, as it was in Lessig’s classroom, and that they and Americans simply disagree on where the line must be drawn. At the same time, pro-democracy activists say that American companies and the American government aren’t doing enough work insisting upon the universality of American values.<br />
<br />
The most salient legislative response has been the [http://thomas.loc.gov/home/gpoxmlc110/h275_ih.xml Global Online Freedom Act] (GOFA), proposed by Representative Chris Smith (R-NJ). GOFA would require the State Department to track internet-restricting countries and then forbid US corporations from a) storing users’ personal data within the borders of those countries or b) turning over any personally identifiable information to law enforcement within those countries without first seeking the permission of the US Department of Justice. Many pro-free-speech non-profits have [http://www.rsf.org/print.php3?id_article=18304 praised] the GOFA bill as an [http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=24141 “advance for online free expression.”] Commentators have also [http://www.cdt.org/international/censorship/20080505gofa.pdf suggested], however, that it is unworkable in practice, and would in effect require US companies to cease doing meaningful business within such countries.<br />
<br />
Some corporations have pushed instead for a non-government-driven multi-stakeholder plan of action. Several of the largest American online service providers, including Microsoft, Google, and Yahoo!, have joined forces with the Berkman Center to develop the [http://www.globalnetworkinitiative.org/index.php Global Network Initiative] (GNI). The GNI lays out a set of universal [http://www.globalnetworkinitiative.org/principles/index.php principles] to be referenced when making difficult human rights decisions; it then gives [http://www.globalnetworkinitiative.org/implementationguidelines/index.php implementation guidance] to boards considering those principles on a case-by-case basis as requests for users' data come in. Some of the Congressional critics of these companies have been mollified by the evident progress. At the same time, some [http://writ.news.findlaw.com/ramasastry/20081212.html legal scholars] and [http://www.technewsworld.com/story/commentary/64972.html privacy specialists] (see Rotenberg quote <span style="border:1px dashed #575744; padding:0 .25em; margin:0 .25em; background:#ffc;">"It's good that companies are paying more attention to the need to safeguard fundamental rights on the Internet, but this proposal lacks specific recommendations and fails to address key concerns about the surveillance and censorship of Internet users"</span>) say the GNI is not widely enough accepted or equipped with severe enough penalties to make a serious difference.<br />
<br />
Meanwhile, countries wary of indiscriminate speech have started to look at alternatives of their own. This past year, the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), a specialized agency of the United Nations that deals with the regulation of international telecommunications issues, [http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10040152-38.html opened up] a study group on Question 6-17 (Q6/17). The Q6/17 group was chartered at the request of a state-owned Chinese telecommunications firm to [http://www.politechbot.com/docs/itu.china.internet.traceback.proposal.091108.doc investigate the feasibility] <span style="border:1px dashed #575744; padding:0 .25em; margin:0 .25em; background:#ffc;">link to .doc</span> of retrofitting the internet with Internet Protocol (IP) traceback technology. IP packets, the individual "envelopes" used to send information across the internet, are difficult, if not impossible, to follow back from their destination to their source. IP traceback technology would use new software and hardware to retrofit tracing mechanisms onto the internet as built, so as to make it easier to find the sender of a given message. The proponents of Q6/17 suggest that it could be used to make it more difficult to remotely infect computers with viruses or make anonymous threats online. Privacy specialists, however, suspect that the major purpose is to crack down on unwanted speech.<br />
<br />
=== Required Readings ===<br />
<br />
<div style="padding:0 1em; float:right; margin-left:1em; clear:both; width:66%; background:#ffc; border:1px dashed #575744;">In the spirit of a class in which different groups were meant to represent different constituencies with different backgrounds, we decided to move away from using the readings to get the class on the same page. Aside from the text above, which was assigned as introductory material, each group was assigned individualized readings to explain "their" point of view. As a result, we removed the Required Readings section of the page entirely, archiving it, as seen below. The Additional Readings section remained in place, for those students interested in a wider exploration of the issues. The individualized readings were emailed individually to the class groups, as discussed in [[#Part_II:_Planning_and_Execution.2FThe_Week_of_the_Class|Part II]].</div><br />
<br />
[[AnP Brainstorming|Early brainstorming on this topic]]<br />
<br />
=== Additional Readings ===<br />
<br />
(Some of these and additional readings will be broken down by simulation group)<br />
<br />
==== Audio: ====<br />
<br />
* http://rconversation.blogs.com/rconversation/2008/07/on-the-media-in.html (Episode of On The Media w/ Rebecca MacKinnon)<br />
<br />
==== Video ====<br />
<br />
* http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMorzIBHmrA (Conversation about GNI on CSPAN w/ Michael Samway and Julien Sanchez)<br />
<br />
==== Text ====<br />
<br />
===== “Just the Facts” Reporting =====<br />
<br />
* http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7696356.stm<br />
<br />
* http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/28/technology/internet/28privacy.html?_r=1&oref=slogin<br />
<br />
==== Critiques ====<br />
<br />
* http://writ.news.findlaw.com/ramasastry/20081212.html (Anita Ramasastry, Associate Professor at University of Washington School of Law)<br />
<br />
* http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=29117 (Reporters without Borders, an NGO that was part of the talks but didn’t sign onto the GNI at the end)<br />
<br />
* http://www.eff.org/files/filenode/gni/signon_letter.txt (Electronic Frontier Foundation, an NGO that was part of the talks and did sign onto the GNI at the end)<br />
<br />
* http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060313/mackinnon (Rebecca MacKinnon, writing in The Nation before the GNI existed, discusses four companies' culpability and diagnoses a major flaw with GOFA)<br />
<br />
=== Links ===<br />
http://blogs.wsj.com/chinajournal/2008/10/28/parsing-the-google-yahoo-microsoft-global-network-initiative/<br />
<br />
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/30/magazine/30google-t.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink&adxnnlx=1229749063-T7qNc5xv9ZLDiLcjc8AZxQ&pagewanted=print<br />
<br />
http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/04/republican-hous.html<br />
<br />
http://rconversation.blogs.com/rconversation/2007/01/google_yahoo_mi.html<br />
<br />
http://www.circleid.com/posts/print/20081028_global_network_initiative/<br />
<br />
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/oct/30/amnesty-global-network-initiative<br />
<br />
http://www.economist.com/world/asia/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12783609<br />
<br />
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-a-santoro-and-wendy-goldberg/chinese-internet-censorsh_b_156212.html<br />
<br />
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10040152-38.html (Declan McCullagh of CNet News on Q6/17, including links to several leaked ITU documents)<br />
<br />
== Part II: Planning and Execution/The Week of the Class ==<br />
<br />
<div style="padding:0 1em; margin-left:1em; clear:both; width:66%; background:#ffc; border:1px dashed #575744;">Parts II and III cover the class as it played out, and represent entirely new material on this wiki. As a result, there are no yellow commentary boxes in these sections.</div><br />
<br />
=== The Lead-up to the Class ===<br />
<br />
The class was divided into six role-playing groups representing six constituencies with complaints about the manner in which free speech issues on the internet are currently handled. Group assignments fell naturally out of the existing divisions within the class - each role-playing group represented two of the discussion topic groups on the syllabus. Each group was emailed individually approximately seven days before the class date. The email explained the concept behind the class:<br />
<br />
<blockquote>For the Anonymity and Privacy class this coming week, we're going to run things slightly differently. The class will be divided into six groups, and each group will be given an identity as a participant in the ongoing global battle over anonymous speech online, as well as a series of unique readings giving some specialized background. Then, in class, we'll introduce some general background and then have an exercise involving both y'all and our guest. See the last page of the attachment for your readings.</blockquote><br />
<br />
As the text of the email suggests, each one contained an individualized reading for the associated group. See below for the attached readings:<br />
<br />
[http://iifap.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/group1readings.doc Group 1: The Vietnamese Government]<br />
<br />
[http://iifap.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/group2readings.doc Group 2: Vietnamese Pro-Democracy Bloggers]<br />
<br />
[http://iifap.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/group3readings.doc Group 3: The US Government]<br />
<br />
[http://iifap.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/group4readings.doc Group 4: Yahoo! (the most popular blogging service in Vietnam)]<br />
<br />
[http://iifap.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/group5readings.doc Group 5: Amnesty International]<br />
<br />
[http://iifap.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/group6readings.doc Group 6: The Chinese Government]<br />
<br />
=== The Day of the Class ===<br />
<br />
The room was reworked in order to remove barriers between students and facilitate discussion. The central classroom table was broken into constituent tables, each of which was placed along the outside wall of the class and topped with a name tag indicating the individual group which was expected to use that table as its base of operations. Chairs were placed inside the tables, rather than outside, to bring the groups closer to one another and the central discussion space within the classroom. (See the room plan, [http://iifap.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/room-plan.jpg here]. While it didn't work out exactly as pictured, the idea is the key.) Students were asked to begin the classroom seated at the tables associated with their role-playing groups so that the transition from the presentation and discussion to the simulation would be as seamless as possible.<br />
<br />
Conor opened the class with a Power Point presentation that reviewed the basic outline of the issues at hand. This served both as a refresher of the introductory reading material and as a point of reference for the groups within the simulation.<br />
<br />
+ Clip<br />
<br />
After the introduction, Dan moderated a conversation between two stakeholders in the current international contretemps over networked speech control issues: Colin Maclay of the Berkman Center and Andrew McLaughlin from Google. Colin discussed difficulties involved in creating the Global Network Initiative and acquiring more signatories, especially in Europe. Andrew discussed changes that he thought would help make the GNI more useful to individual users.<br />
<br />
+ Clip<br />
<br />
Once everyone was caught up to speed on the tensions which would have to be navigated in the simulation, Joshua explained the simulation to the participants. Groups were asked to develop a strategy for creating a widely acceptable solution to the "Open Networks, Closed Borders" problem, to discuss their solution with other groups and acquire partners, and then to present their revised solutions to the class at large. After feedback, the solutions would be voted upon by the members of the class.<br />
<br />
+ Clip<br />
<br />
The first 40 or so minutes of the hour-long simulation period was scheduled as follows:<br />
<br />
* 2 minutes: Explanation from the team<br />
* 5 minutes: Intra-group meetings to elect a recorder/presenter and to set strategy<br />
* 10 minutes: Inter-group meetings. Recorder/presenters stay in place while other members of the team (ambassadors) venture out to discuss the acceptability of proposals with both ambassadors and recorder/presenters from other groups.<br />
* 2 minutes: Groups are presented with a disruptor to ensure that each one remembers that other groups have different interests: in this case, a letter offering the opinion of select members of Congress regarding the issues at hand (an actual letter; visit [http://www.viettan.org/spip.php?article8428 this site] to see the text).<br />
* 5 minutes: Intra-group meetings to report back and revise solution proposals<br />
* 10 minutes: A second round of inter-group meetings<br />
* 2 minutes: To write up final solutions<br />
<br />
Each group was then given two minutes to present their final proposals to the class, and then Colin Maclay, team lead on the GNI project at the Berkman Center, offered feedback as to the viability and utility of each solution.<br />
<br />
The proposals:<br />
<br />
+ Clip<br />
<br />
Colin's feedback:<br />
<br />
+ Clip<br />
<br />
Originally, the voting was scheduled for the last five minutes of class, but proposal presentations and feedback exceeded the available time as it was, and so voting was pushed off into post-class time.<br />
<br />
=== After the Class ===<br />
<br />
After class, we gave all of the participants an opportunity to vote on the proposals via email. The email, which summarized the proposals as explained in class, is excerpted here:<br />
<br />
<blockquote><br />
Each of you (individually, but remaining in your role from the simulation) should rank the solutions listed below from most to least acceptable, and draw a line between "tolerable" and "intolerable" solutions from your point of view. For example:<br />
<p><br />
6 3 | 4 5 2 1 would indicate that you liked China's answer the best, could also live with Congress's, and found Vietnam's utterly unacceptable.<br />
</p><br />
<p><br />
The carrot: Your votes will inform the final writeup that we do for the class and for the GNI team.<br />
</p><br />
<p><br />
The stick: We will hound you mercilessly until you vote.<br />
</p><br />
<p><br />
Thanks again,<br />
The United Nations of IIF<br />
</p><br />
<p><br />
___________________________________________________________________<br />
</p><br />
<p><br />
'''Solution 1 (Vietnam):'''<br />
Vietnam is willing to accept the GNI principles and best practices, but will carry them out using its own laws and and due process protections. Companies operating within Vietnam must follow all its laws and heed its national security policy.<br />
</p><br />
<p><br />
'''Solution 2 (Bloggers):'''<br />
Vietnam should enact a DMCA-style (domestic) law that absolves bloggers from criminal liability for objectionable posts so long as they are timely removed. ISPs are also immune from liability so long as they cooperate in taking down objectionable content.<br />
</p><br />
<p><br />
'''Solution 3 (US Congress):'''<br />
Any ICT company turning information over to a foreign government must clear that disclosure with the US government, which will apply a compelling need standard. ICT companies who turn over information without permission are subject to sanction.<br />
</p><br />
<p><br />
'''Solution 4 (Yahoo!):'''<br />
Yahoo! proposes that individual conflicts be informally arbitrated by the individuals involved through a standardized process, and that irreconcilable conflicts be referred for binding arbitration to a special subcommittee of the WTO<br />
</p><br />
<p><br />
'''Solution 5 (Amnesty):'''<br />
AI proposes a network of pro bono lawyers in Vietnam, who will sue on behalf of targeted bloggers when ICT companies inform AI that they have received information requests. A review board is in place to permit other nations to pressure Vietnam if necessary.<br />
</p><br />
<p><br />
'''Solution 6 (China):'''<br />
Nations are only bound by treaties, and China is happy to opt out of anything the other groups agree on that would limit its sovereignty. Instead, it advocates the Q6/17 program, which would limit anonymity on the Internet layer.<br />
</p><br />
</blockquote><br />
<br />
As our team would have predicted, the teams, when asked to vote in character, voted largely for their own solutions. However, even among the second-choice solutions, no alternative was a clear favorite:<br />
<br />
{| border="1"<br />
|'''Team 1 (Vietnam):'''<br />
<br />
1 6 | 2 3 4 5<br />
<br />
1 2 | 6 4 5 3<br />
<br />
5 2 3 4 | 1 6<br />
<br />
5 1 | 2 4 6 3<br />
<br />
|'''Team 2 (Bloggers):'''<br />
<br />
2 1 3 5 | 4 6 <br />
<br />
2 5 3 4 | 6 1 <br />
<br />
2 3 4 5 | 6 1<br />
<br />
4 2 1 | 6 5 3<br />
<br />
|'''Team 3 (US Congress):'''<br />
<br />
3 | 1 2 5 4 6<br />
<br />
3 2 4 5 | 1 6<br />
<br />
6 5 4 3 | 2 1<br />
<br />
2 3 4 5 | 1 6<br />
<br />
|-<br />
<br />
|'''Team 4 (Yahoo!):'''<br />
<br />
4 5 2 3 1 6<br />
<br />
4 5 2 | 3 1 6<br />
<br />
4 1 2 5 3 6<br />
<br />
4 1 | 2 5 3 6<br />
<br />
4 1 5 6 | 2 3<br />
<br />
|'''Team 5 (Amnesty):'''<br />
<br />
5 4 1 3 2 6<br />
<br />
5 2 4 3 1 6<br />
<br />
4 3 5 2 1 6<br />
<br />
4 5 3 2 | 1 6<br />
<br />
2 4 5 | 3 1 6<br />
<br />
|align="top" |'''Team 6 (China):'''<br />
<br />
6 1 2 | 5 4 3<br />
<br />
6 2 1 | 5 4 3<br />
<br />
6 1 2 | 5 4 3<br />
|}<br />
<br />
As the voting results suggest, China and Vietnam were most interested in each others' solutions, and the same was largely true of Yahoo! and Amnesty International. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the team representing the US Congress was hopelessly confused. There was, however, a clear loser: the team 6 (China) solution implementing Q6/17 was overwhelmingly rejected as unacceptable.<br />
<br />
== Part III: Reactions and Discussion/Suggestions to Future Class Leaders ==<br />
<br />
Given that there were several distinct portions of the class, we attemp<br />
<br />
=== Successes and Failures ===<br />
==== Introduction ====<br />
==== Discussion ====<br />
==== Simulation ====<br />
<br />
=== Role of Technology ===<br />
==== Introduction ====<br />
<br />
For our presentation, we turned to PowerPoint. '''CONOR, IS THERE ANYTHING TO SAY ABOUT THE UTILITY OF PP IN DEVISING THE PRESENTATION?'''<br />
<br />
==== Discussion ====<br />
<br />
Given Andrew McLaughlin's schedule constraints, we ultimately were forced to have him join the class from the airport. As a result, rather than leveraging traditional videoconferencing software, we turned to a laptop-based video client. We considered both Google Talk and Skype, and ultimately turned to '''HELP ME, DAN RAY, YOU'RE MY ONLY HOPE'''. <br />
<br />
==== Simulation ====<br />
<br />
Unlike many of the other IIF groups, our team decided not to make technology tools a central part of our class plan within the interactive portion of the class. Feeling that the class's early experiences using the question tool and Twitter in-class had been somewhat isolating, we decided to look for an innovative pedagogical tool which would jumpstart class discussion and force students to confront each other. Ultimately, we decided that the best choice was to have the class close their laptops entirely, and that our tool would be a classroom exercise rather than a technological innovation.<br />
<br />
This decision ultimately led to our decision to create the simulation, whose successes and failures are discussed above. Generally, however, we feel that the simulation was at least as successful as any network tool in involving the class - in fact, many of our voting query responses stated that class members found the exercise particularly enjoyable.<br />
<br />
=== Additional Suggestions for Future Classes ===<br />
==== Introduction ====<br />
==== Discussion ====<br />
==== Simulation ====</div>Jgruensphttps://cyber.harvard.edu/iif/?title=Open_Networks,_Closed_Regimes&diff=3114Open Networks, Closed Regimes2009-05-15T07:09:05Z<p>Jgruensp: </p>
<hr />
<div><!--<br />
How to make the yellow boxes:<br />
<br />
For the paragraph-sized boxes, use this code and place your text where it says "text":<br />
<br />
<div style="padding:1em; margin:1em 0 1em 31%; clear:both; background:#ffc; border:1px dashed #575744; width:66%; align:right;">text</div><br />
<br />
For the inline boxes, use this code and place your text where it says "text":<br />
<br />
<span style="border:1px dashed #575744; padding:0 .25em; margin:0 .25em; background:#ffc;">text</span><br />
<br />
/--><br />
<br />
<div style="float:right; padding:0 1em; margin-left:1em; clear:both; width:66%; background:#ffc; border:1px dashed #575744;"><p>This page documents a single class session on worldwide Internet restrictions taught by [[User:Jgruensp|Joshua Gruenspecht]], [[User:CKennedy|Conor Kennedy]], and [[User:Danray|Dan Ray]] in April 2009. We've filled it out with some background information and our reactions, in the hopes that it might be useful to someone else teaching a similar subject in the future. Special thanks go out to Caroline Nolan and Colin Maclay, who provided invaluable assistance both in the early days of planning the class and in the simulation setup. Thanks also to Andrew McLaughlin for taking time out of his schedule to join the class.</p><br />
<br />
<p>This page is a work in progress, and we encourage anyone to add to it. The wiki only permits registered users to edit it, but you can create a free, pseudonymous account using the link at the top right corner of the page. (You can copy our formatting or add your own; a template for the yellow annotations appears in an HTML comment at the top of the page source.)</p></div><br />
<br />
== Part I: Early Preparation/The Original Wiki ==<br />
<br />
=== Problem to be solved ===<br />
<br />
<br />
<div style="float:right; padding:0 1em; margin-left:1em; clear:both; width:66%; background:#ffc; border:1px dashed #575744;">Our students had access to an earlier version of this wiki page. For the information in this section, unformatted text indicates material that was available at the time of our presentation, and yellow boxes like this one are annotations added after the fact think of them like the director's commentary. The actual revision of the page at the time of the class session is [http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/iif/?title=Open_Networks%2C_Closed_Regimes&oldid=2204 here]</div>US-based internet services are used by citizens of every regime in the world. Western-based internet companies operate these services in many countries where governments routinely request or demand sensitive information about their citizens. How should high-level officers respond when their companies receive requests to turn over information which violate privacy and anonymity expectations? How can citizens, NGOs, and government actors influence the way these companies respond?<br />
<br />
=== Precis ===<br />
The idea of the internet service provider as a border-defying government-regulation-free jurisdiction was already dying in the 1990s, but the large-scale movement of internet services into regimes without free speech protections has raised serious concerns about managing cross-border privacy standards over the last five years. From Yahoo! turning over pro-democracy Chinese bloggers to the Chinese government, to Saudi Arabia tracking porn downloaders by pulling ISP records, to South Korea trying to arrest anonymous government critics, the problems are widespread and not restricted only to regimes that Americans are used to thinking of as "repressive." The globalization of internet services raises difficult questions: What requests for information are invasive? What kind of deference is due to local sovereignty? How can the competing demands best be balanced? How can the relevant stakeholders work toward achieving a proper balance?<br />
<br />
=== The Story So Far ===<br />
<br />
<div style="float:right; padding:0 1em; margin-left:1em; clear:both; width:66%; background:#ffc; border:1px dashed #575744;">This section constitutes the class's common ground, in that all students were expected to read it. It is intended to situate today's issues (including our simulated crisis) within the Internet's history, and to introduce the three major proposals we expected our simulation groups to cover.</div>Several weeks ago, our class read John Perry Barlow’s [http://homes.eff.org/~barlow/Declaration-Final.html Declaration of Independence of Cyberspace] <span style="border:1px dashed #575744; padding:0 .25em; margin:0 .25em; background:#ffc;">(this refers to the readings for an earlier class. It's probably not essential to assign it; this summary is plenty for our purposes.)</span>, written in 1996, in which he addresses the nations of the world and “declare[s] the global social space we are building to be naturally independent of the tyrannies you seek to impose on us.” For Barlow, perhaps the most important innovation of cyberspace was its ability to act as a great leveler: “We are creating a world that all may enter without privilege or prejudice accorded by race, economic power, military force, or station of birth. We are creating a world where anyone, anywhere may express his or her beliefs, no matter how singular, without fear of being coerced into silence or conformity.” As these lines imply, the key to this brave new world of Barlow’s was the possibility of anonymity (or pseudonymity): real-world barriers placed by normative biases or governmental controls could be hurdled by individuals joining online communities to express their provocative thoughts. Secure in the knowledge that their identities were divorced from their real-world selves, citizens of every nation could create the first truly free global marketplace of ideas.<br />
<br />
From well before Barlow’s Declaration, this idea of the Internet as an enabler of the anonymous expression of ideas was a well-established meme in the popular conception of the Internet, from Peter Steiner’s [http://www.unc.edu/depts/jomc/academics/dri/idog.jpg famous New Yorker cartoon] to the aphorism that “The net treats censorship as a defect and routes around it.” <span style="border:1px dashed #575744; padding:0 .25em; margin:0 .25em; background:#ffc;">This quote comes from [http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/archived_content/people/reagle/inet-quotations-19990709.html John Gilmore]</span> And just as quickly, people started to raise questions about whether a completely uncontrolled discourse was desirable – Larry Lessig famously [http://pdf.codev2.cc/Lessig-Codev2.pdf told the story] (see p. 102-106) of one anonymous student who single-handedly shut down Lessig’s first online classroom bulletin board by attacking his classmates with unstinting vitriol. The techno-libertarians remained adamant that online communities would develop mechanisms to cope with such problems, and that the benefits of being able to create a discussion area open to all comers – more freedom under repressive regimes, more frank discussion for every individual – would outweigh any drawbacks.<br />
<br />
However, the accuracy of the idea that the Internet need not respect terrestrial law was soon called into doubt. Tim Wu and Jack Goldsmith [http://books.google.com/books?id=Q01APcGmLB8C document] (see Chapter 1) the 2000 case in which Yahoo! attempted to resist a takedown request from the French government. After activists discovered Nazi merchandise for sale on a Yahoo! site, they appealed to the government to enforce the laws banning such material from being sold in France. Yahoo! protested that there was no way for it to identify traffic coming from France, and that to enforce the French laws would ultimately mean enforcing the lowest common denominator of all international law in all locations. However, having lost their case in the French courts in the face of expert testimony, and facing fines of 100,000 francs per day against their new French division, the company caved and admitted that IP addresses could be used to tell from what country a visitor came. This was a blow to the notion that the Internet was inherently resistant to national laws, but it was also a blow to the idea that users of the Internet were all faceless numbers – it soon became very clear that the companies that individuals did business with on the Internet knew plenty about their users, both in the form of information submitted by those users and in the form of other incidental data.<br />
<br />
Once those two facts were combined, it became clear that online service providers doing business internationally were vulnerable to economic threats if they failed to comply with local legal regimes by turning over nominally anonymous users. This acquired early public salience in 2004, when the Chinese government discovered that someone with a Yahoo! email account had forwarded to a US-based pro-democracy blogger an internal Communist party message warning of potential unrest which might arise from discussion of the fifteenth anniversary of the Tiananmen Square protests. China [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/4221538.stm demanded] that the company turn over any records relating to the disclosure of its state secrets, and Yahoo! complied without question. Chinese journalist Shi Tao was ultimately arrested and sentenced to ten years in prison. After the role played by Yahoo! was disclosed, the company became the subject of global outrage, castigated by pro-free-speech nonprofits and hauled before Congress to account for its actions. <span style="border:1px dashed #575744; padding:0 .25em; margin:0 .25em; background:#ffc;">As of 2009, Shi Tao remains imprisoned.</span> However, Yahoo! was merely the most visible of the companies involved in such disclosures – Amnesty International [http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/POL30/026/2006/en/dom-POL300262006en.pdf reports] that many of the largest international online service providers were implicated at the time and continue to wrestle with these issues.<br />
<br />
In recent years, similar cases have cropped up all over the world, from Africa to Asia to the Middle East, and even some American companies have [http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-10023104-71.html taken part] in using the disclosure-friendly laws of other countries to track down derogatory speakers. Many of these countries describe themselves as protecting themselves from the dangerous consequences of free speech: in January, South Korea [http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123178875223174403.html arrested] a blogger whose acerbic postings about government bureaucrats had supposedly undermined the population’s faith in the government’s ability to manage the global financial crisis. These governments say that free speech is always at war with social stability, as it was in Lessig’s classroom, and that they and Americans simply disagree on where the line must be drawn. At the same time, pro-democracy activists say that American companies and the American government aren’t doing enough work insisting upon the universality of American values.<br />
<br />
The most salient legislative response has been the [http://thomas.loc.gov/home/gpoxmlc110/h275_ih.xml Global Online Freedom Act] (GOFA), proposed by Representative Chris Smith (R-NJ). GOFA would require the State Department to track internet-restricting countries and then forbid US corporations from a) storing users’ personal data within the borders of those countries or b) turning over any personally identifiable information to law enforcement within those countries without first seeking the permission of the US Department of Justice. Many pro-free-speech non-profits have [http://www.rsf.org/print.php3?id_article=18304 praised] the GOFA bill as an [http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=24141 “advance for online free expression.”] Commentators have also [http://www.cdt.org/international/censorship/20080505gofa.pdf suggested], however, that it is unworkable in practice, and would in effect require US companies to cease doing meaningful business within such countries.<br />
<br />
Some corporations have pushed instead for a non-government-driven multi-stakeholder plan of action. Several of the largest American online service providers, including Microsoft, Google, and Yahoo!, have joined forces with the Berkman Center to develop the [http://www.globalnetworkinitiative.org/index.php Global Network Initiative] (GNI). The GNI lays out a set of universal [http://www.globalnetworkinitiative.org/principles/index.php principles] to be referenced when making difficult human rights decisions; it then gives [http://www.globalnetworkinitiative.org/implementationguidelines/index.php implementation guidance] to boards considering those principles on a case-by-case basis as requests for users' data come in. Some of the Congressional critics of these companies have been mollified by the evident progress. At the same time, some [http://writ.news.findlaw.com/ramasastry/20081212.html legal scholars] and [http://www.technewsworld.com/story/commentary/64972.html privacy specialists] (see Rotenberg quote <span style="border:1px dashed #575744; padding:0 .25em; margin:0 .25em; background:#ffc;">"It's good that companies are paying more attention to the need to safeguard fundamental rights on the Internet, but this proposal lacks specific recommendations and fails to address key concerns about the surveillance and censorship of Internet users"</span>) say the GNI is not widely enough accepted or equipped with severe enough penalties to make a serious difference.<br />
<br />
Meanwhile, countries wary of indiscriminate speech have started to look at alternatives of their own. This past year, the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), a specialized agency of the United Nations that deals with the regulation of international telecommunications issues, [http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10040152-38.html opened up] a study group on Question 6-17 (Q6/17). The Q6/17 group was chartered at the request of a state-owned Chinese telecommunications firm to [http://www.politechbot.com/docs/itu.china.internet.traceback.proposal.091108.doc investigate the feasibility] <span style="border:1px dashed #575744; padding:0 .25em; margin:0 .25em; background:#ffc;">link to .doc</span> of retrofitting the internet with Internet Protocol (IP) traceback technology. IP packets, the individual "envelopes" used to send information across the internet, are difficult, if not impossible, to follow back from their destination to their source. IP traceback technology would use new software and hardware to retrofit tracing mechanisms onto the internet as built, so as to make it easier to find the sender of a given message. The proponents of Q6/17 suggest that it could be used to make it more difficult to remotely infect computers with viruses or make anonymous threats online. Privacy specialists, however, suspect that the major purpose is to crack down on unwanted speech.<br />
<br />
=== Required Readings ===<br />
<br />
<div style="padding:0 1em; float:right; margin-left:1em; clear:both; width:66%; background:#ffc; border:1px dashed #575744;">In the spirit of a class in which different groups were meant to represent different constituencies with different backgrounds, we decided to move away from using the readings to get the class on the same page. Aside from the text above, which was assigned as introductory material, each group was assigned individualized readings to explain "their" point of view. As a result, we removed the Required Readings section of the page entirely, archiving it, as seen below. The Additional Readings section remained in place, for those students interested in a wider exploration of the issues. The individualized readings were emailed individually to the class groups, as discussed in [[#Part_II:_Planning_and_Execution.2FThe_Week_of_the_Class|Part II]].</div><br />
<br />
[[AnP Brainstorming|Early brainstorming on this topic]]<br />
<br />
=== Additional Readings ===<br />
<br />
(Some of these and additional readings will be broken down by simulation group)<br />
<br />
==== Audio: ====<br />
<br />
* http://rconversation.blogs.com/rconversation/2008/07/on-the-media-in.html (Episode of On The Media w/ Rebecca MacKinnon)<br />
<br />
==== Video ====<br />
<br />
* http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMorzIBHmrA (Conversation about GNI on CSPAN w/ Michael Samway and Julien Sanchez)<br />
<br />
==== Text ====<br />
<br />
===== “Just the Facts” Reporting =====<br />
<br />
* http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7696356.stm<br />
<br />
* http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/28/technology/internet/28privacy.html?_r=1&oref=slogin<br />
<br />
==== Critiques ====<br />
<br />
* http://writ.news.findlaw.com/ramasastry/20081212.html (Anita Ramasastry, Associate Professor at University of Washington School of Law)<br />
<br />
* http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=29117 (Reporters without Borders, an NGO that was part of the talks but didn’t sign onto the GNI at the end)<br />
<br />
* http://www.eff.org/files/filenode/gni/signon_letter.txt (Electronic Frontier Foundation, an NGO that was part of the talks and did sign onto the GNI at the end)<br />
<br />
* http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060313/mackinnon (Rebecca MacKinnon, writing in The Nation before the GNI existed, discusses four companies' culpability and diagnoses a major flaw with GOFA)<br />
<br />
=== Links ===<br />
http://blogs.wsj.com/chinajournal/2008/10/28/parsing-the-google-yahoo-microsoft-global-network-initiative/<br />
<br />
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/30/magazine/30google-t.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink&adxnnlx=1229749063-T7qNc5xv9ZLDiLcjc8AZxQ&pagewanted=print<br />
<br />
http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/04/republican-hous.html<br />
<br />
http://rconversation.blogs.com/rconversation/2007/01/google_yahoo_mi.html<br />
<br />
http://www.circleid.com/posts/print/20081028_global_network_initiative/<br />
<br />
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/oct/30/amnesty-global-network-initiative<br />
<br />
http://www.economist.com/world/asia/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12783609<br />
<br />
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-a-santoro-and-wendy-goldberg/chinese-internet-censorsh_b_156212.html<br />
<br />
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10040152-38.html (Declan McCullagh of CNet News on Q6/17, including links to several leaked ITU documents)<br />
<br />
== Part II: Planning and Execution/The Week of the Class ==<br />
<br />
<div style="padding:0 1em; margin-left:1em; clear:both; width:66%; background:#ffc; border:1px dashed #575744;">Parts II and III cover the class as it played out, and represent entirely new material on this wiki. As a result, there are no yellow commentary boxes in these sections.</div><br />
<br />
=== The lead-up to the class ===<br />
<br />
The class was divided into six role-playing groups representing six constituencies with complaints about the manner in which free speech issues on the internet are currently handled. Group assignments fell naturally out of the existing divisions within the class - each role-playing group represented two of the discussion topic groups on the syllabus. Each group was emailed individually approximately seven days before the class date. The email explained the concept behind the class:<br />
<br />
<blockquote>For the Anonymity and Privacy class this coming week, we're going to run things slightly differently. The class will be divided into six groups, and each group will be given an identity as a participant in the ongoing global battle over anonymous speech online, as well as a series of unique readings giving some specialized background. Then, in class, we'll introduce some general background and then have an exercise involving both y'all and our guest. See the last page of the attachment for your readings.</blockquote><br />
<br />
As the text of the email suggests, each one contained an individualized reading for the associated group. See below for the attached readings:<br />
<br />
[http://iifap.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/group1readings.doc Group 1: The Vietnamese Government]<br />
<br />
[http://iifap.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/group2readings.doc Group 2: Vietnamese Pro-Democracy Bloggers]<br />
<br />
[http://iifap.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/group3readings.doc Group 3: The US Government]<br />
<br />
[http://iifap.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/group4readings.doc Group 4: Yahoo! (the most popular blogging service in Vietnam)]<br />
<br />
[http://iifap.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/group5readings.doc Group 5: Amnesty International]<br />
<br />
[http://iifap.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/group6readings.doc Group 6: The Chinese Government]<br />
<br />
=== The day of class ===<br />
<br />
The room was reworked in order to remove barriers between students and facilitate discussion. The central classroom table was broken into constituent tables, each of which was placed along the outside wall of the class and topped with a name tag indicating the individual group which was expected to use that table as its base of operations. Chairs were placed inside the tables, rather than outside, to bring the groups closer to one another and the central discussion space within the classroom. (See the room plan, [http://iifap.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/room-plan.jpg here]. While it didn't work out exactly as pictured, the idea is the key.) Students were asked to begin the classroom seated at the tables associated with their role-playing groups so that the transition from the presentation and discussion to the simulation would be as seamless as possible.<br />
<br />
Conor opened the class with a Power Point presentation that reviewed the basic outline of the issues at hand. This served both as a refresher of the introductory reading material and as a point of reference for the groups within the simulation.<br />
<br />
+ Clip<br />
<br />
After the introduction, Dan moderated a conversation between two stakeholders in the current international contretemps over networked speech control issues: Colin Maclay of the Berkman Center and Andrew McLaughlin from Google. Colin discussed difficulties involved in creating the Global Network Initiative and acquiring more signatories, especially in Europe. Andrew discussed changes that he thought would help make the GNI more useful to individual users.<br />
<br />
+ Clip<br />
<br />
Once everyone was caught up to speed on the tensions which would have to be navigated in the simulation, Joshua explained the simulation to the participants. Groups were asked to develop a strategy for creating a widely acceptable solution to the "Open Networks, Closed Borders" problem, to discuss their solution with other groups and acquire partners, and then to present their revised solutions to the class at large. After feedback, the solutions would be voted upon by the members of the class.<br />
<br />
+ Clip<br />
<br />
The first 40 or so minutes of the hour-long simulation period was scheduled as follows:<br />
<br />
* 2 minutes: Explanation from the team<br />
* 5 minutes: Intra-group meetings to elect a recorder/presenter and to set strategy<br />
* 10 minutes: Inter-group meetings. Recorder/presenters stay in place while other members of the team (ambassadors) venture out to discuss the acceptability of proposals with both ambassadors and recorder/presenters from other groups.<br />
* 2 minutes: Groups are presented with a disruptor to ensure that each one remembers that other groups have different interests: in this case, a letter offering the opinion of select members of Congress regarding the issues at hand (an actual letter; visit [http://www.viettan.org/spip.php?article8428 this site] to see the text).<br />
* 5 minutes: Intra-group meetings to report back and revise solution proposals<br />
* 10 minutes: A second round of inter-group meetings<br />
* 2 minutes: To write up final solutions<br />
<br />
Each group was then given two minutes to present their final proposals to the class, and then Colin Maclay, team lead on the GNI project at the Berkman Center, offered feedback as to the viability and utility of each solution.<br />
<br />
The proposals:<br />
<br />
+ Clip<br />
<br />
Colin's feedback:<br />
<br />
+ Clip<br />
<br />
Originally, the voting was scheduled for the last five minutes of class, but proposal presentations and feedback exceeded the available time as it was, and so voting was pushed off into post-class time.<br />
<br />
=== After the Class ===<br />
<br />
After class, we gave all of the participants an opportunity to vote on the proposals via email. The email, which summarized the proposals as explained in class, is excerpted here:<br />
<br />
<blockquote><br />
Each of you (individually, but remaining in your role from the simulation) should rank the solutions listed below from most to least acceptable, and draw a line between "tolerable" and "intolerable" solutions from your point of view. For example:<br />
<p><br />
6 3 | 4 5 2 1 would indicate that you liked China's answer the best, could also live with Congress's, and found Vietnam's utterly unacceptable.<br />
</p><br />
<p><br />
The carrot: Your votes will inform the final writeup that we do for the class and for the GNI team.<br />
</p><br />
<p><br />
The stick: We will hound you mercilessly until you vote.<br />
</p><br />
<p><br />
Thanks again,<br />
The United Nations of IIF<br />
</p><br />
<p><br />
___________________________________________________________________<br />
</p><br />
<p><br />
'''Solution 1 (Vietnam):'''<br />
Vietnam is willing to accept the GNI principles and best practices, but will carry them out using its own laws and and due process protections. Companies operating within Vietnam must follow all its laws and heed its national security policy.<br />
</p><br />
<p><br />
'''Solution 2 (Bloggers):'''<br />
Vietnam should enact a DMCA-style (domestic) law that absolves bloggers from criminal liability for objectionable posts so long as they are timely removed. ISPs are also immune from liability so long as they cooperate in taking down objectionable content.<br />
</p><br />
<p><br />
'''Solution 3 (US Congress):'''<br />
Any ICT company turning information over to a foreign government must clear that disclosure with the US government, which will apply a compelling need standard. ICT companies who turn over information without permission are subject to sanction.<br />
</p><br />
<p><br />
'''Solution 4 (Yahoo!):'''<br />
Yahoo! proposes that individual conflicts be informally arbitrated by the individuals involved through a standardized process, and that irreconcilable conflicts be referred for binding arbitration to a special subcommittee of the WTO<br />
</p><br />
<p><br />
'''Solution 5 (Amnesty):'''<br />
AI proposes a network of pro bono lawyers in Vietnam, who will sue on behalf of targeted bloggers when ICT companies inform AI that they have received information requests. A review board is in place to permit other nations to pressure Vietnam if necessary.<br />
</p><br />
<p><br />
'''Solution 6 (China):'''<br />
Nations are only bound by treaties, and China is happy to opt out of anything the other groups agree on that would limit its sovereignty. Instead, it advocates the Q6/17 program, which would limit anonymity on the Internet layer.<br />
</p><br />
</blockquote><br />
<br />
As our team would have predicted, the teams, when asked to vote in character, voted largely for their own solutions. However, even among the second-choice solutions, no alternative was a clear favorite:<br />
<br />
{| border="1"<br />
|'''Team 1 (Vietnam):'''<br />
<br />
1 6 | 2 3 4 5<br />
<br />
1 2 | 6 4 5 3<br />
<br />
5 2 3 4 | 1 6<br />
<br />
5 1 | 2 4 6 3<br />
<br />
|'''Team 2 (Bloggers):'''<br />
<br />
2 1 3 5 | 4 6 <br />
<br />
2 5 3 4 | 6 1 <br />
<br />
2 3 4 5 | 6 1<br />
<br />
4 2 1 | 6 5 3<br />
<br />
|'''Team 3 (US Congress):'''<br />
<br />
3 | 1 2 5 4 6<br />
<br />
3 2 4 5 | 1 6<br />
<br />
6 5 4 3 | 2 1<br />
<br />
2 3 4 5 | 1 6<br />
<br />
|-<br />
<br />
|'''Team 4 (Yahoo!):'''<br />
<br />
4 5 2 3 1 6<br />
<br />
4 5 2 | 3 1 6<br />
<br />
4 1 2 5 3 6<br />
<br />
4 1 | 2 5 3 6<br />
<br />
4 1 5 6 | 2 3<br />
<br />
|'''Team 5 (Amnesty):'''<br />
<br />
5 4 1 3 2 6<br />
<br />
5 2 4 3 1 6<br />
<br />
4 3 5 2 1 6<br />
<br />
4 5 3 2 | 1 6<br />
<br />
2 4 5 | 3 1 6<br />
<br />
|align="top" |'''Team 6 (China):'''<br />
<br />
6 1 2 | 5 4 3<br />
<br />
6 2 1 | 5 4 3<br />
<br />
6 1 2 | 5 4 3<br />
|}<br />
<br />
As the voting results suggest, China and Vietnam were most interested in each others' solutions, and the same was largely true of Yahoo! and Amnesty International. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the team representing the US Congress was hopelessly confused. There was, however, a clear loser: the team 6 (China) solution implementing Q6/17 was overwhelmingly rejected as unacceptable.<br />
<br />
== Part III: Reactions and Discussion/Suggestions to Future Class Leaders ==<br />
<br />
Given that there were several distinct portions of the class, we attemp<br />
<br />
=== Successes and Failures ===<br />
==== Introduction ====<br />
==== Discussion ====<br />
==== Simulation ====<br />
<br />
=== Role of Technology ===<br />
==== Introduction ====<br />
<br />
For our presentation, we turned to PowerPoint. '''CONOR, IS THERE ANYTHING TO SAY ABOUT THE UTILITY OF PP IN DEVISING THE PRESENTATION?'''<br />
<br />
==== Discussion ====<br />
<br />
Given Andrew McLaughlin's schedule constraints, we ultimately were forced to have him join the class from the airport. As a result, rather than leveraging traditional videoconferencing software, we turned to a laptop-based video client. We considered both Google Talk and Skype, and ultimately turned to '''HELP ME, DAN RAY, YOU'RE MY ONLY HOPE'''. <br />
<br />
==== Simulation ====<br />
<br />
Unlike many of the other IIF groups, our team decided not to make technology tools a central part of our class plan within the interactive portion of the class. Feeling that the class's early experiences using the question tool and Twitter in-class had been somewhat isolating, we decided to look for an innovative pedagogical tool which would jumpstart class discussion and force students to confront each other. Ultimately, we decided that the best choice was to have the class close their laptops entirely, and that our tool would be a classroom exercise rather than a technological innovation.<br />
<br />
This decision ultimately led to our decision to create the simulation, whose successes and failures are discussed above. Generally, however, we feel that the simulation was at least as successful as any network tool in involving the class - in fact, many of our voting query responses stated that class members found the exercise particularly enjoyable.<br />
<br />
=== Additional Suggestions for Future Classes ===<br />
==== Introduction ====<br />
==== Discussion ====<br />
==== Simulation ====</div>Jgruensphttps://cyber.harvard.edu/iif/?title=Open_Networks,_Closed_Regimes&diff=3113Open Networks, Closed Regimes2009-05-15T06:54:42Z<p>Jgruensp: </p>
<hr />
<div><!--<br />
How to make the yellow boxes:<br />
<br />
For the paragraph-sized boxes, use this code and place your text where it says "text":<br />
<br />
<div style="padding:1em; margin:1em 0 1em 31%; clear:both; background:#ffc; border:1px dashed #575744; width:66%; align:right;">text</div><br />
<br />
For the inline boxes, use this code and place your text where it says "text":<br />
<br />
<span style="border:1px dashed #575744; padding:0 .25em; margin:0 .25em; background:#ffc;">text</span><br />
<br />
/--><br />
<br />
<div style="float:right; padding:0 1em; margin-left:1em; clear:both; width:66%; background:#ffc; border:1px dashed #575744;"><p>This page documents a single class session on worldwide Internet restrictions taught by [[User:Jgruensp|Joshua Gruenspecht]], [[User:CKennedy|Conor Kennedy]], and [[User:Danray|Dan Ray]] in April 2009. We've filled it out with some background information and our reactions, in the hopes that it might be useful to someone else teaching a similar subject in the future. Special thanks go out to Caroline Nolan and Colin Maclay, who provided invaluable assistance both in the early days of planning the class and in the simulation setup. Thanks also to Andrew McLaughlin for taking time out of his schedule to join the class.</p><br />
<br />
<p>This page is a work in progress, and we encourage anyone to add to it. The wiki only permits registered users to edit it, but you can create a free, pseudonymous account using the link at the top right corner of the page. (You can copy our formatting or add your own; a template for the yellow annotations appears in an HTML comment at the top of the page source.)</p></div><br />
<br />
== Part I: Early Preparation/The Original Wiki ==<br />
<br />
=== Problem to be solved ===<br />
<br />
<br />
<div style="float:right; padding:0 1em; margin-left:1em; clear:both; width:66%; background:#ffc; border:1px dashed #575744;">Our students had access to an earlier version of this wiki page. For the information in this section, unformatted text indicates material that was available at the time of our presentation, and yellow boxes like this one are annotations added after the fact think of them like the director's commentary. The actual revision of the page at the time of the class session is [http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/iif/?title=Open_Networks%2C_Closed_Regimes&oldid=2204 here]</div>US-based internet services are used by citizens of every regime in the world. Western-based internet companies operate these services in many countries where governments routinely request or demand sensitive information about their citizens. How should high-level officers respond when their companies receive requests to turn over information which violate privacy and anonymity expectations? How can citizens, NGOs, and government actors influence the way these companies respond?<br />
<br />
=== Precis ===<br />
The idea of the internet service provider as a border-defying government-regulation-free jurisdiction was already dying in the 1990s, but the large-scale movement of internet services into regimes without free speech protections has raised serious concerns about managing cross-border privacy standards over the last five years. From Yahoo! turning over pro-democracy Chinese bloggers to the Chinese government, to Saudi Arabia tracking porn downloaders by pulling ISP records, to South Korea trying to arrest anonymous government critics, the problems are widespread and not restricted only to regimes that Americans are used to thinking of as "repressive." The globalization of internet services raises difficult questions: What requests for information are invasive? What kind of deference is due to local sovereignty? How can the competing demands best be balanced? How can the relevant stakeholders work toward achieving a proper balance?<br />
<br />
=== The Story So Far ===<br />
<br />
<div style="float:right; padding:0 1em; margin-left:1em; clear:both; width:66%; background:#ffc; border:1px dashed #575744;">This section constitutes the class's common ground, in that all students were expected to read it. It is intended to situate today's issues (including our simulated crisis) within the Internet's history, and to introduce the three major proposals we expected our simulation groups to cover.</div>Several weeks ago, our class read John Perry Barlow’s [http://homes.eff.org/~barlow/Declaration-Final.html Declaration of Independence of Cyberspace] <span style="border:1px dashed #575744; padding:0 .25em; margin:0 .25em; background:#ffc;">(this refers to the readings for an earlier class. It's probably not essential to assign it; this summary is plenty for our purposes.)</span>, written in 1996, in which he addresses the nations of the world and “declare[s] the global social space we are building to be naturally independent of the tyrannies you seek to impose on us.” For Barlow, perhaps the most important innovation of cyberspace was its ability to act as a great leveler: “We are creating a world that all may enter without privilege or prejudice accorded by race, economic power, military force, or station of birth. We are creating a world where anyone, anywhere may express his or her beliefs, no matter how singular, without fear of being coerced into silence or conformity.” As these lines imply, the key to this brave new world of Barlow’s was the possibility of anonymity (or pseudonymity): real-world barriers placed by normative biases or governmental controls could be hurdled by individuals joining online communities to express their provocative thoughts. Secure in the knowledge that their identities were divorced from their real-world selves, citizens of every nation could create the first truly free global marketplace of ideas.<br />
<br />
From well before Barlow’s Declaration, this idea of the Internet as an enabler of the anonymous expression of ideas was a well-established meme in the popular conception of the Internet, from Peter Steiner’s [http://www.unc.edu/depts/jomc/academics/dri/idog.jpg famous New Yorker cartoon] to the aphorism that “The net treats censorship as a defect and routes around it.” <span style="border:1px dashed #575744; padding:0 .25em; margin:0 .25em; background:#ffc;">This quote comes from [http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/archived_content/people/reagle/inet-quotations-19990709.html John Gilmore]</span> And just as quickly, people started to raise questions about whether a completely uncontrolled discourse was desirable – Larry Lessig famously [http://pdf.codev2.cc/Lessig-Codev2.pdf told the story] (see p. 102-106) of one anonymous student who single-handedly shut down Lessig’s first online classroom bulletin board by attacking his classmates with unstinting vitriol. The techno-libertarians remained adamant that online communities would develop mechanisms to cope with such problems, and that the benefits of being able to create a discussion area open to all comers – more freedom under repressive regimes, more frank discussion for every individual – would outweigh any drawbacks.<br />
<br />
However, the accuracy of the idea that the Internet need not respect terrestrial law was soon called into doubt. Tim Wu and Jack Goldsmith [http://books.google.com/books?id=Q01APcGmLB8C document] (see Chapter 1) the 2000 case in which Yahoo! attempted to resist a takedown request from the French government. After activists discovered Nazi merchandise for sale on a Yahoo! site, they appealed to the government to enforce the laws banning such material from being sold in France. Yahoo! protested that there was no way for it to identify traffic coming from France, and that to enforce the French laws would ultimately mean enforcing the lowest common denominator of all international law in all locations. However, having lost their case in the French courts in the face of expert testimony, and facing fines of 100,000 francs per day against their new French division, the company caved and admitted that IP addresses could be used to tell from what country a visitor came. This was a blow to the notion that the Internet was inherently resistant to national laws, but it was also a blow to the idea that users of the Internet were all faceless numbers – it soon became very clear that the companies that individuals did business with on the Internet knew plenty about their users, both in the form of information submitted by those users and in the form of other incidental data.<br />
<br />
Once those two facts were combined, it became clear that online service providers doing business internationally were vulnerable to economic threats if they failed to comply with local legal regimes by turning over nominally anonymous users. This acquired early public salience in 2004, when the Chinese government discovered that someone with a Yahoo! email account had forwarded to a US-based pro-democracy blogger an internal Communist party message warning of potential unrest which might arise from discussion of the fifteenth anniversary of the Tiananmen Square protests. China [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/4221538.stm demanded] that the company turn over any records relating to the disclosure of its state secrets, and Yahoo! complied without question. Chinese journalist Shi Tao was ultimately arrested and sentenced to ten years in prison. After the role played by Yahoo! was disclosed, the company became the subject of global outrage, castigated by pro-free-speech nonprofits and hauled before Congress to account for its actions. <span style="border:1px dashed #575744; padding:0 .25em; margin:0 .25em; background:#ffc;">As of 2009, Shi Tao remains imprisoned.</span> However, Yahoo! was merely the most visible of the companies involved in such disclosures – Amnesty International [http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/POL30/026/2006/en/dom-POL300262006en.pdf reports] that many of the largest international online service providers were implicated at the time and continue to wrestle with these issues.<br />
<br />
In recent years, similar cases have cropped up all over the world, from Africa to Asia to the Middle East, and even some American companies have [http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-10023104-71.html taken part] in using the disclosure-friendly laws of other countries to track down derogatory speakers. Many of these countries describe themselves as protecting themselves from the dangerous consequences of free speech: in January, South Korea [http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123178875223174403.html arrested] a blogger whose acerbic postings about government bureaucrats had supposedly undermined the population’s faith in the government’s ability to manage the global financial crisis. These governments say that free speech is always at war with social stability, as it was in Lessig’s classroom, and that they and Americans simply disagree on where the line must be drawn. At the same time, pro-democracy activists say that American companies and the American government aren’t doing enough work insisting upon the universality of American values.<br />
<br />
The most salient legislative response has been the [http://thomas.loc.gov/home/gpoxmlc110/h275_ih.xml Global Online Freedom Act] (GOFA), proposed by Representative Chris Smith (R-NJ). GOFA would require the State Department to track internet-restricting countries and then forbid US corporations from a) storing users’ personal data within the borders of those countries or b) turning over any personally identifiable information to law enforcement within those countries without first seeking the permission of the US Department of Justice. Many pro-free-speech non-profits have [http://www.rsf.org/print.php3?id_article=18304 praised] the GOFA bill as an [http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=24141 “advance for online free expression.”] Commentators have also [http://www.cdt.org/international/censorship/20080505gofa.pdf suggested], however, that it is unworkable in practice, and would in effect require US companies to cease doing meaningful business within such countries.<br />
<br />
Some corporations have pushed instead for a non-government-driven multi-stakeholder plan of action. Several of the largest American online service providers, including Microsoft, Google, and Yahoo!, have joined forces with the Berkman Center to develop the [http://www.globalnetworkinitiative.org/index.php Global Network Initiative] (GNI). The GNI lays out a set of universal [http://www.globalnetworkinitiative.org/principles/index.php principles] to be referenced when making difficult human rights decisions; it then gives [http://www.globalnetworkinitiative.org/implementationguidelines/index.php implementation guidance] to boards considering those principles on a case-by-case basis as requests for users' data come in. Some of the Congressional critics of these companies have been mollified by the evident progress. At the same time, some [http://writ.news.findlaw.com/ramasastry/20081212.html legal scholars] and [http://www.technewsworld.com/story/commentary/64972.html privacy specialists] (see Rotenberg quote <span style="border:1px dashed #575744; padding:0 .25em; margin:0 .25em; background:#ffc;">"It's good that companies are paying more attention to the need to safeguard fundamental rights on the Internet, but this proposal lacks specific recommendations and fails to address key concerns about the surveillance and censorship of Internet users"</span>) say the GNI is not widely enough accepted or equipped with severe enough penalties to make a serious difference.<br />
<br />
Meanwhile, countries wary of indiscriminate speech have started to look at alternatives of their own. This past year, the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), a specialized agency of the United Nations that deals with the regulation of international telecommunications issues, [http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10040152-38.html opened up] a study group on Question 6-17 (Q6/17). The Q6/17 group was chartered at the request of a state-owned Chinese telecommunications firm to [http://www.politechbot.com/docs/itu.china.internet.traceback.proposal.091108.doc investigate the feasibility] <span style="border:1px dashed #575744; padding:0 .25em; margin:0 .25em; background:#ffc;">link to .doc</span> of retrofitting the internet with Internet Protocol (IP) traceback technology. IP packets, the individual "envelopes" used to send information across the internet, are difficult, if not impossible, to follow back from their destination to their source. IP traceback technology would use new software and hardware to retrofit tracing mechanisms onto the internet as built, so as to make it easier to find the sender of a given message. The proponents of Q6/17 suggest that it could be used to make it more difficult to remotely infect computers with viruses or make anonymous threats online. Privacy specialists, however, suspect that the major purpose is to crack down on unwanted speech.<br />
<br />
=== Required Readings ===<br />
<br />
<div style="padding:0 1em; float:right; margin-left:1em; clear:both; width:66%; background:#ffc; border:1px dashed #575744;">In the spirit of a class in which different groups were meant to represent different constituencies with different backgrounds, we decided to move away from using the readings to get the class on the same page. Aside from the text above, which was assigned as introductory material, each group was assigned individualized readings to explain "their" point of view. As a result, we removed the Required Readings section of the page entirely, archiving it, as seen below. The Additional Readings section remained in place, for those students interested in a wider exploration of the issues. The individualized readings were emailed individually to the class groups, as discussed in [[#Part_II:_Planning_and_Execution.2FThe_Week_of_the_Class|Part II]].</div><br />
<br />
[[AnP Brainstorming|Early brainstorming on this topic]]<br />
<br />
=== Additional Readings ===<br />
<br />
(Some of these and additional readings will be broken down by simulation group)<br />
<br />
==== Audio: ====<br />
<br />
* http://rconversation.blogs.com/rconversation/2008/07/on-the-media-in.html (Episode of On The Media w/ Rebecca MacKinnon)<br />
<br />
==== Video ====<br />
<br />
* http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMorzIBHmrA (Conversation about GNI on CSPAN w/ Michael Samway and Julien Sanchez)<br />
<br />
==== Text ====<br />
<br />
===== “Just the Facts” Reporting =====<br />
<br />
* http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7696356.stm<br />
<br />
* http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/28/technology/internet/28privacy.html?_r=1&oref=slogin<br />
<br />
==== Critiques ====<br />
<br />
* http://writ.news.findlaw.com/ramasastry/20081212.html (Anita Ramasastry, Associate Professor at University of Washington School of Law)<br />
<br />
* http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=29117 (Reporters without Borders, an NGO that was part of the talks but didn’t sign onto the GNI at the end)<br />
<br />
* http://www.eff.org/files/filenode/gni/signon_letter.txt (Electronic Frontier Foundation, an NGO that was part of the talks and did sign onto the GNI at the end)<br />
<br />
* http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060313/mackinnon (Rebecca MacKinnon, writing in The Nation before the GNI existed, discusses four companies' culpability and diagnoses a major flaw with GOFA)<br />
<br />
=== Links ===<br />
http://blogs.wsj.com/chinajournal/2008/10/28/parsing-the-google-yahoo-microsoft-global-network-initiative/<br />
<br />
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/30/magazine/30google-t.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink&adxnnlx=1229749063-T7qNc5xv9ZLDiLcjc8AZxQ&pagewanted=print<br />
<br />
http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/04/republican-hous.html<br />
<br />
http://rconversation.blogs.com/rconversation/2007/01/google_yahoo_mi.html<br />
<br />
http://www.circleid.com/posts/print/20081028_global_network_initiative/<br />
<br />
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/oct/30/amnesty-global-network-initiative<br />
<br />
http://www.economist.com/world/asia/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12783609<br />
<br />
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-a-santoro-and-wendy-goldberg/chinese-internet-censorsh_b_156212.html<br />
<br />
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10040152-38.html (Declan McCullagh of CNet News on Q6/17, including links to several leaked ITU documents)<br />
<br />
== Part II: Planning and Execution/The Week of the Class ==<br />
<br />
<div style="padding:0 1em; margin-left:1em; clear:both; width:66%; background:#ffc; border:1px dashed #575744;">Parts II and III cover the class as it played out, and represent entirely new material on this wiki. As a result, there are no yellow commentary boxes in these sections.</div><br />
<br />
=== The lead-up to the class ===<br />
<br />
The class was divided into six role-playing groups representing six constituencies with complaints about the manner in which free speech issues on the internet are currently handled. Group assignments fell naturally out of the existing divisions within the class - each role-playing group represented two of the discussion topic groups on the syllabus. Each group was emailed individually approximately seven days before the class date. The email explained the concept behind the class:<br />
<br />
<blockquote>For the Anonymity and Privacy class this coming week, we're going to run things slightly differently. The class will be divided into six groups, and each group will be given an identity as a participant in the ongoing global battle over anonymous speech online, as well as a series of unique readings giving some specialized background. Then, in class, we'll introduce some general background and then have an exercise involving both y'all and our guest. See the last page of the attachment for your readings.</blockquote><br />
<br />
As the text of the email suggests, each one contained an individualized reading for the associated group. See below for the attached readings:<br />
<br />
[http://iifap.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/group1readings.doc Group 1: The Vietnamese Government]<br />
<br />
[http://iifap.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/group2readings.doc Group 2: Vietnamese Pro-Democracy Bloggers]<br />
<br />
[http://iifap.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/group3readings.doc Group 3: The US Government]<br />
<br />
[http://iifap.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/group4readings.doc Group 4: Yahoo! (the most popular blogging service in Vietnam)]<br />
<br />
[http://iifap.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/group5readings.doc Group 5: Amnesty International]<br />
<br />
[http://iifap.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/group6readings.doc Group 6: The Chinese Government]<br />
<br />
=== The day of class ===<br />
<br />
The room was reworked in order to remove barriers between students and facilitate discussion. The central classroom table was broken into constituent tables, each of which was placed along the outside wall of the class and topped with a name tag indicating the individual group which was expected to use that table as its base of operations. Chairs were placed inside the tables, rather than outside, to bring the groups closer to one another and the central discussion space within the classroom. (See the room plan, [http://iifap.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/room-plan.jpg here]. While it didn't work out exactly as pictured, the idea is the key.) Students were asked to begin the classroom seated at the tables associated with their role-playing groups so that the transition from the presentation and discussion to the simulation would be as seamless as possible.<br />
<br />
Conor opened the class with a Power Point presentation that reviewed the basic outline of the issues at hand. This served both as a refresher of the introductory reading material and as a point of reference for the groups within the simulation.<br />
<br />
+ Clip<br />
<br />
After the introduction, Dan moderated a conversation between two stakeholders in the current international contretemps over networked speech control issues: Colin Maclay of the Berkman Center and Andrew McLaughlin from Google. Colin discussed difficulties involved in creating the Global Network Initiative and acquiring more signatories, especially in Europe. Andrew discussed changes that he thought would help make the GNI more useful to individual users.<br />
<br />
+ Clip<br />
<br />
Once everyone was caught up to speed on the tensions which would have to be navigated in the simulation, Joshua explained the simulation to the participants. Groups were asked to develop a strategy for creating a widely acceptable solution to the "Open Networks, Closed Borders" problem, to discuss their solution with other groups and acquire partners, and then to present their revised solutions to the class at large. After feedback, the solutions would be voted upon by the members of the class.<br />
<br />
+ Clip<br />
<br />
The first 40 or so minutes of the hour-long simulation period was scheduled as follows:<br />
<br />
* 2 minutes: Explanation from the team<br />
* 5 minutes: Intra-group meetings to elect a recorder/presenter and to set strategy<br />
* 10 minutes: Inter-group meetings. Recorder/presenters stay in place while other members of the team (ambassadors) venture out to discuss the acceptability of proposals with both ambassadors and recorder/presenters from other groups.<br />
* 2 minutes: Groups are presented with a disruptor to ensure that each one remembers that other groups have different interests: in this case, a letter offering the opinion of select members of Congress regarding the issues at hand (an actual letter; visit [http://www.viettan.org/spip.php?article8428 this site] to see the text).<br />
* 5 minutes: Intra-group meetings to report back and revise solution proposals<br />
* 10 minutes: A second round of inter-group meetings<br />
* 2 minutes: To write up final solutions<br />
<br />
Each group was then given two minutes to present their final proposals to the class, and then Colin Maclay, team lead on the GNI project at the Berkman Center, offered feedback as to the viability and utility of each solution.<br />
<br />
The proposals:<br />
<br />
+ Clip<br />
<br />
Colin's feedback:<br />
<br />
+ Clip<br />
<br />
Originally, the voting was scheduled for the last five minutes of class, but proposal presentations and feedback exceeded the available time as it was, and so voting was pushed off into post-class time.<br />
<br />
=== After the Class ===<br />
<br />
After class, we gave all of the participants an opportunity to vote on the proposals via email. The email, which summarized the proposals as explained in class, is excerpted here:<br />
<br />
<blockquote><br />
Each of you (individually, but remaining in your role from the simulation) should rank the solutions listed below from most to least acceptable, and draw a line between "tolerable" and "intolerable" solutions from your point of view. For example:<br />
<p><br />
6 3 | 4 5 2 1 would indicate that you liked China's answer the best, could also live with Congress's, and found Vietnam's utterly unacceptable.<br />
</p><br />
<p><br />
The carrot: Your votes will inform the final writeup that we do for the class and for the GNI team.<br />
</p><br />
<p><br />
The stick: We will hound you mercilessly until you vote.<br />
</p><br />
<p><br />
Thanks again,<br />
The United Nations of IIF<br />
</p><br />
<p><br />
___________________________________________________________________<br />
</p><br />
<p><br />
'''Solution 1 (Vietnam):'''<br />
Vietnam is willing to accept the GNI principles and best practices, but will carry them out using its own laws and and due process protections. Companies operating within Vietnam must follow all its laws and heed its national security policy.<br />
</p><br />
<p><br />
'''Solution 2 (Bloggers):'''<br />
Vietnam should enact a DMCA-style (domestic) law that absolves bloggers from criminal liability for objectionable posts so long as they are timely removed. ISPs are also immune from liability so long as they cooperate in taking down objectionable content.<br />
</p><br />
<p><br />
'''Solution 3 (US Congress):'''<br />
Any ICT company turning information over to a foreign government must clear that disclosure with the US government, which will apply a compelling need standard. ICT companies who turn over information without permission are subject to sanction.<br />
</p><br />
<p><br />
'''Solution 4 (Yahoo!):'''<br />
Yahoo! proposes that individual conflicts be informally arbitrated by the individuals involved through a standardized process, and that irreconcilable conflicts be referred for binding arbitration to a special subcommittee of the WTO<br />
</p><br />
<p><br />
'''Solution 5 (Amnesty):'''<br />
AI proposes a network of pro bono lawyers in Vietnam, who will sue on behalf of targeted bloggers when ICT companies inform AI that they have received information requests. A review board is in place to permit other nations to pressure Vietnam if necessary.<br />
</p><br />
<p><br />
'''Solution 6 (China):'''<br />
Nations are only bound by treaties, and China is happy to opt out of anything the other groups agree on that would limit its sovereignty. Instead, it advocates the Q6/17 program, which would limit anonymity on the Internet layer.<br />
</p><br />
</blockquote><br />
<br />
As our team would have predicted, the teams, when asked to vote in character, voted largely for their own solutions. However, even among the second-choice solutions, no alternative was a clear favorite:<br />
<br />
{| border="1"<br />
|'''Team 1 (Vietnam):'''<br />
<br />
1 6 | 2 3 4 5<br />
<br />
1 2 | 6 4 5 3<br />
<br />
5 2 3 4 | 1 6<br />
<br />
5 1 | 2 4 6 3<br />
<br />
|'''Team 2 (Bloggers):'''<br />
<br />
2 1 3 5 | 4 6 <br />
<br />
2 5 3 4 | 6 1 <br />
<br />
2 3 4 5 | 6 1<br />
<br />
4 2 1 | 6 5 3<br />
<br />
|'''Team 3 (US Congress):'''<br />
<br />
3 | 1 2 5 4 6<br />
<br />
3 2 4 5 | 1 6<br />
<br />
6 5 4 3 | 2 1<br />
<br />
2 3 4 5 | 1 6<br />
<br />
|-<br />
<br />
|'''Team 4 (Yahoo!):'''<br />
<br />
4 5 2 3 1 6<br />
<br />
4 5 2 | 3 1 6<br />
<br />
4 1 2 5 3 6<br />
<br />
4 1 | 2 5 3 6<br />
<br />
4 1 5 6 | 2 3<br />
<br />
|'''Team 5 (Amnesty):'''<br />
<br />
5 4 1 3 2 6<br />
<br />
5 2 4 3 1 6<br />
<br />
4 3 5 2 1 6<br />
<br />
4 5 3 2 | 1 6<br />
<br />
2 4 5 | 3 1 6<br />
<br />
|align="top" |'''Team 6 (China):'''<br />
<br />
6 1 2 | 5 4 3<br />
<br />
6 2 1 | 5 4 3<br />
<br />
6 1 2 | 5 4 3<br />
|}<br />
<br />
As the voting results suggest, China and Vietnam were most interested in each others' solutions, and the same was largely true of Yahoo! and Amnesty International. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the team representing the US Congress was hopelessly confused. There was, however, a clear loser: the team 6 (China) solution implementing Q6/17 was overwhelmingly rejected as unacceptable.<br />
<br />
== Part III: Reactions and Discussion/Suggestions to Future Class Leaders ==<br />
<br />
=== Successes and Failures ===<br />
<br />
=== Role of Technology ===<br />
<br />
Unlike many of the other IIF classes, our team decided not to make technology tools a central part of our class plan. Feeling that the class's early experiences using the question tool and Twitter in-class had been somewhat isolating, we decided to look for an innovative pedagogical tool which would jumpstart class discussion and force students to confront each other. Ultimately, we decided that the best choice was to have the class close their laptops entirely, and that our tool would be a classroom exercise rather than a technological innovation.<br />
<br />
This decision ultimately led to our decision to create the simulation, whose successes and failures are discussed in this section. Generally, however, we feel that the simulation was at least as successful as any network tool in involving the class - in fact, many of our voting query responses stated that class members found the exercise particularly enjoyable.<br />
<br />
=== Additional Suggestions for Future Classes ===</div>Jgruensphttps://cyber.harvard.edu/iif/?title=Open_Networks,_Closed_Regimes&diff=3112Open Networks, Closed Regimes2009-05-15T06:41:20Z<p>Jgruensp: </p>
<hr />
<div><!--<br />
How to make the yellow boxes:<br />
<br />
For the paragraph-sized boxes, use this code and place your text where it says "text":<br />
<br />
<div style="padding:1em; margin:1em 0 1em 31%; clear:both; background:#ffc; border:1px dashed #575744; width:66%; align:right;">text</div><br />
<br />
For the inline boxes, use this code and place your text where it says "text":<br />
<br />
<span style="border:1px dashed #575744; padding:0 .25em; margin:0 .25em; background:#ffc;">text</span><br />
<br />
/--><br />
<br />
<div style="float:right; padding:0 1em; margin-left:1em; clear:both; width:66%; background:#ffc; border:1px dashed #575744;"><p>This page documents a single class session on worldwide Internet restrictions taught by [[User:Jgruensp|Joshua Gruenspecht]], [[User:CKennedy|Conor Kennedy]], and [[User:Danray|Dan Ray]] in April 2009. We've filled it out with some background information and our reactions, in the hopes that it might be useful to someone else teaching a similar subject in the future. Special thanks go out to Caroline Nolan and Colin Maclay, who provided invaluable assistance both in the early days of planning the class and in the simulation setup. Thanks also to Andrew McLaughlin for taking time out of his schedule to join the class.</p><br />
<br />
<p>This page is a work in progress, and we encourage anyone to add to it. The wiki only permits registered users to edit it, but you can create a free, pseudonymous account using the link at the top right corner of the page. (You can copy our formatting or add your own; a template for the yellow annotations appears in an HTML comment at the top of the page source.)</p></div><br />
<br />
== Part I: Early Preparation/The Original Wiki ==<br />
<br />
=== Problem to be solved ===<br />
<br />
<br />
<div style="float:right; padding:0 1em; margin-left:1em; clear:both; width:66%; background:#ffc; border:1px dashed #575744;">Our students had access to an earlier version of this wiki page. For the information in this section, unformatted text indicates material that was available at the time of our presentation, and yellow boxes like this one are annotations added after the fact think of them like the director's commentary. The actual revision of the page at the time of the class session is [http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/iif/?title=Open_Networks%2C_Closed_Regimes&oldid=2204 here]</div>US-based internet services are used by citizens of every regime in the world. Western-based internet companies operate these services in many countries where governments routinely request or demand sensitive information about their citizens. How should high-level officers respond when their companies receive requests to turn over information which violate privacy and anonymity expectations? How can citizens, NGOs, and government actors influence the way these companies respond?<br />
<br />
=== Precis ===<br />
The idea of the internet service provider as a border-defying government-regulation-free jurisdiction was already dying in the 1990s, but the large-scale movement of internet services into regimes without free speech protections has raised serious concerns about managing cross-border privacy standards over the last five years. From Yahoo! turning over pro-democracy Chinese bloggers to the Chinese government, to Saudi Arabia tracking porn downloaders by pulling ISP records, to South Korea trying to arrest anonymous government critics, the problems are widespread and not restricted only to regimes that Americans are used to thinking of as "repressive." The globalization of internet services raises difficult questions: What requests for information are invasive? What kind of deference is due to local sovereignty? How can the competing demands best be balanced? How can the relevant stakeholders work toward achieving a proper balance?<br />
<br />
=== The Story So Far ===<br />
<br />
<div style="float:right; padding:0 1em; margin-left:1em; clear:both; width:66%; background:#ffc; border:1px dashed #575744;">This section constitutes the class's common ground, in that all students were expected to read it. It is intended to situate today's issues (including our simulated crisis) within the Internet's history, and to introduce the three major proposals we expected our simulation groups to cover.</div>Several weeks ago, our class read John Perry Barlow’s [http://homes.eff.org/~barlow/Declaration-Final.html Declaration of Independence of Cyberspace] <span style="border:1px dashed #575744; padding:0 .25em; margin:0 .25em; background:#ffc;">(this refers to the readings for an earlier class. It's probably not essential to assign it; this summary is plenty for our purposes.)</span>, written in 1996, in which he addresses the nations of the world and “declare[s] the global social space we are building to be naturally independent of the tyrannies you seek to impose on us.” For Barlow, perhaps the most important innovation of cyberspace was its ability to act as a great leveler: “We are creating a world that all may enter without privilege or prejudice accorded by race, economic power, military force, or station of birth. We are creating a world where anyone, anywhere may express his or her beliefs, no matter how singular, without fear of being coerced into silence or conformity.” As these lines imply, the key to this brave new world of Barlow’s was the possibility of anonymity (or pseudonymity): real-world barriers placed by normative biases or governmental controls could be hurdled by individuals joining online communities to express their provocative thoughts. Secure in the knowledge that their identities were divorced from their real-world selves, citizens of every nation could create the first truly free global marketplace of ideas.<br />
<br />
From well before Barlow’s Declaration, this idea of the Internet as an enabler of the anonymous expression of ideas was a well-established meme in the popular conception of the Internet, from Peter Steiner’s [http://www.unc.edu/depts/jomc/academics/dri/idog.jpg famous New Yorker cartoon] to the aphorism that “The net treats censorship as a defect and routes around it.” <span style="border:1px dashed #575744; padding:0 .25em; margin:0 .25em; background:#ffc;">This quote comes from [http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/archived_content/people/reagle/inet-quotations-19990709.html John Gilmore]</span> And just as quickly, people started to raise questions about whether a completely uncontrolled discourse was desirable – Larry Lessig famously [http://pdf.codev2.cc/Lessig-Codev2.pdf told the story] (see p. 102-106) of one anonymous student who single-handedly shut down Lessig’s first online classroom bulletin board by attacking his classmates with unstinting vitriol. The techno-libertarians remained adamant that online communities would develop mechanisms to cope with such problems, and that the benefits of being able to create a discussion area open to all comers – more freedom under repressive regimes, more frank discussion for every individual – would outweigh any drawbacks.<br />
<br />
However, the accuracy of the idea that the Internet need not respect terrestrial law was soon called into doubt. Tim Wu and Jack Goldsmith [http://books.google.com/books?id=Q01APcGmLB8C document] (see Chapter 1) the 2000 case in which Yahoo! attempted to resist a takedown request from the French government. After activists discovered Nazi merchandise for sale on a Yahoo! site, they appealed to the government to enforce the laws banning such material from being sold in France. Yahoo! protested that there was no way for it to identify traffic coming from France, and that to enforce the French laws would ultimately mean enforcing the lowest common denominator of all international law in all locations. However, having lost their case in the French courts in the face of expert testimony, and facing fines of 100,000 francs per day against their new French division, the company caved and admitted that IP addresses could be used to tell from what country a visitor came. This was a blow to the notion that the Internet was inherently resistant to national laws, but it was also a blow to the idea that users of the Internet were all faceless numbers – it soon became very clear that the companies that individuals did business with on the Internet knew plenty about their users, both in the form of information submitted by those users and in the form of other incidental data.<br />
<br />
Once those two facts were combined, it became clear that online service providers doing business internationally were vulnerable to economic threats if they failed to comply with local legal regimes by turning over nominally anonymous users. This acquired early public salience in 2004, when the Chinese government discovered that someone with a Yahoo! email account had forwarded to a US-based pro-democracy blogger an internal Communist party message warning of potential unrest which might arise from discussion of the fifteenth anniversary of the Tiananmen Square protests. China [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/4221538.stm demanded] that the company turn over any records relating to the disclosure of its state secrets, and Yahoo! complied without question. Chinese journalist Shi Tao was ultimately arrested and sentenced to ten years in prison. After the role played by Yahoo! was disclosed, the company became the subject of global outrage, castigated by pro-free-speech nonprofits and hauled before Congress to account for its actions. <span style="border:1px dashed #575744; padding:0 .25em; margin:0 .25em; background:#ffc;">As of 2009, Shi Tao remains imprisoned.</span> However, Yahoo! was merely the most visible of the companies involved in such disclosures – Amnesty International [http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/POL30/026/2006/en/dom-POL300262006en.pdf reports] that many of the largest international online service providers were implicated at the time and continue to wrestle with these issues.<br />
<br />
In recent years, similar cases have cropped up all over the world, from Africa to Asia to the Middle East, and even some American companies have [http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-10023104-71.html taken part] in using the disclosure-friendly laws of other countries to track down derogatory speakers. Many of these countries describe themselves as protecting themselves from the dangerous consequences of free speech: in January, South Korea [http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123178875223174403.html arrested] a blogger whose acerbic postings about government bureaucrats had supposedly undermined the population’s faith in the government’s ability to manage the global financial crisis. These governments say that free speech is always at war with social stability, as it was in Lessig’s classroom, and that they and Americans simply disagree on where the line must be drawn. At the same time, pro-democracy activists say that American companies and the American government aren’t doing enough work insisting upon the universality of American values.<br />
<br />
The most salient legislative response has been the [http://thomas.loc.gov/home/gpoxmlc110/h275_ih.xml Global Online Freedom Act] (GOFA), proposed by Representative Chris Smith (R-NJ). GOFA would require the State Department to track internet-restricting countries and then forbid US corporations from a) storing users’ personal data within the borders of those countries or b) turning over any personally identifiable information to law enforcement within those countries without first seeking the permission of the US Department of Justice. Many pro-free-speech non-profits have [http://www.rsf.org/print.php3?id_article=18304 praised] the GOFA bill as an [http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=24141 “advance for online free expression.”] Commentators have also [http://www.cdt.org/international/censorship/20080505gofa.pdf suggested], however, that it is unworkable in practice, and would in effect require US companies to cease doing meaningful business within such countries.<br />
<br />
Some corporations have pushed instead for a non-government-driven multi-stakeholder plan of action. Several of the largest American online service providers, including Microsoft, Google, and Yahoo!, have joined forces with the Berkman Center to develop the [http://www.globalnetworkinitiative.org/index.php Global Network Initiative] (GNI). The GNI lays out a set of universal [http://www.globalnetworkinitiative.org/principles/index.php principles] to be referenced when making difficult human rights decisions; it then gives [http://www.globalnetworkinitiative.org/implementationguidelines/index.php implementation guidance] to boards considering those principles on a case-by-case basis as requests for users' data come in. Some of the Congressional critics of these companies have been mollified by the evident progress. At the same time, some [http://writ.news.findlaw.com/ramasastry/20081212.html legal scholars] and [http://www.technewsworld.com/story/commentary/64972.html privacy specialists] (see Rotenberg quote <span style="border:1px dashed #575744; padding:0 .25em; margin:0 .25em; background:#ffc;">"It's good that companies are paying more attention to the need to safeguard fundamental rights on the Internet, but this proposal lacks specific recommendations and fails to address key concerns about the surveillance and censorship of Internet users"</span>) say the GNI is not widely enough accepted or equipped with severe enough penalties to make a serious difference.<br />
<br />
Meanwhile, countries wary of indiscriminate speech have started to look at alternatives of their own. This past year, the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), a specialized agency of the United Nations that deals with the regulation of international telecommunications issues, [http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10040152-38.html opened up] a study group on Question 6-17 (Q6/17). The Q6/17 group was chartered at the request of a state-owned Chinese telecommunications firm to [http://www.politechbot.com/docs/itu.china.internet.traceback.proposal.091108.doc investigate the feasibility] <span style="border:1px dashed #575744; padding:0 .25em; margin:0 .25em; background:#ffc;">link to .doc</span> of retrofitting the internet with Internet Protocol (IP) traceback technology. IP packets, the individual "envelopes" used to send information across the internet, are difficult, if not impossible, to follow back from their destination to their source. IP traceback technology would use new software and hardware to retrofit tracing mechanisms onto the internet as built, so as to make it easier to find the sender of a given message. The proponents of Q6/17 suggest that it could be used to make it more difficult to remotely infect computers with viruses or make anonymous threats online. Privacy specialists, however, suspect that the major purpose is to crack down on unwanted speech.<br />
<br />
=== Required Readings ===<br />
<br />
<div style="padding:0 1em; float:right; margin-left:1em; clear:both; width:66%; background:#ffc; border:1px dashed #575744;">In the spirit of a class in which different groups were meant to represent different constituencies with different backgrounds, we decided to move away from using the readings to get the class on the same page. Aside from the text above, which was assigned as introductory material, each group was assigned individualized readings to explain "their" point of view. As a result, we removed the Required Readings section of the page entirely, archiving it, as seen below. The Additional Readings section remained in place, for those students interested in a wider exploration of the issues. The individualized readings were emailed individually to the class groups, as discussed in [[#Part_II:_Planning_and_Execution.2FThe_Week_of_the_Class|Part II]].</div><br />
<br />
[[AnP Brainstorming|Early brainstorming on this topic]]<br />
<br />
=== Additional Readings ===<br />
<br />
(Some of these and additional readings will be broken down by simulation group)<br />
<br />
==== Audio: ====<br />
<br />
* http://rconversation.blogs.com/rconversation/2008/07/on-the-media-in.html (Episode of On The Media w/ Rebecca MacKinnon)<br />
<br />
==== Video ====<br />
<br />
* http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMorzIBHmrA (Conversation about GNI on CSPAN w/ Michael Samway and Julien Sanchez)<br />
<br />
==== Text ====<br />
<br />
===== “Just the Facts” Reporting =====<br />
<br />
* http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7696356.stm<br />
<br />
* http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/28/technology/internet/28privacy.html?_r=1&oref=slogin<br />
<br />
==== Critiques ====<br />
<br />
* http://writ.news.findlaw.com/ramasastry/20081212.html (Anita Ramasastry, Associate Professor at University of Washington School of Law)<br />
<br />
* http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=29117 (Reporters without Borders, an NGO that was part of the talks but didn’t sign onto the GNI at the end)<br />
<br />
* http://www.eff.org/files/filenode/gni/signon_letter.txt (Electronic Frontier Foundation, an NGO that was part of the talks and did sign onto the GNI at the end)<br />
<br />
* http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060313/mackinnon (Rebecca MacKinnon, writing in The Nation before the GNI existed, discusses four companies' culpability and diagnoses a major flaw with GOFA)<br />
<br />
=== Links ===<br />
http://blogs.wsj.com/chinajournal/2008/10/28/parsing-the-google-yahoo-microsoft-global-network-initiative/<br />
<br />
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/30/magazine/30google-t.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink&adxnnlx=1229749063-T7qNc5xv9ZLDiLcjc8AZxQ&pagewanted=print<br />
<br />
http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/04/republican-hous.html<br />
<br />
http://rconversation.blogs.com/rconversation/2007/01/google_yahoo_mi.html<br />
<br />
http://www.circleid.com/posts/print/20081028_global_network_initiative/<br />
<br />
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/oct/30/amnesty-global-network-initiative<br />
<br />
http://www.economist.com/world/asia/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12783609<br />
<br />
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-a-santoro-and-wendy-goldberg/chinese-internet-censorsh_b_156212.html<br />
<br />
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10040152-38.html (Declan McCullagh of CNet News on Q6/17, including links to several leaked ITU documents)<br />
<br />
== Part II: Planning and Execution/The Week of the Class ==<br />
<br />
<div style="padding:0 1em; margin-left:1em; clear:both; width:66%; background:#ffc; border:1px dashed #575744;">Parts II and III cover the class as it played out, and represent entirely new material on this wiki. As a result, there are no yellow commentary boxes in these sections.</div><br />
<br />
=== The lead-up to the class ===<br />
<br />
The class was divided into six role-playing groups representing six constituencies with complaints about the manner in which free speech issues on the internet are currently handled. Group assignments fell naturally out of the existing divisions within the class - each role-playing group represented two of the discussion topic groups on the syllabus. Each group was emailed individually approximately seven days before the class date. The email explained the concept behind the class:<br />
<br />
<blockquote>For the Anonymity and Privacy class this coming week, we're going to run things slightly differently. The class will be divided into six groups, and each group will be given an identity as a participant in the ongoing global battle over anonymous speech online, as well as a series of unique readings giving some specialized background. Then, in class, we'll introduce some general background and then have an exercise involving both y'all and our guest. See the last page of the attachment for your readings.</blockquote><br />
<br />
As the text of the email suggests, each one contained an individualized reading for the associated group. See below for the attached readings:<br />
<br />
[http://iifap.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/group1readings.doc Group 1: The Vietnamese Government]<br />
<br />
[http://iifap.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/group2readings.doc Group 2: Vietnamese Pro-Democracy Bloggers]<br />
<br />
[http://iifap.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/group3readings.doc Group 3: The US Government]<br />
<br />
[http://iifap.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/group4readings.doc Group 4: Yahoo! (the most popular blogging service in Vietnam)]<br />
<br />
[http://iifap.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/group5readings.doc Group 5: Amnesty International]<br />
<br />
[http://iifap.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/group6readings.doc Group 6: The Chinese Government]<br />
<br />
=== The day of class ===<br />
<br />
The room was reworked in order to remove barriers between students and facilitate discussion. The central classroom table was broken into constituent tables, each of which was placed along the outside wall of the class and topped with a name tag indicating the individual group which was expected to use that table as its base of operations. Chairs were placed inside the tables, rather than outside, to bring the groups closer to one another and the central discussion space within the classroom. (See the room plan, [http://iifap.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/room-plan.jpg here]. While it didn't work out exactly as pictured, the idea is the key.) Students were asked to begin the classroom seated at the tables associated with their role-playing groups so that the transition from the presentation and discussion to the simulation would be as seamless as possible.<br />
<br />
Conor opened the class with a Power Point presentation that reviewed the basic outline of the issues at hand. This served both as a refresher of the introductory reading material and as a point of reference for the groups within the simulation.<br />
<br />
+ Clip<br />
<br />
After the introduction, Dan moderated a conversation between two stakeholders in the current international contretemps over networked speech control issues: Colin Maclay of the Berkman Center and Andrew McLaughlin from Google. Colin discussed difficulties involved in creating the Global Network Initiative and acquiring more signatories, especially in Europe. Andrew discussed changes that he thought would help make the GNI more useful to individual users.<br />
<br />
+ Clip<br />
<br />
Once everyone was caught up to speed on the tensions which would have to be navigated in the simulation, Joshua explained the simulation to the participants. Groups were asked to develop a strategy for creating a widely acceptable solution to the "Open Networks, Closed Borders" problem, to discuss their solution with other groups and acquire partners, and then to present their revised solutions to the class at large. After feedback, the solutions would be voted upon by the members of the class.<br />
<br />
+ Clip<br />
<br />
The first 40 or so minutes of the hour-long simulation period was scheduled as follows:<br />
<br />
* 2 minutes: Explanation from the team<br />
* 5 minutes: Intra-group meetings to elect a recorder/presenter and to set strategy<br />
* 10 minutes: Inter-group meetings. Recorder/presenters stay in place while other members of the team (ambassadors) venture out to discuss the acceptability of proposals with both ambassadors and recorder/presenters from other groups.<br />
* 2 minutes: Groups are presented with a disruptor to ensure that each one remembers that other groups have different interests: in this case, a letter offering the opinion of select members of Congress regarding the issues at hand (an actual letter; visit [http://www.viettan.org/spip.php?article8428 this site] to see the text).<br />
* 5 minutes: Intra-group meetings to report back and revise solution proposals<br />
* 10 minutes: A second round of inter-group meetings<br />
* 2 minutes: To write up final solutions<br />
<br />
Each group was then given two minutes to present their final proposals to the class, and then Colin Maclay, team lead on the GNI project at the Berkman Center, offered feedback as to the viability and utility of each solution.<br />
<br />
The proposals:<br />
<br />
+ Clip<br />
<br />
Colin's feedback:<br />
<br />
+ Clip<br />
<br />
Originally, the voting was scheduled for the last five minutes of class, but proposal presentations and feedback exceeded the available time as it was, and so voting was pushed off into post-class time.<br />
<br />
=== After the Class ===<br />
<br />
After class, we gave all of the participants an opportunity to vote on the proposals via email. The email, which summarized the proposals as explained in class, is excerpted here:<br />
<br />
<blockquote><br />
Each of you (individually, but remaining in your role from the simulation) should rank the solutions listed below from most to least acceptable, and draw a line between "tolerable" and "intolerable" solutions from your point of view. For example:<br />
<p><br />
6 3 | 4 5 2 1 would indicate that you liked China's answer the best, could also live with Congress's, and found Vietnam's utterly unacceptable.<br />
</p><br />
<p><br />
The carrot: Your votes will inform the final writeup that we do for the class and for the GNI team.<br />
</p><br />
<p><br />
The stick: We will hound you mercilessly until you vote.<br />
</p><br />
<p><br />
Thanks again,<br />
The United Nations of IIF<br />
</p><br />
<p><br />
___________________________________________________________________<br />
</p><br />
<p><br />
'''Solution 1 (Vietnam):'''<br />
Vietnam is willing to accept the GNI principles and best practices, but will carry them out using its own laws and and due process protections. Companies operating within Vietnam must follow all its laws and heed its national security policy.<br />
</p><br />
<p><br />
'''Solution 2 (Bloggers):'''<br />
Vietnam should enact a DMCA-style (domestic) law that absolves bloggers from criminal liability for objectionable posts so long as they are timely removed. ISPs are also immune from liability so long as they cooperate in taking down objectionable content.<br />
</p><br />
<p><br />
'''Solution 3 (US Congress):'''<br />
Any ICT company turning information over to a foreign government must clear that disclosure with the US government, which will apply a compelling need standard. ICT companies who turn over information without permission are subject to sanction.<br />
</p><br />
<p><br />
'''Solution 4 (Yahoo!):'''<br />
Yahoo! proposes that individual conflicts be informally arbitrated by the individuals involved through a standardized process, and that irreconcilable conflicts be referred for binding arbitration to a special subcommittee of the WTO<br />
</p><br />
<p><br />
'''Solution 5 (Amnesty):'''<br />
AI proposes a network of pro bono lawyers in Vietnam, who will sue on behalf of targeted bloggers when ICT companies inform AI that they have received information requests. A review board is in place to permit other nations to pressure Vietnam if necessary.<br />
</p><br />
<p><br />
'''Solution 6 (China):'''<br />
Nations are only bound by treaties, and China is happy to opt out of anything the other groups agree on that would limit its sovereignty. Instead, it advocates the Q6/17 program, which would limit anonymity on the Internet layer.<br />
</p><br />
</blockquote><br />
<br />
As our team would have predicted, the teams, when asked to vote in character, voted largely for their own solutions. However, even among the second-choice solutions, no alternative was a clear favorite:<br />
<br />
{| border="1"<br />
|'''Team 1 (Vietnam):'''<br />
<br />
1 6 | 2 3 4 5<br />
<br />
1 2 | 6 4 5 3<br />
<br />
5 2 3 4 | 1 6<br />
<br />
5 1 | 2 4 6 3<br />
<br />
|'''Team 2 (Bloggers):'''<br />
<br />
2 1 3 5 | 4 6 <br />
<br />
2 5 3 4 | 6 1 <br />
<br />
2 3 4 5 | 6 1<br />
<br />
4 2 1 | 6 5 3<br />
<br />
|'''Team 3 (US Congress):'''<br />
<br />
3 | 1 2 5 4 6<br />
<br />
3 2 4 5 | 1 6<br />
<br />
6 5 4 3 | 2 1<br />
<br />
2 3 4 5 | 1 6<br />
<br />
|-<br />
<br />
|'''Team 4 (Yahoo!):'''<br />
<br />
4 5 2 3 1 6<br />
<br />
4 5 2 | 3 1 6<br />
<br />
4 1 2 5 3 6<br />
<br />
4 1 | 2 5 3 6<br />
<br />
4 1 5 6 | 2 3<br />
<br />
|'''Team 5 (Amnesty):'''<br />
<br />
5 4 1 3 2 6<br />
<br />
5 2 4 3 1 6<br />
<br />
4 3 5 2 1 6<br />
<br />
4 5 3 2 | 1 6<br />
<br />
2 4 5 | 3 1 6<br />
<br />
|align="top" |'''Team 6 (China):'''<br />
<br />
6 1 2 | 5 4 3<br />
<br />
6 2 1 | 5 4 3<br />
<br />
6 1 2 | 5 4 3<br />
|}<br />
<br />
As the voting results suggest, China and Vietnam were most interested in each others' solutions, and the same was largely true of Yahoo! and Amnesty International. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the team representing the US Congress was hopelessly confused. There was, however, a clear loser: the team 6 (China) solution implementing Q6/17 was overwhelmingly rejected as unacceptable.<br />
<br />
== Part III: Reactions and Discussion/Suggestions to Future Class Leaders ==<br />
<br />
=== Successes and Failures ===<br />
<br />
=== Role of Technology ===<br />
<br />
=== Additional Suggestions for Future Classes ===</div>Jgruensphttps://cyber.harvard.edu/iif/?title=Open_Networks,_Closed_Regimes&diff=3111Open Networks, Closed Regimes2009-05-15T06:33:04Z<p>Jgruensp: </p>
<hr />
<div><!--<br />
How to make the yellow boxes:<br />
<br />
For the paragraph-sized boxes, use this code and place your text where it says "text":<br />
<br />
<div style="padding:1em; margin:1em 0 1em 31%; clear:both; background:#ffc; border:1px dashed #575744; width:66%; align:right;">text</div><br />
<br />
For the inline boxes, use this code and place your text where it says "text":<br />
<br />
<span style="border:1px dashed #575744; padding:0 .25em; margin:0 .25em; background:#ffc;">text</span><br />
<br />
/--><br />
<br />
<div style="float:right; padding:0 1em; margin-left:1em; clear:both; width:66%; background:#ffc; border:1px dashed #575744;"><p>This page documents a single class session on worldwide Internet restrictions taught by [[User:Jgruensp|Joshua Gruenspecht]], [[User:CKennedy|Conor Kennedy]], and [[User:Danray|Dan Ray]] in April 2009. We've filled it out with some background information and our reactions, in the hopes that it might be useful to someone else teaching a similar subject in the future. Special thanks go out to Caroline Nolan and Colin Maclay, who provided invaluable assistance both in the early days of planning the class and in the simulation setup. Thanks also to Andrew McLaughlin for taking time out of his schedule to join the class.</p><br />
<br />
<p>This page is a work in progress, and we encourage anyone to add to it. The wiki only permits registered users to edit it, but you can create a free, pseudonymous account using the link at the top right corner of the page. (You can copy our formatting or add your own; a template for the yellow annotations appears in an HTML comment at the top of the page source.)</p></div><br />
<br />
== Part I: Early Preparation/The Original Wiki ==<br />
<br />
=== Problem to be solved ===<br />
<br />
<br />
<div style="float:right; padding:0 1em; margin-left:1em; clear:both; width:66%; background:#ffc; border:1px dashed #575744;">Our students had access to an earlier version of this wiki page. For the information in this section, unformatted text indicates material that was available at the time of our presentation, and yellow boxes like this one are annotations added after the fact think of them like the director's commentary. The actual revision of the page at the time of the class session is [http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/iif/?title=Open_Networks%2C_Closed_Regimes&oldid=2204 here]</div>US-based internet services are used by citizens of every regime in the world. Western-based internet companies operate these services in many countries where governments routinely request or demand sensitive information about their citizens. How should high-level officers respond when their companies receive requests to turn over information which violate privacy and anonymity expectations? How can citizens, NGOs, and government actors influence the way these companies respond?<br />
<br />
=== Precis ===<br />
The idea of the internet service provider as a border-defying government-regulation-free jurisdiction was already dying in the 1990s, but the large-scale movement of internet services into regimes without free speech protections has raised serious concerns about managing cross-border privacy standards over the last five years. From Yahoo! turning over pro-democracy Chinese bloggers to the Chinese government, to Saudi Arabia tracking porn downloaders by pulling ISP records, to South Korea trying to arrest anonymous government critics, the problems are widespread and not restricted only to regimes that Americans are used to thinking of as "repressive." The globalization of internet services raises difficult questions: What requests for information are invasive? What kind of deference is due to local sovereignty? How can the competing demands best be balanced? How can the relevant stakeholders work toward achieving a proper balance?<br />
<br />
=== The Story So Far ===<br />
<br />
<div style="float:right; padding:0 1em; margin-left:1em; clear:both; width:66%; background:#ffc; border:1px dashed #575744;">This section constitutes the class's common ground, in that all students were expected to read it. It is intended to situate today's issues (including our simulated crisis) within the Internet's history, and to introduce the three major proposals we expected our simulation groups to cover.</div>Several weeks ago, our class read John Perry Barlow’s [http://homes.eff.org/~barlow/Declaration-Final.html Declaration of Independence of Cyberspace] <span style="border:1px dashed #575744; padding:0 .25em; margin:0 .25em; background:#ffc;">(this refers to the readings for an earlier class. It's probably not essential to assign it; this summary is plenty for our purposes.)</span>, written in 1996, in which he addresses the nations of the world and “declare[s] the global social space we are building to be naturally independent of the tyrannies you seek to impose on us.” For Barlow, perhaps the most important innovation of cyberspace was its ability to act as a great leveler: “We are creating a world that all may enter without privilege or prejudice accorded by race, economic power, military force, or station of birth. We are creating a world where anyone, anywhere may express his or her beliefs, no matter how singular, without fear of being coerced into silence or conformity.” As these lines imply, the key to this brave new world of Barlow’s was the possibility of anonymity (or pseudonymity): real-world barriers placed by normative biases or governmental controls could be hurdled by individuals joining online communities to express their provocative thoughts. Secure in the knowledge that their identities were divorced from their real-world selves, citizens of every nation could create the first truly free global marketplace of ideas.<br />
<br />
From well before Barlow’s Declaration, this idea of the Internet as an enabler of the anonymous expression of ideas was a well-established meme in the popular conception of the Internet, from Peter Steiner’s [http://www.unc.edu/depts/jomc/academics/dri/idog.jpg famous New Yorker cartoon] to the aphorism that “The net treats censorship as a defect and routes around it.” <span style="border:1px dashed #575744; padding:0 .25em; margin:0 .25em; background:#ffc;">This quote comes from [http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/archived_content/people/reagle/inet-quotations-19990709.html John Gilmore]</span> And just as quickly, people started to raise questions about whether a completely uncontrolled discourse was desirable – Larry Lessig famously [http://pdf.codev2.cc/Lessig-Codev2.pdf told the story] (see p. 102-106) of one anonymous student who single-handedly shut down Lessig’s first online classroom bulletin board by attacking his classmates with unstinting vitriol. The techno-libertarians remained adamant that online communities would develop mechanisms to cope with such problems, and that the benefits of being able to create a discussion area open to all comers – more freedom under repressive regimes, more frank discussion for every individual – would outweigh any drawbacks.<br />
<br />
However, the accuracy of the idea that the Internet need not respect terrestrial law was soon called into doubt. Tim Wu and Jack Goldsmith [http://books.google.com/books?id=Q01APcGmLB8C document] (see Chapter 1) the 2000 case in which Yahoo! attempted to resist a takedown request from the French government. After activists discovered Nazi merchandise for sale on a Yahoo! site, they appealed to the government to enforce the laws banning such material from being sold in France. Yahoo! protested that there was no way for it to identify traffic coming from France, and that to enforce the French laws would ultimately mean enforcing the lowest common denominator of all international law in all locations. However, having lost their case in the French courts in the face of expert testimony, and facing fines of 100,000 francs per day against their new French division, the company caved and admitted that IP addresses could be used to tell from what country a visitor came. This was a blow to the notion that the Internet was inherently resistant to national laws, but it was also a blow to the idea that users of the Internet were all faceless numbers – it soon became very clear that the companies that individuals did business with on the Internet knew plenty about their users, both in the form of information submitted by those users and in the form of other incidental data.<br />
<br />
Once those two facts were combined, it became clear that online service providers doing business internationally were vulnerable to economic threats if they failed to comply with local legal regimes by turning over nominally anonymous users. This acquired early public salience in 2004, when the Chinese government discovered that someone with a Yahoo! email account had forwarded to a US-based pro-democracy blogger an internal Communist party message warning of potential unrest which might arise from discussion of the fifteenth anniversary of the Tiananmen Square protests. China [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/4221538.stm demanded] that the company turn over any records relating to the disclosure of its state secrets, and Yahoo! complied without question. Chinese journalist Shi Tao was ultimately arrested and sentenced to ten years in prison. After the role played by Yahoo! was disclosed, the company became the subject of global outrage, castigated by pro-free-speech nonprofits and hauled before Congress to account for its actions. <span style="border:1px dashed #575744; padding:0 .25em; margin:0 .25em; background:#ffc;">As of 2009, Shi Tao remains imprisoned.</span> However, Yahoo! was merely the most visible of the companies involved in such disclosures – Amnesty International [http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/POL30/026/2006/en/dom-POL300262006en.pdf reports] that many of the largest international online service providers were implicated at the time and continue to wrestle with these issues.<br />
<br />
In recent years, similar cases have cropped up all over the world, from Africa to Asia to the Middle East, and even some American companies have [http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-10023104-71.html taken part] in using the disclosure-friendly laws of other countries to track down derogatory speakers. Many of these countries describe themselves as protecting themselves from the dangerous consequences of free speech: in January, South Korea [http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123178875223174403.html arrested] a blogger whose acerbic postings about government bureaucrats had supposedly undermined the population’s faith in the government’s ability to manage the global financial crisis. These governments say that free speech is always at war with social stability, as it was in Lessig’s classroom, and that they and Americans simply disagree on where the line must be drawn. At the same time, pro-democracy activists say that American companies and the American government aren’t doing enough work insisting upon the universality of American values.<br />
<br />
The most salient legislative response has been the [http://thomas.loc.gov/home/gpoxmlc110/h275_ih.xml Global Online Freedom Act] (GOFA), proposed by Representative Chris Smith (R-NJ). GOFA would require the State Department to track internet-restricting countries and then forbid US corporations from a) storing users’ personal data within the borders of those countries or b) turning over any personally identifiable information to law enforcement within those countries without first seeking the permission of the US Department of Justice. Many pro-free-speech non-profits have [http://www.rsf.org/print.php3?id_article=18304 praised] the GOFA bill as an [http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=24141 “advance for online free expression.”] Commentators have also [http://www.cdt.org/international/censorship/20080505gofa.pdf suggested], however, that it is unworkable in practice, and would in effect require US companies to cease doing meaningful business within such countries.<br />
<br />
Some corporations have pushed instead for a non-government-driven multi-stakeholder plan of action. Several of the largest American online service providers, including Microsoft, Google, and Yahoo!, have joined forces with the Berkman Center to develop the [http://www.globalnetworkinitiative.org/index.php Global Network Initiative] (GNI). The GNI lays out a set of universal [http://www.globalnetworkinitiative.org/principles/index.php principles] to be referenced when making difficult human rights decisions; it then gives [http://www.globalnetworkinitiative.org/implementationguidelines/index.php implementation guidance] to boards considering those principles on a case-by-case basis as requests for users' data come in. Some of the Congressional critics of these companies have been mollified by the evident progress. At the same time, some [http://writ.news.findlaw.com/ramasastry/20081212.html legal scholars] and [http://www.technewsworld.com/story/commentary/64972.html privacy specialists] (see Rotenberg quote <span style="border:1px dashed #575744; padding:0 .25em; margin:0 .25em; background:#ffc;">"It's good that companies are paying more attention to the need to safeguard fundamental rights on the Internet, but this proposal lacks specific recommendations and fails to address key concerns about the surveillance and censorship of Internet users"</span>) say the GNI is not widely enough accepted or equipped with severe enough penalties to make a serious difference.<br />
<br />
Meanwhile, countries wary of indiscriminate speech have started to look at alternatives of their own. This past year, the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), a specialized agency of the United Nations that deals with the regulation of international telecommunications issues, [http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10040152-38.html opened up] a study group on Question 6-17 (Q6/17). The Q6/17 group was chartered at the request of a state-owned Chinese telecommunications firm to [http://www.politechbot.com/docs/itu.china.internet.traceback.proposal.091108.doc investigate the feasibility] <span style="border:1px dashed #575744; padding:0 .25em; margin:0 .25em; background:#ffc;">link to .doc</span> of retrofitting the internet with Internet Protocol (IP) traceback technology. IP packets, the individual "envelopes" used to send information across the internet, are difficult, if not impossible, to follow back from their destination to their source. IP traceback technology would use new software and hardware to retrofit tracing mechanisms onto the internet as built, so as to make it easier to find the sender of a given message. The proponents of Q6/17 suggest that it could be used to make it more difficult to remotely infect computers with viruses or make anonymous threats online. Privacy specialists, however, suspect that the major purpose is to crack down on unwanted speech.<br />
<br />
=== Required Readings ===<br />
<br />
<div style="padding:0 1em; float:right; margin-left:1em; clear:both; width:66%; background:#ffc; border:1px dashed #575744;">In the spirit of a class in which different groups were meant to represent different constituencies with different backgrounds, we decided to move away from using the readings to get the class on the same page. Aside from the text above, which was assigned as introductory material, each group was assigned individualized readings to explain "their" point of view. As a result, we removed the Required Readings section of the page entirely, archiving it, as seen below. The Additional Readings section remained in place, for those students interested in a wider exploration of the issues. The individualized readings were emailed individually to the class groups, as discussed in [[#Part_II:_Planning_and_Execution.2FThe_Week_of_the_Class|Part II]].</div><br />
<br />
[[AnP Brainstorming|Early brainstorming on this topic]]<br />
<br />
=== Additional Readings ===<br />
<br />
(Some of these and additional readings will be broken down by simulation group)<br />
<br />
==== Audio: ====<br />
<br />
* http://rconversation.blogs.com/rconversation/2008/07/on-the-media-in.html (Episode of On The Media w/ Rebecca MacKinnon)<br />
<br />
==== Video ====<br />
<br />
* http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMorzIBHmrA (Conversation about GNI on CSPAN w/ Michael Samway and Julien Sanchez)<br />
<br />
==== Text ====<br />
<br />
===== “Just the Facts” Reporting =====<br />
<br />
* http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7696356.stm<br />
<br />
* http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/28/technology/internet/28privacy.html?_r=1&oref=slogin<br />
<br />
==== Critiques ====<br />
<br />
* http://writ.news.findlaw.com/ramasastry/20081212.html (Anita Ramasastry, Associate Professor at University of Washington School of Law)<br />
<br />
* http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=29117 (Reporters without Borders, an NGO that was part of the talks but didn’t sign onto the GNI at the end)<br />
<br />
* http://www.eff.org/files/filenode/gni/signon_letter.txt (Electronic Frontier Foundation, an NGO that was part of the talks and did sign onto the GNI at the end)<br />
<br />
* http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060313/mackinnon (Rebecca MacKinnon, writing in The Nation before the GNI existed, discusses four companies' culpability and diagnoses a major flaw with GOFA)<br />
<br />
=== Links ===<br />
http://blogs.wsj.com/chinajournal/2008/10/28/parsing-the-google-yahoo-microsoft-global-network-initiative/<br />
<br />
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/30/magazine/30google-t.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink&adxnnlx=1229749063-T7qNc5xv9ZLDiLcjc8AZxQ&pagewanted=print<br />
<br />
http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/04/republican-hous.html<br />
<br />
http://rconversation.blogs.com/rconversation/2007/01/google_yahoo_mi.html<br />
<br />
http://www.circleid.com/posts/print/20081028_global_network_initiative/<br />
<br />
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/oct/30/amnesty-global-network-initiative<br />
<br />
http://www.economist.com/world/asia/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12783609<br />
<br />
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-a-santoro-and-wendy-goldberg/chinese-internet-censorsh_b_156212.html<br />
<br />
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10040152-38.html (Declan McCullagh of CNet News on Q6/17, including links to several leaked ITU documents)<br />
<br />
== Part II: Planning and Execution/The Week of the Class ==<br />
<br />
<div style="padding:0 1em; margin-left:1em; clear:both; width:66%; background:#ffc; border:1px dashed #575744;">Parts II and III cover the class as it played out, and represent entirely new material on this wiki. As a result, there are no yellow commentary boxes in these sections.</div><br />
<br />
=== The lead-up to the class ===<br />
<br />
The class was divided into six role-playing groups representing six constituencies with complaints about the manner in which free speech issues on the internet are currently handled. Group assignments fell naturally out of the existing divisions within the class - each role-playing group represented two of the discussion topic groups on the syllabus. Each group was emailed individually approximately seven days before the class date. The email explained the concept behind the class:<br />
<br />
<blockquote>For the Anonymity and Privacy class this coming week, we're going to run things slightly differently. The class will be divided into six groups, and each group will be given an identity as a participant in the ongoing global battle over anonymous speech online, as well as a series of unique readings giving some specialized background. Then, in class, we'll introduce some general background and then have an exercise involving both y'all and our guest. See the last page of the attachment for your readings.</blockquote><br />
<br />
As the text of the email suggests, each one contained an individualized reading for the associated group. See below for the attached readings:<br />
<br />
[http://iifap.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/group1readings.doc Group 1: The Vietnamese Government]<br />
<br />
[http://iifap.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/group2readings.doc Group 2: Vietnamese Pro-Democracy Bloggers]<br />
<br />
[http://iifap.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/group3readings.doc Group 3: The US Government]<br />
<br />
[http://iifap.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/group4readings.doc Group 4: Yahoo! (the most popular blogging service in Vietnam)]<br />
<br />
[http://iifap.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/group5readings.doc Group 5: Amnesty International]<br />
<br />
[http://iifap.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/group6readings.doc Group 6: The Chinese Government]<br />
<br />
=== The day of class ===<br />
<br />
The room was reworked in order to remove barriers between students and facilitate discussion. The central classroom table was broken into constituent tables, each of which was placed along the outside wall of the class and topped with a name tag indicating the individual group which was expected to use that table as its base of operations. Chairs were placed inside the tables, rather than outside, to bring the groups closer to one another and the central discussion space within the classroom. (See the room plan, [http://iifap.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/room-plan.jpg here]. While it didn't work out exactly as pictured, the idea is the key.) Students were asked to begin the classroom seated at the tables associated with their role-playing groups so that the transition from the presentation and discussion to the simulation would be as seamless as possible.<br />
<br />
Conor opened the class with a Power Point presentation that reviewed the basic outline of the issues at hand. This served both as a refresher of the introductory reading material and as a point of reference for the groups within the simulation.<br />
<br />
+ Clip<br />
<br />
After the introduction, Dan moderated a conversation between two stakeholders in the current international contretemps over networked speech control issues: Colin Maclay of the Berkman Center and Andrew McLaughlin from Google. Colin discussed difficulties involved in creating the Global Network Initiative and acquiring more signatories, especially in Europe. Andrew discussed changes that he thought would help make the GNI more useful to individual users.<br />
<br />
+ Clip<br />
<br />
Once everyone was caught up to speed on the tensions which would have to be navigated in the simulation, Joshua explained the simulation to the participants. Groups were asked to develop a strategy for creating a widely acceptable solution to the "Open Networks, Closed Borders" problem, to discuss their solution with other groups and acquire partners, and then to present their revised solutions to the class at large. After feedback, the solutions would be voted upon by the members of the class.<br />
<br />
+ Clip<br />
<br />
The first 40 or so minutes of the hour-long simulation period was scheduled as follows:<br />
<br />
* 2 minutes: Explanation from the team<br />
* 5 minutes: Intra-group meetings to elect a recorder/presenter and to set strategy<br />
* 10 minutes: Inter-group meetings. Recorder/presenters stay in place while other members of the team (ambassadors) venture out to discuss the acceptability of proposals with both ambassadors and recorder/presenters from other groups.<br />
* 2 minutes: Groups are presented with a disruptor to ensure that each one remembers that other groups have different interests: in this case, a letter offering the opinion of select members of Congress regarding the issues at hand (an actual letter; visit [http://www.viettan.org/spip.php?article8428 this site] to see the text).<br />
* 5 minutes: Intra-group meetings to report back and revise solution proposals<br />
* 10 minutes: A second round of inter-group meetings<br />
* 2 minutes: To write up final solutions<br />
<br />
Each group was then given two minutes to present their final proposals to the class, and then Colin Maclay, team lead on the GNI project at the Berkman Center, offered feedback as to the viability and utility of each solution.<br />
<br />
The proposals:<br />
<br />
+ Clip<br />
<br />
Colin's feedback:<br />
<br />
+ Clip<br />
<br />
Originally, the voting was scheduled for the last five minutes of class, but proposal presentations and feedback exceeded the available time as it was, and so voting was pushed off into post-class time.<br />
<br />
=== After the Class ===<br />
<br />
After class, we gave all of the participants an opportunity to vote on the proposals via email. The email, which summarized the proposals as explained in class, is excerpted here:<br />
<br />
<blockquote><br />
Each of you (individually, but remaining in your role from the simulation) should rank the solutions listed below from most to least acceptable, and draw a line between "tolerable" and "intolerable" solutions from your point of view. For example:<br />
<p><br />
6 3 | 4 5 2 1 would indicate that you liked China's answer the best, could also live with Congress's, and found Vietnam's utterly unacceptable.<br />
</p><br />
<p><br />
The carrot: Your votes will inform the final writeup that we do for the class and for the GNI team.<br />
</p><br />
<p><br />
The stick: We will hound you mercilessly until you vote.<br />
</p><br />
<p><br />
Thanks again,<br />
The United Nations of IIF<br />
</p><br />
<p><br />
___________________________________________________________________<br />
</p><br />
<p><br />
'''Solution 1 (Vietnam):'''<br />
Vietnam is willing to accept the GNI principles and best practices, but will carry them out using its own laws and and due process protections. Companies operating within Vietnam must follow all its laws and heed its national security policy.<br />
</p><br />
<p><br />
'''Solution 2 (Bloggers):'''<br />
Vietnam should enact a DMCA-style (domestic) law that absolves bloggers from criminal liability for objectionable posts so long as they are timely removed. ISPs are also immune from liability so long as they cooperate in taking down objectionable content.<br />
</p><br />
<p><br />
'''Solution 3 (US Congress):'''<br />
Any ICT company turning information over to a foreign government must clear that disclosure with the US government, which will apply a compelling need standard. ICT companies who turn over information without permission are subject to sanction.<br />
</p><br />
<p><br />
'''Solution 4 (Yahoo!):'''<br />
Yahoo! proposes that individual conflicts be informally arbitrated by the individuals involved through a standardized process, and that irreconcilable conflicts be referred for binding arbitration to a special subcommittee of the WTO<br />
</p><br />
<p><br />
'''Solution 5 (Amnesty):'''<br />
AI proposes a network of pro bono lawyers in Vietnam, who will sue on behalf of targeted bloggers when ICT companies inform AI that they have received information requests. A review board is in place to permit other nations to pressure Vietnam if necessary.<br />
</p><br />
<p><br />
'''Solution 6 (China):'''<br />
Nations are only bound by treaties, and China is happy to opt out of anything the other groups agree on that would limit its sovereignty. Instead, it advocates the Q6/17 program, which would limit anonymity on the Internet layer.<br />
</p><br />
</blockquote><br />
<br />
As our team would have predicted, the teams, when asked to vote in character, voted largely for their own solutions. Among the second-choice solutions, no alternative was a clear favorite. While Team 6's solution implementing Q6/17 was overwhelmingly rejected as unacceptable by the voting population, the list of acceptable solutions varied by population:<br />
<br />
'''Team 1 (Vietnam):'''<br />
1 6 | 2 3 4 5<br />
1 2 | 6 4 5 3<br />
5 2 3 4 | 1 6<br />
5 1 | 2 4 6 3<br />
<br />
'''Team 2 (Bloggers):'''<br />
2 1 3 5 | 4 6 <br />
2 5 3 4 | 6 1 <br />
2 3 4 5 | 6 1<br />
4 2 1 | 6 5 3<br />
<br />
'''Team 3 (US Congress):'''<br />
3 | 1 2 5 4 6<br />
3 2 4 5 | 1 6<br />
6 5 4 3 | 2 1<br />
2 3 4 5 | 1 6<br />
<br />
'''Team 4 (Yahoo!):'''<br />
4 5 2 3 1 6<br />
4 5 2 | 3 1 6<br />
4 1 2 5 3 6<br />
4 1 | 2 5 3 6<br />
4 1 5 6 | 2 3<br />
<br />
'''Team 5 (Amnesty):'''<br />
5 4 1 3 2 6<br />
5 2 4 3 1 6<br />
4 3 5 2 1 6<br />
4 5 3 2 | 1 6<br />
2 4 5 | 3 1 6<br />
<br />
'''Team 6 (China):'''<br />
6 1 2 | 5 4 3<br />
6 2 1 | 5 4 3<br />
6 1 2 | 5 4 3<br />
<br />
As the voting results suggest, China and Vietnam were most interested in each others' solutions, and the same was largely true of Yahoo! and Amnesty International. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the team representing the US Congress was hopelessly confused.<br />
<br />
== Part III: Reactions and Discussion/Suggestions to Future Class Leaders ==<br />
<br />
=== Successes and Failures ===<br />
<br />
=== Role of Technology ===<br />
<br />
=== Additional Suggestions for Future Classes ===</div>Jgruensphttps://cyber.harvard.edu/iif/?title=Open_Networks,_Closed_Regimes&diff=3110Open Networks, Closed Regimes2009-05-15T06:10:26Z<p>Jgruensp: </p>
<hr />
<div><!--<br />
How to make the yellow boxes:<br />
<br />
For the paragraph-sized boxes, use this code and place your text where it says "text":<br />
<br />
<div style="padding:1em; margin:1em 0 1em 31%; clear:both; background:#ffc; border:1px dashed #575744; width:66%; align:right;">text</div><br />
<br />
For the inline boxes, use this code and place your text where it says "text":<br />
<br />
<span style="border:1px dashed #575744; padding:0 .25em; margin:0 .25em; background:#ffc;">text</span><br />
<br />
/--><br />
<br />
<div style="float:right; padding:0 1em; margin-left:1em; clear:both; width:66%; background:#ffc; border:1px dashed #575744;"><p>This page documents a single class session on worldwide Internet restrictions taught by [[User:Jgruensp|Joshua Gruenspecht]], [[User:CKennedy|Conor Kennedy]], and [[User:Danray|Dan Ray]] in April 2009. We've filled it out with some background information and our reactions, in the hopes that it might be useful to someone else teaching a similar subject in the future. Special thanks go out to Caroline Nolan and Colin Maclay, who provided invaluable assistance both in the early days of planning the class and in the simulation setup. Thanks also to Andrew McLaughlin for taking time out of his schedule to join the class.</p><br />
<br />
<p>This page is a work in progress, and we encourage anyone to add to it. The wiki only permits registered users to edit it, but you can create a free, pseudonymous account using the link at the top right corner of the page. (You can copy our formatting or add your own; a template for the yellow annotations appears in an HTML comment at the top of the page source.)</p></div><br />
<br />
== Part I: Early Preparation/The Original Wiki ==<br />
<br />
=== Problem to be solved ===<br />
<br />
<br />
<div style="float:right; padding:0 1em; margin-left:1em; clear:both; width:66%; background:#ffc; border:1px dashed #575744;">Our students had access to an earlier version of this wiki page. For the information in this section, unformatted text indicates material that was available at the time of our presentation, and yellow boxes like this one are annotations added after the fact think of them like the director's commentary. The actual revision of the page at the time of the class session is [http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/iif/?title=Open_Networks%2C_Closed_Regimes&oldid=2204 here]</div>US-based internet services are used by citizens of every regime in the world. Western-based internet companies operate these services in many countries where governments routinely request or demand sensitive information about their citizens. How should high-level officers respond when their companies receive requests to turn over information which violate privacy and anonymity expectations? How can citizens, NGOs, and government actors influence the way these companies respond?<br />
<br />
=== Precis ===<br />
The idea of the internet service provider as a border-defying government-regulation-free jurisdiction was already dying in the 1990s, but the large-scale movement of internet services into regimes without free speech protections has raised serious concerns about managing cross-border privacy standards over the last five years. From Yahoo! turning over pro-democracy Chinese bloggers to the Chinese government, to Saudi Arabia tracking porn downloaders by pulling ISP records, to South Korea trying to arrest anonymous government critics, the problems are widespread and not restricted only to regimes that Americans are used to thinking of as "repressive." The globalization of internet services raises difficult questions: What requests for information are invasive? What kind of deference is due to local sovereignty? How can the competing demands best be balanced? How can the relevant stakeholders work toward achieving a proper balance?<br />
<br />
=== The Story So Far ===<br />
<br />
<div style="float:right; padding:0 1em; margin-left:1em; clear:both; width:66%; background:#ffc; border:1px dashed #575744;">This section constitutes the class's common ground, in that all students were expected to read it. It is intended to situate today's issues (including our simulated crisis) within the Internet's history, and to introduce the three major proposals we expected our simulation groups to cover.</div>Several weeks ago, our class read John Perry Barlow’s [http://homes.eff.org/~barlow/Declaration-Final.html Declaration of Independence of Cyberspace] <span style="border:1px dashed #575744; padding:0 .25em; margin:0 .25em; background:#ffc;">(this refers to the readings for an earlier class. It's probably not essential to assign it; this summary is plenty for our purposes.)</span>, written in 1996, in which he addresses the nations of the world and “declare[s] the global social space we are building to be naturally independent of the tyrannies you seek to impose on us.” For Barlow, perhaps the most important innovation of cyberspace was its ability to act as a great leveler: “We are creating a world that all may enter without privilege or prejudice accorded by race, economic power, military force, or station of birth. We are creating a world where anyone, anywhere may express his or her beliefs, no matter how singular, without fear of being coerced into silence or conformity.” As these lines imply, the key to this brave new world of Barlow’s was the possibility of anonymity (or pseudonymity): real-world barriers placed by normative biases or governmental controls could be hurdled by individuals joining online communities to express their provocative thoughts. Secure in the knowledge that their identities were divorced from their real-world selves, citizens of every nation could create the first truly free global marketplace of ideas.<br />
<br />
From well before Barlow’s Declaration, this idea of the Internet as an enabler of the anonymous expression of ideas was a well-established meme in the popular conception of the Internet, from Peter Steiner’s [http://www.unc.edu/depts/jomc/academics/dri/idog.jpg famous New Yorker cartoon] to the aphorism that “The net treats censorship as a defect and routes around it.” <span style="border:1px dashed #575744; padding:0 .25em; margin:0 .25em; background:#ffc;">This quote comes from [http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/archived_content/people/reagle/inet-quotations-19990709.html John Gilmore]</span> And just as quickly, people started to raise questions about whether a completely uncontrolled discourse was desirable – Larry Lessig famously [http://pdf.codev2.cc/Lessig-Codev2.pdf told the story] (see p. 102-106) of one anonymous student who single-handedly shut down Lessig’s first online classroom bulletin board by attacking his classmates with unstinting vitriol. The techno-libertarians remained adamant that online communities would develop mechanisms to cope with such problems, and that the benefits of being able to create a discussion area open to all comers – more freedom under repressive regimes, more frank discussion for every individual – would outweigh any drawbacks.<br />
<br />
However, the accuracy of the idea that the Internet need not respect terrestrial law was soon called into doubt. Tim Wu and Jack Goldsmith [http://books.google.com/books?id=Q01APcGmLB8C document] (see Chapter 1) the 2000 case in which Yahoo! attempted to resist a takedown request from the French government. After activists discovered Nazi merchandise for sale on a Yahoo! site, they appealed to the government to enforce the laws banning such material from being sold in France. Yahoo! protested that there was no way for it to identify traffic coming from France, and that to enforce the French laws would ultimately mean enforcing the lowest common denominator of all international law in all locations. However, having lost their case in the French courts in the face of expert testimony, and facing fines of 100,000 francs per day against their new French division, the company caved and admitted that IP addresses could be used to tell from what country a visitor came. This was a blow to the notion that the Internet was inherently resistant to national laws, but it was also a blow to the idea that users of the Internet were all faceless numbers – it soon became very clear that the companies that individuals did business with on the Internet knew plenty about their users, both in the form of information submitted by those users and in the form of other incidental data.<br />
<br />
Once those two facts were combined, it became clear that online service providers doing business internationally were vulnerable to economic threats if they failed to comply with local legal regimes by turning over nominally anonymous users. This acquired early public salience in 2004, when the Chinese government discovered that someone with a Yahoo! email account had forwarded to a US-based pro-democracy blogger an internal Communist party message warning of potential unrest which might arise from discussion of the fifteenth anniversary of the Tiananmen Square protests. China [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/4221538.stm demanded] that the company turn over any records relating to the disclosure of its state secrets, and Yahoo! complied without question. Chinese journalist Shi Tao was ultimately arrested and sentenced to ten years in prison. After the role played by Yahoo! was disclosed, the company became the subject of global outrage, castigated by pro-free-speech nonprofits and hauled before Congress to account for its actions. <span style="border:1px dashed #575744; padding:0 .25em; margin:0 .25em; background:#ffc;">As of 2009, Shi Tao remains imprisoned.</span> However, Yahoo! was merely the most visible of the companies involved in such disclosures – Amnesty International [http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/POL30/026/2006/en/dom-POL300262006en.pdf reports] that many of the largest international online service providers were implicated at the time and continue to wrestle with these issues.<br />
<br />
In recent years, similar cases have cropped up all over the world, from Africa to Asia to the Middle East, and even some American companies have [http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-10023104-71.html taken part] in using the disclosure-friendly laws of other countries to track down derogatory speakers. Many of these countries describe themselves as protecting themselves from the dangerous consequences of free speech: in January, South Korea [http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123178875223174403.html arrested] a blogger whose acerbic postings about government bureaucrats had supposedly undermined the population’s faith in the government’s ability to manage the global financial crisis. These governments say that free speech is always at war with social stability, as it was in Lessig’s classroom, and that they and Americans simply disagree on where the line must be drawn. At the same time, pro-democracy activists say that American companies and the American government aren’t doing enough work insisting upon the universality of American values.<br />
<br />
The most salient legislative response has been the [http://thomas.loc.gov/home/gpoxmlc110/h275_ih.xml Global Online Freedom Act] (GOFA), proposed by Representative Chris Smith (R-NJ). GOFA would require the State Department to track internet-restricting countries and then forbid US corporations from a) storing users’ personal data within the borders of those countries or b) turning over any personally identifiable information to law enforcement within those countries without first seeking the permission of the US Department of Justice. Many pro-free-speech non-profits have [http://www.rsf.org/print.php3?id_article=18304 praised] the GOFA bill as an [http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=24141 “advance for online free expression.”] Commentators have also [http://www.cdt.org/international/censorship/20080505gofa.pdf suggested], however, that it is unworkable in practice, and would in effect require US companies to cease doing meaningful business within such countries.<br />
<br />
Some corporations have pushed instead for a non-government-driven multi-stakeholder plan of action. Several of the largest American online service providers, including Microsoft, Google, and Yahoo!, have joined forces with the Berkman Center to develop the [http://www.globalnetworkinitiative.org/index.php Global Network Initiative] (GNI). The GNI lays out a set of universal [http://www.globalnetworkinitiative.org/principles/index.php principles] to be referenced when making difficult human rights decisions; it then gives [http://www.globalnetworkinitiative.org/implementationguidelines/index.php implementation guidance] to boards considering those principles on a case-by-case basis as requests for users' data come in. Some of the Congressional critics of these companies have been mollified by the evident progress. At the same time, some [http://writ.news.findlaw.com/ramasastry/20081212.html legal scholars] and [http://www.technewsworld.com/story/commentary/64972.html privacy specialists] (see Rotenberg quote <span style="border:1px dashed #575744; padding:0 .25em; margin:0 .25em; background:#ffc;">"It's good that companies are paying more attention to the need to safeguard fundamental rights on the Internet, but this proposal lacks specific recommendations and fails to address key concerns about the surveillance and censorship of Internet users"</span>) say the GNI is not widely enough accepted or equipped with severe enough penalties to make a serious difference.<br />
<br />
Meanwhile, countries wary of indiscriminate speech have started to look at alternatives of their own. This past year, the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), a specialized agency of the United Nations that deals with the regulation of international telecommunications issues, [http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10040152-38.html opened up] a study group on Question 6-17 (Q6/17). The Q6/17 group was chartered at the request of a state-owned Chinese telecommunications firm to [http://www.politechbot.com/docs/itu.china.internet.traceback.proposal.091108.doc investigate the feasibility] <span style="border:1px dashed #575744; padding:0 .25em; margin:0 .25em; background:#ffc;">link to .doc</span> of retrofitting the internet with Internet Protocol (IP) traceback technology. IP packets, the individual "envelopes" used to send information across the internet, are difficult, if not impossible, to follow back from their destination to their source. IP traceback technology would use new software and hardware to retrofit tracing mechanisms onto the internet as built, so as to make it easier to find the sender of a given message. The proponents of Q6/17 suggest that it could be used to make it more difficult to remotely infect computers with viruses or make anonymous threats online. Privacy specialists, however, suspect that the major purpose is to crack down on unwanted speech.<br />
<br />
=== Required Readings ===<br />
<br />
<div style="padding:0 1em; float:right; margin-left:1em; clear:both; width:66%; background:#ffc; border:1px dashed #575744;">In the spirit of a class in which different groups were meant to represent different constituencies with different backgrounds, we decided to move away from using the readings to get the class on the same page. Aside from the text above, which was assigned as introductory material, each group was assigned individualized readings to explain "their" point of view. As a result, we removed the Required Readings section of the page entirely, archiving it, as seen below. The Additional Readings section remained in place, for those students interested in a wider exploration of the issues. The individualized readings were emailed individually to the class groups, as discussed in [[#Part_II:_Planning_and_Execution.2FThe_Week_of_the_Class|Part II]].</div><br />
<br />
[[AnP Brainstorming|Early brainstorming on this topic]]<br />
<br />
=== Additional Readings ===<br />
<br />
(Some of these and additional readings will be broken down by simulation group)<br />
<br />
==== Audio: ====<br />
<br />
* http://rconversation.blogs.com/rconversation/2008/07/on-the-media-in.html (Episode of On The Media w/ Rebecca MacKinnon)<br />
<br />
==== Video ====<br />
<br />
* http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMorzIBHmrA (Conversation about GNI on CSPAN w/ Michael Samway and Julien Sanchez)<br />
<br />
==== Text ====<br />
<br />
===== “Just the Facts” Reporting =====<br />
<br />
* http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7696356.stm<br />
<br />
* http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/28/technology/internet/28privacy.html?_r=1&oref=slogin<br />
<br />
==== Critiques ====<br />
<br />
* http://writ.news.findlaw.com/ramasastry/20081212.html (Anita Ramasastry, Associate Professor at University of Washington School of Law)<br />
<br />
* http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=29117 (Reporters without Borders, an NGO that was part of the talks but didn’t sign onto the GNI at the end)<br />
<br />
* http://www.eff.org/files/filenode/gni/signon_letter.txt (Electronic Frontier Foundation, an NGO that was part of the talks and did sign onto the GNI at the end)<br />
<br />
* http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060313/mackinnon (Rebecca MacKinnon, writing in The Nation before the GNI existed, discusses four companies' culpability and diagnoses a major flaw with GOFA)<br />
<br />
=== Links ===<br />
http://blogs.wsj.com/chinajournal/2008/10/28/parsing-the-google-yahoo-microsoft-global-network-initiative/<br />
<br />
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/30/magazine/30google-t.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink&adxnnlx=1229749063-T7qNc5xv9ZLDiLcjc8AZxQ&pagewanted=print<br />
<br />
http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/04/republican-hous.html<br />
<br />
http://rconversation.blogs.com/rconversation/2007/01/google_yahoo_mi.html<br />
<br />
http://www.circleid.com/posts/print/20081028_global_network_initiative/<br />
<br />
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/oct/30/amnesty-global-network-initiative<br />
<br />
http://www.economist.com/world/asia/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12783609<br />
<br />
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-a-santoro-and-wendy-goldberg/chinese-internet-censorsh_b_156212.html<br />
<br />
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10040152-38.html (Declan McCullagh of CNet News on Q6/17, including links to several leaked ITU documents)<br />
<br />
== Part II: Planning and Execution/The Week of the Class ==<br />
<br />
<div style="padding:0 1em; margin-left:1em; clear:both; width:66%; background:#ffc; border:1px dashed #575744;">Parts II and III cover the class as it played out, and represent entirely new material on this wiki. As a result, there are no yellow commentary boxes in these sections.</div><br />
<br />
=== The lead-up to the class ===<br />
<br />
The class was divided into six role-playing groups representing six constituencies with complaints about the manner in which free speech issues on the internet are currently handled. Group assignments fell naturally out of the existing divisions within the class - each role-playing group represented two of the discussion topic groups on the syllabus. Each group was emailed individually approximately seven days before the class date. The email explained the concept behind the class:<br />
<br />
<blockquote>For the Anonymity and Privacy class this coming week, we're going to run things slightly differently. The class will be divided into six groups, and each group will be given an identity as a participant in the ongoing global battle over anonymous speech online, as well as a series of unique readings giving some specialized background. Then, in class, we'll introduce some general background and then have an exercise involving both y'all and our guest. See the last page of the attachment for your readings.</blockquote><br />
<br />
As the text of the email suggests, each one contained an individualized reading for the associated group. See below for the attached readings:<br />
<br />
[http://iifap.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/group1readings.doc Group 1: The Vietnamese Government]<br />
<br />
[http://iifap.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/group2readings.doc Group 2: Vietnamese Pro-Democracy Bloggers]<br />
<br />
[http://iifap.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/group3readings.doc Group 3: The US Government]<br />
<br />
[http://iifap.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/group4readings.doc Group 4: Yahoo! (the most popular blogging service in Vietnam)]<br />
<br />
[http://iifap.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/group5readings.doc Group 5: Amnesty International]<br />
<br />
[http://iifap.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/group6readings.doc Group 6: The Chinese Government]<br />
<br />
=== The day of class ===<br />
<br />
The room was reworked in order to remove barriers between students and facilitate discussion. The central classroom table was broken into constituent tables, each of which was placed along the outside wall of the class and topped with a name tag indicating the individual group which was expected to use that table as its base of operations. Chairs were placed inside the tables, rather than outside, to bring the groups closer to one another and the central discussion space within the classroom. (See the room plan, [http://iifap.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/room-plan.jpg here]. While it didn't work out exactly as pictured, the idea is the key.) Students were asked to begin the classroom seated at the tables associated with their role-playing groups so that the transition from the presentation and discussion to the simulation would be as seamless as possible.<br />
<br />
Conor opened the class with a Power Point presentation that reviewed the basic outline of the issues at hand. This served both as a refresher of the introductory reading material and as a point of reference for the groups within the simulation.<br />
<br />
+ Clip<br />
<br />
After the introduction, Dan moderated a conversation between two stakeholders in the current international contretemps over networked speech control issues: Colin Maclay of the Berkman Center and Andrew McLaughlin from Google. Colin discussed difficulties involved in creating the Global Network Initiative and acquiring more signatories, especially in Europe. Andrew discussed changes that he thought would help make the GNI more useful to individual users.<br />
<br />
+ Clip<br />
<br />
Once everyone was caught up to speed on the tensions which would have to be navigated in the simulation, Joshua explained the simulation to the participants. Groups were asked to develop a strategy for creating a widely acceptable solution to the "Open Networks, Closed Borders" problem, to discuss their solution with other groups and acquire partners, and then to present their revised solutions to the class at large. After feedback, the solutions would be voted upon by the members of the class.<br />
<br />
+ Clip<br />
<br />
The first 40 or so minutes of the hour-long simulation period was scheduled as follows:<br />
<br />
* 2 minutes: Explanation from the team<br />
* 5 minutes: Intra-group meetings to elect a recorder/presenter and to set strategy<br />
* 10 minutes: Inter-group meetings. Recorder/presenters stay in place while other members of the team (ambassadors) venture out to discuss the acceptability of proposals with both ambassadors and recorder/presenters from other groups.<br />
* 2 minutes: Groups are presented with a disruptor to ensure that each one remembers that other groups have different interests: in this case, a letter offering the opinion of select members of Congress regarding the issues at hand (an actual letter; visit [http://www.viettan.org/spip.php?article8428 this site] to see the text).<br />
* 5 minutes: Intra-group meetings to report back and revise solution proposals<br />
* 10 minutes: A second round of inter-group meetings<br />
* 2 minutes: To write up final solutions<br />
<br />
Each group was then given two minutes to present their final proposals to the class, and then Colin Maclay, team lead on the GNI project at the Berkman Center, offered feedback as to the viability and utility of each solution.<br />
<br />
The proposals:<br />
<br />
+ Clip<br />
<br />
Colin's feedback:<br />
<br />
+ Clip<br />
<br />
Originally, the voting was scheduled for the last five minutes of class, but proposal presentations and feedback exceeded the available time as it was, and so voting was pushed off into post-class time.<br />
<br />
=== After the Class ===<br />
<br />
After class, we gave all of the participants an opportunity to vote on the proposals via an email, which summarized the proposals as constructed:<br />
<br />
<blockquote><br />
Each of you (individually, but remaining in your role from the simulation) should rank the solutions listed below from most to least acceptable, and draw a line between "tolerable" and "intolerable" solutions from your point of view. For example:<br />
<p><br />
6 3 | 4 5 2 1 would indicate that you liked China's answer the best, could also live with Congress's, and found Vietnam's utterly unacceptable.<br />
</p><br />
<p><br />
The carrot: Your votes will inform the final writeup that we do for the class and for the GNI team.<br />
</p><br />
<p><br />
The stick: We will hound you mercilessly until you vote.<br />
</p><br />
<p><br />
Thanks again,<br />
The United Nations of IIF<br />
</p><br />
<p><br />
___________________________________________________________________<br />
</p><br />
<p><br />
'''Solution 1 (Vietnam):'''<br />
Vietnam is willing to accept the GNI principles and best practices, but will carry them out using its own laws and and due process protections. Companies operating within Vietnam must follow all its laws and heed its national security policy.<br />
</p><br />
<p><br />
Solution 2 (Bloggers):<br />
Vietnam should enact a DMCA-style (domestic) law that absolves bloggers from criminal liability for objectionable posts so long as they are timely removed. ISPs are also immune from liability so long as they cooperate in taking down objectionable content.<br />
</p><br />
<p><br />
Solution 3 (US Congress):<br />
Any ICT company turning information over to a foreign government must clear that disclosure with the US government, which will apply a compelling need standard. ICT companies who turn over information without permission are subject to sanction.<br />
</p><br />
<p><br />
Solution 4 (Yahoo!):<br />
Yahoo! proposes that individual conflicts be informally arbitrated by the individuals involved through a standardized process, and that irreconcilable conflicts be referred for binding arbitration to a special subcommittee of the WTO<br />
</p><br />
<p><br />
Solution 5 (Amnesty):<br />
AI proposes a network of pro bono lawyers in Vietnam, who will sue on behalf of targeted bloggers when ICT companies inform AI that they have received information requests. A review board is in place to permit other nations to pressure Vietnam if necessary.<br />
</p><br />
<p><br />
Solution 6 (China):<br />
Nations are only bound by treaties, and China is happy to opt out of anything the other groups agree on that would limit its sovereignty. Instead, it advocates the Q6/17 program, which would limit anonymity on the Internet layer.<br />
</p><br />
</blockquote><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
== Part III: Reactions and Discussion/Suggestions to Future Class Leaders ==<br />
<br />
=== Successes and Failures ===<br />
<br />
=== Role of Technology ===<br />
<br />
=== Additional Suggestions for Future Classes ===</div>Jgruensphttps://cyber.harvard.edu/iif/?title=Open_Networks,_Closed_Regimes&diff=3107Open Networks, Closed Regimes2009-05-15T05:44:10Z<p>Jgruensp: </p>
<hr />
<div><!--<br />
How to make the yellow boxes:<br />
<br />
For the paragraph-sized boxes, use this code and place your text where it says "text":<br />
<br />
<div style="padding:1em; margin:1em 0 1em 31%; clear:both; background:#ffc; border:1px dashed #575744; width:66%; align:right;">text</div><br />
<br />
For the inline boxes, use this code and place your text where it says "text":<br />
<br />
<span style="border:1px dashed #575744; padding:0 .25em; margin:0 .25em; background:#ffc;">text</span><br />
<br />
/--><br />
<br />
<div style="float:right; padding:0 1em; margin-left:1em; clear:both; width:66%; background:#ffc; border:1px dashed #575744;"><p>This page documents a single class session on worldwide Internet restrictions taught by [[User:Jgruensp|Joshua Gruenspecht]], [[User:CKennedy|Conor Kennedy]], and [[User:Danray|Dan Ray]] in April 2009. We've filled it out with some background information and our reactions, in the hopes that it might be useful to someone else teaching a similar subject in the future. Special thanks go out to Caroline Nolan and Colin Maclay, who provided invaluable assistance both in the early days of planning the class and in the simulation setup. Thanks also to Andrew McLaughlin for taking time out of his schedule to join the class.</p><br />
<br />
<p>This page is a work in progress, and we encourage anyone to add to it. The wiki only permits registered users to edit it, but you can create a free, pseudonymous account using the link at the top right corner of the page. (You can copy our formatting or add your own; a template for the yellow annotations appears in an HTML comment at the top of the page source.)</p></div><br />
<br />
== Part I: Early Preparation/The Original Wiki ==<br />
<br />
=== Problem to be solved ===<br />
<br />
<br />
<div style="float:right; padding:0 1em; margin-left:1em; clear:both; width:66%; background:#ffc; border:1px dashed #575744;">Our students had access to an earlier version of this wiki page. For the information in this section, unformatted text indicates material that was available at the time of our presentation, and yellow boxes like this one are annotations added after the fact think of them like the director's commentary. The actual revision of the page at the time of the class session is [http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/iif/?title=Open_Networks%2C_Closed_Regimes&oldid=2204 here]</div>US-based internet services are used by citizens of every regime in the world. Western-based internet companies operate these services in many countries where governments routinely request or demand sensitive information about their citizens. How should high-level officers respond when their companies receive requests to turn over information which violate privacy and anonymity expectations? How can citizens, NGOs, and government actors influence the way these companies respond?<br />
<br />
=== Precis ===<br />
The idea of the internet service provider as a border-defying government-regulation-free jurisdiction was already dying in the 1990s, but the large-scale movement of internet services into regimes without free speech protections has raised serious concerns about managing cross-border privacy standards over the last five years. From Yahoo! turning over pro-democracy Chinese bloggers to the Chinese government, to Saudi Arabia tracking porn downloaders by pulling ISP records, to South Korea trying to arrest anonymous government critics, the problems are widespread and not restricted only to regimes that Americans are used to thinking of as "repressive." The globalization of internet services raises difficult questions: What requests for information are invasive? What kind of deference is due to local sovereignty? How can the competing demands best be balanced? How can the relevant stakeholders work toward achieving a proper balance?<br />
<br />
=== The Story So Far ===<br />
<br />
<div style="float:right; padding:0 1em; margin-left:1em; clear:both; width:66%; background:#ffc; border:1px dashed #575744;">This section constitutes the class's common ground, in that all students were expected to read it. It is intended to situate today's issues (including our simulated crisis) within the Internet's history, and to introduce the three major proposals we expected our simulation groups to cover.</div>Several weeks ago, our class read John Perry Barlow’s [http://homes.eff.org/~barlow/Declaration-Final.html Declaration of Independence of Cyberspace] <span style="border:1px dashed #575744; padding:0 .25em; margin:0 .25em; background:#ffc;">(this refers to the readings for an earlier class. It's probably not essential to assign it; this summary is plenty for our purposes.)</span>, written in 1996, in which he addresses the nations of the world and “declare[s] the global social space we are building to be naturally independent of the tyrannies you seek to impose on us.” For Barlow, perhaps the most important innovation of cyberspace was its ability to act as a great leveler: “We are creating a world that all may enter without privilege or prejudice accorded by race, economic power, military force, or station of birth. We are creating a world where anyone, anywhere may express his or her beliefs, no matter how singular, without fear of being coerced into silence or conformity.” As these lines imply, the key to this brave new world of Barlow’s was the possibility of anonymity (or pseudonymity): real-world barriers placed by normative biases or governmental controls could be hurdled by individuals joining online communities to express their provocative thoughts. Secure in the knowledge that their identities were divorced from their real-world selves, citizens of every nation could create the first truly free global marketplace of ideas.<br />
<br />
From well before Barlow’s Declaration, this idea of the Internet as an enabler of the anonymous expression of ideas was a well-established meme in the popular conception of the Internet, from Peter Steiner’s [http://www.unc.edu/depts/jomc/academics/dri/idog.jpg famous New Yorker cartoon] to the aphorism that “The net treats censorship as a defect and routes around it.” <span style="border:1px dashed #575744; padding:0 .25em; margin:0 .25em; background:#ffc;">This quote comes from [http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/archived_content/people/reagle/inet-quotations-19990709.html John Gilmore]</span> And just as quickly, people started to raise questions about whether a completely uncontrolled discourse was desirable – Larry Lessig famously [http://pdf.codev2.cc/Lessig-Codev2.pdf told the story] (see p. 102-106) of one anonymous student who single-handedly shut down Lessig’s first online classroom bulletin board by attacking his classmates with unstinting vitriol. The techno-libertarians remained adamant that online communities would develop mechanisms to cope with such problems, and that the benefits of being able to create a discussion area open to all comers – more freedom under repressive regimes, more frank discussion for every individual – would outweigh any drawbacks.<br />
<br />
However, the accuracy of the idea that the Internet need not respect terrestrial law was soon called into doubt. Tim Wu and Jack Goldsmith [http://books.google.com/books?id=Q01APcGmLB8C document] (see Chapter 1) the 2000 case in which Yahoo! attempted to resist a takedown request from the French government. After activists discovered Nazi merchandise for sale on a Yahoo! site, they appealed to the government to enforce the laws banning such material from being sold in France. Yahoo! protested that there was no way for it to identify traffic coming from France, and that to enforce the French laws would ultimately mean enforcing the lowest common denominator of all international law in all locations. However, having lost their case in the French courts in the face of expert testimony, and facing fines of 100,000 francs per day against their new French division, the company caved and admitted that IP addresses could be used to tell from what country a visitor came. This was a blow to the notion that the Internet was inherently resistant to national laws, but it was also a blow to the idea that users of the Internet were all faceless numbers – it soon became very clear that the companies that individuals did business with on the Internet knew plenty about their users, both in the form of information submitted by those users and in the form of other incidental data.<br />
<br />
Once those two facts were combined, it became clear that online service providers doing business internationally were vulnerable to economic threats if they failed to comply with local legal regimes by turning over nominally anonymous users. This acquired early public salience in 2004, when the Chinese government discovered that someone with a Yahoo! email account had forwarded to a US-based pro-democracy blogger an internal Communist party message warning of potential unrest which might arise from discussion of the fifteenth anniversary of the Tiananmen Square protests. China [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/4221538.stm demanded] that the company turn over any records relating to the disclosure of its state secrets, and Yahoo! complied without question. Chinese journalist Shi Tao was ultimately arrested and sentenced to ten years in prison. After the role played by Yahoo! was disclosed, the company became the subject of global outrage, castigated by pro-free-speech nonprofits and hauled before Congress to account for its actions. <span style="border:1px dashed #575744; padding:0 .25em; margin:0 .25em; background:#ffc;">As of 2009, Shi Tao remains imprisoned.</span> However, Yahoo! was merely the most visible of the companies involved in such disclosures – Amnesty International [http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/POL30/026/2006/en/dom-POL300262006en.pdf reports] that many of the largest international online service providers were implicated at the time and continue to wrestle with these issues.<br />
<br />
In recent years, similar cases have cropped up all over the world, from Africa to Asia to the Middle East, and even some American companies have [http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-10023104-71.html taken part] in using the disclosure-friendly laws of other countries to track down derogatory speakers. Many of these countries describe themselves as protecting themselves from the dangerous consequences of free speech: in January, South Korea [http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123178875223174403.html arrested] a blogger whose acerbic postings about government bureaucrats had supposedly undermined the population’s faith in the government’s ability to manage the global financial crisis. These governments say that free speech is always at war with social stability, as it was in Lessig’s classroom, and that they and Americans simply disagree on where the line must be drawn. At the same time, pro-democracy activists say that American companies and the American government aren’t doing enough work insisting upon the universality of American values.<br />
<br />
The most salient legislative response has been the [http://thomas.loc.gov/home/gpoxmlc110/h275_ih.xml Global Online Freedom Act] (GOFA), proposed by Representative Chris Smith (R-NJ). GOFA would require the State Department to track internet-restricting countries and then forbid US corporations from a) storing users’ personal data within the borders of those countries or b) turning over any personally identifiable information to law enforcement within those countries without first seeking the permission of the US Department of Justice. Many pro-free-speech non-profits have [http://www.rsf.org/print.php3?id_article=18304 praised] the GOFA bill as an [http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=24141 “advance for online free expression.”] Commentators have also [http://www.cdt.org/international/censorship/20080505gofa.pdf suggested], however, that it is unworkable in practice, and would in effect require US companies to cease doing meaningful business within such countries.<br />
<br />
Some corporations have pushed instead for a non-government-driven multi-stakeholder plan of action. Several of the largest American online service providers, including Microsoft, Google, and Yahoo!, have joined forces with the Berkman Center to develop the [http://www.globalnetworkinitiative.org/index.php Global Network Initiative] (GNI). The GNI lays out a set of universal [http://www.globalnetworkinitiative.org/principles/index.php principles] to be referenced when making difficult human rights decisions; it then gives [http://www.globalnetworkinitiative.org/implementationguidelines/index.php implementation guidance] to boards considering those principles on a case-by-case basis as requests for users' data come in. Some of the Congressional critics of these companies have been mollified by the evident progress. At the same time, some [http://writ.news.findlaw.com/ramasastry/20081212.html legal scholars] and [http://www.technewsworld.com/story/commentary/64972.html privacy specialists] (see Rotenberg quote <span style="border:1px dashed #575744; padding:0 .25em; margin:0 .25em; background:#ffc;">"It's good that companies are paying more attention to the need to safeguard fundamental rights on the Internet, but this proposal lacks specific recommendations and fails to address key concerns about the surveillance and censorship of Internet users"</span>) say the GNI is not widely enough accepted or equipped with severe enough penalties to make a serious difference.<br />
<br />
Meanwhile, countries wary of indiscriminate speech have started to look at alternatives of their own. This past year, the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), a specialized agency of the United Nations that deals with the regulation of international telecommunications issues, [http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10040152-38.html opened up] a study group on Question 6-17 (Q6/17). The Q6/17 group was chartered at the request of a state-owned Chinese telecommunications firm to [http://www.politechbot.com/docs/itu.china.internet.traceback.proposal.091108.doc investigate the feasibility] <span style="border:1px dashed #575744; padding:0 .25em; margin:0 .25em; background:#ffc;">link to .doc</span> of retrofitting the internet with Internet Protocol (IP) traceback technology. IP packets, the individual "envelopes" used to send information across the internet, are difficult, if not impossible, to follow back from their destination to their source. IP traceback technology would use new software and hardware to retrofit tracing mechanisms onto the internet as built, so as to make it easier to find the sender of a given message. The proponents of Q6/17 suggest that it could be used to make it more difficult to remotely infect computers with viruses or make anonymous threats online. Privacy specialists, however, suspect that the major purpose is to crack down on unwanted speech.<br />
<br />
=== Required Readings ===<br />
<br />
<div style="padding:0 1em; margin-left:1em; clear:both; width:66%; background:#ffc; border:1px dashed #575744;">In the spirit of a class in which different groups were meant to represent different constituencies with different backgrounds, we decided to move away from using the readings to get the class on the same page. Aside from the text above, which was assigned as introductory material, each group was assigned individualized readings to explain "their" point of view. As a result, we removed the Required Readings section of the page entirely, archiving it, as seen below. The Additional Readings section remained in place, for those students interested in a wider exploration of the issues. The readings were emailed individually to the class groups, as discussed in Part II.</div><br />
<br />
[[AnP Brainstorming|Early brainstorming on this topic]]<br />
<br />
=== Additional Readings ===<br />
<br />
(Some of these and additional readings will be broken down by simulation group)<br />
<br />
==== Audio: ====<br />
<br />
* http://rconversation.blogs.com/rconversation/2008/07/on-the-media-in.html (Episode of On The Media w/ Rebecca MacKinnon)<br />
<br />
==== Video ====<br />
<br />
* http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMorzIBHmrA (Conversation about GNI on CSPAN w/ Michael Samway and Julien Sanchez)<br />
<br />
==== Text ====<br />
<br />
===== “Just the Facts” Reporting =====<br />
<br />
* http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7696356.stm<br />
<br />
* http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/28/technology/internet/28privacy.html?_r=1&oref=slogin<br />
<br />
==== Critiques ====<br />
<br />
* http://writ.news.findlaw.com/ramasastry/20081212.html (Anita Ramasastry, Associate Professor at University of Washington School of Law)<br />
<br />
* http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=29117 (Reporters without Borders, an NGO that was part of the talks but didn’t sign onto the GNI at the end)<br />
<br />
* http://www.eff.org/files/filenode/gni/signon_letter.txt (Electronic Frontier Foundation, an NGO that was part of the talks and did sign onto the GNI at the end)<br />
<br />
* http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060313/mackinnon (Rebecca MacKinnon, writing in The Nation before the GNI existed, discusses four companies' culpability and diagnoses a major flaw with GOFA)<br />
<br />
=== Links ===<br />
http://blogs.wsj.com/chinajournal/2008/10/28/parsing-the-google-yahoo-microsoft-global-network-initiative/<br />
<br />
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/30/magazine/30google-t.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink&adxnnlx=1229749063-T7qNc5xv9ZLDiLcjc8AZxQ&pagewanted=print<br />
<br />
http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/04/republican-hous.html<br />
<br />
http://rconversation.blogs.com/rconversation/2007/01/google_yahoo_mi.html<br />
<br />
http://www.circleid.com/posts/print/20081028_global_network_initiative/<br />
<br />
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/oct/30/amnesty-global-network-initiative<br />
<br />
http://www.economist.com/world/asia/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12783609<br />
<br />
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-a-santoro-and-wendy-goldberg/chinese-internet-censorsh_b_156212.html<br />
<br />
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10040152-38.html (Declan McCullagh of CNet News on Q6/17, including links to several leaked ITU documents)<br />
<br />
== Part II: Planning and Execution/The Week of the Class ==<br />
<br />
<div style="padding:0 1em; margin-left:1em; clear:both; width:66%; background:#ffc; border:1px dashed #575744;">Parts II and III cover the class as it played out, and represent entirely new material on this wiki. As a result, there are no yellow commentary boxes in these sections.</div><br />
<br />
=== The lead-up to the class ===<br />
<br />
The class was divided into six role-playing groups representing six constituencies with complaints about the manner in which free speech issues on the internet are currently handled. Group assignments fell naturally out of the existing divisions within the class - each role-playing group represented two of the discussion topic groups on the syllabus. Each group was emailed individually approximately seven days before the class date. The email explained the concept behind the class:<br />
<br />
<span style="border:1px; padding:0 .25em; margin:0 .25em; background:#ccf;">For the Anonymity and Privacy class this coming week, we're going to run things slightly differently. The class will be divided into six groups, and each group will be given an identity as a participant in the ongoing global battle over anonymous speech online, as well as a series of unique readings giving some specialized background. Then, in class, we'll introduce some general background and then have an exercise involving both y'all and our guest. See the last page of the attachment for your readings.</span><br />
<br />
As the text of the email suggests, each one contained an individualized reading for the associated group. See below for the attached readings:<br />
<br />
[http://iifap.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/group1readings.doc Group 1: The Vietnamese Government]<br />
<br />
[http://iifap.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/group2readings.doc Group 2: Vietnamese Pro-Democracy Bloggers]<br />
<br />
[http://iifap.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/group3readings.doc Group 3: The US Government]<br />
<br />
[http://iifap.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/group4readings.doc Group 4: Yahoo! (the most popular blogging service in Vietnam)]<br />
<br />
[http://iifap.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/group5readings.doc Group 5: Amnesty International]<br />
<br />
[http://iifap.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/group6readings.doc Group 6: The Chinese Government]<br />
<br />
=== The day of class ===<br />
<br />
The room was reworked in order to remove barriers between students and facilitate discussion. The central classroom table was broken into constituent tables, each of which was placed along the outside wall of the class and topped with a name tag indicating the individual group which was expected to use that table as its base of operations. Chairs were placed inside the tables, rather than outside, to bring the groups closer to one another and the central discussion space within the classroom. (See the room plan, [http://iifap.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/room-plan.jpg here]. While it didn't work out exactly as pictured, the idea is the key.) Students were asked to begin the classroom seated at the tables associated with their role-playing groups so that the transition from the presentation and discussion to the simulation would be as seamless as possible.<br />
<br />
Conor opened the class with a Power Point presentation that reviewed the basic outline of the issues at hand. This served both as a refresher of the introductory reading material and as a point of reference for the groups within the simulation.<br />
<br />
+ Clip<br />
<br />
After the introduction, Dan moderated a conversation between two stakeholders in the current international contretemps over networked speech control issues: Colin Maclay of the Berkman Center and Andrew McLaughlin from Google. Colin discussed difficulties involved in creating the Global Network Initiative and acquiring more signatories, especially in Europe. Andrew discussed changes that he thought would help make the GNI more useful to individual users.<br />
<br />
+ Clip<br />
<br />
Once everyone was caught up to speed on the tensions which would have to be navigated in the simulation, Joshua explained the simulation to the participants. Groups were asked to develop a strategy for creating a widely acceptable solution to the "Open Networks, Closed Borders" problem, to discuss their solution with other groups and acquire partners, and then to present their revised solutions to the class at large. After feedback, the solutions would be voted upon by the members of the class.<br />
<br />
+ Clip<br />
<br />
The first 40 or so minutes of the hour-long simulation period was scheduled as follows:<br />
<br />
* 2 minutes: Explanation from the team<br />
* 5 minutes: Intra-group meetings to elect a recorder/presenter and to set strategy<br />
* 10 minutes: Inter-group meetings. Recorder/presenters stay in place while other members of the team (ambassadors) venture out to discuss the acceptability of proposals with both ambassadors and recorder/presenters from other groups.<br />
* 2 minutes: Groups are presented with a disruptor to ensure that each one remembers that other groups have different interests: in this case, a letter offering the opinion of select members of Congress regarding the issues at hand (an actual letter; visit [http://www.viettan.org/spip.php?article8428 this site] to see the text).<br />
* 5 minutes: Intra-group meetings to report back and revise solution proposals<br />
* 10 minutes: A second round of inter-group meetings<br />
* 2 minutes: To write up final solutions<br />
<br />
Each group was then given two minutes to present their final proposals to the class, and then Colin Maclay, team lead on the GNI project at the Berkman Center, offered feedback as to the viability and utility of each solution.<br />
<br />
The proposals:<br />
<br />
+ Clip<br />
<br />
Colin's feedback:<br />
<br />
+ Clip<br />
<br />
=== After the Class ===<br />
<br />
After class, we gave all of the participants an opportunity to vote on the proposals:<br />
<br />
== Part III: Reactions and Discussion/Suggestions to Future Class Leaders ==<br />
<br />
=== Successes and Failures ===<br />
<br />
=== Role of Technology ===<br />
<br />
=== Additional Suggestions for Future Classes ===</div>Jgruensphttps://cyber.harvard.edu/iif/?title=Open_Networks,_Closed_Regimes&diff=3091Open Networks, Closed Regimes2009-05-15T04:29:19Z<p>Jgruensp: </p>
<hr />
<div><!--<br />
How to make the yellow boxes:<br />
<br />
For the paragraph-sized boxes, use this code and place your text where it says "text":<br />
<br />
<div style="padding:1em; margin:1em 0 1em 31%; clear:both; background:#ffc; border:1px dashed #575744; width:66%; align:right;">text</div><br />
<br />
For the inline boxes, use this code and place your text where it says "text":<br />
<br />
<span style="border:1px dashed #575744; padding:0 .25em; margin:0 .25em; background:#ffc;">text</span><br />
<br />
/--><br />
<br />
<div style="float:right; padding:0 1em; margin-left:1em; clear:both; width:66%; background:#ffc; border:1px dashed #575744;"><p>This page documents a single class session on worldwide Internet restrictions taught by [[User:Jgruensp|Joshua Gruenspecht]], [[User:CKennedy|Conor Kennedy]], and [[User:Danray|Dan Ray]] in April 2009. We've filled it out with some background information and our reactions, in the hopes that it might be useful to someone else teaching a similar subject in the future. Special thanks go out to Caroline Nolan and Colin Maclay, who provided invaluable assistance both in the early days of planning the class and in the simulation setup. Thanks also to Andrew McLaughlin for taking time out of his schedule to join the class.</p><br />
<br />
<p>This page is a work in progress, and we encourage anyone to add to it. The wiki only permits registered users to edit it, but you can create a free, pseudonymous account using the link at the top right corner of the page. (You can copy our formatting or add your own; a template for the yellow annotations appears in an HTML comment at the top of the page source.)</p></div><br />
<br />
== Part I: Early Preparation/The Original Wiki ==<br />
<br />
=== Problem to be solved ===<br />
<br />
<br />
<div style="float:right; padding:0 1em; margin-left:1em; clear:both; width:66%; background:#ffc; border:1px dashed #575744;">Our students had access to an earlier version of this wiki page. For the information in this section, unformatted text indicates material that was available at the time of our presentation, and yellow boxes like this one are annotations added after the fact think of them like the director's commentary. The actual revision of the page at the time of the class session is [http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/iif/?title=Open_Networks%2C_Closed_Regimes&oldid=2204 here]</div>US-based internet services are used by citizens of every regime in the world. Western-based internet companies operate these services in many countries where governments routinely request or demand sensitive information about their citizens. How should high-level officers respond when their companies receive requests to turn over information which violate privacy and anonymity expectations? How can citizens, NGOs, and government actors influence the way these companies respond?<br />
<br />
=== Precis ===<br />
The idea of the internet service provider as a border-defying government-regulation-free jurisdiction was already dying in the 1990s, but the large-scale movement of internet services into regimes without free speech protections has raised serious concerns about managing cross-border privacy standards over the last five years. From Yahoo! turning over pro-democracy Chinese bloggers to the Chinese government, to Saudi Arabia tracking porn downloaders by pulling ISP records, to South Korea trying to arrest anonymous government critics, the problems are widespread and not restricted only to regimes that Americans are used to thinking of as "repressive." The globalization of internet services raises difficult questions: What requests for information are invasive? What kind of deference is due to local sovereignty? How can the competing demands best be balanced? How can the relevant stakeholders work toward achieving a proper balance?<br />
<br />
=== The Story So Far ===<br />
<br />
<div style="float:right; padding:0 1em; margin-left:1em; clear:both; width:66%; background:#ffc; border:1px dashed #575744;">This section constitutes the class's common ground, in that all students were expected to read it. It is intended to situate today's issues (including our simulated crisis) within the Internet's history, and to introduce the three major proposals we expected our simulation groups to cover.</div>Several weeks ago, our class read John Perry Barlow’s [http://homes.eff.org/~barlow/Declaration-Final.html Declaration of Independence of Cyberspace] <span style="border:1px dashed #575744; padding:0 .25em; margin:0 .25em; background:#ffc;">(this refers to the readings for an earlier class. It's probably not essential to assign it; this summary is plenty for our purposes.)</span>, written in 1996, in which he addresses the nations of the world and “declare[s] the global social space we are building to be naturally independent of the tyrannies you seek to impose on us.” For Barlow, perhaps the most important innovation of cyberspace was its ability to act as a great leveler: “We are creating a world that all may enter without privilege or prejudice accorded by race, economic power, military force, or station of birth. We are creating a world where anyone, anywhere may express his or her beliefs, no matter how singular, without fear of being coerced into silence or conformity.” As these lines imply, the key to this brave new world of Barlow’s was the possibility of anonymity (or pseudonymity): real-world barriers placed by normative biases or governmental controls could be hurdled by individuals joining online communities to express their provocative thoughts. Secure in the knowledge that their identities were divorced from their real-world selves, citizens of every nation could create the first truly free global marketplace of ideas.<br />
<br />
From well before Barlow’s Declaration, this idea of the Internet as an enabler of the anonymous expression of ideas was a well-established meme in the popular conception of the Internet, from Peter Steiner’s [http://www.unc.edu/depts/jomc/academics/dri/idog.jpg famous New Yorker cartoon] to the aphorism that “The net treats censorship as a defect and routes around it.” <span style="border:1px dashed #575744; padding:0 .25em; margin:0 .25em; background:#ffc;">This quote comes from [http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/archived_content/people/reagle/inet-quotations-19990709.html John Gilmore]</span> And just as quickly, people started to raise questions about whether a completely uncontrolled discourse was desirable – Larry Lessig famously [http://pdf.codev2.cc/Lessig-Codev2.pdf told the story] (see p. 102-106) of one anonymous student who single-handedly shut down Lessig’s first online classroom bulletin board by attacking his classmates with unstinting vitriol. The techno-libertarians remained adamant that online communities would develop mechanisms to cope with such problems, and that the benefits of being able to create a discussion area open to all comers – more freedom under repressive regimes, more frank discussion for every individual – would outweigh any drawbacks.<br />
<br />
However, the accuracy of the idea that the Internet need not respect terrestrial law was soon called into doubt. Tim Wu and Jack Goldsmith [http://books.google.com/books?id=Q01APcGmLB8C document] (see Chapter 1) the 2000 case in which Yahoo! attempted to resist a takedown request from the French government. After activists discovered Nazi merchandise for sale on a Yahoo! site, they appealed to the government to enforce the laws banning such material from being sold in France. Yahoo! protested that there was no way for it to identify traffic coming from France, and that to enforce the French laws would ultimately mean enforcing the lowest common denominator of all international law in all locations. However, having lost their case in the French courts in the face of expert testimony, and facing fines of 100,000 francs per day against their new French division, the company caved and admitted that IP addresses could be used to tell from what country a visitor came. This was a blow to the notion that the Internet was inherently resistant to national laws, but it was also a blow to the idea that users of the Internet were all faceless numbers – it soon became very clear that the companies that individuals did business with on the Internet knew plenty about their users, both in the form of information submitted by those users and in the form of other incidental data.<br />
<br />
Once those two facts were combined, it became clear that online service providers doing business internationally were vulnerable to economic threats if they failed to comply with local legal regimes by turning over nominally anonymous users. This acquired early public salience in 2004, when the Chinese government discovered that someone with a Yahoo! email account had forwarded to a US-based pro-democracy blogger an internal Communist party message warning of potential unrest which might arise from discussion of the fifteenth anniversary of the Tiananmen Square protests. China [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/4221538.stm demanded] that the company turn over any records relating to the disclosure of its state secrets, and Yahoo! complied without question. Chinese journalist Shi Tao was ultimately arrested and sentenced to ten years in prison. After the role played by Yahoo! was disclosed, the company became the subject of global outrage, castigated by pro-free-speech nonprofits and hauled before Congress to account for its actions. <span style="border:1px dashed #575744; padding:0 .25em; margin:0 .25em; background:#ffc;">As of 2009, Shi Tao remains imprisoned.</span> However, Yahoo! was merely the most visible of the companies involved in such disclosures – Amnesty International [http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/POL30/026/2006/en/dom-POL300262006en.pdf reports] that many of the largest international online service providers were implicated at the time and continue to wrestle with these issues.<br />
<br />
In recent years, similar cases have cropped up all over the world, from Africa to Asia to the Middle East, and even some American companies have [http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-10023104-71.html taken part] in using the disclosure-friendly laws of other countries to track down derogatory speakers. Many of these countries describe themselves as protecting themselves from the dangerous consequences of free speech: in January, South Korea [http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123178875223174403.html arrested] a blogger whose acerbic postings about government bureaucrats had supposedly undermined the population’s faith in the government’s ability to manage the global financial crisis. These governments say that free speech is always at war with social stability, as it was in Lessig’s classroom, and that they and Americans simply disagree on where the line must be drawn. At the same time, pro-democracy activists say that American companies and the American government aren’t doing enough work insisting upon the universality of American values.<br />
<br />
The most salient legislative response has been the [http://thomas.loc.gov/home/gpoxmlc110/h275_ih.xml Global Online Freedom Act] (GOFA), proposed by Representative Chris Smith (R-NJ). GOFA would require the State Department to track internet-restricting countries and then forbid US corporations from a) storing users’ personal data within the borders of those countries or b) turning over any personally identifiable information to law enforcement within those countries without first seeking the permission of the US Department of Justice. Many pro-free-speech non-profits have [http://www.rsf.org/print.php3?id_article=18304 praised] the GOFA bill as an [http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=24141 “advance for online free expression.”] Commentators have also [http://www.cdt.org/international/censorship/20080505gofa.pdf suggested], however, that it is unworkable in practice, and would in effect require US companies to cease doing meaningful business within such countries.<br />
<br />
Some corporations have pushed instead for a non-government-driven multi-stakeholder plan of action. Several of the largest American online service providers, including Microsoft, Google, and Yahoo!, have joined forces with the Berkman Center to develop the [http://www.globalnetworkinitiative.org/index.php Global Network Initiative] (GNI). The GNI lays out a set of universal [http://www.globalnetworkinitiative.org/principles/index.php principles] to be referenced when making difficult human rights decisions; it then gives [http://www.globalnetworkinitiative.org/implementationguidelines/index.php implementation guidance] to boards considering those principles on a case-by-case basis as requests for users' data come in. Some of the Congressional critics of these companies have been mollified by the evident progress. At the same time, some [http://writ.news.findlaw.com/ramasastry/20081212.html legal scholars] and [http://www.technewsworld.com/story/commentary/64972.html privacy specialists] (see Rotenberg quote <span style="border:1px dashed #575744; padding:0 .25em; margin:0 .25em; background:#ffc;">"It's good that companies are paying more attention to the need to safeguard fundamental rights on the Internet, but this proposal lacks specific recommendations and fails to address key concerns about the surveillance and censorship of Internet users"</span>) say the GNI is not widely enough accepted or equipped with severe enough penalties to make a serious difference.<br />
<br />
Meanwhile, countries wary of indiscriminate speech have started to look at alternatives of their own. This past year, the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), a specialized agency of the United Nations that deals with the regulation of international telecommunications issues, [http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10040152-38.html opened up] a study group on Question 6-17 (Q6/17). The Q6/17 group was chartered at the request of a state-owned Chinese telecommunications firm to [http://www.politechbot.com/docs/itu.china.internet.traceback.proposal.091108.doc investigate the feasibility] <span style="border:1px dashed #575744; padding:0 .25em; margin:0 .25em; background:#ffc;">link to .doc</span> of retrofitting the internet with Internet Protocol (IP) traceback technology. IP packets, the individual "envelopes" used to send information across the internet, are difficult, if not impossible, to follow back from their destination to their source. IP traceback technology would use new software and hardware to retrofit tracing mechanisms onto the internet as built, so as to make it easier to find the sender of a given message. The proponents of Q6/17 suggest that it could be used to make it more difficult to remotely infect computers with viruses or make anonymous threats online. Privacy specialists, however, suspect that the major purpose is to crack down on unwanted speech.<br />
<br />
=== Required Readings ===<br />
<br />
<div style="padding:0 1em; margin-left:1em; clear:both; width:66%; background:#ffc; border:1px dashed #575744;">In the spirit of a class in which different groups were meant to represent different constituencies with different backgrounds, we decided to move away from using the readings to get the class on the same page. Aside from the text above, which was assigned as introductory material, each group was assigned individualized readings to explain "their" point of view. As a result, we removed the Required Readings section of the page entirely, archiving it, as seen below. The Additional Readings section remained in place, for those students interested in a wider exploration of the issues. The readings were emailed individually to the class groups, as discussed in Part II.</div><br />
<br />
[[AnP Brainstorming|Early brainstorming on this topic]]<br />
<br />
=== Additional Readings ===<br />
<br />
(Some of these and additional readings will be broken down by simulation group)<br />
<br />
==== Audio: ====<br />
<br />
* http://rconversation.blogs.com/rconversation/2008/07/on-the-media-in.html (Episode of On The Media w/ Rebecca MacKinnon)<br />
<br />
==== Video ====<br />
<br />
* http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMorzIBHmrA (Conversation about GNI on CSPAN w/ Michael Samway and Julien Sanchez)<br />
<br />
==== Text ====<br />
<br />
===== “Just the Facts” Reporting =====<br />
<br />
* http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7696356.stm<br />
<br />
* http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/28/technology/internet/28privacy.html?_r=1&oref=slogin<br />
<br />
==== Critiques ====<br />
<br />
* http://writ.news.findlaw.com/ramasastry/20081212.html (Anita Ramasastry, Associate Professor at University of Washington School of Law)<br />
<br />
* http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=29117 (Reporters without Borders, an NGO that was part of the talks but didn’t sign onto the GNI at the end)<br />
<br />
* http://www.eff.org/files/filenode/gni/signon_letter.txt (Electronic Frontier Foundation, an NGO that was part of the talks and did sign onto the GNI at the end)<br />
<br />
* http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060313/mackinnon (Rebecca MacKinnon, writing in The Nation before the GNI existed, discusses four companies' culpability and diagnoses a major flaw with GOFA)<br />
<br />
=== Links ===<br />
http://blogs.wsj.com/chinajournal/2008/10/28/parsing-the-google-yahoo-microsoft-global-network-initiative/<br />
<br />
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/30/magazine/30google-t.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink&adxnnlx=1229749063-T7qNc5xv9ZLDiLcjc8AZxQ&pagewanted=print<br />
<br />
http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/04/republican-hous.html<br />
<br />
http://rconversation.blogs.com/rconversation/2007/01/google_yahoo_mi.html<br />
<br />
http://www.circleid.com/posts/print/20081028_global_network_initiative/<br />
<br />
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/oct/30/amnesty-global-network-initiative<br />
<br />
http://www.economist.com/world/asia/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12783609<br />
<br />
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-a-santoro-and-wendy-goldberg/chinese-internet-censorsh_b_156212.html<br />
<br />
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10040152-38.html (Declan McCullagh of CNet News on Q6/17, including links to several leaked ITU documents)<br />
<br />
== Part II: Planning and Execution/The Week of the Class ==<br />
<br />
<div style="padding:0 1em; margin-left:1em; clear:both; width:66%; background:#ffc; border:1px dashed #575744;">Parts II and III cover the class as it played out, and represent entirely new material on this wiki. As a result, there are no yellow commentary boxes in these sections.</div><br />
<br />
=== The lead-up to the class ===<br />
<br />
The class was divided into six role-playing groups representing six constituencies with complaints about the manner in which free speech issues on the internet are currently handled. Group assignments fell naturally out of the existing divisions within the class - each role-playing group represented two of the discussion topic groups on the syllabus. Each group was emailed individually approximately seven days before the class date. The email explained the concept behind the class:<br />
<br />
<span style="border:1px; padding:0 .25em; margin:0 .25em; background:#ccf;">For the Anonymity and Privacy class this coming week, we're going to run things slightly differently. The class will be divided into six groups, and each group will be given an identity as a participant in the ongoing global battle over anonymous speech online, as well as a series of unique readings giving some specialized background. Then, in class, we'll introduce some general background and then have an exercise involving both y'all and our guest. See the last page of the attachment for your readings.</span><br />
<br />
As the text of the email suggests, each one contained an individualized reading for the associated group. See below for the attached readings:<br />
<br />
[http://iifap.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/group1readings.doc Group 1: The Vietnamese Government]<br />
<br />
[http://iifap.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/group2readings.doc Group 2: Vietnamese Pro-Democracy Bloggers]<br />
<br />
[http://iifap.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/group3readings.doc Group 3: The US Government]<br />
<br />
[http://iifap.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/group4readings.doc Group 4: Yahoo! (the most popular blogging service in Vietnam)]<br />
<br />
[http://iifap.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/group5readings.doc Group 5: Amnesty International]<br />
<br />
[http://iifap.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/group6readings.doc Group 6: The Chinese Government]<br />
<br />
=== The day of class ===<br />
<br />
The room was reworked in order to remove barriers between students and facilitate discussion. The central classroom table was broken into constituent tables, each of which was placed along the outside wall of the class and topped with a name tag indicating the individual group which was expected to use that table as its base of operations. Chairs were placed inside the tables, rather than outside, to bring the groups closer to one another and the central discussion space within the classroom. (See the room plan, [http://iifap.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/room-plan.jpg|here]. While it didn't work out exactly as pictured, the idea is the key.) Students were asked to begin the classroom seated at the tables associated with their role-playing groups so that the transition from the presentation and discussion to the simulation would be as seamless as possible.<br />
<br />
Conor opened the class with a Power Point presentation that reviewed the basic outline of the issues at hand. This served both as a refresher of the introductory reading material and as a point of reference for the groups within the simulation.<br />
<br />
+ Clip<br />
<br />
After the introduction, Dan moderated a conversation between two stakeholders in the current international contretemps over networked speech control issues: Colin Maclay of the Berkman Center and Andrew McLaughlin from Google. Colin explained the tensions between <br />
<br />
+ Clip<br />
<br />
<br />
Once everyone was caught up to speed on the tensions they'd have to navigate in the simulation, Josh explained the simulation to all class participants.<br />
<br />
+ Clip<br />
<br />
<br />
At the end of the simulation, the groups gave in their final proposals:<br />
<br />
+ Clip<br />
<br />
<br />
Our judge, the Berkman Center's Colin MacClay, gave his feedback on the proposals.<br />
<br />
+ Clip<br />
<br />
After class, we gave all of the participants an opportunity to vote on the proposals:<br />
<br />
== Reactions and suggestions ==<br />
<br />
=== Evaluation of the class ===<br />
<br />
=== Role of technology ===<br />
<br />
=== Additional suggestions for future classes ===<br />
<br />
<br />
Note to self: Joe, Miriam, Mark, Jon Fildes, Elana, Melissa</div>Jgruensphttps://cyber.harvard.edu/iif/?title=Open_Networks,_Closed_Regimes&diff=3082Open Networks, Closed Regimes2009-05-15T04:04:18Z<p>Jgruensp: </p>
<hr />
<div><!--<br />
How to make the yellow boxes:<br />
<br />
For the paragraph-sized boxes, use this code and place your text where it says "text":<br />
<br />
<div style="padding:1em; margin:1em 0 1em 31%; clear:both; background:#ffc; border:1px dashed #575744; width:66%; align:right;">text</div><br />
<br />
For the inline boxes, use this code and place your text where it says "text":<br />
<br />
<span style="border:1px dashed #575744; padding:0 .25em; margin:0 .25em; background:#ffc;">text</span><br />
<br />
/--><br />
<br />
<div style="float:right; padding:0 1em; margin-left:1em; clear:both; width:66%; background:#ffc; border:1px dashed #575744;"><p>This page documents a single class session on worldwide Internet restrictions taught by [[User:Jgruensp|Joshua Gruenspecht]], [[User:CKennedy|Conor Kennedy]], and [[User:Danray|Dan Ray]] in April 2009. We've filled it out with some background information and our reactions, in the hopes that it might be useful to someone else teaching a similar subject in the future.</p><br />
<br />
<p>This page is a work in progress, and we encourage anyone to add to it. The wiki only permits registered users to edit it, but you can create a free, pseudonymous account using the link at the top right corner of the page. (You can copy our formatting or add your own; a template for the yellow annotations appears in an HTML comment at the top of the page source.)</p></div><br />
<br />
== Part I: Early Preparation/The Original Wiki ==<br />
<br />
=== Problem to be solved ===<br />
<br />
<br />
<div style="float:right; padding:0 1em; margin-left:1em; clear:both; width:66%; background:#ffc; border:1px dashed #575744;">Our students had access to an earlier version of this wiki page. For the information in this section, unformatted text indicates material that was available at the time of our presentation, and yellow boxes like this one are annotations added after the fact think of them like the director's commentary. The actual revision of the page at the time of the class session is [http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/iif/?title=Open_Networks%2C_Closed_Regimes&oldid=2204 here]</div>US-based internet services are used by citizens of every regime in the world. Western-based internet companies operate these services in many countries where governments routinely request or demand sensitive information about their citizens. How should high-level officers respond when their companies receive requests to turn over information which violate privacy and anonymity expectations? How can citizens, NGOs, and government actors influence the way these companies respond?<br />
<br />
=== Precis ===<br />
The idea of the internet service provider as a border-defying government-regulation-free jurisdiction was already dying in the 1990s, but the large-scale movement of internet services into regimes without free speech protections has raised serious concerns about managing cross-border privacy standards over the last five years. From Yahoo! turning over pro-democracy Chinese bloggers to the Chinese government, to Saudi Arabia tracking porn downloaders by pulling ISP records, to South Korea trying to arrest anonymous government critics, the problems are widespread and not restricted only to regimes that Americans are used to thinking of as "repressive." The globalization of internet services raises difficult questions: What requests for information are invasive? What kind of deference is due to local sovereignty? How can the competing demands best be balanced? How can the relevant stakeholders work toward achieving a proper balance?<br />
<br />
=== The Story So Far ===<br />
<br />
<div style="float:right; padding:0 1em; margin-left:1em; clear:both; width:66%; background:#ffc; border:1px dashed #575744;">This section constitutes the class's common ground, in that all students were expected to read it. It is intended to situate today's issues (including our simulated crisis) within the Internet's history, and to introduce the three major proposals we expected our simulation groups to cover.</div>Several weeks ago, our class read John Perry Barlow’s [http://homes.eff.org/~barlow/Declaration-Final.html Declaration of Independence of Cyberspace] <span style="border:1px dashed #575744; padding:0 .25em; margin:0 .25em; background:#ffc;">(this refers to the readings for an earlier class. It's probably not essential to assign it; this summary is plenty for our purposes.)</span>, written in 1996, in which he addresses the nations of the world and “declare[s] the global social space we are building to be naturally independent of the tyrannies you seek to impose on us.” For Barlow, perhaps the most important innovation of cyberspace was its ability to act as a great leveler: “We are creating a world that all may enter without privilege or prejudice accorded by race, economic power, military force, or station of birth. We are creating a world where anyone, anywhere may express his or her beliefs, no matter how singular, without fear of being coerced into silence or conformity.” As these lines imply, the key to this brave new world of Barlow’s was the possibility of anonymity (or pseudonymity): real-world barriers placed by normative biases or governmental controls could be hurdled by individuals joining online communities to express their provocative thoughts. Secure in the knowledge that their identities were divorced from their real-world selves, citizens of every nation could create the first truly free global marketplace of ideas.<br />
<br />
From well before Barlow’s Declaration, this idea of the Internet as an enabler of the anonymous expression of ideas was a well-established meme in the popular conception of the Internet, from Peter Steiner’s [http://www.unc.edu/depts/jomc/academics/dri/idog.jpg famous New Yorker cartoon] to the aphorism that “The net treats censorship as a defect and routes around it.” <span style="border:1px dashed #575744; padding:0 .25em; margin:0 .25em; background:#ffc;">This quote comes from [http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/archived_content/people/reagle/inet-quotations-19990709.html John Gilmore]</span> And just as quickly, people started to raise questions about whether a completely uncontrolled discourse was desirable – Larry Lessig famously [http://pdf.codev2.cc/Lessig-Codev2.pdf told the story] (see p. 102-106) of one anonymous student who single-handedly shut down Lessig’s first online classroom bulletin board by attacking his classmates with unstinting vitriol. The techno-libertarians remained adamant that online communities would develop mechanisms to cope with such problems, and that the benefits of being able to create a discussion area open to all comers – more freedom under repressive regimes, more frank discussion for every individual – would outweigh any drawbacks.<br />
<br />
However, the accuracy of the idea that the Internet need not respect terrestrial law was soon called into doubt. Tim Wu and Jack Goldsmith [http://books.google.com/books?id=Q01APcGmLB8C document] (see Chapter 1) the 2000 case in which Yahoo! attempted to resist a takedown request from the French government. After activists discovered Nazi merchandise for sale on a Yahoo! site, they appealed to the government to enforce the laws banning such material from being sold in France. Yahoo! protested that there was no way for it to identify traffic coming from France, and that to enforce the French laws would ultimately mean enforcing the lowest common denominator of all international law in all locations. However, having lost their case in the French courts in the face of expert testimony, and facing fines of 100,000 francs per day against their new French division, the company caved and admitted that IP addresses could be used to tell from what country a visitor came. This was a blow to the notion that the Internet was inherently resistant to national laws, but it was also a blow to the idea that users of the Internet were all faceless numbers – it soon became very clear that the companies that individuals did business with on the Internet knew plenty about their users, both in the form of information submitted by those users and in the form of other incidental data.<br />
<br />
Once those two facts were combined, it became clear that online service providers doing business internationally were vulnerable to economic threats if they failed to comply with local legal regimes by turning over nominally anonymous users. This acquired early public salience in 2004, when the Chinese government discovered that someone with a Yahoo! email account had forwarded to a US-based pro-democracy blogger an internal Communist party message warning of potential unrest which might arise from discussion of the fifteenth anniversary of the Tiananmen Square protests. China [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/4221538.stm demanded] that the company turn over any records relating to the disclosure of its state secrets, and Yahoo! complied without question. Chinese journalist Shi Tao was ultimately arrested and sentenced to ten years in prison. After the role played by Yahoo! was disclosed, the company became the subject of global outrage, castigated by pro-free-speech nonprofits and hauled before Congress to account for its actions. <span style="border:1px dashed #575744; padding:0 .25em; margin:0 .25em; background:#ffc;">As of 2009, Shi Tao remains imprisoned.</span> However, Yahoo! was merely the most visible of the companies involved in such disclosures – Amnesty International [http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/POL30/026/2006/en/dom-POL300262006en.pdf reports] that many of the largest international online service providers were implicated at the time and continue to wrestle with these issues.<br />
<br />
In recent years, similar cases have cropped up all over the world, from Africa to Asia to the Middle East, and even some American companies have [http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-10023104-71.html taken part] in using the disclosure-friendly laws of other countries to track down derogatory speakers. Many of these countries describe themselves as protecting themselves from the dangerous consequences of free speech: in January, South Korea [http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123178875223174403.html arrested] a blogger whose acerbic postings about government bureaucrats had supposedly undermined the population’s faith in the government’s ability to manage the global financial crisis. These governments say that free speech is always at war with social stability, as it was in Lessig’s classroom, and that they and Americans simply disagree on where the line must be drawn. At the same time, pro-democracy activists say that American companies and the American government aren’t doing enough work insisting upon the universality of American values.<br />
<br />
The most salient legislative response has been the [http://thomas.loc.gov/home/gpoxmlc110/h275_ih.xml Global Online Freedom Act] (GOFA), proposed by Representative Chris Smith (R-NJ). GOFA would require the State Department to track internet-restricting countries and then forbid US corporations from a) storing users’ personal data within the borders of those countries or b) turning over any personally identifiable information to law enforcement within those countries without first seeking the permission of the US Department of Justice. Many pro-free-speech non-profits have [http://www.rsf.org/print.php3?id_article=18304 praised] the GOFA bill as an [http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=24141 “advance for online free expression.”] Commentators have also [http://www.cdt.org/international/censorship/20080505gofa.pdf suggested], however, that it is unworkable in practice, and would in effect require US companies to cease doing meaningful business within such countries.<br />
<br />
Some corporations have pushed instead for a non-government-driven multi-stakeholder plan of action. Several of the largest American online service providers, including Microsoft, Google, and Yahoo!, have joined forces with the Berkman Center to develop the [http://www.globalnetworkinitiative.org/index.php Global Network Initiative] (GNI). The GNI lays out a set of universal [http://www.globalnetworkinitiative.org/principles/index.php principles] to be referenced when making difficult human rights decisions; it then gives [http://www.globalnetworkinitiative.org/implementationguidelines/index.php implementation guidance] to boards considering those principles on a case-by-case basis as requests for users' data come in. Some of the Congressional critics of these companies have been mollified by the evident progress. At the same time, some [http://writ.news.findlaw.com/ramasastry/20081212.html legal scholars] and [http://www.technewsworld.com/story/commentary/64972.html privacy specialists] (see Rotenberg quote <span style="border:1px dashed #575744; padding:0 .25em; margin:0 .25em; background:#ffc;">"It's good that companies are paying more attention to the need to safeguard fundamental rights on the Internet, but this proposal lacks specific recommendations and fails to address key concerns about the surveillance and censorship of Internet users"</span>) say the GNI is not widely enough accepted or equipped with severe enough penalties to make a serious difference.<br />
<br />
Meanwhile, countries wary of indiscriminate speech have started to look at alternatives of their own. This past year, the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), a specialized agency of the United Nations that deals with the regulation of international telecommunications issues, [http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10040152-38.html opened up] a study group on Question 6-17 (Q6/17). The Q6/17 group was chartered at the request of a state-owned Chinese telecommunications firm to [http://www.politechbot.com/docs/itu.china.internet.traceback.proposal.091108.doc investigate the feasibility] <span style="border:1px dashed #575744; padding:0 .25em; margin:0 .25em; background:#ffc;">link to .doc</span> of retrofitting the internet with Internet Protocol (IP) traceback technology. IP packets, the individual "envelopes" used to send information across the internet, are difficult, if not impossible, to follow back from their destination to their source. IP traceback technology would use new software and hardware to retrofit tracing mechanisms onto the internet as built, so as to make it easier to find the sender of a given message. The proponents of Q6/17 suggest that it could be used to make it more difficult to remotely infect computers with viruses or make anonymous threats online. Privacy specialists, however, suspect that the major purpose is to crack down on unwanted speech.<br />
<br />
=== Required Readings ===<br />
<br />
<div style="padding:0 1em; margin-left:1em; clear:both; width:66%; background:#ffc; border:1px dashed #575744;">In the spirit of a class in which different groups were meant to represent different constituencies with different backgrounds, we decided to move away from using the readings to get the class on the same page. Aside from the text above, which was assigned as introductory material, each group was assigned individualized readings to explain "their" point of view. As a result, we removed the Required Readings section of the page entirely, archiving it, as seen below. The Additional Readings section remained in place, for those students interested in a wider exploration of the issues. The readings were emailed individually to the class groups, as discussed in Part II.</div><br />
<br />
[[AnP Brainstorming|Early brainstorming on this topic]]<br />
<br />
=== Additional Readings ===<br />
<br />
(Some of these and additional readings will be broken down by simulation group)<br />
<br />
==== Audio: ====<br />
<br />
* http://rconversation.blogs.com/rconversation/2008/07/on-the-media-in.html (Episode of On The Media w/ Rebecca MacKinnon)<br />
<br />
==== Video ====<br />
<br />
* http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMorzIBHmrA (Conversation about GNI on CSPAN w/ Michael Samway and Julien Sanchez)<br />
<br />
==== Text ====<br />
<br />
===== “Just the Facts” Reporting =====<br />
<br />
* http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7696356.stm<br />
<br />
* http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/28/technology/internet/28privacy.html?_r=1&oref=slogin<br />
<br />
==== Critiques ====<br />
<br />
* http://writ.news.findlaw.com/ramasastry/20081212.html (Anita Ramasastry, Associate Professor at University of Washington School of Law)<br />
<br />
* http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=29117 (Reporters without Borders, an NGO that was part of the talks but didn’t sign onto the GNI at the end)<br />
<br />
* http://www.eff.org/files/filenode/gni/signon_letter.txt (Electronic Frontier Foundation, an NGO that was part of the talks and did sign onto the GNI at the end)<br />
<br />
* http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060313/mackinnon (Rebecca MacKinnon, writing in The Nation before the GNI existed, discusses four companies' culpability and diagnoses a major flaw with GOFA)<br />
<br />
=== Links ===<br />
http://blogs.wsj.com/chinajournal/2008/10/28/parsing-the-google-yahoo-microsoft-global-network-initiative/<br />
<br />
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/30/magazine/30google-t.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink&adxnnlx=1229749063-T7qNc5xv9ZLDiLcjc8AZxQ&pagewanted=print<br />
<br />
http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/04/republican-hous.html<br />
<br />
http://rconversation.blogs.com/rconversation/2007/01/google_yahoo_mi.html<br />
<br />
http://www.circleid.com/posts/print/20081028_global_network_initiative/<br />
<br />
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/oct/30/amnesty-global-network-initiative<br />
<br />
http://www.economist.com/world/asia/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12783609<br />
<br />
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-a-santoro-and-wendy-goldberg/chinese-internet-censorsh_b_156212.html<br />
<br />
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10040152-38.html (Declan McCullagh of CNet News on Q6/17, including links to several leaked ITU documents)<br />
<br />
== Part II: Planning and Execution/The Week of the Class ==<br />
<br />
<div style="padding:0 1em; margin-left:1em; clear:both; width:66%; background:#ffc; border:1px dashed #575744;">Parts II and III cover the class as it played out, and represent entirely new material on this wiki. As a result, there are no yellow commentary boxes in these sections.</div><br />
<br />
=== The lead-up to the class ===<br />
<br />
The class was divided into six role-playing groups representing six constituencies with complaints about the manner in which free speech issues on the internet are currently handled. Group assignments fell naturally out of the existing divisions within the class - each role-playing group represented two of the discussion topic groups on the syllabus. Each group was emailed individually approximately seven days before the class date. The email explained the concept behind the class:<br />
<br />
<span style="border:1px; padding:0 .25em; margin:0 .25em; background:#33f;">For the Anonymity and Privacy class this coming week, we're going to run things slightly differently. The class will be divided into six groups, and each group will be given an identity as a participant in the ongoing global battle over anonymous speech online, as well as a series of unique readings giving some specialized background. Then, in class, we'll introduce some general background and then have an exercise involving both y'all and our guest. See the last page of the attachment for your readings.</span><br />
<br />
As the text of the email suggests, each one contained an individualized reading for the associated group. See below for the attached readings:<br />
<br />
[http://iifap.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/group1readings.doc Group 1: The Vietnamese Government]<br />
<br />
[http://iifap.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/group2readings.doc Group 2: Vietnamese Pro-Democracy Bloggers]<br />
<br />
[http://iifap.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/group3readings.doc Group 3: The US Government]<br />
<br />
[http://iifap.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/group4readings.doc Group 4: Yahoo! (the most popular blogging service in Vietnam)]<br />
<br />
[http://iifap.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/group5readings.doc Group 5: Amnesty International]<br />
<br />
[http://iifap.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/group6readings.doc Group 6: The Chinese Government]<br />
<br />
=== The day of class ===<br />
<br />
We showed up early and set up the room. We placed most of the classroom's tables against the wall, and placed the chairs just inside of them, to make sure there was a big "public" space in the middle of the room for the second half of the class. (Here's a room plan, which didn't work out exactly as pictured here, but the idea is what counts)<br />
<br />
[http://iifap.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/room-plan.jpg|Room Plan]<br />
<br />
We started the class with a Power Point presentation that reviewed the basic outline of the class (to refresh students who might have only skimmed the reading). <br />
<br />
+ Clip<br />
<br />
When that was finished, we hosted a conversation between two stakeholders (Colin MacClay of the Berkman Center and Andrew McLaughlin from Google). <br />
<br />
+ Clip<br />
<br />
<br />
Once everyone was caught up to speed on the tensions they'd have to navigate in the simulation, Josh explained the simulation to all class participants.<br />
<br />
+ Clip<br />
<br />
<br />
At the end of the simulation, the groups gave in their final proposals:<br />
<br />
+ Proposals<br />
<br />
<br />
Our judge, the Berkman Center's Colin MacClay, gave his feedback on the proposals.<br />
<br />
+ Clip<br />
<br />
After class, we gave all of the participants an opportunity to vote on the proposals:<br />
<br />
== Reactions and suggestions ==<br />
<br />
=== Evaluation of the class ===<br />
<br />
=== Role of technology ===<br />
<br />
=== Additional suggestions for future classes ===<br />
<br />
<br />
Note to self: Joe, Miriam, Mark, Jon Fildes, Elana, Melissa</div>Jgruensphttps://cyber.harvard.edu/iif/?title=Open_Networks,_Closed_Regimes&diff=3081Open Networks, Closed Regimes2009-05-15T04:03:32Z<p>Jgruensp: </p>
<hr />
<div><!--<br />
How to make the yellow boxes:<br />
<br />
For the paragraph-sized boxes, use this code and place your text where it says "text":<br />
<br />
<div style="padding:1em; margin:1em 0 1em 31%; clear:both; background:#ffc; border:1px dashed #575744; width:66%; align:right;">text</div><br />
<br />
For the inline boxes, use this code and place your text where it says "text":<br />
<br />
<span style="border:1px dashed #575744; padding:0 .25em; margin:0 .25em; background:#ffc;">text</span><br />
<br />
/--><br />
<br />
<div style="float:right; padding:0 1em; margin-left:1em; clear:both; width:66%; background:#ffc; border:1px dashed #575744;"><p>This page documents a single class session on worldwide Internet restrictions taught by [[User:Jgruensp|Joshua Gruenspecht]], [[User:CKennedy|Conor Kennedy]], and [[User:Danray|Dan Ray]] in April 2009. We've filled it out with some background information and our reactions, in the hopes that it might be useful to someone else teaching a similar subject in the future.</p><br />
<br />
<p>This page is a work in progress, and we encourage anyone to add to it. The wiki only permits registered users to edit it, but you can create a free, pseudonymous account using the link at the top right corner of the page. (You can copy our formatting or add your own; a template for the yellow annotations appears in an HTML comment at the top of the page source.)</p></div><br />
<br />
== Part I: Early Preparation/The Original Wiki ==<br />
<br />
=== Problem to be solved ===<br />
<br />
<br />
<div style="float:right; padding:0 1em; margin-left:1em; clear:both; width:66%; background:#ffc; border:1px dashed #575744;">Our students had access to an earlier version of this wiki page. For the information in this section, unformatted text indicates material that was available at the time of our presentation, and yellow boxes like this one are annotations added after the fact think of them like the director's commentary. The actual revision of the page at the time of the class session is [http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/iif/?title=Open_Networks%2C_Closed_Regimes&oldid=2204 here]</div>US-based internet services are used by citizens of every regime in the world. Western-based internet companies operate these services in many countries where governments routinely request or demand sensitive information about their citizens. How should high-level officers respond when their companies receive requests to turn over information which violate privacy and anonymity expectations? How can citizens, NGOs, and government actors influence the way these companies respond?<br />
<br />
=== Precis ===<br />
The idea of the internet service provider as a border-defying government-regulation-free jurisdiction was already dying in the 1990s, but the large-scale movement of internet services into regimes without free speech protections has raised serious concerns about managing cross-border privacy standards over the last five years. From Yahoo! turning over pro-democracy Chinese bloggers to the Chinese government, to Saudi Arabia tracking porn downloaders by pulling ISP records, to South Korea trying to arrest anonymous government critics, the problems are widespread and not restricted only to regimes that Americans are used to thinking of as "repressive." The globalization of internet services raises difficult questions: What requests for information are invasive? What kind of deference is due to local sovereignty? How can the competing demands best be balanced? How can the relevant stakeholders work toward achieving a proper balance?<br />
<br />
=== The Story So Far ===<br />
<br />
<div style="float:right; padding:0 1em; margin-left:1em; clear:both; width:66%; background:#ffc; border:1px dashed #575744;">This section constitutes the class's common ground, in that all students were expected to read it. It is intended to situate today's issues (including our simulated crisis) within the Internet's history, and to introduce the three major proposals we expected our simulation groups to cover.</div>Several weeks ago, our class read John Perry Barlow’s [http://homes.eff.org/~barlow/Declaration-Final.html Declaration of Independence of Cyberspace] <span style="border:1px dashed #575744; padding:0 .25em; margin:0 .25em; background:#ffc;">(this refers to the readings for an earlier class. It's probably not essential to assign it; this summary is plenty for our purposes.)</span>, written in 1996, in which he addresses the nations of the world and “declare[s] the global social space we are building to be naturally independent of the tyrannies you seek to impose on us.” For Barlow, perhaps the most important innovation of cyberspace was its ability to act as a great leveler: “We are creating a world that all may enter without privilege or prejudice accorded by race, economic power, military force, or station of birth. We are creating a world where anyone, anywhere may express his or her beliefs, no matter how singular, without fear of being coerced into silence or conformity.” As these lines imply, the key to this brave new world of Barlow’s was the possibility of anonymity (or pseudonymity): real-world barriers placed by normative biases or governmental controls could be hurdled by individuals joining online communities to express their provocative thoughts. Secure in the knowledge that their identities were divorced from their real-world selves, citizens of every nation could create the first truly free global marketplace of ideas.<br />
<br />
From well before Barlow’s Declaration, this idea of the Internet as an enabler of the anonymous expression of ideas was a well-established meme in the popular conception of the Internet, from Peter Steiner’s [http://www.unc.edu/depts/jomc/academics/dri/idog.jpg famous New Yorker cartoon] to the aphorism that “The net treats censorship as a defect and routes around it.” <span style="border:1px dashed #575744; padding:0 .25em; margin:0 .25em; background:#ffc;">This quote comes from [http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/archived_content/people/reagle/inet-quotations-19990709.html John Gilmore]</span> And just as quickly, people started to raise questions about whether a completely uncontrolled discourse was desirable – Larry Lessig famously [http://pdf.codev2.cc/Lessig-Codev2.pdf told the story] (see p. 102-106) of one anonymous student who single-handedly shut down Lessig’s first online classroom bulletin board by attacking his classmates with unstinting vitriol. The techno-libertarians remained adamant that online communities would develop mechanisms to cope with such problems, and that the benefits of being able to create a discussion area open to all comers – more freedom under repressive regimes, more frank discussion for every individual – would outweigh any drawbacks.<br />
<br />
However, the accuracy of the idea that the Internet need not respect terrestrial law was soon called into doubt. Tim Wu and Jack Goldsmith [http://books.google.com/books?id=Q01APcGmLB8C document] (see Chapter 1) the 2000 case in which Yahoo! attempted to resist a takedown request from the French government. After activists discovered Nazi merchandise for sale on a Yahoo! site, they appealed to the government to enforce the laws banning such material from being sold in France. Yahoo! protested that there was no way for it to identify traffic coming from France, and that to enforce the French laws would ultimately mean enforcing the lowest common denominator of all international law in all locations. However, having lost their case in the French courts in the face of expert testimony, and facing fines of 100,000 francs per day against their new French division, the company caved and admitted that IP addresses could be used to tell from what country a visitor came. This was a blow to the notion that the Internet was inherently resistant to national laws, but it was also a blow to the idea that users of the Internet were all faceless numbers – it soon became very clear that the companies that individuals did business with on the Internet knew plenty about their users, both in the form of information submitted by those users and in the form of other incidental data.<br />
<br />
Once those two facts were combined, it became clear that online service providers doing business internationally were vulnerable to economic threats if they failed to comply with local legal regimes by turning over nominally anonymous users. This acquired early public salience in 2004, when the Chinese government discovered that someone with a Yahoo! email account had forwarded to a US-based pro-democracy blogger an internal Communist party message warning of potential unrest which might arise from discussion of the fifteenth anniversary of the Tiananmen Square protests. China [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/4221538.stm demanded] that the company turn over any records relating to the disclosure of its state secrets, and Yahoo! complied without question. Chinese journalist Shi Tao was ultimately arrested and sentenced to ten years in prison. After the role played by Yahoo! was disclosed, the company became the subject of global outrage, castigated by pro-free-speech nonprofits and hauled before Congress to account for its actions. <span style="border:1px dashed #575744; padding:0 .25em; margin:0 .25em; background:#ffc;">As of 2009, Shi Tao remains imprisoned.</span> However, Yahoo! was merely the most visible of the companies involved in such disclosures – Amnesty International [http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/POL30/026/2006/en/dom-POL300262006en.pdf reports] that many of the largest international online service providers were implicated at the time and continue to wrestle with these issues.<br />
<br />
In recent years, similar cases have cropped up all over the world, from Africa to Asia to the Middle East, and even some American companies have [http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-10023104-71.html taken part] in using the disclosure-friendly laws of other countries to track down derogatory speakers. Many of these countries describe themselves as protecting themselves from the dangerous consequences of free speech: in January, South Korea [http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123178875223174403.html arrested] a blogger whose acerbic postings about government bureaucrats had supposedly undermined the population’s faith in the government’s ability to manage the global financial crisis. These governments say that free speech is always at war with social stability, as it was in Lessig’s classroom, and that they and Americans simply disagree on where the line must be drawn. At the same time, pro-democracy activists say that American companies and the American government aren’t doing enough work insisting upon the universality of American values.<br />
<br />
The most salient legislative response has been the [http://thomas.loc.gov/home/gpoxmlc110/h275_ih.xml Global Online Freedom Act] (GOFA), proposed by Representative Chris Smith (R-NJ). GOFA would require the State Department to track internet-restricting countries and then forbid US corporations from a) storing users’ personal data within the borders of those countries or b) turning over any personally identifiable information to law enforcement within those countries without first seeking the permission of the US Department of Justice. Many pro-free-speech non-profits have [http://www.rsf.org/print.php3?id_article=18304 praised] the GOFA bill as an [http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=24141 “advance for online free expression.”] Commentators have also [http://www.cdt.org/international/censorship/20080505gofa.pdf suggested], however, that it is unworkable in practice, and would in effect require US companies to cease doing meaningful business within such countries.<br />
<br />
Some corporations have pushed instead for a non-government-driven multi-stakeholder plan of action. Several of the largest American online service providers, including Microsoft, Google, and Yahoo!, have joined forces with the Berkman Center to develop the [http://www.globalnetworkinitiative.org/index.php Global Network Initiative] (GNI). The GNI lays out a set of universal [http://www.globalnetworkinitiative.org/principles/index.php principles] to be referenced when making difficult human rights decisions; it then gives [http://www.globalnetworkinitiative.org/implementationguidelines/index.php implementation guidance] to boards considering those principles on a case-by-case basis as requests for users' data come in. Some of the Congressional critics of these companies have been mollified by the evident progress. At the same time, some [http://writ.news.findlaw.com/ramasastry/20081212.html legal scholars] and [http://www.technewsworld.com/story/commentary/64972.html privacy specialists] (see Rotenberg quote <span style="border:1px dashed #575744; padding:0 .25em; margin:0 .25em; background:#ffc;">"It's good that companies are paying more attention to the need to safeguard fundamental rights on the Internet, but this proposal lacks specific recommendations and fails to address key concerns about the surveillance and censorship of Internet users"</span>) say the GNI is not widely enough accepted or equipped with severe enough penalties to make a serious difference.<br />
<br />
Meanwhile, countries wary of indiscriminate speech have started to look at alternatives of their own. This past year, the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), a specialized agency of the United Nations that deals with the regulation of international telecommunications issues, [http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10040152-38.html opened up] a study group on Question 6-17 (Q6/17). The Q6/17 group was chartered at the request of a state-owned Chinese telecommunications firm to [http://www.politechbot.com/docs/itu.china.internet.traceback.proposal.091108.doc investigate the feasibility] <span style="border:1px dashed #575744; padding:0 .25em; margin:0 .25em; background:#ffc;">link to .doc</span> of retrofitting the internet with Internet Protocol (IP) traceback technology. IP packets, the individual "envelopes" used to send information across the internet, are difficult, if not impossible, to follow back from their destination to their source. IP traceback technology would use new software and hardware to retrofit tracing mechanisms onto the internet as built, so as to make it easier to find the sender of a given message. The proponents of Q6/17 suggest that it could be used to make it more difficult to remotely infect computers with viruses or make anonymous threats online. Privacy specialists, however, suspect that the major purpose is to crack down on unwanted speech.<br />
<br />
=== Required Readings ===<br />
<br />
<div style="padding:0 1em; margin-left:1em; clear:both; width:66%; background:#ffc; border:1px dashed #575744;">In the spirit of a class in which different groups were meant to represent different constituencies with different backgrounds, we decided to move away from using the readings to get the class on the same page. Aside from the text above, which was assigned as introductory material, each group was assigned individualized readings to explain "their" point of view. As a result, we removed the Required Readings section of the page entirely, archiving it, as seen below. The Additional Readings section remained in place, for those students interested in a wider exploration of the issues. The readings were emailed individually to the class groups, as discussed in Part II.</div><br />
<br />
[[AnP Brainstorming|Early brainstorming on this topic]]<br />
<br />
=== Additional Readings ===<br />
<br />
(Some of these and additional readings will be broken down by simulation group)<br />
<br />
==== Audio: ====<br />
<br />
* http://rconversation.blogs.com/rconversation/2008/07/on-the-media-in.html (Episode of On The Media w/ Rebecca MacKinnon)<br />
<br />
==== Video ====<br />
<br />
* http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMorzIBHmrA (Conversation about GNI on CSPAN w/ Michael Samway and Julien Sanchez)<br />
<br />
==== Text ====<br />
<br />
===== “Just the Facts” Reporting =====<br />
<br />
* http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7696356.stm<br />
<br />
* http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/28/technology/internet/28privacy.html?_r=1&oref=slogin<br />
<br />
==== Critiques ====<br />
<br />
* http://writ.news.findlaw.com/ramasastry/20081212.html (Anita Ramasastry, Associate Professor at University of Washington School of Law)<br />
<br />
* http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=29117 (Reporters without Borders, an NGO that was part of the talks but didn’t sign onto the GNI at the end)<br />
<br />
* http://www.eff.org/files/filenode/gni/signon_letter.txt (Electronic Frontier Foundation, an NGO that was part of the talks and did sign onto the GNI at the end)<br />
<br />
* http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060313/mackinnon (Rebecca MacKinnon, writing in The Nation before the GNI existed, discusses four companies' culpability and diagnoses a major flaw with GOFA)<br />
<br />
=== Links ===<br />
http://blogs.wsj.com/chinajournal/2008/10/28/parsing-the-google-yahoo-microsoft-global-network-initiative/<br />
<br />
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/30/magazine/30google-t.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink&adxnnlx=1229749063-T7qNc5xv9ZLDiLcjc8AZxQ&pagewanted=print<br />
<br />
http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/04/republican-hous.html<br />
<br />
http://rconversation.blogs.com/rconversation/2007/01/google_yahoo_mi.html<br />
<br />
http://www.circleid.com/posts/print/20081028_global_network_initiative/<br />
<br />
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/oct/30/amnesty-global-network-initiative<br />
<br />
http://www.economist.com/world/asia/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12783609<br />
<br />
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-a-santoro-and-wendy-goldberg/chinese-internet-censorsh_b_156212.html<br />
<br />
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10040152-38.html (Declan McCullagh of CNet News on Q6/17, including links to several leaked ITU documents)<br />
<br />
== Part II: Planning and Execution/The Week of the Class ==<br />
<br />
<div style="padding:0 1em; margin-left:1em; clear:both; width:66%; background:#ffc; border:1px dashed #575744;">Parts II and III cover the class as it played out, and represent entirely new material on this wiki. As a result, there are no yellow commentary boxes in these sections.</div><br />
<br />
=== The lead-up to the class ===<br />
<br />
The class was divided into six role-playing groups representing six constituencies with complaints about the manner in which free speech issues on the internet are currently handled. Group assignments fell naturally out of the existing divisions within the class - each role-playing group represented two of the discussion topic groups on the syllabus. Each group was emailed individually approximately seven days before the class date. The email explained the concept behind the class:<br />
<br />
<span style="border:1px; padding:0 .25em; margin:0 .25em; background:#009;">For the Anonymity and Privacy class this coming week, we're going to run things slightly differently. The class will be divided into six groups, and each group will be given an identity as a participant in the ongoing global battle over anonymous speech online, as well as a series of unique readings giving some specialized background. Then, in class, we'll introduce some general background and then have an exercise involving both y'all and our guest. See the last page of the attachment for your readings.</span><br />
<br />
As the text of the email suggests, each one contained an individualized reading for the associated group. See below for the attached readings:<br />
<br />
[http://iifap.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/group1readings.doc Group 1: The Vietnamese Government]<br />
<br />
[http://iifap.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/group2readings.doc Group 2: Vietnamese Pro-Democracy Bloggers]<br />
<br />
[http://iifap.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/group3readings.doc Group 3: The US Government]<br />
<br />
[http://iifap.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/group4readings.doc Group 4: Yahoo! (the most popular blogging service in Vietnam)]<br />
<br />
[http://iifap.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/group5readings.doc Group 5: Amnesty International]<br />
<br />
[http://iifap.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/group6readings.doc Group 6: The Chinese Government]<br />
<br />
=== The day of class ===<br />
<br />
We showed up early and set up the room. We placed most of the classroom's tables against the wall, and placed the chairs just inside of them, to make sure there was a big "public" space in the middle of the room for the second half of the class. (Here's a room plan, which didn't work out exactly as pictured here, but the idea is what counts)<br />
<br />
[http://iifap.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/room-plan.jpg|Room Plan]<br />
<br />
We started the class with a Power Point presentation that reviewed the basic outline of the class (to refresh students who might have only skimmed the reading). <br />
<br />
+ Clip<br />
<br />
When that was finished, we hosted a conversation between two stakeholders (Colin MacClay of the Berkman Center and Andrew McLaughlin from Google). <br />
<br />
+ Clip<br />
<br />
<br />
Once everyone was caught up to speed on the tensions they'd have to navigate in the simulation, Josh explained the simulation to all class participants.<br />
<br />
+ Clip<br />
<br />
<br />
At the end of the simulation, the groups gave in their final proposals:<br />
<br />
+ Proposals<br />
<br />
<br />
Our judge, the Berkman Center's Colin MacClay, gave his feedback on the proposals.<br />
<br />
+ Clip<br />
<br />
After class, we gave all of the participants an opportunity to vote on the proposals:<br />
<br />
== Reactions and suggestions ==<br />
<br />
=== Evaluation of the class ===<br />
<br />
=== Role of technology ===<br />
<br />
=== Additional suggestions for future classes ===<br />
<br />
<br />
Note to self: Joe, Miriam, Mark, Jon Fildes, Elana, Melissa</div>Jgruensphttps://cyber.harvard.edu/iif/?title=Open_Networks,_Closed_Regimes&diff=3080Open Networks, Closed Regimes2009-05-15T03:59:50Z<p>Jgruensp: Undo revision 3079 by Jgruensp (Talk)</p>
<hr />
<div><!--<br />
How to make the yellow boxes:<br />
<br />
For the paragraph-sized boxes, use this code and place your text where it says "text":<br />
<br />
<div style="padding:1em; margin:1em 0 1em 31%; clear:both; background:#ffc; border:1px dashed #575744; width:66%; align:right;">text</div><br />
<br />
For the inline boxes, use this code and place your text where it says "text":<br />
<br />
<span style="border:1px dashed #575744; padding:0 .25em; margin:0 .25em; background:#ffc;">text</span><br />
<br />
/--><br />
<br />
<div style="float:right; padding:0 1em; margin-left:1em; clear:both; width:66%; background:#ffc; border:1px dashed #575744;"><p>This page documents a single class session on worldwide Internet restrictions taught by [[User:Jgruensp|Joshua Gruenspecht]], [[User:CKennedy|Conor Kennedy]], and [[User:Danray|Dan Ray]] in April 2009. We've filled it out with some background information and our reactions, in the hopes that it might be useful to someone else teaching a similar subject in the future.</p><br />
<br />
<p>This page is a work in progress, and we encourage anyone to add to it. The wiki only permits registered users to edit it, but you can create a free, pseudonymous account using the link at the top right corner of the page. (You can copy our formatting or add your own; a template for the yellow annotations appears in an HTML comment at the top of the page source.)</p></div><br />
<br />
== Part I: Early Preparation/The Original Wiki ==<br />
<br />
=== Problem to be solved ===<br />
<br />
<br />
<div style="float:right; padding:0 1em; margin-left:1em; clear:both; width:66%; background:#ffc; border:1px dashed #575744;">Our students had access to an earlier version of this wiki page. For the information in this section, unformatted text indicates material that was available at the time of our presentation, and yellow boxes like this one are annotations added after the fact think of them like the director's commentary. The actual revision of the page at the time of the class session is [http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/iif/?title=Open_Networks%2C_Closed_Regimes&oldid=2204 here]</div>US-based internet services are used by citizens of every regime in the world. Western-based internet companies operate these services in many countries where governments routinely request or demand sensitive information about their citizens. How should high-level officers respond when their companies receive requests to turn over information which violate privacy and anonymity expectations? How can citizens, NGOs, and government actors influence the way these companies respond?<br />
<br />
=== Precis ===<br />
The idea of the internet service provider as a border-defying government-regulation-free jurisdiction was already dying in the 1990s, but the large-scale movement of internet services into regimes without free speech protections has raised serious concerns about managing cross-border privacy standards over the last five years. From Yahoo! turning over pro-democracy Chinese bloggers to the Chinese government, to Saudi Arabia tracking porn downloaders by pulling ISP records, to South Korea trying to arrest anonymous government critics, the problems are widespread and not restricted only to regimes that Americans are used to thinking of as "repressive." The globalization of internet services raises difficult questions: What requests for information are invasive? What kind of deference is due to local sovereignty? How can the competing demands best be balanced? How can the relevant stakeholders work toward achieving a proper balance?<br />
<br />
=== The Story So Far ===<br />
<br />
<div style="float:right; padding:0 1em; margin-left:1em; clear:both; width:66%; background:#ffc; border:1px dashed #575744;">This section constitutes the class's common ground, in that all students were expected to read it. It is intended to situate today's issues (including our simulated crisis) within the Internet's history, and to introduce the three major proposals we expected our simulation groups to cover.</div>Several weeks ago, our class read John Perry Barlow’s [http://homes.eff.org/~barlow/Declaration-Final.html Declaration of Independence of Cyberspace] <span style="border:1px dashed #575744; padding:0 .25em; margin:0 .25em; background:#ffc;">(this refers to the readings for an earlier class. It's probably not essential to assign it; this summary is plenty for our purposes.)</span>, written in 1996, in which he addresses the nations of the world and “declare[s] the global social space we are building to be naturally independent of the tyrannies you seek to impose on us.” For Barlow, perhaps the most important innovation of cyberspace was its ability to act as a great leveler: “We are creating a world that all may enter without privilege or prejudice accorded by race, economic power, military force, or station of birth. We are creating a world where anyone, anywhere may express his or her beliefs, no matter how singular, without fear of being coerced into silence or conformity.” As these lines imply, the key to this brave new world of Barlow’s was the possibility of anonymity (or pseudonymity): real-world barriers placed by normative biases or governmental controls could be hurdled by individuals joining online communities to express their provocative thoughts. Secure in the knowledge that their identities were divorced from their real-world selves, citizens of every nation could create the first truly free global marketplace of ideas.<br />
<br />
From well before Barlow’s Declaration, this idea of the Internet as an enabler of the anonymous expression of ideas was a well-established meme in the popular conception of the Internet, from Peter Steiner’s [http://www.unc.edu/depts/jomc/academics/dri/idog.jpg famous New Yorker cartoon] to the aphorism that “The net treats censorship as a defect and routes around it.” <span style="border:1px dashed #575744; padding:0 .25em; margin:0 .25em; background:#ffc;">This quote comes from [http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/archived_content/people/reagle/inet-quotations-19990709.html John Gilmore]</span> And just as quickly, people started to raise questions about whether a completely uncontrolled discourse was desirable – Larry Lessig famously [http://pdf.codev2.cc/Lessig-Codev2.pdf told the story] (see p. 102-106) of one anonymous student who single-handedly shut down Lessig’s first online classroom bulletin board by attacking his classmates with unstinting vitriol. The techno-libertarians remained adamant that online communities would develop mechanisms to cope with such problems, and that the benefits of being able to create a discussion area open to all comers – more freedom under repressive regimes, more frank discussion for every individual – would outweigh any drawbacks.<br />
<br />
However, the accuracy of the idea that the Internet need not respect terrestrial law was soon called into doubt. Tim Wu and Jack Goldsmith [http://books.google.com/books?id=Q01APcGmLB8C document] (see Chapter 1) the 2000 case in which Yahoo! attempted to resist a takedown request from the French government. After activists discovered Nazi merchandise for sale on a Yahoo! site, they appealed to the government to enforce the laws banning such material from being sold in France. Yahoo! protested that there was no way for it to identify traffic coming from France, and that to enforce the French laws would ultimately mean enforcing the lowest common denominator of all international law in all locations. However, having lost their case in the French courts in the face of expert testimony, and facing fines of 100,000 francs per day against their new French division, the company caved and admitted that IP addresses could be used to tell from what country a visitor came. This was a blow to the notion that the Internet was inherently resistant to national laws, but it was also a blow to the idea that users of the Internet were all faceless numbers – it soon became very clear that the companies that individuals did business with on the Internet knew plenty about their users, both in the form of information submitted by those users and in the form of other incidental data.<br />
<br />
Once those two facts were combined, it became clear that online service providers doing business internationally were vulnerable to economic threats if they failed to comply with local legal regimes by turning over nominally anonymous users. This acquired early public salience in 2004, when the Chinese government discovered that someone with a Yahoo! email account had forwarded to a US-based pro-democracy blogger an internal Communist party message warning of potential unrest which might arise from discussion of the fifteenth anniversary of the Tiananmen Square protests. China [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/4221538.stm demanded] that the company turn over any records relating to the disclosure of its state secrets, and Yahoo! complied without question. Chinese journalist Shi Tao was ultimately arrested and sentenced to ten years in prison. After the role played by Yahoo! was disclosed, the company became the subject of global outrage, castigated by pro-free-speech nonprofits and hauled before Congress to account for its actions. <span style="border:1px dashed #575744; padding:0 .25em; margin:0 .25em; background:#ffc;">As of 2009, Shi Tao remains imprisoned.</span> However, Yahoo! was merely the most visible of the companies involved in such disclosures – Amnesty International [http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/POL30/026/2006/en/dom-POL300262006en.pdf reports] that many of the largest international online service providers were implicated at the time and continue to wrestle with these issues.<br />
<br />
In recent years, similar cases have cropped up all over the world, from Africa to Asia to the Middle East, and even some American companies have [http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-10023104-71.html taken part] in using the disclosure-friendly laws of other countries to track down derogatory speakers. Many of these countries describe themselves as protecting themselves from the dangerous consequences of free speech: in January, South Korea [http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123178875223174403.html arrested] a blogger whose acerbic postings about government bureaucrats had supposedly undermined the population’s faith in the government’s ability to manage the global financial crisis. These governments say that free speech is always at war with social stability, as it was in Lessig’s classroom, and that they and Americans simply disagree on where the line must be drawn. At the same time, pro-democracy activists say that American companies and the American government aren’t doing enough work insisting upon the universality of American values.<br />
<br />
The most salient legislative response has been the [http://thomas.loc.gov/home/gpoxmlc110/h275_ih.xml Global Online Freedom Act] (GOFA), proposed by Representative Chris Smith (R-NJ). GOFA would require the State Department to track internet-restricting countries and then forbid US corporations from a) storing users’ personal data within the borders of those countries or b) turning over any personally identifiable information to law enforcement within those countries without first seeking the permission of the US Department of Justice. Many pro-free-speech non-profits have [http://www.rsf.org/print.php3?id_article=18304 praised] the GOFA bill as an [http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=24141 “advance for online free expression.”] Commentators have also [http://www.cdt.org/international/censorship/20080505gofa.pdf suggested], however, that it is unworkable in practice, and would in effect require US companies to cease doing meaningful business within such countries.<br />
<br />
Some corporations have pushed instead for a non-government-driven multi-stakeholder plan of action. Several of the largest American online service providers, including Microsoft, Google, and Yahoo!, have joined forces with the Berkman Center to develop the [http://www.globalnetworkinitiative.org/index.php Global Network Initiative] (GNI). The GNI lays out a set of universal [http://www.globalnetworkinitiative.org/principles/index.php principles] to be referenced when making difficult human rights decisions; it then gives [http://www.globalnetworkinitiative.org/implementationguidelines/index.php implementation guidance] to boards considering those principles on a case-by-case basis as requests for users' data come in. Some of the Congressional critics of these companies have been mollified by the evident progress. At the same time, some [http://writ.news.findlaw.com/ramasastry/20081212.html legal scholars] and [http://www.technewsworld.com/story/commentary/64972.html privacy specialists] (see Rotenberg quote <span style="border:1px dashed #575744; padding:0 .25em; margin:0 .25em; background:#ffc;">"It's good that companies are paying more attention to the need to safeguard fundamental rights on the Internet, but this proposal lacks specific recommendations and fails to address key concerns about the surveillance and censorship of Internet users"</span>) say the GNI is not widely enough accepted or equipped with severe enough penalties to make a serious difference.<br />
<br />
Meanwhile, countries wary of indiscriminate speech have started to look at alternatives of their own. This past year, the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), a specialized agency of the United Nations that deals with the regulation of international telecommunications issues, [http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10040152-38.html opened up] a study group on Question 6-17 (Q6/17). The Q6/17 group was chartered at the request of a state-owned Chinese telecommunications firm to [http://www.politechbot.com/docs/itu.china.internet.traceback.proposal.091108.doc investigate the feasibility] <span style="border:1px dashed #575744; padding:0 .25em; margin:0 .25em; background:#ffc;">link to .doc</span> of retrofitting the internet with Internet Protocol (IP) traceback technology. IP packets, the individual "envelopes" used to send information across the internet, are difficult, if not impossible, to follow back from their destination to their source. IP traceback technology would use new software and hardware to retrofit tracing mechanisms onto the internet as built, so as to make it easier to find the sender of a given message. The proponents of Q6/17 suggest that it could be used to make it more difficult to remotely infect computers with viruses or make anonymous threats online. Privacy specialists, however, suspect that the major purpose is to crack down on unwanted speech.<br />
<br />
=== Required Readings ===<br />
<br />
<div style="padding:0 1em; margin-left:1em; clear:both; width:66%; background:#ffc; border:1px dashed #575744;">In the spirit of a class in which different groups were meant to represent different constituencies with different backgrounds, we decided to move away from using the readings to get the class on the same page. Aside from the text above, which was assigned as introductory material, each group was assigned individualized readings to explain "their" point of view. As a result, we removed the Required Readings section of the page entirely, archiving it, as seen below. The Additional Readings section remained in place, for those students interested in a wider exploration of the issues. The readings were emailed individually to the class groups, as discussed in Part II.</div><br />
<br />
[[AnP Brainstorming|Early brainstorming on this topic]]<br />
<br />
=== Additional Readings ===<br />
<br />
(Some of these and additional readings will be broken down by simulation group)<br />
<br />
==== Audio: ====<br />
<br />
* http://rconversation.blogs.com/rconversation/2008/07/on-the-media-in.html (Episode of On The Media w/ Rebecca MacKinnon)<br />
<br />
==== Video ====<br />
<br />
* http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMorzIBHmrA (Conversation about GNI on CSPAN w/ Michael Samway and Julien Sanchez)<br />
<br />
==== Text ====<br />
<br />
===== “Just the Facts” Reporting =====<br />
<br />
* http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7696356.stm<br />
<br />
* http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/28/technology/internet/28privacy.html?_r=1&oref=slogin<br />
<br />
==== Critiques ====<br />
<br />
* http://writ.news.findlaw.com/ramasastry/20081212.html (Anita Ramasastry, Associate Professor at University of Washington School of Law)<br />
<br />
* http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=29117 (Reporters without Borders, an NGO that was part of the talks but didn’t sign onto the GNI at the end)<br />
<br />
* http://www.eff.org/files/filenode/gni/signon_letter.txt (Electronic Frontier Foundation, an NGO that was part of the talks and did sign onto the GNI at the end)<br />
<br />
* http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060313/mackinnon (Rebecca MacKinnon, writing in The Nation before the GNI existed, discusses four companies' culpability and diagnoses a major flaw with GOFA)<br />
<br />
=== Links ===<br />
http://blogs.wsj.com/chinajournal/2008/10/28/parsing-the-google-yahoo-microsoft-global-network-initiative/<br />
<br />
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/30/magazine/30google-t.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink&adxnnlx=1229749063-T7qNc5xv9ZLDiLcjc8AZxQ&pagewanted=print<br />
<br />
http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/04/republican-hous.html<br />
<br />
http://rconversation.blogs.com/rconversation/2007/01/google_yahoo_mi.html<br />
<br />
http://www.circleid.com/posts/print/20081028_global_network_initiative/<br />
<br />
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/oct/30/amnesty-global-network-initiative<br />
<br />
http://www.economist.com/world/asia/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12783609<br />
<br />
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-a-santoro-and-wendy-goldberg/chinese-internet-censorsh_b_156212.html<br />
<br />
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10040152-38.html (Declan McCullagh of CNet News on Q6/17, including links to several leaked ITU documents)<br />
<br />
== Part II: Planning and Execution/The Week of the Class ==<br />
<br />
<div style="padding:0 1em; margin-left:1em; clear:both; width:66%; background:#ffc; border:1px dashed #575744;">Parts II and III cover the class as it played out, and represent entirely new material on this wiki. As a result, there are no yellow commentary boxes in these sections.</div><br />
<br />
=== The lead-up to the class ===<br />
<br />
The class was divided into six role-playing groups representing six constituencies with complaints about the manner in which free speech issues on the internet are currently handled. Group assignments fell naturally out of the existing divisions within the class - each role-playing group represented two of the discussion topic groups on the syllabus. Each group was emailed individually approximately seven days before the class date. The email explained the concept behind the class:<br />
<br />
<span style="border:1px; padding:0 .25em; margin:0 .25em; background:#fcf;"><br />
For the Anonymity and Privacy class this coming week, we're going to run things slightly differently. The class will be divided into six groups, and each group will be given an identity as a participant in the ongoing global battle over anonymous speech online, as well as a series of unique readings giving some specialized background. Then, in class, we'll introduce some general background and then have an exercise involving both y'all and our guest. See the last page of the attachment for your readings.<br />
</span><br />
<br />
As the text of the email suggests, each one contained an individualized reading for the associated group. See below for the attached readings:<br />
<br />
[http://iifap.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/group1readings.doc Group 1: The Vietnamese Government]<br />
<br />
[http://iifap.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/group2readings.doc Group 2: Vietnamese Pro-Democracy Bloggers]<br />
<br />
[http://iifap.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/group3readings.doc Group 3: The US Government]<br />
<br />
[http://iifap.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/group4readings.doc Group 4: Yahoo! (the most popular blogging service in Vietnam)]<br />
<br />
[http://iifap.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/group5readings.doc Group 5: Amnesty International]<br />
<br />
[http://iifap.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/group6readings.doc Group 6: The Chinese Government]<br />
<br />
=== The day of class ===<br />
<br />
We showed up early and set up the room. We placed most of the classroom's tables against the wall, and placed the chairs just inside of them, to make sure there was a big "public" space in the middle of the room for the second half of the class. (Here's a room plan, which didn't work out exactly as pictured here, but the idea is what counts)<br />
<br />
[http://iifap.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/room-plan.jpg|Room Plan]<br />
<br />
We started the class with a Power Point presentation that reviewed the basic outline of the class (to refresh students who might have only skimmed the reading). <br />
<br />
+ Clip<br />
<br />
When that was finished, we hosted a conversation between two stakeholders (Colin MacClay of the Berkman Center and Andrew McLaughlin from Google). <br />
<br />
+ Clip<br />
<br />
<br />
Once everyone was caught up to speed on the tensions they'd have to navigate in the simulation, Josh explained the simulation to all class participants.<br />
<br />
+ Clip<br />
<br />
<br />
At the end of the simulation, the groups gave in their final proposals:<br />
<br />
+ Proposals<br />
<br />
<br />
Our judge, the Berkman Center's Colin MacClay, gave his feedback on the proposals.<br />
<br />
+ Clip<br />
<br />
After class, we gave all of the participants an opportunity to vote on the proposals:<br />
<br />
== Reactions and suggestions ==<br />
<br />
=== Evaluation of the class ===<br />
<br />
=== Role of technology ===<br />
<br />
=== Additional suggestions for future classes ===<br />
<br />
<br />
Note to self: Joe, Miriam, Mark, Jon Fildes, Elana, Melissa</div>Jgruensphttps://cyber.harvard.edu/iif/?title=Open_Networks,_Closed_Regimes&diff=3079Open Networks, Closed Regimes2009-05-15T03:58:47Z<p>Jgruensp: </p>
<hr />
<div><!--<br />
How to make the yellow boxes:<br />
<br />
For the paragraph-sized boxes, use this code and place your text where it says "text":<br />
<br />
<div style="padding:1em; margin:1em 0 1em 31%; clear:both; background:#ffc; border:1px dashed #575744; width:66%; align:right;">text</div><br />
<br />
For the inline boxes, use this code and place your text where it says "text":<br />
<br />
<span style="border:1px dashed #575744; padding:0 .25em; margin:0 .25em; background:#ffc;">text</span><br />
<br />
/--><br />
<br />
<div style="float:right; padding:0 1em; margin-left:1em; clear:both; width:66%; background:#ffc; border:1px dashed #575744;"><p>This page documents a single class session on worldwide Internet restrictions taught by [[User:Jgruensp|Joshua Gruenspecht]], [[User:CKennedy|Conor Kennedy]], and [[User:Danray|Dan Ray]] in April 2009. We've filled it out with some background information and our reactions, in the hopes that it might be useful to someone else teaching a similar subject in the future.</p><br />
<br />
<p>This page is a work in progress, and we encourage anyone to add to it. The wiki only permits registered users to edit it, but you can create a free, pseudonymous account using the link at the top right corner of the page. (You can copy our formatting or add your own; a template for the yellow annotations appears in an HTML comment at the top of the page source.)</p></div><br />
<br />
== Part I: Early Preparation/The Original Wiki ==<br />
<br />
=== Problem to be solved ===<br />
<br />
<br />
<div style="float:right; padding:0 1em; margin-left:1em; clear:both; width:66%; background:#ffc; border:1px dashed #575744;">Our students had access to an earlier version of this wiki page. For the information in this section, unformatted text indicates material that was available at the time of our presentation, and yellow boxes like this one are annotations added after the fact think of them like the director's commentary. The actual revision of the page at the time of the class session is [http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/iif/?title=Open_Networks%2C_Closed_Regimes&oldid=2204 here]</div>US-based internet services are used by citizens of every regime in the world. Western-based internet companies operate these services in many countries where governments routinely request or demand sensitive information about their citizens. How should high-level officers respond when their companies receive requests to turn over information which violate privacy and anonymity expectations? How can citizens, NGOs, and government actors influence the way these companies respond?<br />
<br />
=== Precis ===<br />
The idea of the internet service provider as a border-defying government-regulation-free jurisdiction was already dying in the 1990s, but the large-scale movement of internet services into regimes without free speech protections has raised serious concerns about managing cross-border privacy standards over the last five years. From Yahoo! turning over pro-democracy Chinese bloggers to the Chinese government, to Saudi Arabia tracking porn downloaders by pulling ISP records, to South Korea trying to arrest anonymous government critics, the problems are widespread and not restricted only to regimes that Americans are used to thinking of as "repressive." The globalization of internet services raises difficult questions: What requests for information are invasive? What kind of deference is due to local sovereignty? How can the competing demands best be balanced? How can the relevant stakeholders work toward achieving a proper balance?<br />
<br />
=== The Story So Far ===<br />
<br />
<div style="float:right; padding:0 1em; margin-left:1em; clear:both; width:66%; background:#ffc; border:1px dashed #575744;">This section constitutes the class's common ground, in that all students were expected to read it. It is intended to situate today's issues (including our simulated crisis) within the Internet's history, and to introduce the three major proposals we expected our simulation groups to cover.</div>Several weeks ago, our class read John Perry Barlow’s [http://homes.eff.org/~barlow/Declaration-Final.html Declaration of Independence of Cyberspace] <span style="border:1px dashed #575744; padding:0 .25em; margin:0 .25em; background:#ffc;">(this refers to the readings for an earlier class. It's probably not essential to assign it; this summary is plenty for our purposes.)</span>, written in 1996, in which he addresses the nations of the world and “declare[s] the global social space we are building to be naturally independent of the tyrannies you seek to impose on us.” For Barlow, perhaps the most important innovation of cyberspace was its ability to act as a great leveler: “We are creating a world that all may enter without privilege or prejudice accorded by race, economic power, military force, or station of birth. We are creating a world where anyone, anywhere may express his or her beliefs, no matter how singular, without fear of being coerced into silence or conformity.” As these lines imply, the key to this brave new world of Barlow’s was the possibility of anonymity (or pseudonymity): real-world barriers placed by normative biases or governmental controls could be hurdled by individuals joining online communities to express their provocative thoughts. Secure in the knowledge that their identities were divorced from their real-world selves, citizens of every nation could create the first truly free global marketplace of ideas.<br />
<br />
From well before Barlow’s Declaration, this idea of the Internet as an enabler of the anonymous expression of ideas was a well-established meme in the popular conception of the Internet, from Peter Steiner’s [http://www.unc.edu/depts/jomc/academics/dri/idog.jpg famous New Yorker cartoon] to the aphorism that “The net treats censorship as a defect and routes around it.” <span style="border:1px dashed #575744; padding:0 .25em; margin:0 .25em; background:#ffc;">This quote comes from [http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/archived_content/people/reagle/inet-quotations-19990709.html John Gilmore]</span> And just as quickly, people started to raise questions about whether a completely uncontrolled discourse was desirable – Larry Lessig famously [http://pdf.codev2.cc/Lessig-Codev2.pdf told the story] (see p. 102-106) of one anonymous student who single-handedly shut down Lessig’s first online classroom bulletin board by attacking his classmates with unstinting vitriol. The techno-libertarians remained adamant that online communities would develop mechanisms to cope with such problems, and that the benefits of being able to create a discussion area open to all comers – more freedom under repressive regimes, more frank discussion for every individual – would outweigh any drawbacks.<br />
<br />
However, the accuracy of the idea that the Internet need not respect terrestrial law was soon called into doubt. Tim Wu and Jack Goldsmith [http://books.google.com/books?id=Q01APcGmLB8C document] (see Chapter 1) the 2000 case in which Yahoo! attempted to resist a takedown request from the French government. After activists discovered Nazi merchandise for sale on a Yahoo! site, they appealed to the government to enforce the laws banning such material from being sold in France. Yahoo! protested that there was no way for it to identify traffic coming from France, and that to enforce the French laws would ultimately mean enforcing the lowest common denominator of all international law in all locations. However, having lost their case in the French courts in the face of expert testimony, and facing fines of 100,000 francs per day against their new French division, the company caved and admitted that IP addresses could be used to tell from what country a visitor came. This was a blow to the notion that the Internet was inherently resistant to national laws, but it was also a blow to the idea that users of the Internet were all faceless numbers – it soon became very clear that the companies that individuals did business with on the Internet knew plenty about their users, both in the form of information submitted by those users and in the form of other incidental data.<br />
<br />
Once those two facts were combined, it became clear that online service providers doing business internationally were vulnerable to economic threats if they failed to comply with local legal regimes by turning over nominally anonymous users. This acquired early public salience in 2004, when the Chinese government discovered that someone with a Yahoo! email account had forwarded to a US-based pro-democracy blogger an internal Communist party message warning of potential unrest which might arise from discussion of the fifteenth anniversary of the Tiananmen Square protests. China [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/4221538.stm demanded] that the company turn over any records relating to the disclosure of its state secrets, and Yahoo! complied without question. Chinese journalist Shi Tao was ultimately arrested and sentenced to ten years in prison. After the role played by Yahoo! was disclosed, the company became the subject of global outrage, castigated by pro-free-speech nonprofits and hauled before Congress to account for its actions. <span style="border:1px dashed #575744; padding:0 .25em; margin:0 .25em; background:#ffc;">As of 2009, Shi Tao remains imprisoned.</span> However, Yahoo! was merely the most visible of the companies involved in such disclosures – Amnesty International [http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/POL30/026/2006/en/dom-POL300262006en.pdf reports] that many of the largest international online service providers were implicated at the time and continue to wrestle with these issues.<br />
<br />
In recent years, similar cases have cropped up all over the world, from Africa to Asia to the Middle East, and even some American companies have [http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-10023104-71.html taken part] in using the disclosure-friendly laws of other countries to track down derogatory speakers. Many of these countries describe themselves as protecting themselves from the dangerous consequences of free speech: in January, South Korea [http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123178875223174403.html arrested] a blogger whose acerbic postings about government bureaucrats had supposedly undermined the population’s faith in the government’s ability to manage the global financial crisis. These governments say that free speech is always at war with social stability, as it was in Lessig’s classroom, and that they and Americans simply disagree on where the line must be drawn. At the same time, pro-democracy activists say that American companies and the American government aren’t doing enough work insisting upon the universality of American values.<br />
<br />
The most salient legislative response has been the [http://thomas.loc.gov/home/gpoxmlc110/h275_ih.xml Global Online Freedom Act] (GOFA), proposed by Representative Chris Smith (R-NJ). GOFA would require the State Department to track internet-restricting countries and then forbid US corporations from a) storing users’ personal data within the borders of those countries or b) turning over any personally identifiable information to law enforcement within those countries without first seeking the permission of the US Department of Justice. Many pro-free-speech non-profits have [http://www.rsf.org/print.php3?id_article=18304 praised] the GOFA bill as an [http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=24141 “advance for online free expression.”] Commentators have also [http://www.cdt.org/international/censorship/20080505gofa.pdf suggested], however, that it is unworkable in practice, and would in effect require US companies to cease doing meaningful business within such countries.<br />
<br />
Some corporations have pushed instead for a non-government-driven multi-stakeholder plan of action. Several of the largest American online service providers, including Microsoft, Google, and Yahoo!, have joined forces with the Berkman Center to develop the [http://www.globalnetworkinitiative.org/index.php Global Network Initiative] (GNI). The GNI lays out a set of universal [http://www.globalnetworkinitiative.org/principles/index.php principles] to be referenced when making difficult human rights decisions; it then gives [http://www.globalnetworkinitiative.org/implementationguidelines/index.php implementation guidance] to boards considering those principles on a case-by-case basis as requests for users' data come in. Some of the Congressional critics of these companies have been mollified by the evident progress. At the same time, some [http://writ.news.findlaw.com/ramasastry/20081212.html legal scholars] and [http://www.technewsworld.com/story/commentary/64972.html privacy specialists] (see Rotenberg quote <span style="border:1px dashed #575744; padding:0 .25em; margin:0 .25em; background:#ffc;">"It's good that companies are paying more attention to the need to safeguard fundamental rights on the Internet, but this proposal lacks specific recommendations and fails to address key concerns about the surveillance and censorship of Internet users"</span>) say the GNI is not widely enough accepted or equipped with severe enough penalties to make a serious difference.<br />
<br />
Meanwhile, countries wary of indiscriminate speech have started to look at alternatives of their own. This past year, the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), a specialized agency of the United Nations that deals with the regulation of international telecommunications issues, [http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10040152-38.html opened up] a study group on Question 6-17 (Q6/17). The Q6/17 group was chartered at the request of a state-owned Chinese telecommunications firm to [http://www.politechbot.com/docs/itu.china.internet.traceback.proposal.091108.doc investigate the feasibility] <span style="border:1px dashed #575744; padding:0 .25em; margin:0 .25em; background:#ffc;">link to .doc</span> of retrofitting the internet with Internet Protocol (IP) traceback technology. IP packets, the individual "envelopes" used to send information across the internet, are difficult, if not impossible, to follow back from their destination to their source. IP traceback technology would use new software and hardware to retrofit tracing mechanisms onto the internet as built, so as to make it easier to find the sender of a given message. The proponents of Q6/17 suggest that it could be used to make it more difficult to remotely infect computers with viruses or make anonymous threats online. Privacy specialists, however, suspect that the major purpose is to crack down on unwanted speech.<br />
<br />
=== Required Readings ===<br />
<br />
<div style="padding:0 1em; margin-left:1em; clear:both; width:66%; background:#ffc; border:1px dashed #575744;">In the spirit of a class in which different groups were meant to represent different constituencies with different backgrounds, we decided to move away from using the readings to get the class on the same page. Aside from the text above, which was assigned as introductory material, each group was assigned individualized readings to explain "their" point of view. As a result, we removed the Required Readings section of the page entirely, archiving it, as seen below. The Additional Readings section remained in place, for those students interested in a wider exploration of the issues. The readings were emailed individually to the class groups, as discussed in Part II.</div><br />
<br />
[[AnP Brainstorming|Early brainstorming on this topic]]<br />
<br />
=== Additional Readings ===<br />
<br />
(Some of these and additional readings will be broken down by simulation group)<br />
<br />
==== Audio: ====<br />
<br />
* http://rconversation.blogs.com/rconversation/2008/07/on-the-media-in.html (Episode of On The Media w/ Rebecca MacKinnon)<br />
<br />
==== Video ====<br />
<br />
* http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMorzIBHmrA (Conversation about GNI on CSPAN w/ Michael Samway and Julien Sanchez)<br />
<br />
==== Text ====<br />
<br />
===== “Just the Facts” Reporting =====<br />
<br />
* http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7696356.stm<br />
<br />
* http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/28/technology/internet/28privacy.html?_r=1&oref=slogin<br />
<br />
==== Critiques ====<br />
<br />
* http://writ.news.findlaw.com/ramasastry/20081212.html (Anita Ramasastry, Associate Professor at University of Washington School of Law)<br />
<br />
* http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=29117 (Reporters without Borders, an NGO that was part of the talks but didn’t sign onto the GNI at the end)<br />
<br />
* http://www.eff.org/files/filenode/gni/signon_letter.txt (Electronic Frontier Foundation, an NGO that was part of the talks and did sign onto the GNI at the end)<br />
<br />
* http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060313/mackinnon (Rebecca MacKinnon, writing in The Nation before the GNI existed, discusses four companies' culpability and diagnoses a major flaw with GOFA)<br />
<br />
=== Links ===<br />
http://blogs.wsj.com/chinajournal/2008/10/28/parsing-the-google-yahoo-microsoft-global-network-initiative/<br />
<br />
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/30/magazine/30google-t.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink&adxnnlx=1229749063-T7qNc5xv9ZLDiLcjc8AZxQ&pagewanted=print<br />
<br />
http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/04/republican-hous.html<br />
<br />
http://rconversation.blogs.com/rconversation/2007/01/google_yahoo_mi.html<br />
<br />
http://www.circleid.com/posts/print/20081028_global_network_initiative/<br />
<br />
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/oct/30/amnesty-global-network-initiative<br />
<br />
http://www.economist.com/world/asia/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12783609<br />
<br />
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-a-santoro-and-wendy-goldberg/chinese-internet-censorsh_b_156212.html<br />
<br />
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10040152-38.html (Declan McCullagh of CNet News on Q6/17, including links to several leaked ITU documents)<br />
<br />
== Part II: Planning and Execution/The Week of the Class ==<br />
<br />
<div style="padding:0 1em; margin-left:1em; clear:both; width:66%; background:#ffc; border:1px dashed #575744;">Parts II and III cover the class as it played out, and represent entirely new material on this wiki. As a result, there are no yellow commentary boxes in these sections.</div><br />
<br />
=== The lead-up to the class ===<br />
<br />
The class was divided into six role-playing groups representing six constituencies with complaints about the manner in which free speech issues on the internet are currently handled. Group assignments fell naturally out of the existing divisions within the class - each role-playing group represented two of the discussion topic groups on the syllabus. Each group was emailed individually approximately seven days before the class date. The email explained the concept behind the class:<br />
<br />
+ For the Anonymity and Privacy class this coming week, we're going to run things slightly differently. The class will be divided into six groups, and each group will be given an identity as a participant in the ongoing global battle over anonymous speech online, as well as a series of unique readings giving some specialized background. Then, in class, we'll introduce some general background and then have an exercise involving both y'all and our guest. See the last page of the attachment for your readings.<br />
<br />
As the text of the email suggests, each one contained an individualized reading for the associated group. See below for the attached readings:<br />
<br />
[http://iifap.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/group1readings.doc Group 1: The Vietnamese Government]<br />
<br />
[http://iifap.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/group2readings.doc Group 2: Vietnamese Pro-Democracy Bloggers]<br />
<br />
[http://iifap.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/group3readings.doc Group 3: The US Government]<br />
<br />
[http://iifap.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/group4readings.doc Group 4: Yahoo! (the most popular blogging service in Vietnam)]<br />
<br />
[http://iifap.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/group5readings.doc Group 5: Amnesty International]<br />
<br />
[http://iifap.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/group6readings.doc Group 6: The Chinese Government]<br />
<br />
=== The day of class ===<br />
<br />
We showed up early and set up the room. We placed most of the classroom's tables against the wall, and placed the chairs just inside of them, to make sure there was a big "public" space in the middle of the room for the second half of the class. (Here's a room plan, which didn't work out exactly as pictured here, but the idea is what counts)<br />
<br />
[http://iifap.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/room-plan.jpg|Room Plan]<br />
<br />
We started the class with a Power Point presentation that reviewed the basic outline of the class (to refresh students who might have only skimmed the reading). <br />
<br />
+ Clip<br />
<br />
When that was finished, we hosted a conversation between two stakeholders (Colin MacClay of the Berkman Center and Andrew McLaughlin from Google). <br />
<br />
+ Clip<br />
<br />
<br />
Once everyone was caught up to speed on the tensions they'd have to navigate in the simulation, Josh explained the simulation to all class participants.<br />
<br />
+ Clip<br />
<br />
<br />
At the end of the simulation, the groups gave in their final proposals:<br />
<br />
+ Proposals<br />
<br />
<br />
Our judge, the Berkman Center's Colin MacClay, gave his feedback on the proposals.<br />
<br />
+ Clip<br />
<br />
After class, we gave all of the participants an opportunity to vote on the proposals:<br />
<br />
== Reactions and suggestions ==<br />
<br />
=== Evaluation of the class ===<br />
<br />
=== Role of technology ===<br />
<br />
=== Additional suggestions for future classes ===<br />
<br />
<br />
Note to self: Joe, Miriam, Mark, Jon Fildes, Elana, Melissa</div>Jgruensphttps://cyber.harvard.edu/iif/?title=Open_Networks,_Closed_Regimes&diff=3078Open Networks, Closed Regimes2009-05-15T03:57:59Z<p>Jgruensp: </p>
<hr />
<div><!--<br />
How to make the yellow boxes:<br />
<br />
For the paragraph-sized boxes, use this code and place your text where it says "text":<br />
<br />
<div style="padding:1em; margin:1em 0 1em 31%; clear:both; background:#ffc; border:1px dashed #575744; width:66%; align:right;">text</div><br />
<br />
For the inline boxes, use this code and place your text where it says "text":<br />
<br />
<span style="border:1px dashed #575744; padding:0 .25em; margin:0 .25em; background:#ffc;">text</span><br />
<br />
/--><br />
<br />
<div style="float:right; padding:0 1em; margin-left:1em; clear:both; width:66%; background:#ffc; border:1px dashed #575744;"><p>This page documents a single class session on worldwide Internet restrictions taught by [[User:Jgruensp|Joshua Gruenspecht]], [[User:CKennedy|Conor Kennedy]], and [[User:Danray|Dan Ray]] in April 2009. We've filled it out with some background information and our reactions, in the hopes that it might be useful to someone else teaching a similar subject in the future.</p><br />
<br />
<p>This page is a work in progress, and we encourage anyone to add to it. The wiki only permits registered users to edit it, but you can create a free, pseudonymous account using the link at the top right corner of the page. (You can copy our formatting or add your own; a template for the yellow annotations appears in an HTML comment at the top of the page source.)</p></div><br />
<br />
== Part I: Early Preparation/The Original Wiki ==<br />
<br />
=== Problem to be solved ===<br />
<br />
<br />
<div style="float:right; padding:0 1em; margin-left:1em; clear:both; width:66%; background:#ffc; border:1px dashed #575744;">Our students had access to an earlier version of this wiki page. For the information in this section, unformatted text indicates material that was available at the time of our presentation, and yellow boxes like this one are annotations added after the fact think of them like the director's commentary. The actual revision of the page at the time of the class session is [http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/iif/?title=Open_Networks%2C_Closed_Regimes&oldid=2204 here]</div>US-based internet services are used by citizens of every regime in the world. Western-based internet companies operate these services in many countries where governments routinely request or demand sensitive information about their citizens. How should high-level officers respond when their companies receive requests to turn over information which violate privacy and anonymity expectations? How can citizens, NGOs, and government actors influence the way these companies respond?<br />
<br />
=== Precis ===<br />
The idea of the internet service provider as a border-defying government-regulation-free jurisdiction was already dying in the 1990s, but the large-scale movement of internet services into regimes without free speech protections has raised serious concerns about managing cross-border privacy standards over the last five years. From Yahoo! turning over pro-democracy Chinese bloggers to the Chinese government, to Saudi Arabia tracking porn downloaders by pulling ISP records, to South Korea trying to arrest anonymous government critics, the problems are widespread and not restricted only to regimes that Americans are used to thinking of as "repressive." The globalization of internet services raises difficult questions: What requests for information are invasive? What kind of deference is due to local sovereignty? How can the competing demands best be balanced? How can the relevant stakeholders work toward achieving a proper balance?<br />
<br />
=== The Story So Far ===<br />
<br />
<div style="float:right; padding:0 1em; margin-left:1em; clear:both; width:66%; background:#ffc; border:1px dashed #575744;">This section constitutes the class's common ground, in that all students were expected to read it. It is intended to situate today's issues (including our simulated crisis) within the Internet's history, and to introduce the three major proposals we expected our simulation groups to cover.</div>Several weeks ago, our class read John Perry Barlow’s [http://homes.eff.org/~barlow/Declaration-Final.html Declaration of Independence of Cyberspace] <span style="border:1px dashed #575744; padding:0 .25em; margin:0 .25em; background:#ffc;">(this refers to the readings for an earlier class. It's probably not essential to assign it; this summary is plenty for our purposes.)</span>, written in 1996, in which he addresses the nations of the world and “declare[s] the global social space we are building to be naturally independent of the tyrannies you seek to impose on us.” For Barlow, perhaps the most important innovation of cyberspace was its ability to act as a great leveler: “We are creating a world that all may enter without privilege or prejudice accorded by race, economic power, military force, or station of birth. We are creating a world where anyone, anywhere may express his or her beliefs, no matter how singular, without fear of being coerced into silence or conformity.” As these lines imply, the key to this brave new world of Barlow’s was the possibility of anonymity (or pseudonymity): real-world barriers placed by normative biases or governmental controls could be hurdled by individuals joining online communities to express their provocative thoughts. Secure in the knowledge that their identities were divorced from their real-world selves, citizens of every nation could create the first truly free global marketplace of ideas.<br />
<br />
From well before Barlow’s Declaration, this idea of the Internet as an enabler of the anonymous expression of ideas was a well-established meme in the popular conception of the Internet, from Peter Steiner’s [http://www.unc.edu/depts/jomc/academics/dri/idog.jpg famous New Yorker cartoon] to the aphorism that “The net treats censorship as a defect and routes around it.” <span style="border:1px dashed #575744; padding:0 .25em; margin:0 .25em; background:#ffc;">This quote comes from [http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/archived_content/people/reagle/inet-quotations-19990709.html John Gilmore]</span> And just as quickly, people started to raise questions about whether a completely uncontrolled discourse was desirable – Larry Lessig famously [http://pdf.codev2.cc/Lessig-Codev2.pdf told the story] (see p. 102-106) of one anonymous student who single-handedly shut down Lessig’s first online classroom bulletin board by attacking his classmates with unstinting vitriol. The techno-libertarians remained adamant that online communities would develop mechanisms to cope with such problems, and that the benefits of being able to create a discussion area open to all comers – more freedom under repressive regimes, more frank discussion for every individual – would outweigh any drawbacks.<br />
<br />
However, the accuracy of the idea that the Internet need not respect terrestrial law was soon called into doubt. Tim Wu and Jack Goldsmith [http://books.google.com/books?id=Q01APcGmLB8C document] (see Chapter 1) the 2000 case in which Yahoo! attempted to resist a takedown request from the French government. After activists discovered Nazi merchandise for sale on a Yahoo! site, they appealed to the government to enforce the laws banning such material from being sold in France. Yahoo! protested that there was no way for it to identify traffic coming from France, and that to enforce the French laws would ultimately mean enforcing the lowest common denominator of all international law in all locations. However, having lost their case in the French courts in the face of expert testimony, and facing fines of 100,000 francs per day against their new French division, the company caved and admitted that IP addresses could be used to tell from what country a visitor came. This was a blow to the notion that the Internet was inherently resistant to national laws, but it was also a blow to the idea that users of the Internet were all faceless numbers – it soon became very clear that the companies that individuals did business with on the Internet knew plenty about their users, both in the form of information submitted by those users and in the form of other incidental data.<br />
<br />
Once those two facts were combined, it became clear that online service providers doing business internationally were vulnerable to economic threats if they failed to comply with local legal regimes by turning over nominally anonymous users. This acquired early public salience in 2004, when the Chinese government discovered that someone with a Yahoo! email account had forwarded to a US-based pro-democracy blogger an internal Communist party message warning of potential unrest which might arise from discussion of the fifteenth anniversary of the Tiananmen Square protests. China [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/4221538.stm demanded] that the company turn over any records relating to the disclosure of its state secrets, and Yahoo! complied without question. Chinese journalist Shi Tao was ultimately arrested and sentenced to ten years in prison. After the role played by Yahoo! was disclosed, the company became the subject of global outrage, castigated by pro-free-speech nonprofits and hauled before Congress to account for its actions. <span style="border:1px dashed #575744; padding:0 .25em; margin:0 .25em; background:#ffc;">As of 2009, Shi Tao remains imprisoned.</span> However, Yahoo! was merely the most visible of the companies involved in such disclosures – Amnesty International [http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/POL30/026/2006/en/dom-POL300262006en.pdf reports] that many of the largest international online service providers were implicated at the time and continue to wrestle with these issues.<br />
<br />
In recent years, similar cases have cropped up all over the world, from Africa to Asia to the Middle East, and even some American companies have [http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-10023104-71.html taken part] in using the disclosure-friendly laws of other countries to track down derogatory speakers. Many of these countries describe themselves as protecting themselves from the dangerous consequences of free speech: in January, South Korea [http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123178875223174403.html arrested] a blogger whose acerbic postings about government bureaucrats had supposedly undermined the population’s faith in the government’s ability to manage the global financial crisis. These governments say that free speech is always at war with social stability, as it was in Lessig’s classroom, and that they and Americans simply disagree on where the line must be drawn. At the same time, pro-democracy activists say that American companies and the American government aren’t doing enough work insisting upon the universality of American values.<br />
<br />
The most salient legislative response has been the [http://thomas.loc.gov/home/gpoxmlc110/h275_ih.xml Global Online Freedom Act] (GOFA), proposed by Representative Chris Smith (R-NJ). GOFA would require the State Department to track internet-restricting countries and then forbid US corporations from a) storing users’ personal data within the borders of those countries or b) turning over any personally identifiable information to law enforcement within those countries without first seeking the permission of the US Department of Justice. Many pro-free-speech non-profits have [http://www.rsf.org/print.php3?id_article=18304 praised] the GOFA bill as an [http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=24141 “advance for online free expression.”] Commentators have also [http://www.cdt.org/international/censorship/20080505gofa.pdf suggested], however, that it is unworkable in practice, and would in effect require US companies to cease doing meaningful business within such countries.<br />
<br />
Some corporations have pushed instead for a non-government-driven multi-stakeholder plan of action. Several of the largest American online service providers, including Microsoft, Google, and Yahoo!, have joined forces with the Berkman Center to develop the [http://www.globalnetworkinitiative.org/index.php Global Network Initiative] (GNI). The GNI lays out a set of universal [http://www.globalnetworkinitiative.org/principles/index.php principles] to be referenced when making difficult human rights decisions; it then gives [http://www.globalnetworkinitiative.org/implementationguidelines/index.php implementation guidance] to boards considering those principles on a case-by-case basis as requests for users' data come in. Some of the Congressional critics of these companies have been mollified by the evident progress. At the same time, some [http://writ.news.findlaw.com/ramasastry/20081212.html legal scholars] and [http://www.technewsworld.com/story/commentary/64972.html privacy specialists] (see Rotenberg quote <span style="border:1px dashed #575744; padding:0 .25em; margin:0 .25em; background:#ffc;">"It's good that companies are paying more attention to the need to safeguard fundamental rights on the Internet, but this proposal lacks specific recommendations and fails to address key concerns about the surveillance and censorship of Internet users"</span>) say the GNI is not widely enough accepted or equipped with severe enough penalties to make a serious difference.<br />
<br />
Meanwhile, countries wary of indiscriminate speech have started to look at alternatives of their own. This past year, the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), a specialized agency of the United Nations that deals with the regulation of international telecommunications issues, [http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10040152-38.html opened up] a study group on Question 6-17 (Q6/17). The Q6/17 group was chartered at the request of a state-owned Chinese telecommunications firm to [http://www.politechbot.com/docs/itu.china.internet.traceback.proposal.091108.doc investigate the feasibility] <span style="border:1px dashed #575744; padding:0 .25em; margin:0 .25em; background:#ffc;">link to .doc</span> of retrofitting the internet with Internet Protocol (IP) traceback technology. IP packets, the individual "envelopes" used to send information across the internet, are difficult, if not impossible, to follow back from their destination to their source. IP traceback technology would use new software and hardware to retrofit tracing mechanisms onto the internet as built, so as to make it easier to find the sender of a given message. The proponents of Q6/17 suggest that it could be used to make it more difficult to remotely infect computers with viruses or make anonymous threats online. Privacy specialists, however, suspect that the major purpose is to crack down on unwanted speech.<br />
<br />
=== Required Readings ===<br />
<br />
<div style="padding:0 1em; margin-left:1em; clear:both; width:66%; background:#ffc; border:1px dashed #575744;">In the spirit of a class in which different groups were meant to represent different constituencies with different backgrounds, we decided to move away from using the readings to get the class on the same page. Aside from the text above, which was assigned as introductory material, each group was assigned individualized readings to explain "their" point of view. As a result, we removed the Required Readings section of the page entirely, archiving it, as seen below. The Additional Readings section remained in place, for those students interested in a wider exploration of the issues. The readings were emailed individually to the class groups, as discussed in Part II.</div><br />
<br />
[[AnP Brainstorming|Early brainstorming on this topic]]<br />
<br />
=== Additional Readings ===<br />
<br />
(Some of these and additional readings will be broken down by simulation group)<br />
<br />
==== Audio: ====<br />
<br />
* http://rconversation.blogs.com/rconversation/2008/07/on-the-media-in.html (Episode of On The Media w/ Rebecca MacKinnon)<br />
<br />
==== Video ====<br />
<br />
* http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMorzIBHmrA (Conversation about GNI on CSPAN w/ Michael Samway and Julien Sanchez)<br />
<br />
==== Text ====<br />
<br />
===== “Just the Facts” Reporting =====<br />
<br />
* http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7696356.stm<br />
<br />
* http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/28/technology/internet/28privacy.html?_r=1&oref=slogin<br />
<br />
==== Critiques ====<br />
<br />
* http://writ.news.findlaw.com/ramasastry/20081212.html (Anita Ramasastry, Associate Professor at University of Washington School of Law)<br />
<br />
* http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=29117 (Reporters without Borders, an NGO that was part of the talks but didn’t sign onto the GNI at the end)<br />
<br />
* http://www.eff.org/files/filenode/gni/signon_letter.txt (Electronic Frontier Foundation, an NGO that was part of the talks and did sign onto the GNI at the end)<br />
<br />
* http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060313/mackinnon (Rebecca MacKinnon, writing in The Nation before the GNI existed, discusses four companies' culpability and diagnoses a major flaw with GOFA)<br />
<br />
=== Links ===<br />
http://blogs.wsj.com/chinajournal/2008/10/28/parsing-the-google-yahoo-microsoft-global-network-initiative/<br />
<br />
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/30/magazine/30google-t.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink&adxnnlx=1229749063-T7qNc5xv9ZLDiLcjc8AZxQ&pagewanted=print<br />
<br />
http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/04/republican-hous.html<br />
<br />
http://rconversation.blogs.com/rconversation/2007/01/google_yahoo_mi.html<br />
<br />
http://www.circleid.com/posts/print/20081028_global_network_initiative/<br />
<br />
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/oct/30/amnesty-global-network-initiative<br />
<br />
http://www.economist.com/world/asia/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12783609<br />
<br />
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-a-santoro-and-wendy-goldberg/chinese-internet-censorsh_b_156212.html<br />
<br />
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10040152-38.html (Declan McCullagh of CNet News on Q6/17, including links to several leaked ITU documents)<br />
<br />
== Part II: Planning and Execution/The Week of the Class ==<br />
<br />
<div style="padding:0 1em; margin-left:1em; clear:both; width:66%; background:#ffc; border:1px dashed #575744;">Parts II and III cover the class as it played out, and represent entirely new material on this wiki. As a result, there are no yellow commentary boxes in these sections.</div><br />
<br />
=== The lead-up to the class ===<br />
<br />
The class was divided into six role-playing groups representing six constituencies with complaints about the manner in which free speech issues on the internet are currently handled. Group assignments fell naturally out of the existing divisions within the class - each role-playing group represented two of the discussion topic groups on the syllabus. Each group was emailed individually approximately seven days before the class date. The email explained the concept behind the class:<br />
<br />
<span style="border:1px; padding:0 .25em; margin:0 .25em; background:#fcf;"><br />
+ For the Anonymity and Privacy class this coming week, we're going to run things slightly differently. The class will be divided into six groups, and each group will be given an identity as a participant in the ongoing global battle over anonymous speech online, as well as a series of unique readings giving some specialized background. Then, in class, we'll introduce some general background and then have an exercise involving both y'all and our guest. See the last page of the attachment for your readings.<br />
</span><br />
<br />
As the text of the email suggests, each one contained an individualized reading for the associated group. See below for the attached readings:<br />
<br />
[http://iifap.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/group1readings.doc Group 1: The Vietnamese Government]<br />
<br />
[http://iifap.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/group2readings.doc Group 2: Vietnamese Pro-Democracy Bloggers]<br />
<br />
[http://iifap.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/group3readings.doc Group 3: The US Government]<br />
<br />
[http://iifap.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/group4readings.doc Group 4: Yahoo! (the most popular blogging service in Vietnam)]<br />
<br />
[http://iifap.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/group5readings.doc Group 5: Amnesty International]<br />
<br />
[http://iifap.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/group6readings.doc Group 6: The Chinese Government]<br />
<br />
=== The day of class ===<br />
<br />
We showed up early and set up the room. We placed most of the classroom's tables against the wall, and placed the chairs just inside of them, to make sure there was a big "public" space in the middle of the room for the second half of the class. (Here's a room plan, which didn't work out exactly as pictured here, but the idea is what counts)<br />
<br />
[http://iifap.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/room-plan.jpg|Room Plan]<br />
<br />
We started the class with a Power Point presentation that reviewed the basic outline of the class (to refresh students who might have only skimmed the reading). <br />
<br />
+ Clip<br />
<br />
When that was finished, we hosted a conversation between two stakeholders (Colin MacClay of the Berkman Center and Andrew McLaughlin from Google). <br />
<br />
+ Clip<br />
<br />
<br />
Once everyone was caught up to speed on the tensions they'd have to navigate in the simulation, Josh explained the simulation to all class participants.<br />
<br />
+ Clip<br />
<br />
<br />
At the end of the simulation, the groups gave in their final proposals:<br />
<br />
+ Proposals<br />
<br />
<br />
Our judge, the Berkman Center's Colin MacClay, gave his feedback on the proposals.<br />
<br />
+ Clip<br />
<br />
After class, we gave all of the participants an opportunity to vote on the proposals:<br />
<br />
== Reactions and suggestions ==<br />
<br />
=== Evaluation of the class ===<br />
<br />
=== Role of technology ===<br />
<br />
=== Additional suggestions for future classes ===<br />
<br />
<br />
Note to self: Joe, Miriam, Mark, Jon Fildes, Elana, Melissa</div>Jgruensphttps://cyber.harvard.edu/iif/?title=Open_Networks,_Closed_Regimes&diff=3077Open Networks, Closed Regimes2009-05-15T03:41:30Z<p>Jgruensp: </p>
<hr />
<div><!--<br />
How to make the yellow boxes:<br />
<br />
For the paragraph-sized boxes, use this code and place your text where it says "text":<br />
<br />
<div style="padding:1em; margin:1em 0 1em 31%; clear:both; background:#ffc; border:1px dashed #575744; width:66%; align:right;">text</div><br />
<br />
For the inline boxes, use this code and place your text where it says "text":<br />
<br />
<span style="border:1px dashed #575744; padding:0 .25em; margin:0 .25em; background:#ffc;">text</span><br />
<br />
/--><br />
<br />
<div style="float:right; padding:0 1em; margin-left:1em; clear:both; width:66%; background:#ffc; border:1px dashed #575744;"><p>This page documents a single class session on worldwide Internet restrictions taught by [[User:Jgruensp|Joshua Gruenspecht]], [[User:CKennedy|Conor Kennedy]], and [[User:Danray|Dan Ray]] in April 2009. We've filled it out with some background information and our reactions, in the hopes that it might be useful to someone else teaching a similar subject in the future.</p><br />
<br />
<p>This page is a work in progress, and we encourage anyone to add to it. The wiki only permits registered users to edit it, but you can create a free, pseudonymous account using the link at the top right corner of the page. (You can copy our formatting or add your own; a template for the yellow annotations appears in an HTML comment at the top of the page source.)</p></div><br />
<br />
== Part I: Early Preparation/The Original Wiki ==<br />
<br />
=== Problem to be solved ===<br />
<br />
<br />
<div style="float:right; padding:0 1em; margin-left:1em; clear:both; width:66%; background:#ffc; border:1px dashed #575744;">Our students had access to an earlier version of this wiki page. For the information in this section, unformatted text indicates material that was available at the time of our presentation, and yellow boxes like this one are annotations added after the fact think of them like the director's commentary. The actual revision of the page at the time of the class session is [http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/iif/?title=Open_Networks%2C_Closed_Regimes&oldid=2204 here]</div>US-based internet services are used by citizens of every regime in the world. Western-based internet companies operate these services in many countries where governments routinely request or demand sensitive information about their citizens. How should high-level officers respond when their companies receive requests to turn over information which violate privacy and anonymity expectations? How can citizens, NGOs, and government actors influence the way these companies respond?<br />
<br />
=== Precis ===<br />
The idea of the internet service provider as a border-defying government-regulation-free jurisdiction was already dying in the 1990s, but the large-scale movement of internet services into regimes without free speech protections has raised serious concerns about managing cross-border privacy standards over the last five years. From Yahoo! turning over pro-democracy Chinese bloggers to the Chinese government, to Saudi Arabia tracking porn downloaders by pulling ISP records, to South Korea trying to arrest anonymous government critics, the problems are widespread and not restricted only to regimes that Americans are used to thinking of as "repressive." The globalization of internet services raises difficult questions: What requests for information are invasive? What kind of deference is due to local sovereignty? How can the competing demands best be balanced? How can the relevant stakeholders work toward achieving a proper balance?<br />
<br />
=== The Story So Far ===<br />
<br />
<div style="float:right; padding:0 1em; margin-left:1em; clear:both; width:66%; background:#ffc; border:1px dashed #575744;">This section constitutes the class's common ground, in that all students were expected to read it. It is intended to situate today's issues (including our simulated crisis) within the Internet's history, and to introduce the three major proposals we expected our simulation groups to cover.</div>Several weeks ago, our class read John Perry Barlow’s [http://homes.eff.org/~barlow/Declaration-Final.html Declaration of Independence of Cyberspace] <span style="border:1px dashed #575744; padding:0 .25em; margin:0 .25em; background:#ffc;">(this refers to the readings for an earlier class. It's probably not essential to assign it; this summary is plenty for our purposes.)</span>, written in 1996, in which he addresses the nations of the world and “declare[s] the global social space we are building to be naturally independent of the tyrannies you seek to impose on us.” For Barlow, perhaps the most important innovation of cyberspace was its ability to act as a great leveler: “We are creating a world that all may enter without privilege or prejudice accorded by race, economic power, military force, or station of birth. We are creating a world where anyone, anywhere may express his or her beliefs, no matter how singular, without fear of being coerced into silence or conformity.” As these lines imply, the key to this brave new world of Barlow’s was the possibility of anonymity (or pseudonymity): real-world barriers placed by normative biases or governmental controls could be hurdled by individuals joining online communities to express their provocative thoughts. Secure in the knowledge that their identities were divorced from their real-world selves, citizens of every nation could create the first truly free global marketplace of ideas.<br />
<br />
From well before Barlow’s Declaration, this idea of the Internet as an enabler of the anonymous expression of ideas was a well-established meme in the popular conception of the Internet, from Peter Steiner’s [http://www.unc.edu/depts/jomc/academics/dri/idog.jpg famous New Yorker cartoon] to the aphorism that “The net treats censorship as a defect and routes around it.” <span style="border:1px dashed #575744; padding:0 .25em; margin:0 .25em; background:#ffc;">This quote comes from [http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/archived_content/people/reagle/inet-quotations-19990709.html John Gilmore]</span> And just as quickly, people started to raise questions about whether a completely uncontrolled discourse was desirable – Larry Lessig famously [http://pdf.codev2.cc/Lessig-Codev2.pdf told the story] (see p. 102-106) of one anonymous student who single-handedly shut down Lessig’s first online classroom bulletin board by attacking his classmates with unstinting vitriol. The techno-libertarians remained adamant that online communities would develop mechanisms to cope with such problems, and that the benefits of being able to create a discussion area open to all comers – more freedom under repressive regimes, more frank discussion for every individual – would outweigh any drawbacks.<br />
<br />
However, the accuracy of the idea that the Internet need not respect terrestrial law was soon called into doubt. Tim Wu and Jack Goldsmith [http://books.google.com/books?id=Q01APcGmLB8C document] (see Chapter 1) the 2000 case in which Yahoo! attempted to resist a takedown request from the French government. After activists discovered Nazi merchandise for sale on a Yahoo! site, they appealed to the government to enforce the laws banning such material from being sold in France. Yahoo! protested that there was no way for it to identify traffic coming from France, and that to enforce the French laws would ultimately mean enforcing the lowest common denominator of all international law in all locations. However, having lost their case in the French courts in the face of expert testimony, and facing fines of 100,000 francs per day against their new French division, the company caved and admitted that IP addresses could be used to tell from what country a visitor came. This was a blow to the notion that the Internet was inherently resistant to national laws, but it was also a blow to the idea that users of the Internet were all faceless numbers – it soon became very clear that the companies that individuals did business with on the Internet knew plenty about their users, both in the form of information submitted by those users and in the form of other incidental data.<br />
<br />
Once those two facts were combined, it became clear that online service providers doing business internationally were vulnerable to economic threats if they failed to comply with local legal regimes by turning over nominally anonymous users. This acquired early public salience in 2004, when the Chinese government discovered that someone with a Yahoo! email account had forwarded to a US-based pro-democracy blogger an internal Communist party message warning of potential unrest which might arise from discussion of the fifteenth anniversary of the Tiananmen Square protests. China [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/4221538.stm demanded] that the company turn over any records relating to the disclosure of its state secrets, and Yahoo! complied without question. Chinese journalist Shi Tao was ultimately arrested and sentenced to ten years in prison. After the role played by Yahoo! was disclosed, the company became the subject of global outrage, castigated by pro-free-speech nonprofits and hauled before Congress to account for its actions. <span style="border:1px dashed #575744; padding:0 .25em; margin:0 .25em; background:#ffc;">As of 2009, Shi Tao remains imprisoned.</span> However, Yahoo! was merely the most visible of the companies involved in such disclosures – Amnesty International [http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/POL30/026/2006/en/dom-POL300262006en.pdf reports] that many of the largest international online service providers were implicated at the time and continue to wrestle with these issues.<br />
<br />
In recent years, similar cases have cropped up all over the world, from Africa to Asia to the Middle East, and even some American companies have [http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-10023104-71.html taken part] in using the disclosure-friendly laws of other countries to track down derogatory speakers. Many of these countries describe themselves as protecting themselves from the dangerous consequences of free speech: in January, South Korea [http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123178875223174403.html arrested] a blogger whose acerbic postings about government bureaucrats had supposedly undermined the population’s faith in the government’s ability to manage the global financial crisis. These governments say that free speech is always at war with social stability, as it was in Lessig’s classroom, and that they and Americans simply disagree on where the line must be drawn. At the same time, pro-democracy activists say that American companies and the American government aren’t doing enough work insisting upon the universality of American values.<br />
<br />
The most salient legislative response has been the [http://thomas.loc.gov/home/gpoxmlc110/h275_ih.xml Global Online Freedom Act] (GOFA), proposed by Representative Chris Smith (R-NJ). GOFA would require the State Department to track internet-restricting countries and then forbid US corporations from a) storing users’ personal data within the borders of those countries or b) turning over any personally identifiable information to law enforcement within those countries without first seeking the permission of the US Department of Justice. Many pro-free-speech non-profits have [http://www.rsf.org/print.php3?id_article=18304 praised] the GOFA bill as an [http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=24141 “advance for online free expression.”] Commentators have also [http://www.cdt.org/international/censorship/20080505gofa.pdf suggested], however, that it is unworkable in practice, and would in effect require US companies to cease doing meaningful business within such countries.<br />
<br />
Some corporations have pushed instead for a non-government-driven multi-stakeholder plan of action. Several of the largest American online service providers, including Microsoft, Google, and Yahoo!, have joined forces with the Berkman Center to develop the [http://www.globalnetworkinitiative.org/index.php Global Network Initiative] (GNI). The GNI lays out a set of universal [http://www.globalnetworkinitiative.org/principles/index.php principles] to be referenced when making difficult human rights decisions; it then gives [http://www.globalnetworkinitiative.org/implementationguidelines/index.php implementation guidance] to boards considering those principles on a case-by-case basis as requests for users' data come in. Some of the Congressional critics of these companies have been mollified by the evident progress. At the same time, some [http://writ.news.findlaw.com/ramasastry/20081212.html legal scholars] and [http://www.technewsworld.com/story/commentary/64972.html privacy specialists] (see Rotenberg quote <span style="border:1px dashed #575744; padding:0 .25em; margin:0 .25em; background:#ffc;">"It's good that companies are paying more attention to the need to safeguard fundamental rights on the Internet, but this proposal lacks specific recommendations and fails to address key concerns about the surveillance and censorship of Internet users"</span>) say the GNI is not widely enough accepted or equipped with severe enough penalties to make a serious difference.<br />
<br />
Meanwhile, countries wary of indiscriminate speech have started to look at alternatives of their own. This past year, the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), a specialized agency of the United Nations that deals with the regulation of international telecommunications issues, [http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10040152-38.html opened up] a study group on Question 6-17 (Q6/17). The Q6/17 group was chartered at the request of a state-owned Chinese telecommunications firm to [http://www.politechbot.com/docs/itu.china.internet.traceback.proposal.091108.doc investigate the feasibility] <span style="border:1px dashed #575744; padding:0 .25em; margin:0 .25em; background:#ffc;">link to .doc</span> of retrofitting the internet with Internet Protocol (IP) traceback technology. IP packets, the individual "envelopes" used to send information across the internet, are difficult, if not impossible, to follow back from their destination to their source. IP traceback technology would use new software and hardware to retrofit tracing mechanisms onto the internet as built, so as to make it easier to find the sender of a given message. The proponents of Q6/17 suggest that it could be used to make it more difficult to remotely infect computers with viruses or make anonymous threats online. Privacy specialists, however, suspect that the major purpose is to crack down on unwanted speech.<br />
<br />
=== Required Readings ===<br />
<br />
<div style="padding:0 1em; margin-left:1em; clear:both; width:66%; background:#ffc; border:1px dashed #575744;">In the spirit of a class in which different groups were meant to represent different constituencies with different backgrounds, we decided to move away from using the readings to get the class on the same page. Aside from the text above, which was assigned as introductory material, each group was assigned individualized readings to explain "their" point of view. As a result, we removed the Required Readings section of the page entirely, archiving it, as seen below. The Additional Readings section remained in place, for those students interested in a wider exploration of the issues. The readings were emailed individually to the class groups, as discussed in Part II.</div><br />
<br />
[[AnP Brainstorming|Early brainstorming on this topic]]<br />
<br />
=== Additional Readings ===<br />
<br />
(Some of these and additional readings will be broken down by simulation group)<br />
<br />
==== Audio: ====<br />
<br />
* http://rconversation.blogs.com/rconversation/2008/07/on-the-media-in.html (Episode of On The Media w/ Rebecca MacKinnon)<br />
<br />
==== Video ====<br />
<br />
* http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMorzIBHmrA (Conversation about GNI on CSPAN w/ Michael Samway and Julien Sanchez)<br />
<br />
==== Text ====<br />
<br />
===== “Just the Facts” Reporting =====<br />
<br />
* http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7696356.stm<br />
<br />
* http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/28/technology/internet/28privacy.html?_r=1&oref=slogin<br />
<br />
==== Critiques ====<br />
<br />
* http://writ.news.findlaw.com/ramasastry/20081212.html (Anita Ramasastry, Associate Professor at University of Washington School of Law)<br />
<br />
* http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=29117 (Reporters without Borders, an NGO that was part of the talks but didn’t sign onto the GNI at the end)<br />
<br />
* http://www.eff.org/files/filenode/gni/signon_letter.txt (Electronic Frontier Foundation, an NGO that was part of the talks and did sign onto the GNI at the end)<br />
<br />
* http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060313/mackinnon (Rebecca MacKinnon, writing in The Nation before the GNI existed, discusses four companies' culpability and diagnoses a major flaw with GOFA)<br />
<br />
=== Links ===<br />
http://blogs.wsj.com/chinajournal/2008/10/28/parsing-the-google-yahoo-microsoft-global-network-initiative/<br />
<br />
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/30/magazine/30google-t.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink&adxnnlx=1229749063-T7qNc5xv9ZLDiLcjc8AZxQ&pagewanted=print<br />
<br />
http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/04/republican-hous.html<br />
<br />
http://rconversation.blogs.com/rconversation/2007/01/google_yahoo_mi.html<br />
<br />
http://www.circleid.com/posts/print/20081028_global_network_initiative/<br />
<br />
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/oct/30/amnesty-global-network-initiative<br />
<br />
http://www.economist.com/world/asia/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12783609<br />
<br />
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-a-santoro-and-wendy-goldberg/chinese-internet-censorsh_b_156212.html<br />
<br />
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10040152-38.html (Declan McCullagh of CNet News on Q6/17, including links to several leaked ITU documents)<br />
<br />
== Part II: Planning and Execution/The Week of the Class ==<br />
<br />
<div style="padding:0 1em; margin-left:1em; clear:both; width:66%; background:#ffc; border:1px dashed #575744;">Parts II and III cover the class as it played out, and represent entirely new material on this wiki. As a result, there are no yellow commentary boxes in these sections.</div><br />
<br />
=== A little less than a week before class ===<br />
<br />
We emailed each group directly: <br />
<br />
<span style="border:1px dashed #575744; padding:0 .25em; margin:0 .25em; background:#fcf;"><br />
Dear [Group Members],<br />
<br />
For the Anonymity and Privacy class this coming week, we're going to run things slightly differently. The class will be divided into six groups, and each group will be given an identity as a participant in the ongoing global battle over anonymous speech online, as well as a series of unique readings giving some specialized background. Then, in class, we'll introduce some general background and then have an exercise involving both y'all and our guest. See the last page of the attachment for your readings.<br />
<br />
Cheers,<br />
Joshua, Conor, and Dan<br />
</span><br />
<br />
Each Group received its own attached set of readings (linked immediately below):<br />
<br />
[http://iifap.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/group1readings.doc Group 1]<br />
[http://iifap.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/group2readings.doc Group 2]<br />
[http://iifap.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/group3readings.doc Group 3]<br />
[http://iifap.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/group4readings.doc Group 4]<br />
[http://iifap.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/group5readings.doc Group 5]<br />
[http://iifap.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/group6readings.doc Group 6]<br />
<br />
=== The day of class ===<br />
<br />
We showed up early and set up the room. We placed most of the classroom's tables against the wall, and placed the chairs just inside of them, to make sure there was a big "public" space in the middle of the room for the second half of the class. (Here's a room plan, which didn't work out exactly as pictured here, but the idea is what counts)<br />
<br />
[http://iifap.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/room-plan.jpg|Room Plan]<br />
<br />
We started the class with a Power Point presentation that reviewed the basic outline of the class (to refresh students who might have only skimmed the reading). <br />
<br />
+ Clip<br />
<br />
When that was finished, we hosted a conversation between two stakeholders (Colin MacClay of the Berkman Center and Andrew McLaughlin from Google). <br />
<br />
+ Clip<br />
<br />
<br />
Once everyone was caught up to speed on the tensions they'd have to navigate in the simulation, Josh explained the simulation to all class participants.<br />
<br />
+ Clip<br />
<br />
<br />
At the end of the simulation, the groups gave in their final proposals:<br />
<br />
+ Proposals<br />
<br />
<br />
Our judge, the Berkman Center's Colin MacClay, gave his feedback on the proposals.<br />
<br />
+ Clip<br />
<br />
After class, we gave all of the participants an opportunity to vote on the proposals:<br />
<br />
== Reactions and suggestions ==<br />
<br />
=== Evaluation of the class ===<br />
<br />
=== Role of technology ===<br />
<br />
=== Additional suggestions for future classes ===<br />
<br />
<br />
Note to self: Joe, Miriam, Mark, Jon Fildes, Elana, Melissa</div>Jgruensphttps://cyber.harvard.edu/iif/?title=Open_Networks,_Closed_Regimes&diff=3076Open Networks, Closed Regimes2009-05-15T03:39:49Z<p>Jgruensp: </p>
<hr />
<div><!--<br />
How to make the yellow boxes:<br />
<br />
For the paragraph-sized boxes, use this code and place your text where it says "text":<br />
<br />
<div style="padding:1em; margin:1em 0 1em 31%; clear:both; background:#ffc; border:1px dashed #575744; width:66%; align:right;">text</div><br />
<br />
For the inline boxes, use this code and place your text where it says "text":<br />
<br />
<span style="border:1px dashed #575744; padding:0 .25em; margin:0 .25em; background:#ffc;">text</span><br />
<br />
/--><br />
<br />
<div style="float:right; padding:0 1em; margin-left:1em; clear:both; width:66%; background:#ffc; border:1px dashed #575744;"><p>This page documents a single class session on worldwide Internet restrictions taught by [[User:Jgruensp|Joshua Gruenspecht]], [[User:CKennedy|Conor Kennedy]], and [[User:Danray|Dan Ray]] in April 2009. We've filled it out with some background information and our reactions, in the hopes that it might be useful to someone else teaching a similar subject in the future.</p><br />
<br />
<p>This page is a work in progress, and we encourage anyone to add to it. The wiki only permits registered users to edit it, but you can create a free, pseudonymous account using the link at the top right corner of the page. (You can copy our formatting or add your own; a template for the yellow annotations appears in an HTML comment at the top of the page source.)</p></div><br />
<br />
== Part I: Early Preparation/The Original Wiki ==<br />
<br />
=== Problem to be solved ===<br />
<br />
<br />
<div style="float:right; padding:0 1em; margin-left:1em; clear:both; width:66%; background:#ffc; border:1px dashed #575744;">Our students had access to an earlier version of this wiki page. For the information in this section, unformatted text indicates material that was available at the time of our presentation, and yellow boxes like this one are annotations added after the fact think of them like the director's commentary. The actual revision of the page at the time of the class session is [http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/iif/?title=Open_Networks%2C_Closed_Regimes&oldid=2204 here]</div>US-based internet services are used by citizens of every regime in the world. Western-based internet companies operate these services in many countries where governments routinely request or demand sensitive information about their citizens. How should high-level officers respond when their companies receive requests to turn over information which violate privacy and anonymity expectations? How can citizens, NGOs, and government actors influence the way these companies respond?<br />
<br />
=== Precis ===<br />
The idea of the internet service provider as a border-defying government-regulation-free jurisdiction was already dying in the 1990s, but the large-scale movement of internet services into regimes without free speech protections has raised serious concerns about managing cross-border privacy standards over the last five years. From Yahoo! turning over pro-democracy Chinese bloggers to the Chinese government, to Saudi Arabia tracking porn downloaders by pulling ISP records, to South Korea trying to arrest anonymous government critics, the problems are widespread and not restricted only to regimes that Americans are used to thinking of as "repressive." The globalization of internet services raises difficult questions: What requests for information are invasive? What kind of deference is due to local sovereignty? How can the competing demands best be balanced? How can the relevant stakeholders work toward achieving a proper balance?<br />
<br />
=== The Story So Far ===<br />
<br />
<div style="float:right; padding:0 1em; margin-left:1em; clear:both; width:66%; background:#ffc; border:1px dashed #575744;">This section constitutes the class's common ground, in that all students were expected to read it. It is intended to situate today's issues (including our simulated crisis) within the Internet's history, and to introduce the three major proposals we expected our simulation groups to cover.</div>Several weeks ago, our class read John Perry Barlow’s [http://homes.eff.org/~barlow/Declaration-Final.html Declaration of Independence of Cyberspace] <span style="border:1px dashed #575744; padding:0 .25em; margin:0 .25em; background:#ffc;">(this refers to the readings for an earlier class. It's probably not essential to assign it; this summary is plenty for our purposes.)</span>, written in 1996, in which he addresses the nations of the world and “declare[s] the global social space we are building to be naturally independent of the tyrannies you seek to impose on us.” For Barlow, perhaps the most important innovation of cyberspace was its ability to act as a great leveler: “We are creating a world that all may enter without privilege or prejudice accorded by race, economic power, military force, or station of birth. We are creating a world where anyone, anywhere may express his or her beliefs, no matter how singular, without fear of being coerced into silence or conformity.” As these lines imply, the key to this brave new world of Barlow’s was the possibility of anonymity (or pseudonymity): real-world barriers placed by normative biases or governmental controls could be hurdled by individuals joining online communities to express their provocative thoughts. Secure in the knowledge that their identities were divorced from their real-world selves, citizens of every nation could create the first truly free global marketplace of ideas.<br />
<br />
From well before Barlow’s Declaration, this idea of the Internet as an enabler of the anonymous expression of ideas was a well-established meme in the popular conception of the Internet, from Peter Steiner’s [http://www.unc.edu/depts/jomc/academics/dri/idog.jpg famous New Yorker cartoon] to the aphorism that “The net treats censorship as a defect and routes around it.” <span style="border:1px dashed #575744; padding:0 .25em; margin:0 .25em; background:#ffc;">This quote comes from [http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/archived_content/people/reagle/inet-quotations-19990709.html John Gilmore]</span> And just as quickly, people started to raise questions about whether a completely uncontrolled discourse was desirable – Larry Lessig famously [http://pdf.codev2.cc/Lessig-Codev2.pdf told the story] (see p. 102-106) of one anonymous student who single-handedly shut down Lessig’s first online classroom bulletin board by attacking his classmates with unstinting vitriol. The techno-libertarians remained adamant that online communities would develop mechanisms to cope with such problems, and that the benefits of being able to create a discussion area open to all comers – more freedom under repressive regimes, more frank discussion for every individual – would outweigh any drawbacks.<br />
<br />
However, the accuracy of the idea that the Internet need not respect terrestrial law was soon called into doubt. Tim Wu and Jack Goldsmith [http://books.google.com/books?id=Q01APcGmLB8C document] (see Chapter 1) the 2000 case in which Yahoo! attempted to resist a takedown request from the French government. After activists discovered Nazi merchandise for sale on a Yahoo! site, they appealed to the government to enforce the laws banning such material from being sold in France. Yahoo! protested that there was no way for it to identify traffic coming from France, and that to enforce the French laws would ultimately mean enforcing the lowest common denominator of all international law in all locations. However, having lost their case in the French courts in the face of expert testimony, and facing fines of 100,000 francs per day against their new French division, the company caved and admitted that IP addresses could be used to tell from what country a visitor came. This was a blow to the notion that the Internet was inherently resistant to national laws, but it was also a blow to the idea that users of the Internet were all faceless numbers – it soon became very clear that the companies that individuals did business with on the Internet knew plenty about their users, both in the form of information submitted by those users and in the form of other incidental data.<br />
<br />
Once those two facts were combined, it became clear that online service providers doing business internationally were vulnerable to economic threats if they failed to comply with local legal regimes by turning over nominally anonymous users. This acquired early public salience in 2004, when the Chinese government discovered that someone with a Yahoo! email account had forwarded to a US-based pro-democracy blogger an internal Communist party message warning of potential unrest which might arise from discussion of the fifteenth anniversary of the Tiananmen Square protests. China [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/4221538.stm demanded] that the company turn over any records relating to the disclosure of its state secrets, and Yahoo! complied without question. Chinese journalist Shi Tao was ultimately arrested and sentenced to ten years in prison. After the role played by Yahoo! was disclosed, the company became the subject of global outrage, castigated by pro-free-speech nonprofits and hauled before Congress to account for its actions. <span style="border:1px dashed #575744; padding:0 .25em; margin:0 .25em; background:#ffc;">As of 2009, Shi Tao remains imprisoned.</span> However, Yahoo! was merely the most visible of the companies involved in such disclosures – Amnesty International [http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/POL30/026/2006/en/dom-POL300262006en.pdf reports] that many of the largest international online service providers were implicated at the time and continue to wrestle with these issues.<br />
<br />
In recent years, similar cases have cropped up all over the world, from Africa to Asia to the Middle East, and even some American companies have [http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-10023104-71.html taken part] in using the disclosure-friendly laws of other countries to track down derogatory speakers. Many of these countries describe themselves as protecting themselves from the dangerous consequences of free speech: in January, South Korea [http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123178875223174403.html arrested] a blogger whose acerbic postings about government bureaucrats had supposedly undermined the population’s faith in the government’s ability to manage the global financial crisis. These governments say that free speech is always at war with social stability, as it was in Lessig’s classroom, and that they and Americans simply disagree on where the line must be drawn. At the same time, pro-democracy activists say that American companies and the American government aren’t doing enough work insisting upon the universality of American values.<br />
<br />
The most salient legislative response has been the [http://thomas.loc.gov/home/gpoxmlc110/h275_ih.xml Global Online Freedom Act] (GOFA), proposed by Representative Chris Smith (R-NJ). GOFA would require the State Department to track internet-restricting countries and then forbid US corporations from a) storing users’ personal data within the borders of those countries or b) turning over any personally identifiable information to law enforcement within those countries without first seeking the permission of the US Department of Justice. Many pro-free-speech non-profits have [http://www.rsf.org/print.php3?id_article=18304 praised] the GOFA bill as an [http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=24141 “advance for online free expression.”] Commentators have also [http://www.cdt.org/international/censorship/20080505gofa.pdf suggested], however, that it is unworkable in practice, and would in effect require US companies to cease doing meaningful business within such countries.<br />
<br />
Some corporations have pushed instead for a non-government-driven multi-stakeholder plan of action. Several of the largest American online service providers, including Microsoft, Google, and Yahoo!, have joined forces with the Berkman Center to develop the [http://www.globalnetworkinitiative.org/index.php Global Network Initiative] (GNI). The GNI lays out a set of universal [http://www.globalnetworkinitiative.org/principles/index.php principles] to be referenced when making difficult human rights decisions; it then gives [http://www.globalnetworkinitiative.org/implementationguidelines/index.php implementation guidance] to boards considering those principles on a case-by-case basis as requests for users' data come in. Some of the Congressional critics of these companies have been mollified by the evident progress. At the same time, some [http://writ.news.findlaw.com/ramasastry/20081212.html legal scholars] and [http://www.technewsworld.com/story/commentary/64972.html privacy specialists] (see Rotenberg quote <span style="border:1px dashed #575744; padding:0 .25em; margin:0 .25em; background:#ffc;">"It's good that companies are paying more attention to the need to safeguard fundamental rights on the Internet, but this proposal lacks specific recommendations and fails to address key concerns about the surveillance and censorship of Internet users"</span>) say the GNI is not widely enough accepted or equipped with severe enough penalties to make a serious difference.<br />
<br />
Meanwhile, countries wary of indiscriminate speech have started to look at alternatives of their own. This past year, the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), a specialized agency of the United Nations that deals with the regulation of international telecommunications issues, [http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10040152-38.html opened up] a study group on Question 6-17 (Q6/17). The Q6/17 group was chartered at the request of a state-owned Chinese telecommunications firm to [http://www.politechbot.com/docs/itu.china.internet.traceback.proposal.091108.doc investigate the feasibility] <span style="border:1px dashed #575744; padding:0 .25em; margin:0 .25em; background:#ffc;">link to .doc</span> of retrofitting the internet with Internet Protocol (IP) traceback technology. IP packets, the individual "envelopes" used to send information across the internet, are difficult, if not impossible, to follow back from their destination to their source. IP traceback technology would use new software and hardware to retrofit tracing mechanisms onto the internet as built, so as to make it easier to find the sender of a given message. The proponents of Q6/17 suggest that it could be used to make it more difficult to remotely infect computers with viruses or make anonymous threats online. Privacy specialists, however, suspect that the major purpose is to crack down on unwanted speech.<br />
<br />
=== Required Readings ===<br />
<br />
<div style="padding:0 1em; margin-left:1em; clear:both; width:66%; background:#ffc; border:1px dashed #575744;">In the spirit of a class in which different groups were meant to represent different constituencies with different backgrounds, we decided to move away from using the readings to get the class on the same page. Aside from the text above, which was assigned as introductory material, each group was assigned individualized readings to explain "their" point of view. As a result, we removed the Required Readings section of the page entirely, archiving it, as seen below. The Additional Readings section remained in place, for those students interested in a wider exploration of the issues. The readings were emailed individually to the class groups, as discussed in Part II.</div><br />
<br />
[[AnP Brainstorming|Early brainstorming on this topic]]<br />
<br />
=== Additional Readings ===<br />
<br />
(Some of these and additional readings will be broken down by simulation group)<br />
<br />
==== Audio: ====<br />
<br />
* http://rconversation.blogs.com/rconversation/2008/07/on-the-media-in.html (Episode of On The Media w/ Rebecca MacKinnon)<br />
<br />
==== Video ====<br />
<br />
* http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMorzIBHmrA (Conversation about GNI on CSPAN w/ Michael Samway and Julien Sanchez)<br />
<br />
==== Text ====<br />
<br />
===== “Just the Facts” Reporting =====<br />
<br />
* http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7696356.stm<br />
<br />
* http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/28/technology/internet/28privacy.html?_r=1&oref=slogin<br />
<br />
==== Critiques ====<br />
<br />
* http://writ.news.findlaw.com/ramasastry/20081212.html (Anita Ramasastry, Associate Professor at University of Washington School of Law)<br />
<br />
* http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=29117 (Reporters without Borders, an NGO that was part of the talks but didn’t sign onto the GNI at the end)<br />
<br />
* http://www.eff.org/files/filenode/gni/signon_letter.txt (Electronic Frontier Foundation, an NGO that was part of the talks and did sign onto the GNI at the end)<br />
<br />
* http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060313/mackinnon (Rebecca MacKinnon, writing in The Nation before the GNI existed, discusses four companies' culpability and diagnoses a major flaw with GOFA)<br />
<br />
=== Links ===<br />
http://blogs.wsj.com/chinajournal/2008/10/28/parsing-the-google-yahoo-microsoft-global-network-initiative/<br />
<br />
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/30/magazine/30google-t.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink&adxnnlx=1229749063-T7qNc5xv9ZLDiLcjc8AZxQ&pagewanted=print<br />
<br />
http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/04/republican-hous.html<br />
<br />
http://rconversation.blogs.com/rconversation/2007/01/google_yahoo_mi.html<br />
<br />
http://www.circleid.com/posts/print/20081028_global_network_initiative/<br />
<br />
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/oct/30/amnesty-global-network-initiative<br />
<br />
http://www.economist.com/world/asia/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12783609<br />
<br />
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-a-santoro-and-wendy-goldberg/chinese-internet-censorsh_b_156212.html<br />
<br />
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10040152-38.html (Declan McCullagh of CNet News on Q6/17, including links to several leaked ITU documents)<br />
<br />
== Part II: Planning and Execution/The Week of the Class ==<br />
<br />
<div style="padding:0 1em; margin-left:1em; clear:both; width:66%; background:#ffc; border:1px dashed #575744;">Parts II and III cover the class as it played out, and represent entirely new material on this wiki. As a result, there are no yellow commentary boxes in these sections.</div><br />
<br />
=== A little less than a week before class ===<br />
<br />
We emailed each group directly: <br />
<br />
Dear [Group Members],<br />
<br />
For the Anonymity and Privacy class this coming week, we're going to run things slightly differently. The class will be divided into six groups, and each group will be given an identity as a participant in the ongoing global battle over anonymous speech online, as well as a series of unique readings giving some specialized background. Then, in class, we'll introduce some general background and then have an exercise involving both y'all and our guest. See the last page of the attachment for your readings. (You're a little smaller than the other groups; don't worry, your job will mostly be to make trouble.)<br />
<br />
Cheers,<br />
Joshua, Conor, and Dan<br />
<br />
Each Group received its own attached set of readings (linked immediately below):<br />
<br />
[http://iifap.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/group1readings.doc Group 1]<br />
[http://iifap.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/group2readings.doc Group 2]<br />
[http://iifap.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/group3readings.doc Group 3]<br />
[http://iifap.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/group4readings.doc Group 4]<br />
[http://iifap.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/group5readings.doc Group 5]<br />
[http://iifap.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/group6readings.doc Group 6]<br />
<br />
=== The day of class ===<br />
<br />
We showed up early and set up the room. We placed most of the classroom's tables against the wall, and placed the chairs just inside of them, to make sure there was a big "public" space in the middle of the room for the second half of the class. (Here's a room plan, which didn't work out exactly as pictured here, but the idea is what counts)<br />
<br />
[http://iifap.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/room-plan.jpg|Room Plan]<br />
<br />
We started the class with a Power Point presentation that reviewed the basic outline of the class (to refresh students who might have only skimmed the reading). <br />
<br />
+ Clip<br />
<br />
When that was finished, we hosted a conversation between two stakeholders (Colin MacClay of the Berkman Center and Andrew McLaughlin from Google). <br />
<br />
+ Clip<br />
<br />
<br />
Once everyone was caught up to speed on the tensions they'd have to navigate in the simulation, Josh explained the simulation to all class participants.<br />
<br />
+ Clip<br />
<br />
<br />
At the end of the simulation, the groups gave in their final proposals:<br />
<br />
+ Proposals<br />
<br />
<br />
Our judge, the Berkman Center's Colin MacClay, gave his feedback on the proposals.<br />
<br />
+ Clip<br />
<br />
After class, we gave all of the participants an opportunity to vote on the proposals:<br />
<br />
== Reactions and suggestions ==<br />
<br />
=== Evaluation of the class ===<br />
<br />
=== Role of technology ===<br />
<br />
=== Additional suggestions for future classes ===<br />
<br />
<br />
Note to self: Joe, Miriam, Mark, Jon Fildes, Elana, Melissa</div>Jgruensphttps://cyber.harvard.edu/iif/?title=Open_Networks,_Closed_Regimes&diff=3075Open Networks, Closed Regimes2009-05-15T03:33:01Z<p>Jgruensp: </p>
<hr />
<div><!--<br />
How to make the yellow boxes:<br />
<br />
For the paragraph-sized boxes, use this code and place your text where it says "text":<br />
<br />
<div style="padding:1em; margin:1em 0 1em 31%; clear:both; background:#ffc; border:1px dashed #575744; width:66%; align:right;">text</div><br />
<br />
For the inline boxes, use this code and place your text where it says "text":<br />
<br />
<span style="border:1px dashed #575744; padding:0 .25em; margin:0 .25em; background:#ffc;">text</span><br />
<br />
/--><br />
<br />
<div style="float:right; padding:0 1em; margin-left:1em; clear:both; width:66%; background:#ffc; border:1px dashed #575744;"><p>This page documents a single class session on worldwide Internet restrictions taught by [[User:Jgruensp|Joshua Gruenspecht]], [[User:CKennedy|Conor Kennedy]], and [[User:Danray|Dan Ray]] in April 2009. We've filled it out with some background information and our reactions, in the hopes that it might be useful to someone else teaching a similar subject in the future.</p><br />
<br />
<p>This page is a work in progress, and we encourage anyone to add to it. The wiki only permits registered users to edit it, but you can create a free, pseudonymous account using the link at the top right corner of the page. (You can copy our formatting or add your own; a template for the yellow annotations appears in an HTML comment at the top of the page source.)</p></div><br />
<br />
== Part I: Early Preparation/The Original Wiki ==<br />
<br />
=== Problem to be solved ===<br />
<br />
<br />
<div style="float:right; padding:0 1em; margin-left:1em; clear:both; width:66%; background:#ffc; border:1px dashed #575744;">Our students had access to an earlier version of this wiki page. For the information in this section, unformatted text indicates material that was available at the time of our presentation, and yellow boxes like this one are annotations added after the fact think of them like the director's commentary. The actual revision of the page at the time of the class session is [http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/iif/?title=Open_Networks%2C_Closed_Regimes&oldid=2204 here]</div>US-based internet services are used by citizens of every regime in the world. Western-based internet companies operate these services in many countries where governments routinely request or demand sensitive information about their citizens. How should high-level officers respond when their companies receive requests to turn over information which violate privacy and anonymity expectations? How can citizens, NGOs, and government actors influence the way these companies respond?<br />
<br />
=== Precis ===<br />
The idea of the internet service provider as a border-defying government-regulation-free jurisdiction was already dying in the 1990s, but the large-scale movement of internet services into regimes without free speech protections has raised serious concerns about managing cross-border privacy standards over the last five years. From Yahoo! turning over pro-democracy Chinese bloggers to the Chinese government, to Saudi Arabia tracking porn downloaders by pulling ISP records, to South Korea trying to arrest anonymous government critics, the problems are widespread and not restricted only to regimes that Americans are used to thinking of as "repressive." The globalization of internet services raises difficult questions: What requests for information are invasive? What kind of deference is due to local sovereignty? How can the competing demands best be balanced? How can the relevant stakeholders work toward achieving a proper balance?<br />
<br />
=== The Story So Far ===<br />
<br />
<div style="float:right; padding:0 1em; margin-left:1em; clear:both; width:66%; background:#ffc; border:1px dashed #575744;">This section constitutes the class's common ground, in that all students were expected to read it. It is intended to situate today's issues (including our simulated crisis) within the Internet's history, and to introduce the three major proposals we expected our simulation groups to cover.</div>Several weeks ago, our class read John Perry Barlow’s [http://homes.eff.org/~barlow/Declaration-Final.html Declaration of Independence of Cyberspace] <span style="border:1px dashed #575744; padding:0 .25em; margin:0 .25em; background:#ffc;">(this refers to the readings for an earlier class. It's probably not essential to assign it; this summary is plenty for our purposes.)</span>, written in 1996, in which he addresses the nations of the world and “declare[s] the global social space we are building to be naturally independent of the tyrannies you seek to impose on us.” For Barlow, perhaps the most important innovation of cyberspace was its ability to act as a great leveler: “We are creating a world that all may enter without privilege or prejudice accorded by race, economic power, military force, or station of birth. We are creating a world where anyone, anywhere may express his or her beliefs, no matter how singular, without fear of being coerced into silence or conformity.” As these lines imply, the key to this brave new world of Barlow’s was the possibility of anonymity (or pseudonymity): real-world barriers placed by normative biases or governmental controls could be hurdled by individuals joining online communities to express their provocative thoughts. Secure in the knowledge that their identities were divorced from their real-world selves, citizens of every nation could create the first truly free global marketplace of ideas.<br />
<br />
From well before Barlow’s Declaration, this idea of the Internet as an enabler of the anonymous expression of ideas was a well-established meme in the popular conception of the Internet, from Peter Steiner’s [http://www.unc.edu/depts/jomc/academics/dri/idog.jpg famous New Yorker cartoon] to the aphorism that “The net treats censorship as a defect and routes around it.” <span style="border:1px dashed #575744; padding:0 .25em; margin:0 .25em; background:#ffc;">This quote comes from [http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/archived_content/people/reagle/inet-quotations-19990709.html John Gilmore]</span> And just as quickly, people started to raise questions about whether a completely uncontrolled discourse was desirable – Larry Lessig famously [http://pdf.codev2.cc/Lessig-Codev2.pdf told the story] (see p. 102-106) of one anonymous student who single-handedly shut down Lessig’s first online classroom bulletin board by attacking his classmates with unstinting vitriol. The techno-libertarians remained adamant that online communities would develop mechanisms to cope with such problems, and that the benefits of being able to create a discussion area open to all comers – more freedom under repressive regimes, more frank discussion for every individual – would outweigh any drawbacks.<br />
<br />
However, the accuracy of the idea that the Internet need not respect terrestrial law was soon called into doubt. Tim Wu and Jack Goldsmith [http://books.google.com/books?id=Q01APcGmLB8C document] (see Chapter 1) the 2000 case in which Yahoo! attempted to resist a takedown request from the French government. After activists discovered Nazi merchandise for sale on a Yahoo! site, they appealed to the government to enforce the laws banning such material from being sold in France. Yahoo! protested that there was no way for it to identify traffic coming from France, and that to enforce the French laws would ultimately mean enforcing the lowest common denominator of all international law in all locations. However, having lost their case in the French courts in the face of expert testimony, and facing fines of 100,000 francs per day against their new French division, the company caved and admitted that IP addresses could be used to tell from what country a visitor came. This was a blow to the notion that the Internet was inherently resistant to national laws, but it was also a blow to the idea that users of the Internet were all faceless numbers – it soon became very clear that the companies that individuals did business with on the Internet knew plenty about their users, both in the form of information submitted by those users and in the form of other incidental data.<br />
<br />
Once those two facts were combined, it became clear that online service providers doing business internationally were vulnerable to economic threats if they failed to comply with local legal regimes by turning over nominally anonymous users. This acquired early public salience in 2004, when the Chinese government discovered that someone with a Yahoo! email account had forwarded to a US-based pro-democracy blogger an internal Communist party message warning of potential unrest which might arise from discussion of the fifteenth anniversary of the Tiananmen Square protests. China [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/4221538.stm demanded] that the company turn over any records relating to the disclosure of its state secrets, and Yahoo! complied without question. Chinese journalist Shi Tao was ultimately arrested and sentenced to ten years in prison. After the role played by Yahoo! was disclosed, the company became the subject of global outrage, castigated by pro-free-speech nonprofits and hauled before Congress to account for its actions. <span style="border:1px dashed #575744; padding:0 .25em; margin:0 .25em; background:#ffc;">As of 2009, Shi Tao remains imprisoned.</span> However, Yahoo! was merely the most visible of the companies involved in such disclosures – Amnesty International [http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/POL30/026/2006/en/dom-POL300262006en.pdf reports] that many of the largest international online service providers were implicated at the time and continue to wrestle with these issues.<br />
<br />
In recent years, similar cases have cropped up all over the world, from Africa to Asia to the Middle East, and even some American companies have [http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-10023104-71.html taken part] in using the disclosure-friendly laws of other countries to track down derogatory speakers. Many of these countries describe themselves as protecting themselves from the dangerous consequences of free speech: in January, South Korea [http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123178875223174403.html arrested] a blogger whose acerbic postings about government bureaucrats had supposedly undermined the population’s faith in the government’s ability to manage the global financial crisis. These governments say that free speech is always at war with social stability, as it was in Lessig’s classroom, and that they and Americans simply disagree on where the line must be drawn. At the same time, pro-democracy activists say that American companies and the American government aren’t doing enough work insisting upon the universality of American values.<br />
<br />
The most salient legislative response has been the [http://thomas.loc.gov/home/gpoxmlc110/h275_ih.xml Global Online Freedom Act] (GOFA), proposed by Representative Chris Smith (R-NJ). GOFA would require the State Department to track internet-restricting countries and then forbid US corporations from a) storing users’ personal data within the borders of those countries or b) turning over any personally identifiable information to law enforcement within those countries without first seeking the permission of the US Department of Justice. Many pro-free-speech non-profits have [http://www.rsf.org/print.php3?id_article=18304 praised] the GOFA bill as an [http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=24141 “advance for online free expression.”] Commentators have also [http://www.cdt.org/international/censorship/20080505gofa.pdf suggested], however, that it is unworkable in practice, and would in effect require US companies to cease doing meaningful business within such countries.<br />
<br />
Some corporations have pushed instead for a non-government-driven multi-stakeholder plan of action. Several of the largest American online service providers, including Microsoft, Google, and Yahoo!, have joined forces with the Berkman Center to develop the [http://www.globalnetworkinitiative.org/index.php Global Network Initiative] (GNI). The GNI lays out a set of universal [http://www.globalnetworkinitiative.org/principles/index.php principles] to be referenced when making difficult human rights decisions; it then gives [http://www.globalnetworkinitiative.org/implementationguidelines/index.php implementation guidance] to boards considering those principles on a case-by-case basis as requests for users' data come in. Some of the Congressional critics of these companies have been mollified by the evident progress. At the same time, some [http://writ.news.findlaw.com/ramasastry/20081212.html legal scholars] and [http://www.technewsworld.com/story/commentary/64972.html privacy specialists] (see Rotenberg quote <span style="border:1px dashed #575744; padding:0 .25em; margin:0 .25em; background:#ffc;">"It's good that companies are paying more attention to the need to safeguard fundamental rights on the Internet, but this proposal lacks specific recommendations and fails to address key concerns about the surveillance and censorship of Internet users"</span>) say the GNI is not widely enough accepted or equipped with severe enough penalties to make a serious difference.<br />
<br />
Meanwhile, countries wary of indiscriminate speech have started to look at alternatives of their own. This past year, the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), a specialized agency of the United Nations that deals with the regulation of international telecommunications issues, [http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10040152-38.html opened up] a study group on Question 6-17 (Q6/17). The Q6/17 group was chartered at the request of a state-owned Chinese telecommunications firm to [http://www.politechbot.com/docs/itu.china.internet.traceback.proposal.091108.doc investigate the feasibility] <span style="border:1px dashed #575744; padding:0 .25em; margin:0 .25em; background:#ffc;">link to .doc</span> of retrofitting the internet with Internet Protocol (IP) traceback technology. IP packets, the individual "envelopes" used to send information across the internet, are difficult, if not impossible, to follow back from their destination to their source. IP traceback technology would use new software and hardware to retrofit tracing mechanisms onto the internet as built, so as to make it easier to find the sender of a given message. The proponents of Q6/17 suggest that it could be used to make it more difficult to remotely infect computers with viruses or make anonymous threats online. Privacy specialists, however, suspect that the major purpose is to crack down on unwanted speech.<br />
<br />
=== Required Readings ===<br />
<br />
<div style="padding:0 1em; margin-left:1em; clear:both; width:66%; background:#ffc; border:1px dashed #575744;">In the spirit of a class in which different groups were meant to represent different constituencies with different backgrounds, we decided to move away from using the readings to get the class on the same page. Aside from the text above, which was assigned as introductory material, each group was assigned individualized readings to explain "their" point of view. As a result, we removed the Required Readings section of the page entirely, archiving it, as seen below. The Additional Readings section remained in place, for those students interested in a wider exploration of the issues. The readings were emailed individually to the class groups, as discussed in Part II.</div><br />
<br />
[[AnP Brainstorming|Early brainstorming on this topic]]<br />
<br />
=== Additional Readings ===<br />
<br />
(Some of these and additional readings will be broken down by simulation group)<br />
<br />
==== Audio: ====<br />
<br />
* http://rconversation.blogs.com/rconversation/2008/07/on-the-media-in.html (Episode of On The Media w/ Rebecca MacKinnon)<br />
<br />
==== Video ====<br />
<br />
* http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMorzIBHmrA (Conversation about GNI on CSPAN w/ Michael Samway and Julien Sanchez)<br />
<br />
==== Text ====<br />
<br />
===== “Just the Facts” Reporting =====<br />
<br />
* http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7696356.stm<br />
<br />
* http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/28/technology/internet/28privacy.html?_r=1&oref=slogin<br />
<br />
==== Critiques ====<br />
<br />
* http://writ.news.findlaw.com/ramasastry/20081212.html (Anita Ramasastry, Associate Professor at University of Washington School of Law)<br />
<br />
* http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=29117 (Reporters without Borders, an NGO that was part of the talks but didn’t sign onto the GNI at the end)<br />
<br />
* http://www.eff.org/files/filenode/gni/signon_letter.txt (Electronic Frontier Foundation, an NGO that was part of the talks and did sign onto the GNI at the end)<br />
<br />
* http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060313/mackinnon (Rebecca MacKinnon, writing in The Nation before the GNI existed, discusses four companies' culpability and diagnoses a major flaw with GOFA)<br />
<br />
=== Links ===<br />
http://blogs.wsj.com/chinajournal/2008/10/28/parsing-the-google-yahoo-microsoft-global-network-initiative/<br />
<br />
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/30/magazine/30google-t.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink&adxnnlx=1229749063-T7qNc5xv9ZLDiLcjc8AZxQ&pagewanted=print<br />
<br />
http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/04/republican-hous.html<br />
<br />
http://rconversation.blogs.com/rconversation/2007/01/google_yahoo_mi.html<br />
<br />
http://www.circleid.com/posts/print/20081028_global_network_initiative/<br />
<br />
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/oct/30/amnesty-global-network-initiative<br />
<br />
http://www.economist.com/world/asia/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12783609<br />
<br />
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-a-santoro-and-wendy-goldberg/chinese-internet-censorsh_b_156212.html<br />
<br />
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10040152-38.html (Declan McCullagh of CNet News on Q6/17, including links to several leaked ITU documents)<br />
<br />
== Part II: Planning and Execution/The Week of the Class ==<br />
<br />
=== A little less than a week before class ===<br />
<br />
We emailed each group directly: <br />
<br />
Dear [Group Members],<br />
<br />
For the Anonymity and Privacy class this coming week, we're going to run things slightly differently. The class will be divided into six groups, and each group will be given an identity as a participant in the ongoing global battle over anonymous speech online, as well as a series of unique readings giving some specialized background. Then, in class, we'll introduce some general background and then have an exercise involving both y'all and our guest. See the last page of the attachment for your readings. (You're a little smaller than the other groups; don't worry, your job will mostly be to make trouble.)<br />
<br />
Cheers,<br />
Joshua, Conor, and Dan<br />
<br />
Each Group received its own attached set of readings (linked immediately below):<br />
<br />
[http://iifap.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/group1readings.doc Group 1]<br />
[http://iifap.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/group2readings.doc Group 2]<br />
[http://iifap.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/group3readings.doc Group 3]<br />
[http://iifap.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/group4readings.doc Group 4]<br />
[http://iifap.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/group5readings.doc Group 5]<br />
[http://iifap.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/group6readings.doc Group 6]<br />
<br />
=== The day of class ===<br />
<br />
We showed up early and set up the room. We placed most of the classroom's tables against the wall, and placed the chairs just inside of them, to make sure there was a big "public" space in the middle of the room for the second half of the class. (Here's a room plan, which didn't work out exactly as pictured here, but the idea is what counts)<br />
<br />
[http://iifap.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/room-plan.jpg|Room Plan]<br />
<br />
We started the class with a Power Point presentation that reviewed the basic outline of the class (to refresh students who might have only skimmed the reading). <br />
<br />
+ Clip<br />
<br />
When that was finished, we hosted a conversation between two stakeholders (Colin MacClay of the Berkman Center and Andrew McLaughlin from Google). <br />
<br />
+ Clip<br />
<br />
<br />
Once everyone was caught up to speed on the tensions they'd have to navigate in the simulation, Josh explained the simulation to all class participants.<br />
<br />
+ Clip<br />
<br />
<br />
At the end of the simulation, the groups gave in their final proposals:<br />
<br />
+ Proposals<br />
<br />
<br />
Our judge, the Berkman Center's Colin MacClay, gave his feedback on the proposals.<br />
<br />
+ Clip<br />
<br />
After class, we gave all of the participants an opportunity to vote on the proposals:<br />
<br />
== Reactions and suggestions ==<br />
<br />
=== Evaluation of the class ===<br />
<br />
=== Role of technology ===<br />
<br />
=== Additional suggestions for future classes ===<br />
<br />
<br />
Note to self: Joe, Miriam, Mark, Jon Fildes, Elana, Melissa</div>Jgruensphttps://cyber.harvard.edu/iif/?title=Open_Networks,_Closed_Regimes&diff=3074Open Networks, Closed Regimes2009-05-15T03:32:08Z<p>Jgruensp: </p>
<hr />
<div><!--<br />
How to make the yellow boxes:<br />
<br />
For the paragraph-sized boxes, use this code and place your text where it says "text":<br />
<br />
<div style="padding:1em; margin:1em 0 1em 31%; clear:both; background:#ffc; border:1px dashed #575744; width:66%; align:right;">text</div><br />
<br />
For the inline boxes, use this code and place your text where it says "text":<br />
<br />
<span style="border:1px dashed #575744; padding:0 .25em; margin:0 .25em; background:#ffc;">text</span><br />
<br />
/--><br />
<br />
<div style="float:right; padding:0 1em; margin-left:1em; clear:both; width:66%; background:#ffc; border:1px dashed #575744;"><p>This page documents a single class session on worldwide Internet restrictions taught by [[User:Jgruensp|Joshua Gruenspecht]], [[User:CKennedy|Conor Kennedy]], and [[User:Danray|Dan Ray]] in April 2009. We've filled it out with some background information and our reactions, in the hopes that it might be useful to someone else teaching a similar subject in the future.</p><br />
<br />
<p>This page is a work in progress, and we encourage anyone to add to it. The wiki only permits registered users to edit it, but you can create a free, pseudonymous account using the link at the top right corner of the page. (You can copy our formatting or add your own; a template for the yellow annotations appears in an HTML comment at the top of the page source.)</p></div><br />
<br />
== Part I: Early Preparation/The Original Wiki ==<br />
<br />
=== Problem to be solved ===<br />
<br />
<br />
<div style="float:right; padding:0 1em; margin-left:1em; clear:both; width:66%; background:#ffc; border:1px dashed #575744;">Our students had access to an earlier version of this wiki page. For the information in this section, unformatted text indicates material that was available at the time of our presentation, and yellow boxes like this one are annotations added after the fact think of them like the director's commentary. The actual revision of the page at the time of the class session is [http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/iif/?title=Open_Networks%2C_Closed_Regimes&oldid=2204 here]</div>US-based internet services are used by citizens of every regime in the world. Western-based internet companies operate these services in many countries where governments routinely request or demand sensitive information about their citizens. How should high-level officers respond when their companies receive requests to turn over information which violate privacy and anonymity expectations? How can citizens, NGOs, and government actors influence the way these companies respond?<br />
<br />
=== Precis ===<br />
The idea of the internet service provider as a border-defying government-regulation-free jurisdiction was already dying in the 1990s, but the large-scale movement of internet services into regimes without free speech protections has raised serious concerns about managing cross-border privacy standards over the last five years. From Yahoo! turning over pro-democracy Chinese bloggers to the Chinese government, to Saudi Arabia tracking porn downloaders by pulling ISP records, to South Korea trying to arrest anonymous government critics, the problems are widespread and not restricted only to regimes that Americans are used to thinking of as "repressive." The globalization of internet services raises difficult questions: What requests for information are invasive? What kind of deference is due to local sovereignty? How can the competing demands best be balanced? How can the relevant stakeholders work toward achieving a proper balance?<br />
<br />
=== The Story So Far ===<br />
<br />
<div style="float:right; padding:0 1em; margin-left:1em; clear:both; width:66%; background:#ffc; border:1px dashed #575744;">This section constitutes the class's common ground, in that all students were expected to read it. It is intended to situate today's issues (including our simulated crisis) within the Internet's history, and to introduce the three major proposals we expected our simulation groups to cover.</div>Several weeks ago, our class read John Perry Barlow’s [http://homes.eff.org/~barlow/Declaration-Final.html Declaration of Independence of Cyberspace] <span style="border:1px dashed #575744; padding:0 .25em; margin:0 .25em; background:#ffc;">(this refers to the readings for an earlier class. It's probably not essential to assign it; this summary is plenty for our purposes.)</span>, written in 1996, in which he addresses the nations of the world and “declare[s] the global social space we are building to be naturally independent of the tyrannies you seek to impose on us.” For Barlow, perhaps the most important innovation of cyberspace was its ability to act as a great leveler: “We are creating a world that all may enter without privilege or prejudice accorded by race, economic power, military force, or station of birth. We are creating a world where anyone, anywhere may express his or her beliefs, no matter how singular, without fear of being coerced into silence or conformity.” As these lines imply, the key to this brave new world of Barlow’s was the possibility of anonymity (or pseudonymity): real-world barriers placed by normative biases or governmental controls could be hurdled by individuals joining online communities to express their provocative thoughts. Secure in the knowledge that their identities were divorced from their real-world selves, citizens of every nation could create the first truly free global marketplace of ideas.<br />
<br />
From well before Barlow’s Declaration, this idea of the Internet as an enabler of the anonymous expression of ideas was a well-established meme in the popular conception of the Internet, from Peter Steiner’s [http://www.unc.edu/depts/jomc/academics/dri/idog.jpg famous New Yorker cartoon] to the aphorism that “The net treats censorship as a defect and routes around it.” <span style="border:1px dashed #575744; padding:0 .25em; margin:0 .25em; background:#ffc;">This quote comes from [http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/archived_content/people/reagle/inet-quotations-19990709.html John Gilmore]</span> And just as quickly, people started to raise questions about whether a completely uncontrolled discourse was desirable – Larry Lessig famously [http://pdf.codev2.cc/Lessig-Codev2.pdf told the story] (see p. 102-106) of one anonymous student who single-handedly shut down Lessig’s first online classroom bulletin board by attacking his classmates with unstinting vitriol. The techno-libertarians remained adamant that online communities would develop mechanisms to cope with such problems, and that the benefits of being able to create a discussion area open to all comers – more freedom under repressive regimes, more frank discussion for every individual – would outweigh any drawbacks.<br />
<br />
However, the accuracy of the idea that the Internet need not respect terrestrial law was soon called into doubt. Tim Wu and Jack Goldsmith [http://books.google.com/books?id=Q01APcGmLB8C document] (see Chapter 1) the 2000 case in which Yahoo! attempted to resist a takedown request from the French government. After activists discovered Nazi merchandise for sale on a Yahoo! site, they appealed to the government to enforce the laws banning such material from being sold in France. Yahoo! protested that there was no way for it to identify traffic coming from France, and that to enforce the French laws would ultimately mean enforcing the lowest common denominator of all international law in all locations. However, having lost their case in the French courts in the face of expert testimony, and facing fines of 100,000 francs per day against their new French division, the company caved and admitted that IP addresses could be used to tell from what country a visitor came. This was a blow to the notion that the Internet was inherently resistant to national laws, but it was also a blow to the idea that users of the Internet were all faceless numbers – it soon became very clear that the companies that individuals did business with on the Internet knew plenty about their users, both in the form of information submitted by those users and in the form of other incidental data.<br />
<br />
Once those two facts were combined, it became clear that online service providers doing business internationally were vulnerable to economic threats if they failed to comply with local legal regimes by turning over nominally anonymous users. This acquired early public salience in 2004, when the Chinese government discovered that someone with a Yahoo! email account had forwarded to a US-based pro-democracy blogger an internal Communist party message warning of potential unrest which might arise from discussion of the fifteenth anniversary of the Tiananmen Square protests. China [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/4221538.stm demanded] that the company turn over any records relating to the disclosure of its state secrets, and Yahoo! complied without question. Chinese journalist Shi Tao was ultimately arrested and sentenced to ten years in prison. After the role played by Yahoo! was disclosed, the company became the subject of global outrage, castigated by pro-free-speech nonprofits and hauled before Congress to account for its actions. <span style="border:1px dashed #575744; padding:0 .25em; margin:0 .25em; background:#ffc;">As of 2009, Shi Tao remains imprisoned.</span> However, Yahoo! was merely the most visible of the companies involved in such disclosures – Amnesty International [http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/POL30/026/2006/en/dom-POL300262006en.pdf reports] that many of the largest international online service providers were implicated at the time and continue to wrestle with these issues.<br />
<br />
In recent years, similar cases have cropped up all over the world, from Africa to Asia to the Middle East, and even some American companies have [http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-10023104-71.html taken part] in using the disclosure-friendly laws of other countries to track down derogatory speakers. Many of these countries describe themselves as protecting themselves from the dangerous consequences of free speech: in January, South Korea [http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123178875223174403.html arrested] a blogger whose acerbic postings about government bureaucrats had supposedly undermined the population’s faith in the government’s ability to manage the global financial crisis. These governments say that free speech is always at war with social stability, as it was in Lessig’s classroom, and that they and Americans simply disagree on where the line must be drawn. At the same time, pro-democracy activists say that American companies and the American government aren’t doing enough work insisting upon the universality of American values.<br />
<br />
The most salient legislative response has been the [http://thomas.loc.gov/home/gpoxmlc110/h275_ih.xml Global Online Freedom Act] (GOFA), proposed by Representative Chris Smith (R-NJ). GOFA would require the State Department to track internet-restricting countries and then forbid US corporations from a) storing users’ personal data within the borders of those countries or b) turning over any personally identifiable information to law enforcement within those countries without first seeking the permission of the US Department of Justice. Many pro-free-speech non-profits have [http://www.rsf.org/print.php3?id_article=18304 praised] the GOFA bill as an [http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=24141 “advance for online free expression.”] Commentators have also [http://www.cdt.org/international/censorship/20080505gofa.pdf suggested], however, that it is unworkable in practice, and would in effect require US companies to cease doing meaningful business within such countries.<br />
<br />
Some corporations have pushed instead for a non-government-driven multi-stakeholder plan of action. Several of the largest American online service providers, including Microsoft, Google, and Yahoo!, have joined forces with the Berkman Center to develop the [http://www.globalnetworkinitiative.org/index.php Global Network Initiative] (GNI). The GNI lays out a set of universal [http://www.globalnetworkinitiative.org/principles/index.php principles] to be referenced when making difficult human rights decisions; it then gives [http://www.globalnetworkinitiative.org/implementationguidelines/index.php implementation guidance] to boards considering those principles on a case-by-case basis as requests for users' data come in. Some of the Congressional critics of these companies have been mollified by the evident progress. At the same time, some [http://writ.news.findlaw.com/ramasastry/20081212.html legal scholars] and [http://www.technewsworld.com/story/commentary/64972.html privacy specialists] (see Rotenberg quote <span style="border:1px dashed #575744; padding:0 .25em; margin:0 .25em; background:#ffc;">"It's good that companies are paying more attention to the need to safeguard fundamental rights on the Internet, but this proposal lacks specific recommendations and fails to address key concerns about the surveillance and censorship of Internet users"</span>) say the GNI is not widely enough accepted or equipped with severe enough penalties to make a serious difference.<br />
<br />
Meanwhile, countries wary of indiscriminate speech have started to look at alternatives of their own. This past year, the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), a specialized agency of the United Nations that deals with the regulation of international telecommunications issues, [http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10040152-38.html opened up] a study group on Question 6-17 (Q6/17). The Q6/17 group was chartered at the request of a state-owned Chinese telecommunications firm to [http://www.politechbot.com/docs/itu.china.internet.traceback.proposal.091108.doc investigate the feasibility] <span style="border:1px dashed #575744; padding:0 .25em; margin:0 .25em; background:#ffc;">link to .doc</span> of retrofitting the internet with Internet Protocol (IP) traceback technology. IP packets, the individual "envelopes" used to send information across the internet, are difficult, if not impossible, to follow back from their destination to their source. IP traceback technology would use new software and hardware to retrofit tracing mechanisms onto the internet as built, so as to make it easier to find the sender of a given message. The proponents of Q6/17 suggest that it could be used to make it more difficult to remotely infect computers with viruses or make anonymous threats online. Privacy specialists, however, suspect that the major purpose is to crack down on unwanted speech.<br />
<br />
=== Required Readings ===<br />
<br />
<div style="float:left; padding:0 1em; margin-left:1em; clear:both; width:66%; background:#ffc; border:1px dashed #575744;">In the spirit of a class in which different groups were meant to represent different constituencies with different backgrounds, we decided to move away from using the readings to get the class on the same page. Aside from the text above, which was assigned as introductory material, each group was assigned individualized readings to explain "their" point of view. As a result, we removed the Required Readings section of the page entirely, archiving it, as seen below. The Additional Readings section remained in place, for those students interested in a wider exploration of the issues. The readings were emailed individually to the class groups, as discussed in Part II.</div><br />
<br />
[[AnP Brainstorming|Early brainstorming on this topic]]<br />
<br />
=== Additional Readings ===<br />
<br />
(Some of these and additional readings will be broken down by simulation group)<br />
<br />
==== Audio: ====<br />
<br />
* http://rconversation.blogs.com/rconversation/2008/07/on-the-media-in.html (Episode of On The Media w/ Rebecca MacKinnon)<br />
<br />
==== Video ====<br />
<br />
* http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMorzIBHmrA (Conversation about GNI on CSPAN w/ Michael Samway and Julien Sanchez)<br />
<br />
==== Text ====<br />
<br />
===== “Just the Facts” Reporting =====<br />
<br />
* http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7696356.stm<br />
<br />
* http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/28/technology/internet/28privacy.html?_r=1&oref=slogin<br />
<br />
==== Critiques ====<br />
<br />
* http://writ.news.findlaw.com/ramasastry/20081212.html (Anita Ramasastry, Associate Professor at University of Washington School of Law)<br />
<br />
* http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=29117 (Reporters without Borders, an NGO that was part of the talks but didn’t sign onto the GNI at the end)<br />
<br />
* http://www.eff.org/files/filenode/gni/signon_letter.txt (Electronic Frontier Foundation, an NGO that was part of the talks and did sign onto the GNI at the end)<br />
<br />
* http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060313/mackinnon (Rebecca MacKinnon, writing in The Nation before the GNI existed, discusses four companies' culpability and diagnoses a major flaw with GOFA)<br />
<br />
=== Links ===<br />
http://blogs.wsj.com/chinajournal/2008/10/28/parsing-the-google-yahoo-microsoft-global-network-initiative/<br />
<br />
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/30/magazine/30google-t.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink&adxnnlx=1229749063-T7qNc5xv9ZLDiLcjc8AZxQ&pagewanted=print<br />
<br />
http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/04/republican-hous.html<br />
<br />
http://rconversation.blogs.com/rconversation/2007/01/google_yahoo_mi.html<br />
<br />
http://www.circleid.com/posts/print/20081028_global_network_initiative/<br />
<br />
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/oct/30/amnesty-global-network-initiative<br />
<br />
http://www.economist.com/world/asia/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12783609<br />
<br />
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-a-santoro-and-wendy-goldberg/chinese-internet-censorsh_b_156212.html<br />
<br />
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10040152-38.html (Declan McCullagh of CNet News on Q6/17, including links to several leaked ITU documents)<br />
<br />
== Part II: Planning and Execution/The Week of the Class ==<br />
<br />
=== A little less than a week before class ===<br />
<br />
We emailed each group directly: <br />
<br />
Dear [Group Members],<br />
<br />
For the Anonymity and Privacy class this coming week, we're going to run things slightly differently. The class will be divided into six groups, and each group will be given an identity as a participant in the ongoing global battle over anonymous speech online, as well as a series of unique readings giving some specialized background. Then, in class, we'll introduce some general background and then have an exercise involving both y'all and our guest. See the last page of the attachment for your readings. (You're a little smaller than the other groups; don't worry, your job will mostly be to make trouble.)<br />
<br />
Cheers,<br />
Joshua, Conor, and Dan<br />
<br />
Each Group received its own attached set of readings (linked immediately below):<br />
<br />
[http://iifap.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/group1readings.doc Group 1]<br />
[http://iifap.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/group2readings.doc Group 2]<br />
[http://iifap.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/group3readings.doc Group 3]<br />
[http://iifap.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/group4readings.doc Group 4]<br />
[http://iifap.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/group5readings.doc Group 5]<br />
[http://iifap.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/group6readings.doc Group 6]<br />
<br />
=== The day of class ===<br />
<br />
We showed up early and set up the room. We placed most of the classroom's tables against the wall, and placed the chairs just inside of them, to make sure there was a big "public" space in the middle of the room for the second half of the class. (Here's a room plan, which didn't work out exactly as pictured here, but the idea is what counts)<br />
<br />
[http://iifap.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/room-plan.jpg|Room Plan]<br />
<br />
We started the class with a Power Point presentation that reviewed the basic outline of the class (to refresh students who might have only skimmed the reading). <br />
<br />
+ Clip<br />
<br />
When that was finished, we hosted a conversation between two stakeholders (Colin MacClay of the Berkman Center and Andrew McLaughlin from Google). <br />
<br />
+ Clip<br />
<br />
<br />
Once everyone was caught up to speed on the tensions they'd have to navigate in the simulation, Josh explained the simulation to all class participants.<br />
<br />
+ Clip<br />
<br />
<br />
At the end of the simulation, the groups gave in their final proposals:<br />
<br />
+ Proposals<br />
<br />
<br />
Our judge, the Berkman Center's Colin MacClay, gave his feedback on the proposals.<br />
<br />
+ Clip<br />
<br />
After class, we gave all of the participants an opportunity to vote on the proposals:<br />
<br />
== Reactions and suggestions ==<br />
<br />
=== Evaluation of the class ===<br />
<br />
=== Role of technology ===<br />
<br />
=== Additional suggestions for future classes ===<br />
<br />
<br />
Note to self: Joe, Miriam, Mark, Jon Fildes, Elana, Melissa</div>Jgruensphttps://cyber.harvard.edu/iif/?title=Open_Networks,_Closed_Regimes&diff=2285Open Networks, Closed Regimes2009-04-16T07:17:42Z<p>Jgruensp: </p>
<hr />
<div>'''[[User:Danray|Dan Ray]]''', '''[[User:CKennedy|Conor]]''', '''[[User:Jgruensp|Joshua]]'''<br />
<br />
== Open Network, Closed Regimes ==<br />
=== Problem to be solved ===<br />
<br />
US-based internet services are used by citizens of every regime in the world. Western-based internet companies operate these services in many countries where governments routinely request or demand sensitive information about their citizens. How should high-level officers respond when their companies receive requests to turn over information which violate privacy and anonymity expectations? How can citizens, NGOs, and government actors influence the way these companies respond?<br />
<br />
=== Precis ===<br />
The idea of the internet service provider as a border-defying government-regulation-free jurisdiction was already dying in the 1990s, but the large-scale movement of internet services into regimes without free speech protections has raised serious concerns about managing cross-border privacy standards over the last five years. From Yahoo turning over pro-democracy Chinese bloggers to the Chinese government, to Saudi Arabia tracking porn downloaders by pulling ISP records, to South Korea trying to arrest anonymous government critics, the problems are widespread and not restricted only to regimes that Americans are used to thinking of as "repressive." The globalization of internet services raises difficult questions: What requests for information are invasive? What kind of deference is due to local sovereignty? How can the competing demands best be balanced? How can the relevant stakeholders work toward achieving a proper balance?<br />
<br />
=== The Story So Far ===<br />
<br />
Several weeks ago, our class read John Perry Barlow’s [http://homes.eff.org/~barlow/Declaration-Final.html Declaration of Independence of Cyberspace], written in 1996, in which he addresses the nations of the world and “declare[s] the global social space we are building to be naturally independent of the tyrannies you seek to impose on us.” For Barlow, perhaps the most important innovation of cyberspace was its ability to act as a great leveler: “We are creating a world that all may enter without privilege or prejudice accorded by race, economic power, military force, or station of birth. We are creating a world where anyone, anywhere may express his or her beliefs, no matter how singular, without fear of being coerced into silence or conformity.” As these lines imply, the key to this brave new world of Barlow’s was the possibility of anonymity (or pseudonymity): real-world barriers placed by normative biases or governmental controls could be hurdled by individuals joining online communities to express their provocative thoughts. Secure in the knowledge that their identities were divorced from their real-world selves, citizens of every nation could create the first truly free global marketplace of ideas.<br />
<br />
From well before Barlow’s Declaration, this idea of the Internet as an enabler of the anonymous expression of ideas was a well-established meme in the popular conception of the Internet, from Peter Steiner’s [http://www.unc.edu/depts/jomc/academics/dri/idog.jpg famous New Yorker cartoon] to the aphorism that “the internet treats censorship as damage and routes around it.” And just as quickly, people started to raise questions about whether a completely uncontrolled discourse was desirable – Larry Lessig famously [http://pdf.codev2.cc/Lessig-Codev2.pdf told the story] (see p. 102-106) of one anonymous student who singlehandedly shut down Lessig’s first-ever online classroom bulletin board by attacking his classmates with unstinting vitriol. The techno-libertarians remained adamant that online communities would develop mechanisms to cope with such problems, and that the benefits of being able to create a discussion area open to all comers – more freedom under repressive regimes, more frank discussion for every individual – would outweigh any drawbacks.<br />
<br />
However, the factual accuracy of the idea that the Internet need not respect terrestrial law was soon called into doubt. Tim Wu and Jack Goldsmith [http://books.google.com/books?id=Q01APcGmLB8C document] (see Chapter 1) the 2000 case in which Yahoo! attempted to resist a takedown request from the French government. After activists discovered Nazi merchandise for sale on a Yahoo! site, they appealed to the government to enforce the laws banning such material from being sold in France. Yahoo! protested that there was no way for it to identify traffic coming from France and that to enforce the French laws would ultimately mean enforcing the lowest common denominator of all international law in all locations. However, having lost their case in the French courts in the face of expert testimony, and facing fines of 100,000 francs per day against their new French division, the company caved and admitted that IP addresses could be used to tell apart visitors from one country and another. This was a blow to the notion that the Internet was inherently resistant to national laws, but it was also a blow to the idea that users of the Internet were all faceless numbers – it soon became very clear that the companies that individuals did business with on the Internet knew plenty about their users, both in the form of information submitted by those users and in the form of other incidental data.<br />
<br />
Once those two facts were combined, it became clear that online service providers doing business internationally were vulnerable to economic threats if they failed to comply with local legal regimes by turning over nominally anonymous users. This first acquired public salience in 2004, when the Chinese government discovered that someone with a Yahoo! email account had forwarded to a US-based pro-democracy blogger an internal Communist party message sent to newspaper editorial boards warning them of potential unrest which might arise from discussion of the fifteenth anniversary of the Tiananmen Square protests. China [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/4221538.stm demanded] that the company turn over any records relating to the disclosure of its state secrets, and Yahoo! complied without question. Chinese journalist Shi Tao was ultimately arrested and sentenced to ten years in prison. After the role played by Yahoo! was disclosed, the company became the subject of global outrage, castigated by pro-free-speech nonprofits and hauled before Congress to account for its actions. However, Yahoo! was merely the most visible of the companies involved in such disclosures – Amnesty International [http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/POL30/026/2006/en/dom-POL300262006en.pdf reports] that many of the largest international online service providers were implicated at the time and continue to wrestle with these issues.<br />
<br />
In recent years, similar cases have cropped up all over the world, from Africa to Asia to the Middle East, and even some American companies have [http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-10023104-71.html taken part] in using the disclosure-friendly laws of other countries to track down derogatory speakers. Many of these countries describe themselves as protecting themselves from the dangerous consequences of free speech: in January, South Korea [http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123178875223174403.html arrested a blogger] whose acerbic postings about government bureaucrats had supposedly undermined the population’s faith in the government’s ability to manage the global financial crisis. These governments say that free speech is always at war with social stability, as it was in Lessig’s classroom, and that they and Americans simply disagree on where the line must be drawn. At the same time, pro-democracy activists say that American companies and the American government aren’t doing enough work insisting upon the universality of American values.<br />
<br />
The most salient legislative response has been the [http://thomas.loc.gov/home/gpoxmlc110/h275_ih.xml Global Online Freedom Act] (GOFA), proposed by Representative Chris Smith (R-NJ). GOFA would require the State Department to track internet-restricting countries and then require US corporations not to a) store users’ personal data within the borders of those countries or b) turn over any personally identifiable information to law enforcement within those countries without first seeking the permission of the US Department of Justice. Many [http://www.rsf.org/print.php3?id_article=18304 pro-free-speech non-profits] have praised the GOFA bill as an [http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=24141 “advance for online free expression.”] Commentators have also [http://www.cdt.org/international/censorship/20080505gofa.pdf suggested], however, that it is unworkable in practice, and would, in effect, require US companies to cease doing meaningful business within such countries.<br />
<br />
Corporations have pushed instead for a non-government-driven multi-stakeholder plan of action. Several of the largest American online service providers, including Microsoft, Google, and Yahoo!, have joined forces with the Berkman Center to develop the [http://www.globalnetworkinitiative.org/index.php Global Network Initiative] (GNI). The GNI lays out a set of universal [http://www.globalnetworkinitiative.org/principles/index.php principles] to be referenced when making difficult human rights decisions; it then gives [http://www.globalnetworkinitiative.org/implementationguidelines/index.php implementation guidance] to Boards of companies proceed in considering those principles on a case-by-case basis as requests for data come in. Some of the Congressional critics of these companies have been mollified by the evident progress. At the same time, some [http://writ.news.findlaw.com/ramasastry/20081212.html legal scholars] and [http://www.technewsworld.com/story/commentary/64972.html privacy specialists] (see Rotenberg quote) say the GNI is not widely enough accepted or equipped with severe enough consequences to make a serious difference.<br />
<br />
Meanwhile, countries wary of indiscriminate speech have started to look at alternatives of their own. This past year, the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), a specialized agency of the United Nations which deals with the regulation of international telecommunications issues, [http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10040152-38.html opened up a study group on Question 6-17] (Q6/17). The Q6/17 group was chartered at the request of a state-owned Chinese telecommunications firm to [http://www.politechbot.com/docs/itu.china.internet.traceback.proposal.091108.doc investigate the feasibility] of retrofitting the internet with Internet Protocol (IP) traceback technology. IP packets, the individual building blocks used to send information across the internet, are difficult, if not impossible, to follow back from their destination to their source. IP traceback technology would use new software and hardware to retrofit tracing mechanisms onto the internet as built, so as to make it easier to find the sender of a given message. The proponents of Q6/17 suggest that it could be used to make it more difficult to remotely infect computers with viruses or make anonymous threats online. Privacy specialists, however, suspect that the major purpose is to crack down on unwanted speech.<br />
<br />
=== Required Readings ===<br />
<br />
Class members will get individualized readings in small groups. Coming soon to an Inbox near you...<br />
<br />
[[AnP Brainstorming|Early brainstorming on this topic]]<br />
<br />
=== Additional Readings ===<br />
<br />
(Some of these and additional readings will be broken down by simulation group)<br />
<br />
==== Audio: ====<br />
<br />
* http://rconversation.blogs.com/rconversation/2008/07/on-the-media-in.html (Episode of On The Media w/ Rebecca MacKinnon)<br />
<br />
==== Video ====<br />
<br />
* http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMorzIBHmrA (Conversation about GNI on CSPAN w/ Michael Samway and Julien Sanchez)<br />
<br />
==== Text ====<br />
<br />
===== “Just the Facts” Reporting =====<br />
<br />
* http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7696356.stm<br />
<br />
* http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/28/technology/internet/28privacy.html?_r=1&oref=slogin<br />
<br />
==== Critiques ====<br />
<br />
* http://writ.news.findlaw.com/ramasastry/20081212.html (Anita Ramasastry, Associate Professor at University of Washington School of Law)<br />
<br />
* http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=29117 (Reporters without Borders, an NGO that was part of the talks but didn’t sign onto the GNI at the end)<br />
<br />
* http://www.eff.org/files/filenode/gni/signon_letter.txt (Electronic Frontier Foundation, an NGO that was part of the talks and did sign onto the GNI at the end)<br />
<br />
* http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060313/mackinnon (Rebecca MacKinnon, writing in The Nation before the GNI existed, discusses four companies' culpability and diagnoses a major flaw with GOFA)<br />
<br />
=== Links ===<br />
http://blogs.wsj.com/chinajournal/2008/10/28/parsing-the-google-yahoo-microsoft-global-network-initiative/<br />
<br />
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/30/magazine/30google-t.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink&adxnnlx=1229749063-T7qNc5xv9ZLDiLcjc8AZxQ&pagewanted=print<br />
<br />
http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/04/republican-hous.html<br />
<br />
http://rconversation.blogs.com/rconversation/2007/01/google_yahoo_mi.html<br />
<br />
http://www.circleid.com/posts/print/20081028_global_network_initiative/<br />
<br />
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/oct/30/amnesty-global-network-initiative<br />
<br />
http://www.economist.com/world/asia/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12783609<br />
<br />
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-a-santoro-and-wendy-goldberg/chinese-internet-censorsh_b_156212.html<br />
<br />
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10040152-38.html (Declan McCullagh of CNet News on Q6/17, including links to several leaked ITU documents)<br />
<br />
== <strike>Brainstorming (On earlier topic: OpenID)</strike>==<br />
<br />
All that OpenID stuff has moved to [[legacy support]]. And thank goodness for that. [[User:Danray|Dan Ray]] 01:19, 4 February 2009 (UTC)<br />
<br />
Note to self: Joe, Miriam, Mark, Jon Fildes, Elana, Melissa</div>Jgruensphttps://cyber.harvard.edu/iif/?title=Open_Networks,_Closed_Regimes&diff=2284Open Networks, Closed Regimes2009-04-16T07:15:38Z<p>Jgruensp: </p>
<hr />
<div>'''[[User:Danray|Dan Ray]]''', '''[[User:CKennedy|Conor]]''', '''[[User:Jgruensp|Joshua]]'''<br />
<br />
== Open Network, Closed Regimes ==<br />
=== Problem to be solved ===<br />
<br />
US-based internet services are used by citizens of every regime in the world. Western-based internet companies operate these services in many countries where governments routinely request or demand sensitive information about their citizens. How should high-level officers respond when their companies receive requests to turn over information which violate privacy and anonymity expectations? How can citizens, NGOs, and government actors influence the way these companies respond?<br />
<br />
=== Precis ===<br />
The idea of the internet service provider as a border-defying government-regulation-free jurisdiction was already dying in the 1990s, but the large-scale movement of internet services into regimes without free speech protections has raised serious concerns about managing cross-border privacy standards over the last five years. From Yahoo turning over pro-democracy Chinese bloggers to the Chinese government, to Saudi Arabia tracking porn downloaders by pulling ISP records, to South Korea trying to arrest anonymous government critics, the problems are widespread and not restricted only to regimes that Americans are used to thinking of as "repressive." The globalization of internet services raises difficult questions: What requests for information are invasive? What kind of deference is due to local sovereignty? How can the competing demands best be balanced? How can the relevant stakeholders work toward achieving a proper balance?<br />
<br />
=== The Story So Far ===<br />
<br />
Several weeks ago, our class read John Perry Barlow’s [http://homes.eff.org/~barlow/Declaration-Final.html Declaration of Independence of Cyberspace], written in 1996, in which he addresses the nations of the world and “declare[s] the global social space we are building to be naturally independent of the tyrannies you seek to impose on us.” For Barlow, perhaps the most important innovation of cyberspace was its ability to act as a great leveler: “We are creating a world that all may enter without privilege or prejudice accorded by race, economic power, military force, or station of birth. We are creating a world where anyone, anywhere may express his or her beliefs, no matter how singular, without fear of being coerced into silence or conformity.” As these lines imply, the key to this brave new world of Barlow’s was the possibility of anonymity (or pseudonymity): real-world barriers placed by normative biases or governmental controls could be hurdled by individuals joining online communities to express their provocative thoughts. Secure in the knowledge that their identities were divorced from their real-world selves, citizens of every nation could create the first truly free global marketplace of ideas.<br />
<br />
From well before Barlow’s Declaration, this idea of the Internet as an enabler of the anonymous expression of ideas was a well-established meme in the popular conception of the Internet, from Peter Steiner’s [http://www.unc.edu/depts/jomc/academics/dri/idog.jpg famous New Yorker cartoon] to the aphorism that “the internet treats censorship as damage and routes around it.” And just as quickly, people started to raise questions about whether a completely uncontrolled discourse was desirable – Larry Lessig famously [http://pdf.codev2.cc/Lessig-Codev2.pdf told the story] (see p. 102-106) of one anonymous student who singlehandedly shut down Lessig’s first-ever online classroom bulletin board by attacking his classmates with unstinting vitriol. The techno-libertarians remained adamant that online communities would develop mechanisms to cope with such problems, and that the benefits of being able to create a discussion area open to all comers – more freedom under repressive regimes, more frank discussion for every individual – would outweigh any drawbacks.<br />
<br />
However, the factual accuracy of the idea that the Internet need not respect terrestrial law was soon called into doubt. Tim Wu and Jack Goldsmith [http://books.google.com/books?id=Q01APcGmLB8C document] (see Chapter 1) the 2000 case in which Yahoo! attempted to resist a takedown request from the French government. After activists discovered Nazi merchandise for sale on a Yahoo! site, they appealed to the government to enforce the laws banning such material from being sold in France. Yahoo! protested that there was no way for it to identify traffic coming from France and that to enforce the French laws would ultimately mean enforcing the lowest common denominator of all international law in all locations. However, having lost their case in the French courts in the face of expert testimony, and facing fines of 100,000 francs per day against their new French division, the company caved and admitted that IP addresses could be used to tell apart visitors from one country and another. This was a blow to the notion that the Internet was inherently resistant to national laws, but it was also a blow to the idea that users of the Internet were all faceless numbers – it soon became very clear that the companies that individuals did business with on the Internet knew plenty about their users, both in the form of information submitted by those users and in the form of other incidental data.<br />
<br />
Once those two facts were combined, it became clear that online service providers doing business internationally were vulnerable to economic threats if they failed to comply with local legal regimes by turning over nominally anonymous users. This first acquired public salience in 2004, when the Chinese government discovered that someone with a Yahoo! email account had forwarded to a US-based pro-democracy blogger an internal Communist party message sent to newspaper editorial boards warning them of potential unrest which might arise from discussion of the fifteenth anniversary of the Tiananmen Square protests. China [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/4221538.stm demanded] that the company turn over any records relating to the disclosure of its state secrets, and Yahoo! complied without question. Chinese journalist Shi Tao was ultimately arrested and sentenced to ten years in prison. After the role played by Yahoo! was disclosed, the company became the subject of global outrage, castigated by pro-free-speech nonprofits and hauled before Congress to account for its actions. However, Yahoo! was merely the most visible of the companies involved in such disclosures – Amnesty International [http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/POL30/026/2006/en/dom-POL300262006en.pdf reports] that many of the largest international online service providers were implicated at the time and continue to wrestle with these issues.<br />
<br />
In recent years, similar cases have cropped up all over the world, from Africa to Asia to the Middle East, and even some American companies have [http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-10023104-71.html taken part] in using the disclosure-friendly laws of other countries to track down derogatory speakers. Many of these countries describe themselves as protecting themselves from the dangerous consequences of free speech: in January, South Korea [http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123178875223174403.html arrested a blogger] whose acerbic postings about government bureaucrats had supposedly undermined the population’s faith in the government’s ability to manage the global financial crisis. These governments say that free speech is always at war with social stability, as it was in Lessig’s classroom, and that they and Americans simply disagree on where the line must be drawn. At the same time, pro-democracy activists say that American companies and the American government aren’t doing enough work insisting upon the universality of American values.<br />
<br />
The most salient legislative response has been the [http://thomas.loc.gov/home/gpoxmlc110/h275_ih.xml Global Online Freedom Act] (GOFA), proposed by Representative Chris Smith (R-NJ). GOFA would require the State Department to track internet-restricting countries and then require US corporations not to a) store users’ personal data within the borders of those countries or b) turn over any personally identifiable information to law enforcement within those countries without first seeking the permission of the US Department of Justice. Many [http://www.rsf.org/print.php3?id_article=18304 pro-free-speech non-profits] have praised the GOFA bill as an [http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=24141 “advance for online free expression.”] Commentators have also [http://www.cdt.org/international/censorship/20080505gofa.pdf suggested], however, that it is unworkable in practice, and would, in effect, require US companies to cease doing meaningful business within such countries.<br />
<br />
Corporations have pushed instead for a non-government-driven multi-stakeholder plan of action. Several of the largest American online service providers, including Microsoft, Google, and Yahoo!, have joined forces with the Berkman Center to develop the [http://www.globalnetworkinitiative.org/index.php Global Network Initiative] (GNI). The GNI lays out a set of universal [http://www.globalnetworkinitiative.org/principles/index.php principles] to be referenced when making difficult human rights decisions; it then gives [http://www.globalnetworkinitiative.org/implementationguidelines/index.php implementation guidance] to Boards of companies proceed in considering those principles on a case-by-case basis as requests for data come in. Some of the Congressional critics of these companies have been mollified by the evident progress. At the same time, some [http://writ.news.findlaw.com/ramasastry/20081212.html legal scholars] and [http://www.technewsworld.com/story/commentary/64972.html privacy specialists] (see Rotenberg quote) say the GNI is not widely enough accepted or equipped with severe enough consequences to make a serious difference.<br />
<br />
Meanwhile, countries wary of indiscriminate speech have started to look at alternatives of their own. This past year, the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), a specialized agency of the United Nations which deals with the regulation of international telecommunications issues, [http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10040152-38.html opened up a study group on Question 6-17] (Q6/17). The Q6/17 group was chartered at the request of a state-owned Chinese telecommunications firm to [http://www.politechbot.com/docs/itu.china.internet.traceback.proposal.091108.doc investigate the feasibility] of retrofitting the internet with Internet Protocol (IP) traceback technology. IP packets, the individual building blocks used to send information across the internet, are difficult, if not impossible, to follow back from their destination to their source. IP traceback technology would use new software and hardware to retrofit tracing mechanisms onto the internet as built, so as to make it easier to find the sender of a given message. The proponents of Q6/17 suggest that it could be used to make it more difficult to remotely infect computers with viruses or make anonymous threats online. Privacy specialists, however, suspect that the major purpose is to crack down on unwanted speech.<br />
<br />
=== Required Readings ===<br />
<br />
Class members will get individualized readings in small groups. Coming soon to an Inbox near you...<br />
<br />
[[AnP Brainstorming|Early brainstorming on this topic]]<br />
<br />
=== Additional Readings ===<br />
<br />
(Some of these and additional readings will be broken down by simulation group)<br />
<br />
==== Audio: ====<br />
<br />
* http://rconversation.blogs.com/rconversation/2008/07/on-the-media-in.html (Episode of On The Media w/ Rebecca MacKinnon)<br />
<br />
==== Video ====<br />
<br />
* http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMorzIBHmrA (Conversation about GNI on CSPAN w/ Michael Samway and Julien Sanchez)<br />
<br />
==== Text ====<br />
<br />
===== “Just the Facts” Reporting =====<br />
<br />
* http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7696356.stm<br />
<br />
* http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/28/technology/internet/28privacy.html?_r=1&oref=slogin<br />
<br />
==== Critiques ====<br />
<br />
* http://writ.news.findlaw.com/ramasastry/20081212.html (Anita Ramasastry, Associate Professor at University of Washington School of Law)<br />
<br />
* http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=29117 (Reporters without Borders, an NGO that was part of the talks but didn’t sign onto the GNI at the end)<br />
<br />
* http://www.eff.org/files/filenode/gni/signon_letter.txt (Electronic Frontier Foundation, an NGO that was part of the talks and did sign onto the GNI at the end)<br />
<br />
* http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060313/mackinnon (Rebecca MacKinnon, writing in The Nation before the GNI existed, discusses four companies' culpability and diagnoses a major flaw with GOFA)<br />
<br />
=== Links ===<br />
http://blogs.wsj.com/chinajournal/2008/10/28/parsing-the-google-yahoo-microsoft-global-network-initiative/<br />
<br />
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/30/magazine/30google-t.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink&adxnnlx=1229749063-T7qNc5xv9ZLDiLcjc8AZxQ&pagewanted=print<br />
<br />
http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/04/republican-hous.html<br />
<br />
http://rconversation.blogs.com/rconversation/2007/01/google_yahoo_mi.html<br />
<br />
http://www.circleid.com/posts/print/20081028_global_network_initiative/<br />
<br />
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/oct/30/amnesty-global-network-initiative<br />
<br />
http://www.economist.com/world/asia/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12783609<br />
<br />
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-a-santoro-and-wendy-goldberg/chinese-internet-censorsh_b_156212.html<br />
<br />
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10040152-38.html (Declan McCullagh of CNet News on Q6/17, including links to several leaked ITU documents)<br />
<br />
== <strike>Brainstorming (On earlier topic: OpenID)</strike>==<br />
<br />
All that OpenID stuff has moved to [[legacy support]]. And thank goodness for that. [[User:Danray|Dan Ray]] 01:19, 4 February 2009 (UTC)<br />
<br />
Note to self: Joe, Miriam, Mark, Graham, Jon Fildes, Elana, Melissa</div>Jgruensphttps://cyber.harvard.edu/iif/?title=Open_Networks,_Closed_Regimes&diff=2204Open Networks, Closed Regimes2009-03-30T22:31:18Z<p>Jgruensp: </p>
<hr />
<div>'''[[User:Danray|Dan Ray]]''', '''[[User:CKennedy|Conor]]''', '''[[User:Jgruensp|Joshua]]'''<br />
<br />
== Open Network, Closed Regimes ==<br />
=== Problem to be solved ===<br />
<br />
US-based internet services are used by citizens of every regime in the world. Western-based internet companies operate these services in many countries where governments routinely request or demand sensitive information about their citizens. How should high-level officers respond when their companies receive requests to turn over information which violate privacy and anonymity expectations? How can citizens, NGOs, and government actors influence the way these companies respond?<br />
<br />
=== Precis ===<br />
The idea of the internet service provider as a border-defying government-regulation-free jurisdiction was already dying in the 1990s, but the large-scale movement of internet services into regimes without free speech protections has raised serious concerns about managing cross-border privacy standards over the last five years. From Yahoo turning over pro-democracy Chinese bloggers to the Chinese government, to Saudi Arabia tracking porn downloaders by pulling ISP records, to South Korea trying to arrest anonymous government critics, the problems are widespread and not restricted only to regimes that Americans are used to thinking of as "repressive." The globalization of internet services raises difficult questions: What requests for information are invasive? What kind of deference is due to local sovereignty? How can the competing demands best be balanced? How can the relevant stakeholders work toward achieving a proper balance?<br />
<br />
=== The Story So Far ===<br />
<br />
Several weeks ago, our class read John Perry Barlow’s [http://homes.eff.org/~barlow/Declaration-Final.html Declaration of Independence of Cyberspace], written in 1996, in which he addresses the nations of the world and “declare[s] the global social space we are building to be naturally independent of the tyrannies you seek to impose on us.” For Barlow, perhaps the most important innovation of cyberspace was its ability to act as a great leveler: “We are creating a world that all may enter without privilege or prejudice accorded by race, economic power, military force, or station of birth. We are creating a world where anyone, anywhere may express his or her beliefs, no matter how singular, without fear of being coerced into silence or conformity.” As these lines imply, the key to this brave new world of Barlow’s was the possibility of anonymity (or pseudonymity): real-world barriers placed by normative biases or governmental controls could be hurdled by individuals joining online communities to express their provocative thoughts. Secure in the knowledge that their identities were divorced from their real-world selves, citizens of every nation could create the first truly free global marketplace of ideas.<br />
<br />
From well before Barlow’s Declaration, this idea of the Internet as an enabler of the anonymous expression of ideas was a well-established meme in the popular conception of the Internet, from Peter Steiner’s [http://www.unc.edu/depts/jomc/academics/dri/idog.jpg famous New Yorker cartoon] to the aphorism that “the internet treats censorship as damage and routes around it.” And just as quickly, people started to raise questions about whether a completely uncontrolled discourse was desirable – Larry Lessig famously [http://pdf.codev2.cc/Lessig-Codev2.pdf told the story] (see p. 102-106) of one anonymous student who singlehandedly shut down Lessig’s first-ever online classroom bulletin board by attacking his classmates with unstinting vitriol. The techno-libertarians remained adamant that online communities would develop mechanisms to cope with such problems, and that the benefits of being able to create a discussion area open to all comers – more freedom under repressive regimes, more frank discussion for every individual – would outweigh any drawbacks.<br />
<br />
However, the factual accuracy of the idea that the Internet need not respect terrestrial law was soon called into doubt. Tim Wu and Jack Goldsmith [http://books.google.com/books?id=Q01APcGmLB8C document] (see Chapter 1) the 2000 case in which Yahoo! attempted to resist a takedown request from the French government. After activists discovered Nazi merchandise for sale on a Yahoo! site, they appealed to the government to enforce the laws banning such material from being sold in France. Yahoo! protested that there was no way for it to identify traffic coming from France and that to enforce the French laws would ultimately mean enforcing the lowest common denominator of all international law in all locations. However, having lost their case in the French courts in the face of expert testimony, and facing fines of 100,000 francs per day against their new French division, the company caved and admitted that IP addresses could be used to tell apart visitors from one country and another. This was a blow to the notion that the Internet was inherently resistant to national laws, but it was also a blow to the idea that users of the Internet were all faceless numbers – it soon became very clear that the companies that individuals did business with on the Internet knew plenty about their users, both in the form of information submitted by those users and in the form of other incidental data.<br />
<br />
Once those two facts were combined, it became clear that online service providers doing business internationally were vulnerable to economic threats if they failed to comply with local legal regimes by turning over nominally anonymous users. This first acquired public salience in 2004, when the Chinese government discovered that someone with a Yahoo! email account had forwarded to a US-based pro-democracy blogger an internal Communist party message sent to newspaper editorial boards warning them of potential unrest which might arise from discussion of the fifteenth anniversary of the Tiananmen Square protests. China [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/4221538.stm demanded] that the company turn over any records relating to the disclosure of its state secrets, and Yahoo! complied without question. Chinese journalist Shi Tao was ultimately arrested and sentenced to ten years in prison. After the role played by Yahoo! was disclosed, the company became the subject of global outrage, castigated by pro-free-speech nonprofits and hauled before Congress to account for its actions. However, Yahoo! was merely the most visible of the companies involved in such disclosures – Amnesty International [http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/POL30/026/2006/en/dom-POL300262006en.pdf reports] that many of the largest international online service providers were implicated at the time and continue to wrestle with these issues.<br />
<br />
In recent years, similar cases have cropped up all over the world, from Africa to Asia to the Middle East, and even some American companies have [http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-10023104-71.html taken part] in using the disclosure-friendly laws of other countries to track down derogatory speakers. Many of these countries describe themselves as protecting themselves from the dangerous consequences of free speech: in January, South Korea [http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123178875223174403.html arrested a blogger] whose acerbic postings about government bureaucrats had supposedly undermined the population’s faith in the government’s ability to manage the global financial crisis. These governments say that free speech is always at war with social stability, as it was in Lessig’s classroom, and that they and Americans simply disagree on where the line must be drawn. At the same time, pro-democracy activists say that American companies and the American government aren’t doing enough work insisting upon the universality of American values.<br />
<br />
The most salient legislative response has been the [http://thomas.loc.gov/home/gpoxmlc110/h275_ih.xml Global Online Freedom Act] (GOFA), proposed by Representative Chris Smith (R-NJ). GOFA would require the State Department to track internet-restricting countries and then require US corporations not to a) store users’ personal data within the borders of those countries or b) turn over any personally identifiable information to law enforcement within those countries without first seeking the permission of the US Department of Justice. Many [http://www.rsf.org/print.php3?id_article=18304 pro-free-speech non-profits] have praised the GOFA bill as an [http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=24141 “advance for online free expression.”] Commentators have also [http://www.cdt.org/international/censorship/20080505gofa.pdf suggested], however, that it is unworkable in practice, and would, in effect, require US companies to cease doing meaningful business within such countries.<br />
<br />
Corporations have pushed instead for a non-government-driven multi-stakeholder plan of action. Several of the largest American online service providers, including Microsoft, Google, and Yahoo!, have joined forces with the Berkman Center to develop the [http://www.globalnetworkinitiative.org/index.php Global Network Initiative] (GNI). The GNI lays out a set of universal [http://www.globalnetworkinitiative.org/principles/index.php principles] to be referenced when making difficult human rights decisions; it then gives [http://www.globalnetworkinitiative.org/implementationguidelines/index.php implementation guidance] to Boards of companies proceed in considering those principles on a case-by-case basis as requests for data come in. Some of the Congressional critics of these companies have been mollified by the evident progress. At the same time, some [http://writ.news.findlaw.com/ramasastry/20081212.html legal scholars] and [http://www.technewsworld.com/story/commentary/64972.html privacy specialists] (see Rotenberg quote) say the GNI is not widely enough accepted or equipped with severe enough consequences to make a serious difference.<br />
<br />
Meanwhile, countries wary of indiscriminate speech have started to look at alternatives of their own. This past year, the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), a specialized agency of the United Nations which deals with the regulation of international telecommunications issues, [http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10040152-38.html opened up a study group on Question 6-17] (Q6/17). The Q6/17 group was chartered at the request of a state-owned Chinese telecommunications firm to [http://www.politechbot.com/docs/itu.china.internet.traceback.proposal.091108.doc investigate the feasibility] of retrofitting the internet with Internet Protocol (IP) traceback technology. IP packets, the individual building blocks used to send information across the internet, are difficult, if not impossible, to follow back from their destination to their source. IP traceback technology would use new software and hardware to retrofit tracing mechanisms onto the internet as built, so as to make it easier to find the sender of a given message. The proponents of Q6/17 suggest that it could be used to make it more difficult to remotely infect computers with viruses or make anonymous threats online. Privacy specialists, however, suspect that the major purpose is to crack down on unwanted speech.<br />
<br />
=== Required Readings ===<br />
<br />
Class members will get individualized readings in small groups. Coming soon to an Inbox near you...<br />
<br />
[[AnP Brainstorming|Early brainstorming on this topic]]<br />
<br />
=== Additional Readings ===<br />
<br />
(Some of these and additional readings will be broken down by simulation group)<br />
<br />
==== Audio: ====<br />
<br />
* http://rconversation.blogs.com/rconversation/2008/07/on-the-media-in.html (Episode of On The Media w/ Rebecca MacKinnon)<br />
<br />
==== Video ====<br />
<br />
* http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMorzIBHmrA (Conversation about GNI on CSPAN w/ Michael Samway and Julien Sanchez)<br />
<br />
==== Text ====<br />
<br />
===== “Just the Facts” Reporting =====<br />
<br />
* http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7696356.stm<br />
<br />
* http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/28/technology/internet/28privacy.html?_r=1&oref=slogin<br />
<br />
==== Critiques ====<br />
<br />
* http://writ.news.findlaw.com/ramasastry/20081212.html (Anita Ramasastry, Associate Professor at University of Washington School of Law)<br />
<br />
* http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=29117 (Reporters without Borders, an NGO that was part of the talks but didn’t sign onto the GNI at the end)<br />
<br />
* http://www.eff.org/files/filenode/gni/signon_letter.txt (Electronic Frontier Foundation, an NGO that was part of the talks and did sign onto the GNI at the end)<br />
<br />
* http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060313/mackinnon (Rebecca MacKinnon, writing in The Nation before the GNI existed, discusses four companies' culpability and diagnoses a major flaw with GOFA)<br />
<br />
=== Links ===<br />
http://blogs.wsj.com/chinajournal/2008/10/28/parsing-the-google-yahoo-microsoft-global-network-initiative/<br />
<br />
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/30/magazine/30google-t.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink&adxnnlx=1229749063-T7qNc5xv9ZLDiLcjc8AZxQ&pagewanted=print<br />
<br />
http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/04/republican-hous.html<br />
<br />
http://rconversation.blogs.com/rconversation/2007/01/google_yahoo_mi.html<br />
<br />
http://www.circleid.com/posts/print/20081028_global_network_initiative/<br />
<br />
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/oct/30/amnesty-global-network-initiative<br />
<br />
http://www.economist.com/world/asia/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12783609<br />
<br />
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-a-santoro-and-wendy-goldberg/chinese-internet-censorsh_b_156212.html<br />
<br />
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10040152-38.html (Declan McCullagh of CNet News on Q6/17, including links to several leaked ITU documents)<br />
<br />
== <strike>Brainstorming (On earlier topic: OpenID)</strike>==<br />
<br />
All that OpenID stuff has moved to [[legacy support]]. And thank goodness for that. [[User:Danray|Dan Ray]] 01:19, 4 February 2009 (UTC)</div>Jgruensphttps://cyber.harvard.edu/iif/?title=Open_Networks,_Closed_Regimes&diff=2203Open Networks, Closed Regimes2009-03-30T22:30:02Z<p>Jgruensp: </p>
<hr />
<div>'''[[User:Danray|Dan Ray]]''', '''[[User:CKennedy|Conor]]''', '''[[User:Jgruensp|Joshua]]'''<br />
<br />
== Open Network, Closed Regimes ==<br />
=== Problem to be solved ===<br />
<br />
US-based internet services are used by citizens of every regime in the world. Western-based internet companies operate these services in many countries where governments routinely request or demand sensitive information about their citizens. How should high-level officers respond when their companies receive requests to turn over information which violate privacy and anonymity expectations? How can citizens, NGOs, and government actors influence the way these companies respond?<br />
<br />
=== Precis ===<br />
The idea of the internet service provider as a border-defying government-regulation-free jurisdiction was already dying in the 1990s, but the large-scale movement of internet services into regimes without free speech protections has raised serious concerns about managing cross-border privacy standards over the last five years. From Yahoo turning over pro-democracy Chinese bloggers to the Chinese government, to Saudi Arabia tracking porn downloaders by pulling ISP records, to South Korea trying to arrest anonymous government critics, the problems are widespread and not restricted only to regimes that Americans are used to thinking of as "repressive." The globalization of internet services raises difficult questions: What requests for information are invasive? What kind of deference is due to local sovereignty? How can the competing demands best be balanced? How can the relevant stakeholders work toward achieving a proper balance?<br />
<br />
[[AnP Brainstorming]]<br />
<br />
=== The Story So Far ===<br />
<br />
Several weeks ago, our class read John Perry Barlow’s [http://homes.eff.org/~barlow/Declaration-Final.html Declaration of Independence of Cyberspace], written in 1996, in which he addresses the nations of the world and “declare[s] the global social space we are building to be naturally independent of the tyrannies you seek to impose on us.” For Barlow, perhaps the most important innovation of cyberspace was its ability to act as a great leveler: “We are creating a world that all may enter without privilege or prejudice accorded by race, economic power, military force, or station of birth. We are creating a world where anyone, anywhere may express his or her beliefs, no matter how singular, without fear of being coerced into silence or conformity.” As these lines imply, the key to this brave new world of Barlow’s was the possibility of anonymity (or pseudonymity): real-world barriers placed by normative biases or governmental controls could be hurdled by individuals joining online communities to express their provocative thoughts. Secure in the knowledge that their identities were divorced from their real-world selves, citizens of every nation could create the first truly free global marketplace of ideas.<br />
<br />
From well before Barlow’s Declaration, this idea of the Internet as an enabler of the anonymous expression of ideas was a well-established meme in the popular conception of the Internet, from Peter Steiner’s [http://www.unc.edu/depts/jomc/academics/dri/idog.jpg famous New Yorker cartoon] to the aphorism that “the internet treats censorship as damage and routes around it.” And just as quickly, people started to raise questions about whether a completely uncontrolled discourse was desirable – Larry Lessig famously [http://pdf.codev2.cc/Lessig-Codev2.pdf told the story] (see p. 102-106) of one anonymous student who singlehandedly shut down Lessig’s first-ever online classroom bulletin board by attacking his classmates with unstinting vitriol. The techno-libertarians remained adamant that online communities would develop mechanisms to cope with such problems, and that the benefits of being able to create a discussion area open to all comers – more freedom under repressive regimes, more frank discussion for every individual – would outweigh any drawbacks.<br />
<br />
However, the factual accuracy of the idea that the Internet need not respect terrestrial law was soon called into doubt. Tim Wu and Jack Goldsmith [http://books.google.com/books?id=Q01APcGmLB8C document] (see Chapter 1) the 2000 case in which Yahoo! attempted to resist a takedown request from the French government. After activists discovered Nazi merchandise for sale on a Yahoo! site, they appealed to the government to enforce the laws banning such material from being sold in France. Yahoo! protested that there was no way for it to identify traffic coming from France and that to enforce the French laws would ultimately mean enforcing the lowest common denominator of all international law in all locations. However, having lost their case in the French courts in the face of expert testimony, and facing fines of 100,000 francs per day against their new French division, the company caved and admitted that IP addresses could be used to tell apart visitors from one country and another. This was a blow to the notion that the Internet was inherently resistant to national laws, but it was also a blow to the idea that users of the Internet were all faceless numbers – it soon became very clear that the companies that individuals did business with on the Internet knew plenty about their users, both in the form of information submitted by those users and in the form of other incidental data.<br />
<br />
Once those two facts were combined, it became clear that online service providers doing business internationally were vulnerable to economic threats if they failed to comply with local legal regimes by turning over nominally anonymous users. This first acquired public salience in 2004, when the Chinese government discovered that someone with a Yahoo! email account had forwarded to a US-based pro-democracy blogger an internal Communist party message sent to newspaper editorial boards warning them of potential unrest which might arise from discussion of the fifteenth anniversary of the Tiananmen Square protests. China [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/4221538.stm demanded] that the company turn over any records relating to the disclosure of its state secrets, and Yahoo! complied without question. Chinese journalist Shi Tao was ultimately arrested and sentenced to ten years in prison. After the role played by Yahoo! was disclosed, the company became the subject of global outrage, castigated by pro-free-speech nonprofits and hauled before Congress to account for its actions. However, Yahoo! was merely the most visible of the companies involved in such disclosures – Amnesty International [http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/POL30/026/2006/en/dom-POL300262006en.pdf reports] that many of the largest international online service providers were implicated at the time and continue to wrestle with these issues.<br />
<br />
In recent years, similar cases have cropped up all over the world, from Africa to Asia to the Middle East, and even some American companies have [http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-10023104-71.html taken part] in using the disclosure-friendly laws of other countries to track down derogatory speakers. Many of these countries describe themselves as protecting themselves from the dangerous consequences of free speech: in January, South Korea [http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123178875223174403.html arrested a blogger] whose acerbic postings about government bureaucrats had supposedly undermined the population’s faith in the government’s ability to manage the global financial crisis. These governments say that free speech is always at war with social stability, as it was in Lessig’s classroom, and that they and Americans simply disagree on where the line must be drawn. At the same time, pro-democracy activists say that American companies and the American government aren’t doing enough work insisting upon the universality of American values.<br />
<br />
The most salient legislative response has been the [http://thomas.loc.gov/home/gpoxmlc110/h275_ih.xml Global Online Freedom Act] (GOFA), proposed by Representative Chris Smith (R-NJ). GOFA would require the State Department to track internet-restricting countries and then require US corporations not to a) store users’ personal data within the borders of those countries or b) turn over any personally identifiable information to law enforcement within those countries without first seeking the permission of the US Department of Justice. Many [http://www.rsf.org/print.php3?id_article=18304 pro-free-speech non-profits] have praised the GOFA bill as an [http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=24141 “advance for online free expression.”] Commentators have also [http://www.cdt.org/international/censorship/20080505gofa.pdf suggested], however, that it is unworkable in practice, and would, in effect, require US companies to cease doing meaningful business within such countries.<br />
<br />
Corporations have pushed instead for a non-government-driven multi-stakeholder plan of action. Several of the largest American online service providers, including Microsoft, Google, and Yahoo!, have joined forces with the Berkman Center to develop the [http://www.globalnetworkinitiative.org/index.php Global Network Initiative] (GNI). The GNI lays out a set of universal [http://www.globalnetworkinitiative.org/principles/index.php principles] to be referenced when making difficult human rights decisions; it then gives [http://www.globalnetworkinitiative.org/implementationguidelines/index.php implementation guidance] to Boards of companies proceed in considering those principles on a case-by-case basis as requests for data come in. Some of the Congressional critics of these companies have been mollified by the evident progress. At the same time, some [http://writ.news.findlaw.com/ramasastry/20081212.html legal scholars] and [http://www.technewsworld.com/story/commentary/64972.html privacy specialists] (see Rotenberg quote) say the GNI is not widely enough accepted or equipped with severe enough consequences to make a serious difference.<br />
<br />
Meanwhile, countries wary of indiscriminate speech have started to look at alternatives of their own. This past year, the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), a specialized agency of the United Nations which deals with the regulation of international telecommunications issues, [http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10040152-38.html opened up a study group on Question 6-17] (Q6/17). The Q6/17 group was chartered at the request of a state-owned Chinese telecommunications firm to [http://www.politechbot.com/docs/itu.china.internet.traceback.proposal.091108.doc investigate the feasibility] of retrofitting the internet with Internet Protocol (IP) traceback technology. IP packets, the individual building blocks used to send information across the internet, are difficult, if not impossible, to follow back from their destination to their source. IP traceback technology would use new software and hardware to retrofit tracing mechanisms onto the internet as built, so as to make it easier to find the sender of a given message. The proponents of Q6/17 suggest that it could be used to make it more difficult to remotely infect computers with viruses or make anonymous threats online. Privacy specialists, however, suspect that the major purpose is to crack down on unwanted speech.<br />
<br />
=== Required Readings ===<br />
<br />
Class members will get individualized readings in small groups. Coming soon to an Inbox near you...<br />
<br />
=== Additional Readings ===<br />
<br />
(Some of these and additional readings will be broken down by simulation group)<br />
<br />
==== Audio: ====<br />
<br />
* http://rconversation.blogs.com/rconversation/2008/07/on-the-media-in.html (Episode of On The Media w/ Rebecca MacKinnon)<br />
<br />
==== Video ====<br />
<br />
* http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMorzIBHmrA (Conversation about GNI on CSPAN w/ Michael Samway and Julien Sanchez)<br />
<br />
==== Text ====<br />
<br />
===== “Just the Facts” Reporting =====<br />
<br />
* http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7696356.stm<br />
<br />
* http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/28/technology/internet/28privacy.html?_r=1&oref=slogin<br />
<br />
==== Critiques ====<br />
<br />
* http://writ.news.findlaw.com/ramasastry/20081212.html (Anita Ramasastry, Associate Professor at University of Washington School of Law)<br />
<br />
* http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=29117 (Reporters without Borders, an NGO that was part of the talks but didn’t sign onto the GNI at the end)<br />
<br />
* http://www.eff.org/files/filenode/gni/signon_letter.txt (Electronic Frontier Foundation, an NGO that was part of the talks and did sign onto the GNI at the end)<br />
<br />
* http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060313/mackinnon (Rebecca MacKinnon, writing in The Nation before the GNI existed, discusses four companies' culpability and diagnoses a major flaw with GOFA)<br />
<br />
=== Links ===<br />
http://blogs.wsj.com/chinajournal/2008/10/28/parsing-the-google-yahoo-microsoft-global-network-initiative/<br />
<br />
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/30/magazine/30google-t.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink&adxnnlx=1229749063-T7qNc5xv9ZLDiLcjc8AZxQ&pagewanted=print<br />
<br />
http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/04/republican-hous.html<br />
<br />
http://rconversation.blogs.com/rconversation/2007/01/google_yahoo_mi.html<br />
<br />
http://www.circleid.com/posts/print/20081028_global_network_initiative/<br />
<br />
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/oct/30/amnesty-global-network-initiative<br />
<br />
http://www.economist.com/world/asia/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12783609<br />
<br />
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-a-santoro-and-wendy-goldberg/chinese-internet-censorsh_b_156212.html<br />
<br />
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10040152-38.html (Declan McCullagh of CNet News on Q6/17, including links to several leaked ITU documents)<br />
<br />
== <strike>Brainstorming (On earlier topic: OpenID)</strike>==<br />
<br />
All that OpenID stuff has moved to [[legacy support]]. And thank goodness for that. [[User:Danray|Dan Ray]] 01:19, 4 February 2009 (UTC)</div>Jgruensphttps://cyber.harvard.edu/iif/?title=AnP_Brainstorming&diff=2202AnP Brainstorming2009-03-30T22:17:12Z<p>Jgruensp: New page: Here are some old notes from the brainstorming process... === Existing Proposals to be Discussed === * GNI * GOFA * Q6/17 === Potential Guests === # Caroline Nolan, Colin Maclay, or Joh...</p>
<hr />
<div>Here are some old notes from the brainstorming process...<br />
<br />
=== Existing Proposals to be Discussed ===<br />
* GNI<br />
* GOFA<br />
* Q6/17<br />
<br />
=== Potential Guests ===<br />
<br />
# Caroline Nolan, Colin Maclay, or John Palfrey from Berkman/GNI<br />
# Andrew McLaughlin from Google<br />
<br />
Brainstorming:<br />
<br />
# Rebecca MacKinnon (former CNN journalist, former Berkman Fellow, and now Assistant Professor at the University of Hong Kong's Journalism and Media Center; see fourth and fifth links below)<br />
# Rep. Rick Boucher<br />
# Chris Smith, Congressman and GOFA co-sponsor<br />
# Mary Robertson, former President of Ireland<br />
# Mark Allison, or another Amnesty International researcher on East Asian issues<br />
# Nicola Wong (Google), Michael Samway (Yahoo) (see second link below), or other representatives of Google, Microsoft, or Yahoo who have dealt with China, S. Korea, Saudi Arabia, or other regimes in this context<br />
# Edward J. Markey, House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet<br />
# Marc Rotenberg, Executive Director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center<br />
# Chris Kelly, Facebook Chief Privacy Officer (candidate for AG of California in 2010)<br />
# Peter O’Kelly, Skype President [http://share.skype.com/sites/en/2008/10/answers_to_some_commonly_asked.html]<br />
# Representatives of Google, Microsoft, or Yahoo who have helped design GNI<br />
# Perhaps a representative of the government of South Korea (see seventh link below) or, ideally, China (hey, we can dream)<br />
# Perhaps also a continental civil law (French, German?) free speech scholar to talk about contrasting international ideas of free speech?<br />
<br />
=== Course structure ===<br />
<br />
Class:<br />
# First 10-15 minutes: Exposition- background information, state problem, and introduce types of potential solutions: Law (GOFA), Market, Norms (GNI), Code<br />
# Next 45 minutes: Q&A with guests, in a panel, on what the terrain looks like now, and what's left to do. (Possibly Using Live Question Tool w/ Projector)<br />
# Remainder: Classwide simulation, with students in groups, defending assigned roles as various stakeholder groups.<br />
<br />
=== Simulation ===<br />
<br />
The class will be divided into simulation groups ahead of time (e.g., US Congressional Representatives, Bloggers, Human Rights Groups). Each group will be assigned a role in the simulation, and we will give each group a set of readings specific to their role in the simulation. <br />
<br />
A relevant privacy/anonymity problem (that has just recently been introduced on the global stage) will be introduced in the second half of the class. Drawing upon assigned readings and the lessons and principles introduced in the first half of the class, each simulation group will devise and advocate a broad approach to for confronting this problem. Each group's approach should be based on its assigned role in the simulation.</div>Jgruensphttps://cyber.harvard.edu/iif/?title=Open_Networks,_Closed_Regimes&diff=2201Open Networks, Closed Regimes2009-03-30T22:16:14Z<p>Jgruensp: </p>
<hr />
<div>'''[[User:Danray|Dan Ray]]''', '''[[User:CKennedy|Conor]]''', '''[[User:Jgruensp|Joshua]]'''<br />
<br />
== Open Network, Closed Regimes ==<br />
=== Problem to be solved ===<br />
<br />
US-based internet services are used by citizens of every regime in the world. Western-based internet companies operate these services in many countries where governments routinely request or demand sensitive information about their citizens. How should high-level officers respond when their companies receive requests to turn over information which violate privacy and anonymity expectations? How can citizens, NGOs, and government actors influence the way these companies respond?<br />
<br />
=== Precis ===<br />
The idea of the internet service provider as a border-defying government-regulation-free jurisdiction was already dying in the 1990s, but the large-scale movement of internet services into regimes without free speech protections has raised serious concerns about managing cross-border privacy standards over the last five years. From Yahoo turning over pro-democracy Chinese bloggers to the Chinese government, to Saudi Arabia tracking porn downloaders by pulling ISP records, to South Korea trying to arrest anonymous government critics, the problems are widespread and not restricted only to regimes that Americans are used to thinking of as "repressive." The globalization of internet services raises difficult questions: What requests for information are invasive? What kind of deference is due to local sovereignty? How can the competing demands best be balanced? How can the relevant stakeholders work toward achieving a proper balance?<br />
<br />
[[AnP Brainstorming]]<br />
<br />
=== The Story So Far ===<br />
<br />
Several weeks ago, our class read John Perry Barlow’s Declaration of Independence of Cyberspace, written in 1996, in which he addresses the nations of the world and “declare[s] the global social space we are building to be naturally independent of the tyrannies you seek to impose on us.” For Barlow, perhaps the most important innovation of cyberspace was its ability to act as a great leveler: “We are creating a world that all may enter without privilege or prejudice accorded by race, economic power, military force, or station of birth. We are creating a world where anyone, anywhere may express his or her beliefs, no matter how singular, without fear of being coerced into silence or conformity.” As these lines imply, the key to this brave new world of Barlow’s was the possibility of anonymity (or pseudonymity): real-world barriers placed by normative biases or governmental controls could be hurdled by individuals joining online communities to express their provocative thoughts. Secure in the knowledge that their identities were divorced from their real-world selves, citizens of every nation could create the first truly free global marketplace of ideas.<br />
<br />
From well before Barlow’s Declaration, this idea of the Internet as an enabler of the anonymous expression of ideas was a well-established meme in the popular conception of the Internet, from Peter Steiner’s famous New Yorker cartoon to the aphorism that “the internet treats censorship as damage and routes around it.” And just as quickly, people started to raise questions about whether a completely uncontrolled discourse was desirable – Larry Lessig famously told the story (see p. 102-106) of one anonymous student who singlehandedly shut down Lessig’s first-ever online classroom bulletin board by attacking his classmates with unstinting vitriol. The techno-libertarians remained adamant that online communities would develop mechanisms to cope with such problems, and that the benefits of being able to create a discussion area open to all comers – more freedom under repressive regimes, more frank discussion for every individual – would outweigh any drawbacks.<br />
<br />
However, the factual accuracy of the idea that the Internet need not respect terrestrial law was soon called into doubt. Tim Wu and Jack Goldsmith document (see Chapter 1) the 2000 case in which Yahoo! attempted to resist a takedown request from the French government. After activists discovered Nazi merchandise for sale on a Yahoo! site, they appealed to the government to enforce the laws banning such material from being sold in France. Yahoo! protested that there was no way for it to identify traffic coming from France and that to enforce the French laws would ultimately mean enforcing the lowest common denominator of all international law in all locations. However, having lost their case in the French courts in the face of expert testimony, and facing fines of 100,000 francs per day against their new French division, the company caved and admitted that IP addresses could be used to tell apart visitors from one country and another. This was a blow to the notion that the Internet was inherently resistant to national laws, but it was also a blow to the idea that users of the Internet were all faceless numbers – it soon became very clear that the companies that individuals did business with on the Internet knew plenty about their users, both in the form of information submitted by those users and in the form of other incidental data.<br />
<br />
Once those two facts were combined, it became clear that online service providers doing business internationally were vulnerable to economic threats if they failed to comply with local legal regimes by turning over nominally anonymous users. This first acquired public salience in 2004, when the Chinese government discovered that someone with a Yahoo! email account had forwarded to a US-based pro-democracy blogger an internal Communist party message sent to newspaper editorial boards warning them of potential unrest which might arise from discussion of the fifteenth anniversary of the Tiananmen Square protests. China demanded that the company turn over any records relating to the disclosure of its state secrets, and Yahoo! complied without question. Chinese journalist Shi Tao was ultimately arrested and sentenced to ten years in prison. After the role played by Yahoo! was disclosed, the company became the subject of global outrage, castigated by pro-free-speech nonprofits and hauled before Congress to account for its actions. However, Yahoo! was merely the most visible of the companies involved in such disclosures – Amnesty International reports that many of the largest international online service providers were implicated at the time and continue to wrestle with these issues.<br />
<br />
In recent years, similar cases have cropped up all over the world, from Africa to Asia to the Middle East, and even some American companies have taken part in using the disclosure-friendly laws of other countries to track down derogatory speakers. Many of these countries describe themselves as protecting themselves from the dangerous consequences of free speech: in January, South Korea arrested a blogger whose acerbic postings about government bureaucrats had supposedly undermined the population’s faith in the government’s ability to manage the global financial crisis. These governments say that free speech is always at war with social stability, as it was in Lessig’s classroom, and that they and Americans simply disagree on where the line must be drawn. At the same time, pro-democracy activists say that American companies and the American government aren’t doing enough work insisting upon the universality of American values.<br />
<br />
The most salient legislative response has been the Global Online Freedom Act (GOFA), proposed by Representative Chris Smith (R-NJ). GOFA would require the State Department to track internet-restricting countries and then require US corporations not to a) store users’ personal data within the borders of those countries or b) turn over any personally identifiable information to law enforcement within those countries without first seeking the permission of the US Department of Justice. Many pro-free-speech non-profits have praised the GOFA bill as an “advance for online free expression.” Commentators have also suggested, however, that it is unworkable in practice, and would, in effect, require US companies to cease doing meaningful business within such countries.<br />
<br />
Corporations have pushed instead for a non-government-driven multi-stakeholder plan of action. Several of the largest American online service providers, including Microsoft, Google, and Yahoo!, have joined forces with the Berkman Center to develop the Global Network Initiative (GNI). The GNI lays out a set of universal principles to be referenced when making difficult human rights decisions; it then gives implementation guidance to Boards of companies proceed in considering those principles on a case-by-case basis as requests for data come in. Some of the Congressional critics of these companies have been mollified by the evident progress. At the same time, some legal scholars and privacy specialists (see Rotenberg quote) say the GNI is not widely enough accepted or equipped with severe enough consequences to make a serious difference.<br />
<br />
Meanwhile, countries wary of indiscriminate speech have started to look at alternatives of their own. This past year, the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), a specialized agency of the United Nations which deals with the regulation of international telecommunications issues, opened up a study group on Question 6-17 (Q6/17). The Q6/17 group was chartered at the request of a state-owned Chinese telecommunications firm to investigate the feasibility of retrofitting the internet with Internet Protocol (IP) traceback technology. IP packets, the individual building blocks used to send information across the internet, are difficult, if not impossible, to follow back from their destination to their source. IP traceback technology would use new software and hardware to retrofit tracing mechanisms onto the internet as built, so as to make it easier to find the sender of a given message. The proponents of Q6/17 suggest that it could be used to make it more difficult to remotely infect computers with viruses or make anonymous threats online. Privacy specialists, however, suspect that the major purpose is to crack down on unwanted speech.<br />
<br />
=== Required Readings ===<br />
<br />
Class members will get individualized readings in small groups. Coming soon to an Inbox near you...<br />
<br />
=== Additional Readings ===<br />
<br />
(Some of these and additional readings will be broken down by simulation group)<br />
<br />
==== Audio: ====<br />
<br />
* http://rconversation.blogs.com/rconversation/2008/07/on-the-media-in.html (Episode of On The Media w/ Rebecca MacKinnon)<br />
<br />
==== Video ====<br />
<br />
* http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMorzIBHmrA (Conversation about GNI on CSPAN w/ Michael Samway and Julien Sanchez)<br />
<br />
==== Text ====<br />
<br />
===== “Just the Facts” Reporting =====<br />
<br />
* http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7696356.stm<br />
<br />
* http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/28/technology/internet/28privacy.html?_r=1&oref=slogin<br />
<br />
==== Critiques ====<br />
<br />
* http://writ.news.findlaw.com/ramasastry/20081212.html (Anita Ramasastry, Associate Professor at University of Washington School of Law)<br />
<br />
* http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=29117 (Reporters without Borders, an NGO that was part of the talks but didn’t sign onto the GNI at the end)<br />
<br />
* http://www.eff.org/files/filenode/gni/signon_letter.txt (Electronic Frontier Foundation, an NGO that was part of the talks and did sign onto the GNI at the end)<br />
<br />
* http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060313/mackinnon (Rebecca MacKinnon, writing in The Nation before the GNI existed, discusses four companies' culpability and diagnoses a major flaw with GOFA)<br />
<br />
=== Links ===<br />
http://blogs.wsj.com/chinajournal/2008/10/28/parsing-the-google-yahoo-microsoft-global-network-initiative/<br />
<br />
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/30/magazine/30google-t.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink&adxnnlx=1229749063-T7qNc5xv9ZLDiLcjc8AZxQ&pagewanted=print<br />
<br />
http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/04/republican-hous.html<br />
<br />
http://rconversation.blogs.com/rconversation/2007/01/google_yahoo_mi.html<br />
<br />
http://www.circleid.com/posts/print/20081028_global_network_initiative/<br />
<br />
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/oct/30/amnesty-global-network-initiative<br />
<br />
http://www.economist.com/world/asia/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12783609<br />
<br />
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-a-santoro-and-wendy-goldberg/chinese-internet-censorsh_b_156212.html<br />
<br />
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10040152-38.html (Declan McCullagh of CNet News on Q6/17, including links to several leaked ITU documents)<br />
<br />
== <strike>Brainstorming (On earlier topic: OpenID)</strike>==<br />
<br />
All that OpenID stuff has moved to [[legacy support]]. And thank goodness for that. [[User:Danray|Dan Ray]] 01:19, 4 February 2009 (UTC)</div>Jgruensphttps://cyber.harvard.edu/iif/?title=Open_Networks,_Closed_Regimes&diff=2200Open Networks, Closed Regimes2009-03-30T22:14:24Z<p>Jgruensp: </p>
<hr />
<div>'''[[User:Danray|Dan Ray]]''', '''[[User:CKennedy|Conor]]''', '''[[User:Jgruensp|Joshua]]'''<br />
<br />
== Open Network, Closed Regimes ==<br />
=== Problem to be solved ===<br />
<br />
US-based internet services are used by citizens of every regime in the world. Western-based internet companies operate these services in many countries where governments routinely request or demand sensitive information about their citizens. How should high-level officers respond when their companies receive requests to turn over information which violate privacy and anonymity expectations? How can citizens, NGOs, and government actors influence the way these companies respond?<br />
<br />
=== Precis ===<br />
The idea of the internet service provider as a border-defying government-regulation-free jurisdiction was already dying in the 1990s, but the large-scale movement of internet services into regimes without free speech protections has raised serious concerns about managing cross-border privacy standards over the last five years. From Yahoo turning over pro-democracy Chinese bloggers to the Chinese government, to Saudi Arabia tracking porn downloaders by pulling ISP records, to South Korea trying to arrest anonymous government critics, the problems are widespread and not restricted only to regimes that Americans are used to thinking of as "repressive." The globalization of internet services raises difficult questions: What requests for information are invasive? What kind of deference is due to local sovereignty? How can the competing demands best be balanced? How can the relevant stakeholders work toward achieving a proper balance?<br />
<br />
[[AnP Brainstorming]]<br />
<br />
=== The Story So Far ===<br />
<br />
Several weeks ago, our class read John Perry Barlow’s Declaration of Independence of Cyberspace, written in 1996, in which he addresses the nations of the world and “declare[s] the global social space we are building to be naturally independent of the tyrannies you seek to impose on us.” For Barlow, perhaps the most important innovation of cyberspace was its ability to act as a great leveler: “We are creating a world that all may enter without privilege or prejudice accorded by race, economic power, military force, or station of birth. We are creating a world where anyone, anywhere may express his or her beliefs, no matter how singular, without fear of being coerced into silence or conformity.” As these lines imply, the key to this brave new world of Barlow’s was the possibility of anonymity (or pseudonymity): real-world barriers placed by normative biases or governmental controls could be hurdled by individuals joining online communities to express their provocative thoughts. Secure in the knowledge that their identities were divorced from their real-world selves, citizens of every nation could create the first truly free global marketplace of ideas.<br />
<br />
From well before Barlow’s Declaration, this idea of the Internet as an enabler of the anonymous expression of ideas was a well-established meme in the popular conception of the Internet, from Peter Steiner’s famous New Yorker cartoon to the aphorism that “the internet treats censorship as damage and routes around it.” And just as quickly, people started to raise questions about whether a completely uncontrolled discourse was desirable – Larry Lessig famously told the story (see p. 102-106) of one anonymous student who singlehandedly shut down Lessig’s first-ever online classroom bulletin board by attacking his classmates with unstinting vitriol. The techno-libertarians remained adamant that online communities would develop mechanisms to cope with such problems, and that the benefits of being able to create a discussion area open to all comers – more freedom under repressive regimes, more frank discussion for every individual – would outweigh any drawbacks.<br />
<br />
However, the factual accuracy of the idea that the Internet need not respect terrestrial law was soon called into doubt. Tim Wu and Jack Goldsmith document (see Chapter 1) the 2000 case in which Yahoo! attempted to resist a takedown request from the French government. After activists discovered Nazi merchandise for sale on a Yahoo! site, they appealed to the government to enforce the laws banning such material from being sold in France. Yahoo! protested that there was no way for it to identify traffic coming from France and that to enforce the French laws would ultimately mean enforcing the lowest common denominator of all international law in all locations. However, having lost their case in the French courts in the face of expert testimony, and facing fines of 100,000 francs per day against their new French division, the company caved and admitted that IP addresses could be used to tell apart visitors from one country and another. This was a blow to the notion that the Internet was inherently resistant to national laws, but it was also a blow to the idea that users of the Internet were all faceless numbers – it soon became very clear that the companies that individuals did business with on the Internet knew plenty about their users, both in the form of information submitted by those users and in the form of other incidental data.<br />
<br />
Once those two facts were combined, it became clear that online service providers doing business internationally were vulnerable to economic threats if they failed to comply with local legal regimes by turning over nominally anonymous users. This first acquired public salience in 2004, when the Chinese government discovered that someone with a Yahoo! email account had forwarded to a US-based pro-democracy blogger an internal Communist party message sent to newspaper editorial boards warning them of potential unrest which might arise from discussion of the fifteenth anniversary of the Tiananmen Square protests. China demanded that the company turn over any records relating to the disclosure of its state secrets, and Yahoo! complied without question. Chinese journalist Shi Tao was ultimately arrested and sentenced to ten years in prison. After the role played by Yahoo! was disclosed, the company became the subject of global outrage, castigated by pro-free-speech nonprofits and hauled before Congress to account for its actions. However, Yahoo! was merely the most visible of the companies involved in such disclosures – Amnesty International reports that many of the largest international online service providers were implicated at the time and continue to wrestle with these issues.<br />
<br />
In recent years, similar cases have cropped up all over the world, from Africa to Asia to the Middle East, and even some American companies have taken part in using the disclosure-friendly laws of other countries to track down derogatory speakers. Many of these countries describe themselves as protecting themselves from the dangerous consequences of free speech: in January, South Korea arrested a blogger whose acerbic postings about government bureaucrats had supposedly undermined the population’s faith in the government’s ability to manage the global financial crisis. These governments say that free speech is always at war with social stability, as it was in Lessig’s classroom, and that they and Americans simply disagree on where the line must be drawn. At the same time, pro-democracy activists say that American companies and the American government aren’t doing enough work insisting upon the universality of American values.<br />
<br />
The most salient legislative response has been the Global Online Freedom Act (GOFA), proposed by Representative Chris Smith (R-NJ). GOFA would require the State Department to track internet-restricting countries and then require US corporations not to a) store users’ personal data within the borders of those countries or b) turn over any personally identifiable information to law enforcement within those countries without first seeking the permission of the US Department of Justice. Many pro-free-speech non-profits have praised the GOFA bill as an “advance for online free expression.” Commentators have also suggested, however, that it is unworkable in practice, and would, in effect, require US companies to cease doing meaningful business within such countries.<br />
<br />
Corporations have pushed instead for a non-government-driven multi-stakeholder plan of action. Several of the largest American online service providers, including Microsoft, Google, and Yahoo!, have joined forces with the Berkman Center to develop the Global Network Initiative (GNI). The GNI lays out a set of universal principles to be referenced when making difficult human rights decisions; it then gives implementation guidance to Boards of companies proceed in considering those principles on a case-by-case basis as requests for data come in. Some of the Congressional critics of these companies have been mollified by the evident progress. At the same time, some legal scholars and privacy specialists (see Rotenberg quote) say the GNI is not widely enough accepted or equipped with severe enough consequences to make a serious difference.<br />
<br />
Meanwhile, countries wary of indiscriminate speech have started to look at alternatives of their own. This past year, the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), a specialized agency of the United Nations which deals with the regulation of international telecommunications issues, opened up a study group on Question 6-17 (Q6/17). The Q6/17 group was chartered at the request of a state-owned Chinese telecommunications firm to investigate the feasibility of retrofitting the internet with Internet Protocol (IP) traceback technology. IP packets, the individual building blocks used to send information across the internet, are difficult, if not impossible, to follow back from their destination to their source. IP traceback technology would use new software and hardware to retrofit tracing mechanisms onto the internet as built, so as to make it easier to find the sender of a given message. The proponents of Q6/17 suggest that it could be used to make it more difficult to remotely infect computers with viruses or make anonymous threats online. Privacy specialists, however, suspect that the major purpose is to crack down on unwanted speech.<br />
<br />
=== Existing Proposals to be Discussed ===<br />
* GNI<br />
* GOFA<br />
* Q6/17<br />
<br />
=== Potential Guests ===<br />
<br />
# Caroline Nolan, Colin Maclay, or John Palfrey from Berkman/GNI<br />
# Andrew McLaughlin from Google<br />
<br />
Brainstorming:<br />
<br />
# Rebecca MacKinnon (former CNN journalist, former Berkman Fellow, and now Assistant Professor at the University of Hong Kong's Journalism and Media Center; see fourth and fifth links below)<br />
# Rep. Rick Boucher<br />
# Chris Smith, Congressman and GOFA co-sponsor<br />
# Mary Robertson, former President of Ireland<br />
# Mark Allison, or another Amnesty International researcher on East Asian issues<br />
# Nicola Wong (Google), Michael Samway (Yahoo) (see second link below), or other representatives of Google, Microsoft, or Yahoo who have dealt with China, S. Korea, Saudi Arabia, or other regimes in this context<br />
# Edward J. Markey, House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet<br />
# Marc Rotenberg, Executive Director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center<br />
# Chris Kelly, Facebook Chief Privacy Officer (candidate for AG of California in 2010)<br />
# Peter O’Kelly, Skype President [http://share.skype.com/sites/en/2008/10/answers_to_some_commonly_asked.html]<br />
# Representatives of Google, Microsoft, or Yahoo who have helped design GNI<br />
# Perhaps a representative of the government of South Korea (see seventh link below) or, ideally, China (hey, we can dream)<br />
# Perhaps also a continental civil law (French, German?) free speech scholar to talk about contrasting international ideas of free speech?<br />
<br />
=== Course structure ===<br />
<br />
Class:<br />
# First 10-15 minutes: Exposition- background information, state problem, and introduce types of potential solutions: Law (GOFA), Market, Norms (GNI), Code<br />
# Next 45 minutes: Q&A with guests, in a panel, on what the terrain looks like now, and what's left to do. (Possibly Using Live Question Tool w/ Projector)<br />
# Remainder: Classwide simulation, with students in groups, defending assigned roles as various stakeholder groups.<br />
<br />
=== Simulation ===<br />
<br />
The class will be divided into simulation groups ahead of time (e.g., US Congressional Representatives, Bloggers, Human Rights Groups). Each group will be assigned a role in the simulation, and we will give each group a set of readings specific to their role in the simulation. <br />
<br />
A relevant privacy/anonymity problem (that has just recently been introduced on the global stage) will be introduced in the second half of the class. Drawing upon assigned readings and the lessons and principles introduced in the first half of the class, each simulation group will devise and advocate a broad approach to for confronting this problem. Each group's approach should be based on its assigned role in the simulation.<br />
<br />
=== Readings ===<br />
<br />
(Some of these and additional readings will be broken down by simulation group)<br />
<br />
==== Audio: ====<br />
<br />
* http://rconversation.blogs.com/rconversation/2008/07/on-the-media-in.html (Episode of On The Media w/ Rebecca MacKinnon)<br />
<br />
==== Video ====<br />
<br />
* http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMorzIBHmrA (Conversation about GNI on CSPAN w/ Michael Samway and Julien Sanchez)<br />
<br />
==== Text ====<br />
<br />
===== “Just the Facts” Reporting =====<br />
<br />
* http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7696356.stm<br />
<br />
* http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/28/technology/internet/28privacy.html?_r=1&oref=slogin<br />
<br />
==== Critiques ====<br />
<br />
* http://writ.news.findlaw.com/ramasastry/20081212.html (Anita Ramasastry, Associate Professor at University of Washington School of Law)<br />
<br />
* http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=29117 (Reporters without Borders, an NGO that was part of the talks but didn’t sign onto the GNI at the end)<br />
<br />
* http://www.eff.org/files/filenode/gni/signon_letter.txt (Electronic Frontier Foundation, an NGO that was part of the talks and did sign onto the GNI at the end)<br />
<br />
* http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060313/mackinnon (Rebecca MacKinnon, writing in The Nation before the GNI existed, discusses four companies' culpability and diagnoses a major flaw with GOFA)<br />
<br />
=== Links ===<br />
http://blogs.wsj.com/chinajournal/2008/10/28/parsing-the-google-yahoo-microsoft-global-network-initiative/<br />
<br />
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/30/magazine/30google-t.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink&adxnnlx=1229749063-T7qNc5xv9ZLDiLcjc8AZxQ&pagewanted=print<br />
<br />
http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/04/republican-hous.html<br />
<br />
http://rconversation.blogs.com/rconversation/2007/01/google_yahoo_mi.html<br />
<br />
http://www.circleid.com/posts/print/20081028_global_network_initiative/<br />
<br />
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/oct/30/amnesty-global-network-initiative<br />
<br />
http://www.economist.com/world/asia/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12783609<br />
<br />
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-a-santoro-and-wendy-goldberg/chinese-internet-censorsh_b_156212.html<br />
<br />
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10040152-38.html (Declan McCullagh of CNet News on Q6/17, including links to several leaked ITU documents)<br />
<br />
== <strike>Brainstorming (On earlier topic: OpenID)</strike>==<br />
<br />
All that OpenID stuff has moved to [[legacy support]]. And thank goodness for that. [[User:Danray|Dan Ray]] 01:19, 4 February 2009 (UTC)</div>Jgruensphttps://cyber.harvard.edu/iif/?title=Prediction_Markets&diff=2164Prediction Markets2009-03-24T00:33:59Z<p>Jgruensp: </p>
<hr />
<div>'''Topic Owners:''' '''[[User:Mwansley|Matthew]]''', '''[[User:EST|Elisabeth]]'''<br />
<br />
back to [[syllabus]]<br />
<br />
'''Precis'''<br />
<br />
The most high-profile examples of prediction marketsthe Iowa Electronic Markets and Intradestarted by focusing primarily on predicting election outcomes and related political and financial events. Now they have expanded to cultural (Oscars) and technological (X Prize) events as well. The status of the commercial prediction markets is uncertain; for example, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TradeSports Tradesports] announced recently that it [http://www.tradesports.com/ is closing]. And questions remain about the [http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Delivery.cfm/SSRN_ID1134563_code183716.pdf?abstractid=1134563&mirid=1 legal status] of prediction markets, whether the CTFC will [http://www.cftc.gov/lawandregulation/federalregister/proposedrules/2008/e8-9981.html regulate] them, and whether they will be [http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_6716/is_4_27/ai_n29450615/pg_1?tag=artBody;col1 taxed]. <br />
<br />
Rather than focusing on the traditional markets, however, we want to focus on future applications of prediction markets, particularly their possible use by government or by government-industry collaboration. We'd like to explore in particular applications that are likely to be controversial. <br />
<br />
The focus will be three cases that we think raise interesting legal and ethical questions. <br />
<br />
* Crime rate predictions, a la [http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1118931 this proposal]<br />
<br />
* Google's flu-tracking application (where, as Professor Zittrain noted, the predictors aren't even aware that their knowledge is being harvested)<br />
<br />
* the failed DARPA [http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/07/29/terror.market/index.html terrorist futures] market<br />
<br />
'''Guests'''<br />
<br />
Justin Wolfers, Economist (confirmed)<br />
<br />
Hal Varian, Google (possibly, on videoconference)<br />
<br />
'''Concrete Questions'''<br />
<br />
* Which of these applications are most likely and desirable? <br />
<br />
* Should the government be involved in administering prediction markets at all? Should it regulate them? <br />
<br />
* What ethical concerns do we have about prediction markets of the future, and how might we address them? Can design of the markets help mitigate concerns? Are some more fundamental? <br />
<br />
'''Tech Tweak/Experiment'''<br />
<br />
Everyone will create their own prediction market contract via intrade.net. Once you set up an account there, you can then create you own contract at http://www.intrade.net/market/create/start.faces. Your contract can be about anything you like (doesn't have to be legal), but it should conclude before our class date, April 27, 2009. The idea is (1) for everyone to get a feel for how prediction markets operate; (2) to see what kinds of contracts get enough volume to be successful and what kinds don't; (3) to see how accurate the predictions are, how they change over time, etc. <br />
<br />
Once you've signed up and created a contract -- please do so by Friday, March 20 -- you can invite other people in the class to bet on your contract to give it some initial starting volume. (Intrade.net gives everyone $10k in play money upon signing up, so obviously if people want to bet on the wider world's contracts, that's great too). Everyone should list the contracts they've created below to facilitate class participation on intrade (and so that we can generate a variety of different kinds of contracts). At the actual class session on April 27, everyone should come in prepared to briefly discuss what happened with their contract (feel free to create more than one). <br />
<br />
'''Readings'''<br />
<br />
* Background<br />
** A [http://bpp.wharton.upenn.edu/jwolfers/Papers/Predictionmarkets.pdf brief general overview] of prediction markets, Justin Wolfers & Eric Zitzewitz, <i>Prediction Markets</i>, 18 Journal of Economic Perspectives 107 (2004). <br />
** Chapter 10 of Michael Abramowicz's book [http://www.amazon.com/Predictocracy-Market-Mechanisms-Private-Decision/dp/0300115997 Predictocracy]<br />
<br />
* Google Flu Tracking Program<br />
** The New York Times's [http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/12/technology/internet/12flu.html writeup]<br />
<br />
* Crime <br />
**Professors Wolfers, Henderson, Zitzewitz's paper proposing the application of prediction markets to [http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1118931 crime] <br />
<br />
* DARPA<br />
**Senator Daschle's criticisms of the DARPA terrorism futures markets, http://www.fas.org/sgp/congress/2003/s072903.html, and Senator Dorgan's, http://ftp.fas.org/sgp/congress/2003/s072803.html<br />
**A brief paper describing the failed DARPA terrorism futures market, by a Professor at the Naval Postgraduate School. [http://www.ccc.nps.navy.mil/si/sept03/terrorism.pdf Robert Looney, <i>DARPA’s Policy Analysis Market for Intelligence: Outside the Box or Off the Wall?</i>, STRATEGIC INSIGHTS (2003).] <br />
**A few newspaper [http://www.mongabay.com/external/pentagon_terror_futures.htm articles] describing the uproar over the DARPA program and its quick cancellation<br />
<br />
'''Optional Readings'''<br />
<br />
* Professor Sunstein's Infotopia <br />
<br />
* Robin Hanson's [http://hanson.gmu.edu/futarchy.pdf Futarchy] proposal <br />
<br />
* Cass R. Sunstein, Group Judgments: Statistical Means, Deliberation, and Information Markets, 80 N.Y.U. L. Rev. 962 (2005) <br />
<br />
* Paper on the application of prediction markets to [http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=928896 corporate governance]<br />
<br />
'''Class-Constructed Markets'''<br />
<br />
* Matthew: [http://www.intrade.net/market/detail/?contractId=337549#Democrat_to_Be_Elected_Virginia_Attorney_General_in_2009 2009 Virginia Attorney General Race]<br />
<br />
* Elisabeth: [http://www.intrade.net/market/detail/?contractId=338219#US_to_Lift_Sanctions_Against_Cuba_by_end_of_2009 US To Lift Sanctions Against Cuba by end of 2009]<br />
<br />
* CKennedy: [http://www.intrade.net/market/detail/?contractId=337550#China%3A_Charter_08_more_than_1_million_signers_by_12.31.09 A Million Chinese Charterists]<br />
<br />
* [[User:Dulles|Dulles]]: [http://www.intrade.net/market/listing/showEvent.faces?e=31362 Congress or FCC strengthens network neutrality principles by the end of 2010].<br />
<br />
* [[User:Danray|Dan]]: [http://www.intrade.net/market/detail/?contractId=337892 U.S. Supreme Court strikes down all or part of § 5 of the VRA this Term]<br />
Andrew: Will General Motors file for Chapter 11 by April 20, 2009? http://www.intrade.net/market/detail/?contractId=338028#GM_Files_for_Chapter_11_by_4/20/09%3F<br />
<br />
* [[User:DebbieRosenbaum|Debbie]]: [http://www.intrade.net/market/detail/?contractId=338029 Nesson Takes Down the RIAA]<br />
<br />
* [[User:MSanchez|Msanchez]]: [http://www.intrade.net/market/detail/?contractId=338056 U.S. Recording Industry Cease Filing File-sharing Lawsuits]<br />
<br />
* [[User:lbaker|Lee]]: [http://intrade.net/market/detail/?contractId=338191 In vitro meat for sale in US before 2020]<br />
<br />
*[[User:ayelet|Ayelet]]: [http://www.intrade.net/market/detail/?contractId=338214&userId=63546#U2_performs_in_Boston_by_the_end_of_2009 U2 performs in Boston by the end of 2009]<br />
<br />
* Shubham: [http://intrade.net/market/detail/?contractId=338216#New_HLS_Dean_to_be_named_by_June_15%2C_2009 New HLS Dean to be named by June 15, 2009]<br />
<br />
*[[User:Jgruensp|JG]]: [http://www.intrade.net/market/detail/?contractId=338506#Autopilot_becomes_standard_by_12/31/2020 A major world airline switches the default pilot for its flights over to computer (i.e. perhaps human copilot, but no human pilot) by 2020]</div>Jgruensphttps://cyber.harvard.edu/iif/?title=All_Together_Now_For_Great_Justice_Dot_Org&diff=1928All Together Now For Great Justice Dot Org2009-03-02T20:49:29Z<p>Jgruensp: </p>
<hr />
<div>'''Topic Owners:''' '''[[User:Hoellra|Rainer]]''' + [[User:Elanaberkowitz|'''Elana''']] + '''[[User:Mchua|Mel]]''' - it's worth noting that we have a KSG student, an MBA student, and an engineer in our group, and no lawyers or law students, so expect this session to come from a slightly different perspective.<br />
<br />
back to [[syllabus]]<br />
<br />
{{TOCright}}<br />
<br />
== Before class ==<br />
<br />
To prepare before class, please do the following.<br />
<br />
# Read the [[#Precis]], which will introduce you to the main topics of the session.<br />
# Read and consider the [[#Core questions]] we will be discussing during the session.<br />
# Read and complete the [[#Workshop prep]] exercise. This should take you no more than 20 minutes.<br />
# Read the [[#Mandatory]] readings; there are 4 total; 2 are short, and 1 can be skimmed.<br />
<br />
== Precis ==<br />
<br />
Activism is "intentional action to bring about social or political change" ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Activism]). In this sense, activist have used the web for mobilizing people for all kinds of social causes, ranging from the tremendous success of the Obama campaign's online efforts to post-election citizen journalism and [http://www.netsquared.org/2008/conference/projects/ushahidi crisis mapping mash-ups] in Kenya to your basic online petition or full-scale and often illegal [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacktivism hacktivist] activities. New tools are emerging for coordinating concrete action and volunteering ([http://www.pledgebank.org Pledgebank], [http://www.thepoint.org The Point], [http://www.zoosa.org Zoosa]) as well as fundraising and matching donors and social entrepreneurs ([http://apps.facebook.com/causes/about Facebook Causes], [http://www.donorschoose.org DonorsChoose], [http://www.socialvibe.com Socialvibe]), and other tools not explicitly designed for social action in particular ([http://www.twitter.com Twitter], collaborative document editing, IMs and text messages) are being pressed into service by tech-savvy grassroots organizers, sometimes to great effect.<br />
<br />
While online tools are being used by activists whose causes and organizations may have had long histories pre-internet, we also must consider internet activism in terms of new fields of action taken around issues of new issues of concern that the internet has given rise to -- see, for instance, Grey Tuesday, a day of coordinated electronic civil disobedience to distribute DJ Dangermouse's mashup, "Grey Album," or Berkman's own OpenNet Initiative which monitors and reports on internet filtering and surveillance practices by governments around the world. <br />
<br />
Sandor Vegh, in his chapter of ''Cyberactivism'' edited by Martha McCaughey and Michael D. Ayershas [http://books.google.com/books?id=KHCjMkNRAkYC&pg=PA71&lpg=PA71&dq=Classifying+Forms+of+Online+Activism:+The+Case+of+Cyberprotests+Against+the+World+Bank&source=bl&ots=NtXY2ND1Ma&sig=XnCYz7850aSl2nJZNmQ4NTIeRak&hl=en&ei=1C-eSdmNLZaitgff2bWGDQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=1&ct=result suggests three categories] of "Cyberacticism":<br />
<br />
{| border="1" cellpadding="2"<br />
|-valign="top"<br />
! Category || Uses || Examples || Tools<br />
|- <br />
| awareness/advocacy || Blogging, petitions || [http://www.peta.org PETA], [http://w2.eff.org/br/ Blue Ribbon Campaign] || Websites, mass mailings, podcasts, RSS<br />
|-<br />
| organization/mobilization || Campaigning, fundraising, volunteering, community building || [http://www.moveon.org Moveon], [http://www.pledgebank.org Pledgebank], [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/custom/2005/08/05/CU2005080501141.html?whichDay=1 Al Qaeda], Myanmar uprising || Websites, mass mailings, mobile applications, online/offline hybrids<br />
|-<br />
| direct online action/reaction || Electronic civil disobedience, hacktivism || [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyberattacks_during_the_2008_South_Ossetia_war Cyberattacks during the 2008 South Ossetia war] || DDoS, website vandalizing, trojans, mass mailings<br />
|}<br />
<br />
While these categories may offer a useful initial framework, many activists leverage all of these categories of activism in their work.<br />
<br />
== Core questions ==<br />
<br />
Needless to say, there are any of a number of ways to tackle a topic of this breadth but here are just a few structural and tactical questions to consider while doing the readings for class: <br />
<br />
1. An issue of tactics: What are the success factors of online activism tools? (And how much of the success of any given campaign can be attributed to the internet tools used as opposed to a superior ground operation or a more compelling issue/candidate?) Is there a generalizable model here? What are the parallels and differences with the way for-profit firms have tried to harness these tools? Further, as Ethan Zuckerman notes, "any sufficiently advanced read/write technology will get used for two purposes: pornography and activism. Porn is a weak test for the success of participatory media - it’s like tapping a mike and asking, “Is it on?” If you’re not getting porn in your system, it doesn’t work. Activism is a stronger test - if activists are using your tools, it’s a pretty good indication that your tools are useful and usable." What online technologies have yet to be fully exploited by activists and why? <br />
<br />
<br />
2. How do we define and measure success of online activism? Do online tools for activists allow for one to feel simply satisfied with a lazier, shallow degree of involvement (the median earned by many Facebook causes prominently displayed on so many users' pages is under $50) or does it create new ladders of engagement? What is the meaning of your number of viewers, of addresses on your mailing list, or of Facebook friends for your cause? What is the fundamental difference between a computer mediated act of civil disobedience versus one offline? <br />
<br />
<br />
3. Compared to traditional modes of activist engagement, digital tools change both the meaning and tactics of democratic participation. Still, we have to examine, who is in now and who is out now? Who has access and who still may not have it? How do old digital divides play out or new ones emerge? To what extent do these tools allow us to subvert hierarchies of power or to what extent do they create new hierarchies and gatekeepers? (i.e. Who participated by submitting questions to the YouTube Presidential debates in 2008? Given certain barriers to access, what voices or issues might not have been heard?) <br />
<br />
<br />
4. Online activism often creates decentralized organizations, which act and react very differently than the centralized organizations most of us are used to, so both leveraging and counteracting distributed activist communities can be counterintuitive. What things can decentralized online movements do more easily than centralized (online or offline) ones, and what strategies might activists and/or their opponents do to take advantage of these tendencies to either promote or counteract a cause?<br />
<br />
== Contributors ==<br />
<br />
* [http://ethanzuckerman.com/ Ethan Zuckerman], Berkman Center Fellow, Co-Founder of [http://www.globalvoicesonline.org GlobalVoicesOnline.org], providing both practical and theoretical expertise with focus on applications in the developing world.<br />
* [http://www.nicco.org Nicco Mele], IOP Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School, founder of [http://www.echoditto.com/ EchoDitto], former Internet Operations Director of Gov. Dean's presidential primary campaign in 2003<br />
<br />
== Session design ==<br />
<br />
=== Workshop prep ===<br />
<br />
''To be done before class.''<br />
<br />
During class, we will be splitting into 6 randomly assigned teams for a rocket pitch workshop session. Teams will be competing to create and pitch ideas for internet-based projects for various hypothetical clients, played (and judged) by the session team (Mel, Rainer, and Elana), the course professors, and our guests.<br />
<br />
'''Assignment:''' Examine online tools (software programs and platforms) that have been or could be used for online activism. Come to class with a list of 5 tools or interesting causes/campaigns that you examined - at least one of them should be something new you've added to the list at [[#Tools]]. Each entry on the list should contain the following parts:<br />
<br />
* Name of tool - http://link-to-the-tool-if-possible.com - 1-2 sentence description of what types of projects/demographics/causes this tool would be particularly suited to AND/OR a link to an example of this tool being used for a specific activism project.<br />
<br />
'''Requirements:''' The [[#Tools]] section below has some ideas for starters, but you must add at least one new item to the list as part of your 5 items. Tools must be internet-based in some way, but do not necessarily need to be limited to personal computers; cellphone/SMS apps, location-based tags and artifacts that somehow link or point to online spaces, etc. are also valid. Custom-developed applications that were developed and deployed for a specific project are ok, even if they cannot be reused for future projects - they're great examples.<br />
<br />
Non-mandatory but probably helpful: you can read about the [[#Workshop]] format for the exact times and materials you'll have available, as well as the [[#Judging]] criteria.<br />
<br />
=== Activity intro (10 minutes) ===<br />
<br />
We will first explain the ground rules of the rocket pitch workshop which will be held later in the session and introduce the 3 scenarios involved.<br />
<br />
=== Guests present case studies (30 minutes) ===<br />
<br />
Next, our guests will give short case study examples of projects they've worked on and tactics they've used. During this part of the session, students are encouraged to write down (on pieces of paper) questions they'd like to bring up, and to save those papers for the discussion after the workshop.<br />
<br />
=== Workshop ===<br />
<br />
''(50 minutes)''<br />
<br />
You will be divided into 6 teams. Teams will roleplay the parts of teams assigned to create internet-based projects for various activism scenarios. Teams will compete to create the best 1-minute rocket pitch of their project idea. The 1-minute timing will be strict; we'll cut you off at 60 seconds.<br />
<br />
* You get 30 seconds to set up and 1 minute to present.<br />
* Each group gets 3 big sheets of paper ("slides") and a marker for each round. You do not have to use the paper. However, projector setup will count against your time...<br />
* Groups can use any resources (including computers) and work anywhere they want.<br />
* Your presentation can be and use any things or people you want.<br />
<br />
* 20 minutes: First scenario prep<br />
* 10 minutes: First scenario presentations and [[#Judging]]<br />
* 10 minutes: Second scenario prep<br />
* 10 minutes: Second scenario presentations and [[#Judging]]<br />
<br />
=== Judging ===<br />
<br />
''Judging is interspersed with the [[#Workshop]].''<br />
<br />
Presentations will be judged on the following criteria, evenly weighted.<br />
<br />
''Criteria are still subject to change, and final judging criteria will be announced at the beginning of the session, but this is the current draft.''<br />
<br />
* '''Tactics:''' Is your strategy well-articulated? Can we envison how you will carry out your game plan, and do we believe it's probable that you will reach your goals with the resources and timeframe you've been allotted?<br />
* '''Measurement:''' What is your goal? Have you defined what it would mean for your project to be successful, and how you will measure and determine your success?<br />
* '''Analysis of competition:''' Did you articulate why your approach is better than others that might exist?<br />
* '''Utilization of the Internet:''' Are you taking full advantage of the online medium? (Why would your project be more difficult/impossible offline?)<br />
* '''Leveraging your audience:''' Did you articulate who you are trying to engage, and in what manner? Will your community be (or be working against one that is) centralized, decentralized, or hybrid - and why? If you are trying to build a community, how will you most effectively leverage the type of community you have chosen to build? If you are not trying to build a community, why not?<br />
* '''Creativity:''' Are you using tools or processes in an unique way that nobody has tried before? Are you advocating a cause or reaching an audience not commonly addressed through this medium? Are you in some way doing something crazy and new?<br />
<br />
Note that we are ''not'' judging you on how well you pitch the ''cause,'' only the project. The judges are assuming the roles of supporters of the cause who want to fund your project, so you can safely assume that the judges (1) know all about your cause and (2) are already completely convinced that it is the best thing in the world.<br />
<br />
=== Discussion (30 minutes)===<br />
<br />
Students are now encouraged to bring out the questions they had earlier; we'll use these as the basis for a followup discussion.<br />
<br />
== Readings ==<br />
<br />
=== Mandatory ===<br />
<br />
* [http://www.articlearchives.com/law-legal-system/constitutional-law-freedom-press/1832458-1.html''Technologies of Protest: Insurgent Social Movements and the First Amendment in the Era of the Internet,''] by the law professor Seth Kreimer.<br />
* [http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/2008/03/08/the-cute-cat-theory-talk-at-etech/ Ethan Zuckerman's Cute Cat Theory of Digital Activism] (This is available in .mp3 format for free in podcast section of the iTunes store --CKennedy)<br />
* [http://publius.cc/2008/12/09/from-the-bottom-up-using-the-internet-to-mobilize-campaign-participation From the Bottom-Up: Using the Internet to Mobilize Campaign Participation] by Dana Fisher, a short article that compares the strategies of Obama and McCain's online campaigns. (skim)<br />
* Summaries and selections from ''The Starfish and the Spider'' by Ori Brafman and Rod A. Beckstrom, focused on pages 133-158 on "taking on decentralization," which argues that conventional attack tactics fail against decentralized activism, and presents several strategies that can be used instead. Read the [http://magazine.redhat.com/2007/02/05/book-review-the-starfish-and-the-spider/ Red Hat Magazine review] by Jeff Mackanic and Greg DeKoenigsberg, which summarizes the main points, then see the [[Crib notes]] from p. 133-158 on attacking decentralization. (The entire book is worth reading as a framework for understanding decentralized movements.)<br />
* [http://www.shirky.com/writings/powerlaw_weblog.html "Power Laws, Web Logs and Inequality"] by Clay Shirky<br />
<br />
=== Optional ===<br />
<br />
* ''A Review of Cyberactivism: Online Activism in Theory and Practice,'' edited by Martha McCaughey and Michael D. Ayers. (This book is difficult to get hold of, but good supplementary reading if you're interested and can procure a copy.)<br />
* [http://rebooting.personaldemocracy.com/ Rebooting America: Ideas for Redesigning American Democracy for the Internet Age]<br />
* http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/2008/12/10/open-for-questions-participation-from-campaigning-to-governing/<br />
* [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/zack-exley/the-new-organizers-part-1_b_132782.html The New Organizers: What's Really Behind Obama's Ground Game] from HuffPo.com<br />
* [http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/25/magazine/25bloggers-t.html?fta=y "Revolution Facebook Style: Can social networking turn young Egyptians into a force for Democratic Change?"] from the New York Times<br />
*[http://www.economist.com/world/international/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12815678 "Rioters of the World Unite: They have nothing to lose but their web cameras"] from the Economist. See Patrick Meier's critique of the piece [http://irevolution.wordpress.com/2008/12/19/snap-mobs-of-the-world-unite-a-better-taxonomy/ here.]<br />
* [http://mobileactive.org/wireless-technology-social-change-11-case-studies "Wireless Technology for Social Change: Trends in NGO Mobile Use"]<br />
<br />
== Tools and Examples ==<br />
<br />
* [http://www.freeople.com/ Freeople]<br />
* [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anonymous_(group) Anonymous]<br />
* [http://www.digiactive.org/wp-content/uploads/digiactive_facebook_activism.pdf DigiActive Introduction to Facebook Activism]<br />
* [http://apps.facebook.com/causes/about Facebook Causes]<br />
* [http://www.netsquared.org/2008/conference/projects/ushahidi Crisis mapping mash-ups in Kenya]<br />
* [http://www.pledgebank.org Pledgebank]<br />
* [http://www.zoosa.org Zoosa]<br />
* [http://globalvoicesonline.org/ Global Voices]<br />
* [http://www.donorschoose.org DonorsChoose]<br />
* [http://www.socialvibe.com Socialvibe]<br />
* [http://citizenbase.org/approach Citizenbase]<br />
* [http://www.frontlinesms.com/ Frontline SMS]<br />
* [http://discoverscholars.org/ DiscoverScholars]<br />
* [http://www.socialvibe.com/ SocialVibe]<br />
* [http://www.techsoup.org/index.cfm TechSoup]<br />
* [http://mobileactive.org/ MobileActive]<br />
* [http://theuptake.org/ TheUpTake], a citizen journalism site whose efforts are summarized [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_UpTake here]. An example of their success in promoting political awareness is the coleman / franken recount and trials. [http://uptake-editorial.groups.theuptake.org/en/videogalleryView/id/1694/ link]. (This is where we are supposed to put our one new entry before class right?)<br />
* [http://freeconnie.com/ Free Connie]. A friend of mine from college, now at USC law, is defending a woman who suffered from BWS and has served her time in jail. With the help of another one of our friends, he put together this site for public activism on her case.<br />
* [http://ipetitions.com/ iPetitions]<br />
* [http://capitoladvantage.com/ Capitol Advantage] Leading provider of Internet tools for congressional communication and civic participation.<br />
* [http://www2.democracyinaction.org/ DemocracyInAction] is a non-profit that provides a suite of tools for progressive organizations, including fundraising, communications, and contact management.<br />
* [http://carrotmob.org/about/ Carrotmob]is the opposite of a boycott. Businesses compete with one another to see who can do the most good (locally sourced produce, green energy etc) and carrotmob organises a huge group of people to descend on the business and buy products "in order to reward whichever business made the strongest commitment to improve the world".<br />
* [http://www.spot.us/ Spot.us] - community-funded journalism site, where freelance reporters publish proposals for local-interest stories that they want to write, and users contribute money to the proposals that interest them until there's enough for the story to be written.<br />
* [http://creativefreedom.org.nz/blackout.html] - The New Zealand Internet Blackout<br />
** ...based (I suspect) on the [http://www.cnn.com/TECH/9602/cyber_censors/index.html American blackout] to protest the Communications Decency Act back in '96.<br />
* All the "For every ''x'' people who join, I'll donate $''y'' to ''z''" groups on Facebook<br />
* [http://stealth.strangecompany.org/ "Stealth,"] a piece of machinima created with the WoW engine - this was created to help visualize a fairly abstract proposal to screw up copyright law in Britain, and at the same time mobilize a demographic that's (at least stereotypically) apathetic about politics.<br />
* [http://www.rflofsl.org/ Relay for Life of Second Life] - 'nuff said<br />
* [http://www.thepetitionsite.com/ Care2 petitionsite] - create a petition, have people sign it, then send it off (what else would you do with a petition, after all?)<br />
* [http://www.theextraordinaries.org/ The Extraordinaries] - An attempt to create a mobile platform for crowd-sourced volunteerism.<br />
* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AgHHX9R4Qtk The Great Schlep] - video attempt to mobilize Northeastern hipsters to convince their grandparents to vote for Obama<br />
* [http://speakout.com/takeaction/ SpeakOut.com Action Tools] - Allows users to create petitions, search for and sign petitions, complete surveys, and debate issues. Also provides tools to help users make informed decisions on political issues.<br />
* [http://myfairelection.com MyFairElection.com] - site where voters can report problems at their polls in real time, mapped by district, so that you can tell where problems are occurring during an election even if there isn't some horrible disaster that gets lots of national news attention<br />
* [http://www.twitter.com Twitter] Microblogging site that some are using for social activism. [http://jaxinteractive.com/2008/05/19/twitter-charity-activism-and-the-social-web/]<br />
* [http://www.giyus.org/ Megaphone Desktop Tool] - Developed by Give Israel Your United Support and discussed in [http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article693911.ece this London Times article]. It delivers real-time alerts and enables automated voting to help users show their support for pro-Israel articles, videos, blogs, etc.<br />
* [http://www.change.org Change.org] A social action network where you can: 1. learn about causes, 2. connect to good people & nonprofits, and 3. take action.<br />
* [http://www.worldvolunteerweb.org World Volunteer Web] Supports the volunteer community by serving as a global clearinghouse for information and resources linked to volunteerism that can be used for campaigning, advocacy, and networking.<br />
* http://www.digiactive.org/2008/03/10/tactic-digital-activism-without-the-internet-in-cuba/ (Using flash drives to distribute information in a controlled manner) -CKennedy<br />
* [http://www.smartmobs.com/ Smart Mobs], less a tool than a strategy for protest and just-in-time organization which is enabled by the proliferation of digital devices. Used successfully as a means of political protest in [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smart_mob certain foreign countries]. Occasionally confused with flash mobs, but not identical.<br />
* Again, more strategy than tool: activists use specialized blogs (like [http://www.marijuana.com/legalization-decriminalization/112609-third-chance-citizens-briefing-book.html this one on marijuana legalization]) to redirect their user base toward participatory governance websites such as the [http://citizensbriefingbook.change.gov/ Citizen's Briefing Book]. In turn, their issues gain additional salience with policymakers.</div>Jgruensphttps://cyber.harvard.edu/iif/?title=All_Together_Now_For_Great_Justice_Dot_Org&diff=1927All Together Now For Great Justice Dot Org2009-03-02T20:33:36Z<p>Jgruensp: </p>
<hr />
<div>'''Topic Owners:''' '''[[User:Hoellra|Rainer]]''' + [[User:Elanaberkowitz|'''Elana''']] + '''[[User:Mchua|Mel]]''' - it's worth noting that we have a KSG student, an MBA student, and an engineer in our group, and no lawyers or law students, so expect this session to come from a slightly different perspective.<br />
<br />
back to [[syllabus]]<br />
<br />
{{TOCright}}<br />
<br />
== Before class ==<br />
<br />
To prepare before class, please do the following.<br />
<br />
# Read the [[#Precis]], which will introduce you to the main topics of the session.<br />
# Read and consider the [[#Core questions]] we will be discussing during the session.<br />
# Read and complete the [[#Workshop prep]] exercise. This should take you no more than 20 minutes.<br />
# Read the [[#Mandatory]] readings; there are 4 total; 2 are short, and 1 can be skimmed.<br />
<br />
== Precis ==<br />
<br />
Activism is "intentional action to bring about social or political change" ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Activism]). In this sense, activist have used the web for mobilizing people for all kinds of social causes, ranging from the tremendous success of the Obama campaign's online efforts to post-election citizen journalism and [http://www.netsquared.org/2008/conference/projects/ushahidi crisis mapping mash-ups] in Kenya to your basic online petition or full-scale and often illegal [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacktivism hacktivist] activities. New tools are emerging for coordinating concrete action and volunteering ([http://www.pledgebank.org Pledgebank], [http://www.thepoint.org The Point], [http://www.zoosa.org Zoosa]) as well as fundraising and matching donors and social entrepreneurs ([http://apps.facebook.com/causes/about Facebook Causes], [http://www.donorschoose.org DonorsChoose], [http://www.socialvibe.com Socialvibe]), and other tools not explicitly designed for social action in particular ([http://www.twitter.com Twitter], collaborative document editing, IMs and text messages) are being pressed into service by tech-savvy grassroots organizers, sometimes to great effect.<br />
<br />
While online tools are being used by activists whose causes and organizations may have had long histories pre-internet, we also must consider internet activism in terms of new fields of action taken around issues of new issues of concern that the internet has given rise to -- see, for instance, Grey Tuesday, a day of coordinated electronic civil disobedience to distribute DJ Dangermouse's mashup, "Grey Album," or Berkman's own OpenNet Initiative which monitors and reports on internet filtering and surveillance practices by governments around the world. <br />
<br />
Sandor Vegh, in his chapter of ''Cyberactivism'' edited by Martha McCaughey and Michael D. Ayershas [http://books.google.com/books?id=KHCjMkNRAkYC&pg=PA71&lpg=PA71&dq=Classifying+Forms+of+Online+Activism:+The+Case+of+Cyberprotests+Against+the+World+Bank&source=bl&ots=NtXY2ND1Ma&sig=XnCYz7850aSl2nJZNmQ4NTIeRak&hl=en&ei=1C-eSdmNLZaitgff2bWGDQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=1&ct=result suggests three categories] of "Cyberacticism":<br />
<br />
{| border="1" cellpadding="2"<br />
|-valign="top"<br />
! Category || Uses || Examples || Tools<br />
|- <br />
| awareness/advocacy || Blogging, petitions || [http://www.peta.org PETA], [http://w2.eff.org/br/ Blue Ribbon Campaign] || Websites, mass mailings, podcasts, RSS<br />
|-<br />
| organization/mobilization || Campaigning, fundraising, volunteering, community building || [http://www.moveon.org Moveon], [http://www.pledgebank.org Pledgebank], [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/custom/2005/08/05/CU2005080501141.html?whichDay=1 Al Qaeda], Myanmar uprising || Websites, mass mailings, mobile applications, online/offline hybrids<br />
|-<br />
| direct online action/reaction || Electronic civil disobedience, hacktivism || [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyberattacks_during_the_2008_South_Ossetia_war Cyberattacks during the 2008 South Ossetia war] || DDoS, website vandalizing, trojans, mass mailings<br />
|}<br />
<br />
While these categories may offer a useful initial framework, many activists leverage all of these categories of activism in their work.<br />
<br />
== Core questions ==<br />
<br />
Needless to say, there are any of a number of ways to tackle a topic of this breadth but here are just a few structural and tactical questions to consider while doing the readings for class: <br />
<br />
1. An issue of tactics: What are the success factors of online activism tools? (And how much of the success of any given campaign can be attributed to the internet tools used as opposed to a superior ground operation or a more compelling issue/candidate?) Is there a generalizable model here? What are the parallels and differences with the way for-profit firms have tried to harness these tools? Further, as Ethan Zuckerman notes, "any sufficiently advanced read/write technology will get used for two purposes: pornography and activism. Porn is a weak test for the success of participatory media - it’s like tapping a mike and asking, “Is it on?” If you’re not getting porn in your system, it doesn’t work. Activism is a stronger test - if activists are using your tools, it’s a pretty good indication that your tools are useful and usable." What online technologies have yet to be fully exploited by activists and why? <br />
<br />
<br />
2. How do we define and measure success of online activism? Do online tools for activists allow for one to feel simply satisfied with a lazier, shallow degree of involvement (the median earned by many Facebook causes prominently displayed on so many users' pages is under $50) or does it create new ladders of engagement? What is the meaning of your number of viewers, of addresses on your mailing list, or of Facebook friends for your cause? What is the fundamental difference between a computer mediated act of civil disobedience versus one offline? <br />
<br />
<br />
3. Compared to traditional modes of activist engagement, digital tools change both the meaning and tactics of democratic participation. Still, we have to examine, who is in now and who is out now? Who has access and who still may not have it? How do old digital divides play out or new ones emerge? To what extent do these tools allow us to subvert hierarchies of power or to what extent do they create new hierarchies and gatekeepers? (i.e. Who participated by submitting questions to the YouTube Presidential debates in 2008? Given certain barriers to access, what voices or issues might not have been heard?) <br />
<br />
<br />
4. Online activism often creates decentralized organizations, which act and react very differently than the centralized organizations most of us are used to, so both leveraging and counteracting distributed activist communities can be counterintuitive. What things can decentralized online movements do more easily than centralized (online or offline) ones, and what strategies might activists and/or their opponents do to take advantage of these tendencies to either promote or counteract a cause?<br />
<br />
== Contributors ==<br />
<br />
* [http://ethanzuckerman.com/ Ethan Zuckerman], Berkman Center Fellow, Co-Founder of [http://www.globalvoicesonline.org GlobalVoicesOnline.org], providing both practical and theoretical expertise with focus on applications in the developing world.<br />
* [http://www.nicco.org Nicco Mele], IOP Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School, founder of [http://www.echoditto.com/ EchoDitto], former Internet Operations Director of Gov. Dean's presidential primary campaign in 2003<br />
<br />
== Session design ==<br />
<br />
=== Workshop prep ===<br />
<br />
''To be done before class.''<br />
<br />
During class, we will be splitting into 6 randomly assigned teams for a rocket pitch workshop session. Teams will be competing to create and pitch ideas for internet-based projects for various hypothetical clients, played (and judged) by the session team (Mel, Rainer, and Elana), the course professors, and our guests.<br />
<br />
'''Assignment:''' Examine online tools (software programs and platforms) that have been or could be used for online activism. Come to class with a list of 5 tools or interesting causes/campaigns that you examined - at least one of them should be something new you've added to the list at [[#Tools]]. Each entry on the list should contain the following parts:<br />
<br />
* Name of tool - http://link-to-the-tool-if-possible.com - 1-2 sentence description of what types of projects/demographics/causes this tool would be particularly suited to AND/OR a link to an example of this tool being used for a specific activism project.<br />
<br />
'''Requirements:''' The [[#Tools]] section below has some ideas for starters, but you must add at least one new item to the list as part of your 5 items. Tools must be internet-based in some way, but do not necessarily need to be limited to personal computers; cellphone/SMS apps, location-based tags and artifacts that somehow link or point to online spaces, etc. are also valid. Custom-developed applications that were developed and deployed for a specific project are ok, even if they cannot be reused for future projects - they're great examples.<br />
<br />
Non-mandatory but probably helpful: you can read about the [[#Workshop]] format for the exact times and materials you'll have available, as well as the [[#Judging]] criteria.<br />
<br />
=== Activity intro (10 minutes) ===<br />
<br />
We will first explain the ground rules of the rocket pitch workshop which will be held later in the session and introduce the 3 scenarios involved.<br />
<br />
=== Guests present case studies (30 minutes) ===<br />
<br />
Next, our guests will give short case study examples of projects they've worked on and tactics they've used. During this part of the session, students are encouraged to write down (on pieces of paper) questions they'd like to bring up, and to save those papers for the discussion after the workshop.<br />
<br />
=== Workshop ===<br />
<br />
''(50 minutes)''<br />
<br />
You will be divided into 6 teams. Teams will roleplay the parts of teams assigned to create internet-based projects for various activism scenarios. Teams will compete to create the best 1-minute rocket pitch of their project idea. The 1-minute timing will be strict; we'll cut you off at 60 seconds.<br />
<br />
* You get 30 seconds to set up and 1 minute to present.<br />
* Each group gets 3 big sheets of paper ("slides") and a marker for each round. You do not have to use the paper. However, projector setup will count against your time...<br />
* Groups can use any resources (including computers) and work anywhere they want.<br />
* Your presentation can be and use any things or people you want.<br />
<br />
* 20 minutes: First scenario prep<br />
* 10 minutes: First scenario presentations and [[#Judging]]<br />
* 10 minutes: Second scenario prep<br />
* 10 minutes: Second scenario presentations and [[#Judging]]<br />
<br />
=== Judging ===<br />
<br />
''Judging is interspersed with the [[#Workshop]].''<br />
<br />
Presentations will be judged on the following criteria, evenly weighted.<br />
<br />
''Criteria are still subject to change, and final judging criteria will be announced at the beginning of the session, but this is the current draft.''<br />
<br />
* '''Tactics:''' Is your strategy well-articulated? Can we envison how you will carry out your game plan, and do we believe it's probable that you will reach your goals with the resources and timeframe you've been allotted?<br />
* '''Measurement:''' What is your goal? Have you defined what it would mean for your project to be successful, and how you will measure and determine your success?<br />
* '''Analysis of competition:''' Did you articulate why your approach is better than others that might exist?<br />
* '''Utilization of the Internet:''' Are you taking full advantage of the online medium? (Why would your project be more difficult/impossible offline?)<br />
* '''Leveraging your audience:''' Did you articulate who you are trying to engage, and in what manner? Will your community be (or be working against one that is) centralized, decentralized, or hybrid - and why? If you are trying to build a community, how will you most effectively leverage the type of community you have chosen to build? If you are not trying to build a community, why not?<br />
* '''Creativity:''' Are you using tools or processes in an unique way that nobody has tried before? Are you advocating a cause or reaching an audience not commonly addressed through this medium? Are you in some way doing something crazy and new?<br />
<br />
Note that we are ''not'' judging you on how well you pitch the ''cause,'' only the project. The judges are assuming the roles of supporters of the cause who want to fund your project, so you can safely assume that the judges (1) know all about your cause and (2) are already completely convinced that it is the best thing in the world.<br />
<br />
=== Discussion (30 minutes)===<br />
<br />
Students are now encouraged to bring out the questions they had earlier; we'll use these as the basis for a followup discussion.<br />
<br />
== Readings ==<br />
<br />
=== Mandatory ===<br />
<br />
* [http://www.articlearchives.com/law-legal-system/constitutional-law-freedom-press/1832458-1.html''Technologies of Protest: Insurgent Social Movements and the First Amendment in the Era of the Internet,''] by the law professor Seth Kreimer.<br />
* [http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/2008/03/08/the-cute-cat-theory-talk-at-etech/ Ethan Zuckerman's Cute Cat Theory of Digital Activism] (This is available in .mp3 format for free in podcast section of the iTunes store --CKennedy)<br />
* [http://publius.cc/2008/12/09/from-the-bottom-up-using-the-internet-to-mobilize-campaign-participation From the Bottom-Up: Using the Internet to Mobilize Campaign Participation] by Dana Fisher, a short article that compares the strategies of Obama and McCain's online campaigns. (skim)<br />
* Summaries and selections from ''The Starfish and the Spider'' by Ori Brafman and Rod A. Beckstrom, focused on pages 133-158 on "taking on decentralization," which argues that conventional attack tactics fail against decentralized activism, and presents several strategies that can be used instead. Read the [http://magazine.redhat.com/2007/02/05/book-review-the-starfish-and-the-spider/ Red Hat Magazine review] by Jeff Mackanic and Greg DeKoenigsberg, which summarizes the main points, then see the [[Crib notes]] from p. 133-158 on attacking decentralization. (The entire book is worth reading as a framework for understanding decentralized movements.)<br />
* [http://www.shirky.com/writings/powerlaw_weblog.html "Power Laws, Web Logs and Inequality"] by Clay Shirky<br />
<br />
=== Optional ===<br />
<br />
* ''A Review of Cyberactivism: Online Activism in Theory and Practice,'' edited by Martha McCaughey and Michael D. Ayers. (This book is difficult to get hold of, but good supplementary reading if you're interested and can procure a copy.)<br />
* [http://rebooting.personaldemocracy.com/ Rebooting America: Ideas for Redesigning American Democracy for the Internet Age]<br />
* http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/2008/12/10/open-for-questions-participation-from-campaigning-to-governing/<br />
* [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/zack-exley/the-new-organizers-part-1_b_132782.html The New Organizers: What's Really Behind Obama's Ground Game] from HuffPo.com<br />
* [http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/25/magazine/25bloggers-t.html?fta=y "Revolution Facebook Style: Can social networking turn young Egyptians into a force for Democratic Change?"] from the New York Times<br />
*[http://www.economist.com/world/international/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12815678 "Rioters of the World Unite: They have nothing to lose but their web cameras"] from the Economist. See Patrick Meier's critique of the piece [http://irevolution.wordpress.com/2008/12/19/snap-mobs-of-the-world-unite-a-better-taxonomy/ here.]<br />
* [http://mobileactive.org/wireless-technology-social-change-11-case-studies "Wireless Technology for Social Change: Trends in NGO Mobile Use"]<br />
<br />
== Tools and Examples ==<br />
<br />
* [http://www.freeople.com/ Freeople]<br />
* [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anonymous_(group) Anonymous]<br />
* [http://www.digiactive.org/wp-content/uploads/digiactive_facebook_activism.pdf DigiActive Introduction to Facebook Activism]<br />
* [http://apps.facebook.com/causes/about Facebook Causes]<br />
* [http://www.netsquared.org/2008/conference/projects/ushahidi Crisis mapping mash-ups in Kenya]<br />
* [http://www.pledgebank.org Pledgebank]<br />
* [http://www.zoosa.org Zoosa]<br />
* [http://globalvoicesonline.org/ Global Voices]<br />
* [http://www.donorschoose.org DonorsChoose]<br />
* [http://www.socialvibe.com Socialvibe]<br />
* [http://citizenbase.org/approach Citizenbase]<br />
* [http://www.frontlinesms.com/ Frontline SMS]<br />
* [http://discoverscholars.org/ DiscoverScholars]<br />
* [http://www.socialvibe.com/ SocialVibe]<br />
* [http://www.techsoup.org/index.cfm TechSoup]<br />
* [http://mobileactive.org/ MobileActive]<br />
* [http://theuptake.org/ TheUpTake], a citizen journalism site whose efforts are summarized [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_UpTake here]. An example of their success in promoting political awareness is the coleman / franken recount and trials. [http://uptake-editorial.groups.theuptake.org/en/videogalleryView/id/1694/ link]. (This is where we are supposed to put our one new entry before class right?)<br />
* [http://freeconnie.com/ Free Connie]. A friend of mine from college, now at USC law, is defending a woman who suffered from BWS and has served her time in jail. With the help of another one of our friends, he put together this site for public activism on her case.<br />
* [http://ipetitions.com/ iPetitions]<br />
* [http://capitoladvantage.com/ Capitol Advantage] Leading provider of Internet tools for congressional communication and civic participation.<br />
* [http://www2.democracyinaction.org/ DemocracyInAction] is a non-profit that provides a suite of tools for progressive organizations, including fundraising, communications, and contact management.<br />
* [http://carrotmob.org/about/ Carrotmob]is the opposite of a boycott. Businesses compete with one another to see who can do the most good (locally sourced produce, green energy etc) and carrotmob organises a huge group of people to descend on the business and buy products "in order to reward whichever business made the strongest commitment to improve the world".<br />
* [http://www.spot.us/ Spot.us] - community-funded journalism site, where freelance reporters publish proposals for local-interest stories that they want to write, and users contribute money to the proposals that interest them until there's enough for the story to be written.<br />
* [http://creativefreedom.org.nz/blackout.html] - The New Zealand Internet Blackout<br />
** ...based (I suspect) on the [http://www.cnn.com/TECH/9602/cyber_censors/index.html American blackout] to protest the Communications Decency Act back in '96.<br />
* All the "For every ''x'' people who join, I'll donate $''y'' to ''z''" groups on Facebook<br />
* [http://stealth.strangecompany.org/ "Stealth,"] a piece of machinima created with the WoW engine - this was created to help visualize a fairly abstract proposal to screw up copyright law in Britain, and at the same time mobilize a demographic that's (at least stereotypically) apathetic about politics.<br />
* [http://www.rflofsl.org/ Relay for Life of Second Life] - 'nuff said<br />
* [http://www.thepetitionsite.com/ Care2 petitionsite] - create a petition, have people sign it, then send it off (what else would you do with a petition, after all?)<br />
* [http://www.theextraordinaries.org/ The Extraordinaries] - An attempt to create a mobile platform for crowd-sourced volunteerism.<br />
* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AgHHX9R4Qtk The Great Schlep] - video attempt to mobilize Northeastern hipsters to convince their grandparents to vote for Obama<br />
* [http://speakout.com/takeaction/ SpeakOut.com Action Tools] - Allows users to create petitions, search for and sign petitions, complete surveys, and debate issues. Also provides tools to help users make informed decisions on political issues.<br />
* [http://myfairelection.com MyFairElection.com] - site where voters can report problems at their polls in real time, mapped by district, so that you can tell where problems are occurring during an election even if there isn't some horrible disaster that gets lots of national news attention<br />
* [http://www.twitter.com Twitter] Microblogging site that some are using for social activism. [http://jaxinteractive.com/2008/05/19/twitter-charity-activism-and-the-social-web/]<br />
* [http://www.giyus.org/ Megaphone Desktop Tool] - Developed by Give Israel Your United Support and discussed in [http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article693911.ece this London Times article]. It delivers real-time alerts and enables automated voting to help users show their support for pro-Israel articles, videos, blogs, etc.<br />
* [http://www.change.org Change.org] A social action network where you can: 1. learn about causes, 2. connect to good people & nonprofits, and 3. take action.<br />
* [http://www.worldvolunteerweb.org World Volunteer Web] Supports the volunteer community by serving as a global clearinghouse for information and resources linked to volunteerism that can be used for campaigning, advocacy, and networking.<br />
* http://www.digiactive.org/2008/03/10/tactic-digital-activism-without-the-internet-in-cuba/ (Using flash drives to distribute information in a controlled manner) -CKennedy<br />
* [http://www.smartmobs.com/ Smart Mobs], less a tool than a strategy for protest and just-in-time organization which is enabled by the proliferation of digital devices. Used successfully as a means of political protest in [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smart_mob certain foreign countries]. Occasionally confused with flash mobs, but not identical.</div>Jgruensphttps://cyber.harvard.edu/iif/?title=Open_Networks,_Closed_Regimes&diff=1684Open Networks, Closed Regimes2009-02-16T04:18:34Z<p>Jgruensp: </p>
<hr />
<div>'''[[User:Danray|Dan Ray]]''', '''[[User:CKennedy|Conor]]''', '''[[User:Jgruensp|Joshua]]'''<br />
<br />
== Open Network, Closed Regimes ==<br />
=== Problem to be solved ===<br />
<br />
US-based internet services are used by citizens of every regime in the world. Western-based internet companies operate these services in many countries where governments routinely request or demand sensitive information about their citizens. How should high-level officers respond when their companies receive requests to turn over information which violate privacy and anonymity expectations? How can citizens, NGOs, and government actors influence the way these companies respond?<br />
<br />
=== Precis ===<br />
The idea of the internet service provider as a border-defying government-regulation-free jurisdiction was already dying in the 1990s, but the large-scale movement of internet services into regimes without free speech protections has raised serious concerns about managing cross-border privacy standards over the last five years. From Yahoo turning over pro-democracy Chinese bloggers to the Chinese government, to Saudi Arabia tracking porn downloaders by pulling ISP records, to South Korea trying to arrest anonymous government critics, the problems are widespread and not restricted only to regimes that Americans are used to thinking of as "repressive." The globalization of internet services raises difficult questions: What requests for information are invasive? What kind of deference is due to local sovereignty? How can the competing demands best be balanced? How can the relevant stakeholders work toward achieving a proper balance?<br />
<br />
=== Existing Proposals to be Discussed ===<br />
* GNI<br />
* GOFA<br />
* Q6/17<br />
<br />
=== Potential Guests ===<br />
<br />
# Caroline Nolan, Colin Maclay, or John Palfrey from Berkman/GNI<br />
# Andrew McLaughlin from Google<br />
<br />
Brainstorming:<br />
<br />
# Rebecca MacKinnon (former CNN journalist, former Berkman Fellow, and now Assistant Professor at the University of Hong Kong's Journalism and Media Center; see fourth and fifth links below)<br />
# Rep. Rick Boucher<br />
# Chris Smith, Congressman and GOFA co-sponsor<br />
# Mary Robertson, former President of Ireland<br />
# Mark Allison, or another Amnesty International researcher on East Asian issues<br />
# Nicola Wong (Google), Michael Samway (Yahoo) (see second link below), or other representatives of Google, Microsoft, or Yahoo who have dealt with China, S. Korea, Saudi Arabia, or other regimes in this context<br />
# Edward J. Markey, House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet<br />
# Marc Rotenberg, Executive Director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center<br />
# Chris Kelly, Facebook Chief Privacy Officer (candidate for AG of California in 2010)<br />
# Peter O’Kelly, Skype President [http://share.skype.com/sites/en/2008/10/answers_to_some_commonly_asked.html]<br />
# Representatives of Google, Microsoft, or Yahoo who have helped design GNI<br />
# Perhaps a representative of the government of South Korea (see seventh link below) or, ideally, China (hey, we can dream)<br />
# Perhaps also a continental civil law (French, German?) free speech scholar to talk about contrasting international ideas of free speech?<br />
<br />
=== Course structure ===<br />
<br />
Class:<br />
# First 10-15 minutes: Exposition- background information, state problem, and introduce types of potential solutions: Law (GOFA), Market, Norms (GNI), Code<br />
# Next 45 minutes: Q&A with guests, in a panel, on what the terrain looks like now, and what's left to do. (Possibly Using Live Question Tool w/ Projector)<br />
# Remainder: Classwide simulation, with students in groups, defending assigned roles as various stakeholder groups.<br />
<br />
=== Simulation ===<br />
<br />
The class will be divided into simulation groups ahead of time (e.g., US Congressional Representatives, Bloggers, Human Rights Groups). Each group will be assigned a role in the simulation, and we will give each group a set of readings specific to their role in the simulation. <br />
<br />
A relevant privacy/anonymity problem (that has just recently been introduced on the global stage) will be introduced in the second half of the class. Drawing upon assigned readings and the lessons and principles introduced in the first half of the class, each simulation group will devise and advocate a broad approach to for confronting this problem. Each group's approach should be based on its assigned role in the simulation.<br />
<br />
=== Readings ===<br />
<br />
(Some of these and additional readings will be broken down by simulation group)<br />
<br />
==== Audio: ====<br />
<br />
* http://rconversation.blogs.com/rconversation/2008/07/on-the-media-in.html (Episode of On The Media w/ Rebecca MacKinnon)<br />
<br />
==== Video ====<br />
<br />
* http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMorzIBHmrA (Conversation about GNI on CSPAN w/ Michael Samway and Julien Sanchez)<br />
<br />
==== Text ====<br />
<br />
===== “Just the Facts” Reporting =====<br />
<br />
* http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7696356.stm<br />
<br />
* http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/28/technology/internet/28privacy.html?_r=1&oref=slogin<br />
<br />
==== Critiques ====<br />
<br />
* http://writ.news.findlaw.com/ramasastry/20081212.html (Anita Ramasastry, Associate Professor at University of Washington School of Law)<br />
<br />
* http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=29117 (Reporters without Borders, an NGO that was part of the talks but didn’t sign onto the GNI at the end)<br />
<br />
* http://www.eff.org/files/filenode/gni/signon_letter.txt (Electronic Frontier Foundation, an NGO that was part of the talks and did sign onto the GNI at the end)<br />
<br />
* http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060313/mackinnon (Rebecca MacKinnon, writing in The Nation before the GNI existed, discusses four companies' culpability and diagnoses a major flaw with GOFA)<br />
<br />
=== Links ===<br />
http://blogs.wsj.com/chinajournal/2008/10/28/parsing-the-google-yahoo-microsoft-global-network-initiative/<br />
<br />
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/30/magazine/30google-t.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink&adxnnlx=1229749063-T7qNc5xv9ZLDiLcjc8AZxQ&pagewanted=print<br />
<br />
http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/04/republican-hous.html<br />
<br />
http://rconversation.blogs.com/rconversation/2007/01/google_yahoo_mi.html<br />
<br />
http://www.circleid.com/posts/print/20081028_global_network_initiative/<br />
<br />
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/oct/30/amnesty-global-network-initiative<br />
<br />
http://www.economist.com/world/asia/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12783609<br />
<br />
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-a-santoro-and-wendy-goldberg/chinese-internet-censorsh_b_156212.html<br />
<br />
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10040152-38.html (Declan McCullagh of CNet News on Q6/17, including links to several leaked ITU documents)<br />
<br />
== <strike>Brainstorming (On earlier topic: OpenID)</strike>==<br />
<br />
All that OpenID stuff has moved to [[legacy support]]. And thank goodness for that. [[User:Danray|Dan Ray]] 01:19, 4 February 2009 (UTC)</div>Jgruensphttps://cyber.harvard.edu/iif/?title=File:ITU091108.doc&diff=1683File:ITU091108.doc2009-02-16T04:16:34Z<p>Jgruensp: uploaded a new version of "Image:ITU091108.doc": ITU early report on Q6/17 and IP traceback</p>
<hr />
<div>ITU early report on Q6/17 and IP traceback</div>Jgruensphttps://cyber.harvard.edu/iif/?title=File:ITU091108.doc&diff=1682File:ITU091108.doc2009-02-16T04:15:05Z<p>Jgruensp: ITU early report on Q6/17 and IP traceback</p>
<hr />
<div>ITU early report on Q6/17 and IP traceback</div>Jgruensphttps://cyber.harvard.edu/iif/?title=Open_Networks,_Closed_Regimes&diff=1681Open Networks, Closed Regimes2009-02-16T04:14:02Z<p>Jgruensp: </p>
<hr />
<div>'''[[User:Danray|Dan Ray]]''', '''[[User:CKennedy|Conor]]''', '''[[User:Jgruensp|Joshua]]'''<br />
<br />
== Open Network, Closed Regimes ==<br />
=== Problem to be solved ===<br />
<br />
US-based internet services are used by citizens of every regime in the world. Western-based internet companies operate these services in many countries where governments routinely request or demand sensitive information about their citizens. How should high-level officers respond when their companies receive requests to turn over information which violate privacy and anonymity expectations? How can citizens, NGOs, and government actors influence the way these companies respond?<br />
<br />
=== Precis ===<br />
The idea of the internet service provider as a border-defying government-regulation-free jurisdiction was already dying in the 1990s, but the large-scale movement of internet services into regimes without free speech protections has raised serious concerns about managing cross-border privacy standards over the last five years. From Yahoo turning over pro-democracy Chinese bloggers to the Chinese government, to Saudi Arabia tracking porn downloaders by pulling ISP records, to South Korea trying to arrest anonymous government critics, the problems are widespread and not restricted only to regimes that Americans are used to thinking of as "repressive." The globalization of internet services raises difficult questions: What requests for information are invasive? What kind of deference is due to local sovereignty? How can the competing demands best be balanced? How can the relevant stakeholders work toward achieving a proper balance?<br />
<br />
=== Existing Proposals to be Discussed ===<br />
* GNI<br />
* GOFA<br />
* Q6/17[[Image:ITU091108.doc]]<br />
<br />
=== Potential Guests ===<br />
<br />
# Caroline Nolan, Colin Maclay, or John Palfrey from Berkman/GNI<br />
# Andrew McLaughlin from Google<br />
<br />
Brainstorming:<br />
<br />
# Rebecca MacKinnon (former CNN journalist, former Berkman Fellow, and now Assistant Professor at the University of Hong Kong's Journalism and Media Center; see fourth and fifth links below)<br />
# Rep. Rick Boucher<br />
# Chris Smith, Congressman and GOFA co-sponsor<br />
# Mary Robertson, former President of Ireland<br />
# Mark Allison, or another Amnesty International researcher on East Asian issues<br />
# Nicola Wong (Google), Michael Samway (Yahoo) (see second link below), or other representatives of Google, Microsoft, or Yahoo who have dealt with China, S. Korea, Saudi Arabia, or other regimes in this context<br />
# Edward J. Markey, House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet<br />
# Marc Rotenberg, Executive Director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center<br />
# Chris Kelly, Facebook Chief Privacy Officer (candidate for AG of California in 2010)<br />
# Peter O’Kelly, Skype President [http://share.skype.com/sites/en/2008/10/answers_to_some_commonly_asked.html]<br />
# Representatives of Google, Microsoft, or Yahoo who have helped design GNI<br />
# Perhaps a representative of the government of South Korea (see seventh link below) or, ideally, China (hey, we can dream)<br />
# Perhaps also a continental civil law (French, German?) free speech scholar to talk about contrasting international ideas of free speech?<br />
<br />
=== Course structure ===<br />
<br />
Class:<br />
# First 10-15 minutes: Exposition- background information, state problem, and introduce types of potential solutions: Law (GOFA), Market, Norms (GNI), Code<br />
# Next 45 minutes: Q&A with guests, in a panel, on what the terrain looks like now, and what's left to do. (Possibly Using Live Question Tool w/ Projector)<br />
# Remainder: Classwide simulation, with students in groups, defending assigned roles as various stakeholder groups.<br />
<br />
=== Simulation ===<br />
<br />
The class will be divided into simulation groups ahead of time (e.g., US Congressional Representatives, Bloggers, Human Rights Groups). Each group will be assigned a role in the simulation, and we will give each group a set of readings specific to their role in the simulation. <br />
<br />
A relevant privacy/anonymity problem (that has just recently been introduced on the global stage) will be introduced in the second half of the class. Drawing upon assigned readings and the lessons and principles introduced in the first half of the class, each simulation group will devise and advocate a broad approach to for confronting this problem. Each group's approach should be based on its assigned role in the simulation.<br />
<br />
=== Readings ===<br />
<br />
(Some of these and additional readings will be broken down by simulation group)<br />
<br />
==== Audio: ====<br />
<br />
* http://rconversation.blogs.com/rconversation/2008/07/on-the-media-in.html (Episode of On The Media w/ Rebecca MacKinnon)<br />
<br />
==== Video ====<br />
<br />
* http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMorzIBHmrA (Conversation about GNI on CSPAN w/ Michael Samway and Julien Sanchez)<br />
<br />
==== Text ====<br />
<br />
===== “Just the Facts” Reporting =====<br />
<br />
* http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7696356.stm<br />
<br />
* http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/28/technology/internet/28privacy.html?_r=1&oref=slogin<br />
<br />
==== Critiques ====<br />
<br />
* http://writ.news.findlaw.com/ramasastry/20081212.html (Anita Ramasastry, Associate Professor at University of Washington School of Law)<br />
<br />
* http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=29117 (Reporters without Borders, an NGO that was part of the talks but didn’t sign onto the GNI at the end)<br />
<br />
* http://www.eff.org/files/filenode/gni/signon_letter.txt (Electronic Frontier Foundation, an NGO that was part of the talks and did sign onto the GNI at the end)<br />
<br />
* http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060313/mackinnon (Rebecca MacKinnon, writing in The Nation before the GNI existed, discusses four companies' culpability and diagnoses a major flaw with GOFA)<br />
<br />
=== Links ===<br />
http://blogs.wsj.com/chinajournal/2008/10/28/parsing-the-google-yahoo-microsoft-global-network-initiative/<br />
<br />
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/30/magazine/30google-t.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink&adxnnlx=1229749063-T7qNc5xv9ZLDiLcjc8AZxQ&pagewanted=print<br />
<br />
http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/04/republican-hous.html<br />
<br />
http://rconversation.blogs.com/rconversation/2007/01/google_yahoo_mi.html<br />
<br />
http://www.circleid.com/posts/print/20081028_global_network_initiative/<br />
<br />
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/oct/30/amnesty-global-network-initiative<br />
<br />
http://www.economist.com/world/asia/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12783609<br />
<br />
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-a-santoro-and-wendy-goldberg/chinese-internet-censorsh_b_156212.html<br />
<br />
== <strike>Brainstorming (On earlier topic: OpenID)</strike>==<br />
<br />
All that OpenID stuff has moved to [[legacy support]]. And thank goodness for that. [[User:Danray|Dan Ray]] 01:19, 4 February 2009 (UTC)</div>Jgruensphttps://cyber.harvard.edu/iif/?title=Open_Networks,_Closed_Regimes&diff=1521Open Networks, Closed Regimes2009-02-02T22:53:53Z<p>Jgruensp: </p>
<hr />
<div>'''[[User:Danray|Dan Ray]]''', '''[[User:CKennedy|Conor]]''', '''[[User:Jgruensp|Joshua]]'''<br />
<br />
== Open Network, Closed Regimes ==<br />
=== Problem to be solved ===<br />
<br />
US-based internet services are used by citizens of every regime in the world. Western-based internet companies operate these services in many countries where governments routinely request or demand sensitive information about their citizens. How should high-level officers respond when their companies receive requests to turn over information which violate privacy and anonymity expectations? How can citizens, NGOs, and government actors influence the way these companies respond?<br />
<br />
=== Precis ===<br />
The idea of the internet service provider as a border-defying government-regulation-free jurisdiction was already dying in the 1990s, but the large-scale movement of internet services into regimes without free speech protections has raised serious concerns about managing cross-border privacy standards over the last five years. From Yahoo turning over pro-democracy Chinese bloggers to the Chinese government, to Saudi Arabia tracking porn downloaders by pulling ISP records, to South Korea trying to arrest anonymous government critics, the problems are widespread and not restricted only to regimes that Americans are used to thinking of as "repressive." The globalization of internet services raises difficult questions: What requests for information are invasive? What kind of deference is due to local sovereignty? How can the competing demands best be balanced? How can the relevant stakeholders work toward achieving a proper balance?<br />
<br />
=== Existing Proposals to be Discussed ===<br />
* GNI<br />
* GOFA<br />
* Q6/17<br />
<br />
=== Potential Guests ===<br />
<br />
# Caroline Nolan, Colin Maclay, or John Palfrey from Berkman/GNI<br />
# Andrew McLaughlin from Google<br />
<br />
Brainstorming:<br />
<br />
# Rebecca MacKinnon (former CNN journalist, former Berkman Fellow, and now Assistant Professor at the University of Hong Kong's Journalism and Media Center; see fourth and fifth links below)<br />
# Rep. Rick Boucher<br />
# Chris Smith, Congressman and GOFA co-sponsor<br />
# Mary Robertson, former President of Ireland<br />
# Mark Allison, or another Amnesty International researcher on East Asian issues<br />
# Nicola Wong (Google), Michael Samway (Yahoo) (see second link below), or other representatives of Google, Microsoft, or Yahoo who have dealt with China, S. Korea, Saudi Arabia, or other regimes in this context<br />
# Edward J. Markey, House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet<br />
# Marc Rotenberg, Executive Director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center<br />
# Chris Kelly, Facebook Chief Privacy Officer (candidate for AG of California in 2010)<br />
# Peter O’Kelly, Skype President [http://share.skype.com/sites/en/2008/10/answers_to_some_commonly_asked.html]<br />
# Representatives of Google, Microsoft, or Yahoo who have helped design GNI<br />
# Perhaps a representative of the government of South Korea (see seventh link below) or, ideally, China (hey, we can dream)<br />
# Perhaps also a continental civil law (French, German?) free speech scholar to talk about contrasting international ideas of free speech?<br />
<br />
=== Course structure ===<br />
<br />
Class:<br />
# First 10-15 minutes: Exposition- background information, state problem, and introduce types of potential solutions: Law (GOFA), Market, Norms (GNI), Code<br />
# Next 45 minutes: Q&A with guests, one by one, on what the terrain looks like now, and what's left to do.<br />
# Remainder: Classwide simulation, with students in groups, defending assigned roles as various stakeholder groups. <br />
<br />
=== Simulation ===<br />
<br />
The class will be divided into simulation groups ahead of time (e.g., US Congressional Representatives, Bloggers, Human Rights Groups). Each group will be assigned a role in the simulation, and we will give each group a set of readings specific to their role in the simulation. <br />
<br />
A relevant privacy/anonymity problem (that has just recently been introduced on the global stage) will be introduced in the second half of the class. Drawing upon assigned readings and the lessons and principles introduced in the first half of the class, each simulation group will devise and advocate a broad approach to for confronting this problem. Each group's approach should be based on its assigned role in the simulation.<br />
<br />
=== Readings ===<br />
<br />
(Will be broken down by simulation group)<br />
<br />
==== Audio: ====<br />
<br />
* http://rconversation.blogs.com/rconversation/2008/07/on-the-media-in.html (Episode of On The Media w/ Rebecca MacKinnon)<br />
<br />
==== Video ====<br />
<br />
* http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMorzIBHmrA (Conversation about GNI on CSPAN w/ Michael Samway and Julien Sanchez)<br />
<br />
==== Text ====<br />
<br />
===== “Just the Facts” Reporting =====<br />
<br />
* http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7696356.stm<br />
<br />
* http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/28/technology/internet/28privacy.html?_r=1&oref=slogin<br />
<br />
==== Critiques ====<br />
<br />
* http://writ.news.findlaw.com/ramasastry/20081212.html (Anita Ramasastry, Associate Professor at University of Washington School of Law)<br />
<br />
* http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=29117 (Reporters without Borders, an NGO that was part of the talks but didn’t sign onto the GNI at the end)<br />
<br />
* http://www.eff.org/files/filenode/gni/signon_letter.txt (Electronic Frontier Foundation, an NGO that was part of the talks and did sign onto the GNI at the end)<br />
<br />
=== Links ===<br />
http://blogs.wsj.com/chinajournal/2008/10/28/parsing-the-google-yahoo-microsoft-global-network-initiative/<br />
<br />
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/30/magazine/30google-t.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink&adxnnlx=1229749063-T7qNc5xv9ZLDiLcjc8AZxQ&pagewanted=print<br />
<br />
http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/04/republican-hous.html<br />
<br />
http://rconversation.blogs.com/rconversation/2007/01/google_yahoo_mi.html<br />
<br />
http://www.circleid.com/posts/print/20081028_global_network_initiative/<br />
<br />
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/oct/30/amnesty-global-network-initiative<br />
<br />
http://www.economist.com/world/asia/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12783609<br />
<br />
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-a-santoro-and-wendy-goldberg/chinese-internet-censorsh_b_156212.html<br />
<br />
== <strike>Brainstorming (On earlier topic: OpenID) ==<br />
=== Title ===<br />
<br />
OpenId and Internet Governance<br />
:: '''One of the other groups has a fun title (all together now for great justice dot org). Can we have one too? --Dan'''<br />
:: '''Once exams end. --Joshua'''<br />
<br />
=== Precis ===<br />
<br />
* Internet Regulation (as it relates specifically to online safety and security)<br />
* Privacy and anonymity as they relate to structures of control on the Internet<br />
: JZ: I like the idea of a case study, because the topic is too big otherwise. Would not mind someone from openID or even 2 competing groups talk about what they offer, and identify a problem that gives one of them a headache. My guesses on headaches: <br />
:: At what layer of the internet is appropriate for identity?<br />
:: How do you achieve critical mass, do you need the help of government or the help of something that's more than just the market?<br />
: Groups to look at, potentially:<br />
:: OpenID<br />
:: Higgins project<br />
:: Trustfuse (Auren Hoffman)<br />
: And then see which group is most interesting and bring them in. The problem ID architecture is meant to solve - what is it? What are the new problems it creates? What are the barriers to implementing this solution?<br />
<br />
=== Guest wish list (if any) ===<br />
* As an academic, you couldn't do better than Daniel Solove. If we do hone in on a very specific topic, though, we could go for someone with more specialized experience. [[User:Danray|Dan Ray]] 22:39, 7 December 2008 (UTC)<br />
* Although government is subject to all sorts of special legal provisos that the private sector doesn't have to manage, the privacy counsel at DHS, [http://www.dhs.gov/xabout/structure/bio_1166549785058.shtm Hugo Teufel], is pretty [http://www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/privacy/privacy_pia_einstein2.pdf on top of his game]. If we're looking for practitioners, [http://www.arnoldporter.com/attorneys.cfm?action=view&id=380 Ron Lee] of Arnold & Porter does work with private industry.<br />
* If we do OpenID, options for guests might include [http://www.crunchbase.com/person/bill-washburn Bill Washburn] of the OpenID Foundation and [http://blog.unto.net/ DeWitt Clinton] of Google.<br />
* Also, since Passport has foundered, Facebook Connect looks like the hot new thing on the proprietary side. Whoever runs that for Facebook would be a natural invite as well. (see Dan's links below (?))<br />
* And I still think the potential for the mobile phone to become the heretofore mythical convergence device and thus to become a necessary adjunct to personal identity is worth talking over.<br />
<br />
Perhaps a bloggingheads.tv-style video conference call between someone from an electronic privacy nonprofit and a representative from Microsoft or Facebook?<br />
<br />
:'''The Big Think team might be able help secure some of these folks -- hit me up at peter@bigthink.com if you'd like some assistance making contact. we can also help with video teleconferencing etc. [[User:PeterH|PeterH]] 07:11, 25 December 2008 (UTC)<br />
<br />
=== Readings ===<br />
[http://works.bepress.com/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1019&context=james_grimmelmann James Grimmelmann, Facebook and The Social Dyanmics of Privacy]<br />
<br />
[http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=998565 Solove, Daniel J. "'I've Got Nothing to Hide' and Other Misunderstandings of Privacy"]<br />
<br />
=== Links & Articles ===<br />
http://vizedu.com/2008/12/lifestreaming-what-why-and-how/<br />
<br />
http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/125/how-to-fix-the-web.html<br />
<br />
http://developers.facebook.com/connect.php<br />
<br />
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/facebook_connect_vs_open_id.php<br />
<br />
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/facebook_connect_readies.php<br />
<br />
http://chrissaad.wordpress.com/2008/12/01/facebook-connect-aka-hailstorm-20/<br />
<br />
http://wiki.openid.net/Lobbying<br />
<br />
http://planet.openid.net/<br />
<br />
http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/11/30/facebook-google-myspace-data/<br />
<br />
http://blog.socialmedia.com/slowly-reprogramming-the-web-for-social-networks/<br />
<br />
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/01/technology/internet/01facebook.html?_r=1&ref=technology&pagewanted=print<br />
<br />
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8XLfbos9cVocebook-connect-is-the-future-of-digg/&feature=player_embedded<br />
<br />
http://gigaom.com/2008/11/30/social-webs-big-question-federate-or-aggregate/<br />
<br />
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-10110382-2.html<br />
<br />
http://www.oecd.org/LongAbstract/0,3425,en_2649_34223_40204774_119684_1_1_1,00.html<br />
<br />
=== Concrete question(s) of the week ===<br />
<br />
What specific privacy expectations should be articulated to the groups who control the future of OpenID?<br />
<br />
=== Anything else material towards planning your topic ===<br />
<br />
<br />
* Facebook + google people?<br />
* another way to look at it is as a matter of cybercrime and such - new surveillence methods (also relevant in regards to child pornography, for example). i wander if these are too different topics or not. '''[[User:Ayelet|Ayelet]]'''<br />
* I'd like to see a segment on what "privacy" actually means in law and in culture. This would probably attach well to any other, more applied segment. [[User:Danray|Dan Ray]] 16:38, 3 December 2008 (EST)<br />
*Creating a series of Privacy Certification Marks</strike></div>Jgruensphttps://cyber.harvard.edu/iif/?title=Scheduling&diff=1507Scheduling2009-02-02T22:31:33Z<p>Jgruensp: </p>
<hr />
<div>Here's where the scheduling happens. No need to claim a day landrush-style; just add in what day your guests have said they're available.<br />
<br />
{| {{table}}<br />
| align="center" style="background:#dddddd;"|'''Monday (5-7pm)'''<br />
| align="center" style="background:#dddddd;"|'''Presenters' names'''<br />
| align="center" style="background:#dddddd;"|'''Topic name'''<br />
| align="center" style="background:#dddddd;"|'''Guests (confirmed)'''<br />
| align="center" style="background:#dddddd;"|'''Guests (not yet confirmed)'''<br />
|-<br />
|style="background: #dddddd;"|This||is||a||sample||line.<br />
|-<br />
|style="background: #dddddd;"|2-Feb||||||||<br />
|-<br />
|style="background: #dddddd;"|9-Feb||Ayelet, Aaron||[[Encouraging the Intellectual Commons|Free and Open Source Software]]||||Eben Moglen or someone from the Software Freedom Law Center, Mako<br />
|-<br />
|style="background: #dddddd;"|16-Feb||Graham, Mark||[[The Internet and Societal Inequity|Internet and Social Inequity]]||||Eszter Hargittai (pending scheduling)<br />
|-<br />
|style="background: #dddddd;"|23-Feb||Debbie, Shubham, and Matt||[[Old Laws/New Media]]||Prof. Charles Nesson||<br />
|-<br />
|style="background: #dddddd;"|2-Mar||Mel, Elana, Rainer||[[All Together Now For Great Justice Dot Org]]||Ethan Zuckerman||<br />
|-<br />
|style="background: #dddddd;"|9-Mar||Dharmishta Rood & Jon Fildes||[[The Future of News]]||||Russ Stanton, Jeff Jarvis|| <br />
|-<br />
|style="background: #dddddd;"|16-Mar||Joe & Miriam||[[The Future of %C2%A9 and entertainment|The Future of (c) & Entertainment]]||Stacey Lynn Schulman|| Various artists<br />
|-<br />
|style="background: #dddddd;"|30-Mar||Gwen, Jon, Lee||[[The Internet and Publication]]||Prof. John Palfrey||Robert Darnton, Corey Williams, Prue Adler<br />
|-<br />
|style="background: #dddddd;"|6-Apr||Dan Ray, Joshua Gruenspecht, & Conor Kennedy||[[Anonymity and privacy|The Increasingly Inaccurately Named Class on Anonymity & Privacy]]||'''Guest 1:''' Colin Maclay||'''Guest 2:''' Michael Samway, Andrew McLaughlin, or another representative of an international online communications tools provider; '''Guest 3:''' a representative of or expert on the Simulation Country OR a representative of a human rights group OR a Congressional representative (e.g., Rick Boucher, House Subcommittee on Communications, Technology and the Internet)<br />
|-<br />
|style="background: #dddddd;"|13-Apr||Andrew Klaber & David Levine||[[Internet, Environment, and Venture Capital|The Internet, The Environment and Venture Capital]]||TBD||Peter Thiel (PayPal founder, Facebook early investor, Clarium Capital hedge fund founder, The Founders Fund venture capital founder) <br />
|-<br />
|style="background: #dddddd;"|20-Apr||Vera Ranieri & Arjun Mehra||[[Internet Governance and Regulation|Internet Governance & Regulation]]||Milton Mueller of the Internet Governance Project||<br />
|-<br />
|style="background: #dddddd;"|27-Apr|||Elisabeth Theodore & Matthew Wansley||[[Prediction Markets]]||Justin Wolfers||Hal Varian</div>Jgruensphttps://cyber.harvard.edu/iif/?title=Scheduling&diff=1494Scheduling2009-02-02T22:17:21Z<p>Jgruensp: </p>
<hr />
<div>Here's where the scheduling happens. No need to claim a day landrush-style; just add in what day your guests have said they're available.<br />
<br />
{| {{table}}<br />
| align="center" style="background:#dddddd;"|'''Monday (5-7pm)'''<br />
| align="center" style="background:#dddddd;"|'''Presenters' names'''<br />
| align="center" style="background:#dddddd;"|'''Topic name'''<br />
| align="center" style="background:#dddddd;"|'''Guests (confirmed)'''<br />
| align="center" style="background:#dddddd;"|'''Guests (not yet confirmed)'''<br />
|-<br />
|style="background: #dddddd;"|This||is||a||sample||line.<br />
|-<br />
|style="background: #dddddd;"|2-Feb||||||||<br />
|-<br />
|style="background: #dddddd;"|9-Feb||Ayelet, Aaron||[[Encouraging the Intellectual Commons|Free and Open Source Software]]||||Eben Moglen or someone from the Software Freedom Law Center, Mako<br />
|-<br />
|style="background: #dddddd;"|16-Feb||Graham, Mark||[[The Internet and Societal Inequity|Internet and Social Inequity]]||||Eszter Hargittai (pending scheduling)<br />
|-<br />
|style="background: #dddddd;"|23-Feb||Debbie, Shubham, and Matt||[[Old Laws/New Media]]||Prof. Charles Nesson||<br />
|-<br />
|style="background: #dddddd;"|2-Mar||Mel, Elana, Rainer||[[All Together Now For Great Justice Dot Org]]||Ethan Zuckerman||<br />
|-<br />
|style="background: #dddddd;"|9-Mar||Dharmishta Rood & Jon Fildes||[[The Future of News]]||||Russ Stanton, Jeff Jarvis|| <br />
|-<br />
|style="background: #dddddd;"|16-Mar||Joe & Miriam||[[The Future of %C2%A9 and entertainment|The Future of (c) & Entertainment]]||Stacey Lynn Schulman|| Various artists<br />
|-<br />
|style="background: #dddddd;"|30-Mar||Gwen, Jon, Lee||[[The Internet and Publication]]||Prof. John Palfrey||Robert Darnton, Corey Williams, Prue Adler<br />
|-<br />
|style="background: #dddddd;"|6-Apr||Dan Ray, Joshua Gruenspecht, & Conor Kennedy||[[Anonymity and privacy|The Increasingly Inaccurately Named Class on Anonymity & Privacy]]||Colin Maclay||Michael Samway or Andrew McLaughlin; a representative of or expert on Vietnam<br />
|-<br />
|style="background: #dddddd;"|13-Apr||Andrew Klaber & David Levine||[[Internet, Environment, and Venture Capital|The Internet, The Environment and Venture Capital]]||TBD||Peter Thiel (PayPal founder, Facebook early investor, Clarium Capital hedge fund founder, The Founders Fund venture capital founder) <br />
|-<br />
|style="background: #dddddd;"|20-Apr||Vera Ranieri & Arjun Mehra||[[Internet Governance and Regulation|Internet Governance & Regulation]]||Milton Mueller of the Internet Governance Project||<br />
|-<br />
|style="background: #dddddd;"|27-Apr|||Elisabeth Theodore & Matthew Wansley||[[Prediction Markets]]||Justin Wolfers||Hal Varian</div>Jgruensphttps://cyber.harvard.edu/iif/?title=Scheduling&diff=1491Scheduling2009-02-02T22:16:27Z<p>Jgruensp: </p>
<hr />
<div>Here's where the scheduling happens. No need to claim a day landrush-style; just add in what day your guests have said they're available.<br />
<br />
{| {{table}}<br />
| align="center" style="background:#dddddd;"|'''Monday (5-7pm)'''<br />
| align="center" style="background:#dddddd;"|'''Presenters' names'''<br />
| align="center" style="background:#dddddd;"|'''Topic name'''<br />
| align="center" style="background:#dddddd;"|'''Guests (confirmed)'''<br />
| align="center" style="background:#dddddd;"|'''Guests (not yet confirmed)'''<br />
|-<br />
|style="background: #dddddd;"|This||is||a||sample||line.<br />
|-<br />
|style="background: #dddddd;"|2-Feb||||||||<br />
|-<br />
|style="background: #dddddd;"|9-Feb||Ayelet, Aaron||[[Encouraging the Intellectual Commons|Free and Open Source Software]]||||Eben Moglen or someone from the Software Freedom Law Center, Mako<br />
|-<br />
|style="background: #dddddd;"|16-Feb||Graham, Mark||[[The Internet and Societal Inequity|Internet and Social Inequity]]||||Eszter Hargittai (pending scheduling)<br />
|-<br />
|style="background: #dddddd;"|23-Feb||Debbie, Shubham, and Matt||[[Old Laws/New Media]]||Prof. Charles Nesson||<br />
|-<br />
|style="background: #dddddd;"|2-Mar||Mel, Elana, Rainer||[[All Together Now For Great Justice Dot Org]]||Ethan Zuckerman||<br />
|-<br />
|style="background: #dddddd;"|9-Mar||Dharmishta Rood & Jon Fildes||[[The Future of News]]||||Russ Stanton, Jeff Jarvis|| <br />
|-<br />
|style="background: #dddddd;"|16-Mar||Joe & Miriam||[[The Future of %C2%A9 and entertainment|The Future of (c) & Entertainment]]||Stacey Lynn Schulman|| Various artists<br />
|-<br />
|style="background: #dddddd;"|30-Mar||Gwen, Jon, Lee||[[The Internet and Publication]]||Prof. John Palfrey||Robert Darnton, Corey Williams, Prue Adler<br />
|-<br />
|style="background: #dddddd;"|6-Apr||Dan Ray, Joshua Gruenspecht, & Conor Kennedy||[[Anonymity and privacy|The Increasingly Inaccurately Named Anonymity & Privacy Team]]||Colin Maclay||Michael Samway or Andrew McLaughlin; a representative of or expert on Vietnam<br />
|-<br />
|style="background: #dddddd;"|13-Apr||Andrew Klaber & David Levine||[[Internet, Environment, and Venture Capital|The Internet, The Environment and Venture Capital]]||TBD||Peter Thiel (PayPal founder, Facebook early investor, Clarium Capital hedge fund founder, The Founders Fund venture capital founder) <br />
|-<br />
|style="background: #dddddd;"|20-Apr||Vera Ranieri & Arjun Mehra||[[Internet Governance and Regulation|Internet Governance & Regulation]]||Milton Mueller of the Internet Governance Project||<br />
|-<br />
|style="background: #dddddd;"|27-Apr|||Elisabeth Theodore & Matthew Wansley||[[Prediction Markets]]||Justin Wolfers||Hal Varian</div>Jgruensphttps://cyber.harvard.edu/iif/?title=Open_Networks,_Closed_Regimes&diff=1009Open Networks, Closed Regimes2008-12-26T03:43:57Z<p>Jgruensp: Continued edits</p>
<hr />
<div>'''[[User:Danray|Dan Ray]]''', '''[[User:CKennedy|Conor]]''', '''[[User:Jgruensp|Joshua]]'''<br />
<br />
== The Plan ==<br />
=== Title ===<br />
'''Open Network, Closed Regimes'''<br />
With US-based internet services used by citizens of every regime in the world, information of interest to governments with widely varying standards of privacy is now in the hands of Western corporations. What should the response of American citizens and American internet service companies be to requests for user information from foreign governments?<br />
<br />
=== Precis ===<br />
The idea of the internet service provider as a border-defying government-regulation-free jurisdiction was already dying in the 1990s, but the large-scale movement of internet services into regimes without US free speech protections has raised serious concerns about managing cross-border privacy standards over the last five years. From Yahoo turning over pro-democracy Chinese bloggers to the Chinese government to Saudia Arabia tracking porn downloaders by pulling ISP records to South Korea trying to arrest anonymous government critics, the problems are widespread and not restricted only to regimes that Americans are used to thinking of as "repressive." The globalization of internet services raises difficult questions: What requests for information are invasive? What kind of deference is due to local sovereignty? How can the competing demands best be balanced?<br />
<br />
Two major contenders have dominated discussion of American corporate responsibility to date:<br />
<br />
(1) Global Online Freedoms Act<br />
<br />
-The proposed Global Online Freedoms Act "would make it a crime for U.S. companies to turn over personal information on their users to governments of 'internet-restricting countries' who would use the information to repress its citizens. There's an exception for information turned over for 'legitimate foreign law enforcement purposes'." [http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/04/republican-hous.html]<br />
<br />
-The bill's full text is available at [http://thomas.loc.gov/home/gpoxmlc110/h275_ih.xml].<br />
<br />
-Some human rights groups, including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, backed this in the spring. Just-reelected House Rep Chris Smith (R-NJ) did as well.<br />
<br />
(2) The Global Network Initiative<br />
<br />
-"this voluntary initiative applies to doing business everywhere, and works more as a framework to help Internet companies do the due diligence that can help them avoid the ethical lapses for which they've been roundly criticized." [http://blogs.wsj.com/chinajournal/2008/10/28/parsing-the-google-yahoo-microsoft-global-network-initiative/]<br />
<br />
-The content of the GNI can be found at [http://www.globalnetworkinitiative.org/].<br />
<br />
-Amnesty International objects to and criticizes the Initiative [http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/oct/30/amnesty-global-network-initiative].<br />
<br />
-The GNI is, however, backed by Mary Robinson, the first woman President of Ireland (1990-1997), and founder/current president of Rights Realized [http://www.realizingrights.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=46&Itemid=88]. Her quote: "I welcome the collaborative approach that the Global Network Initiative is taking to protect and advance freedom of expression and privacy. This new initiative provides a practical framework for business, human rights groups, the investment community, and academia to work together to advance fundamental human rights principles. While an important first step, the success of this and other multi-stakeholder initiatives addressing human rights issues will depend over the long run on whether they bring about concrete changes in the way businesses respond to unwarranted government restrictions, and whether they develop credible systems of accountability to assess implementation of commitments made.<br />
<br />
We intend to spend a class addressing the difficulty of developing truly international standards in this area, trying to define clearly acceptable and unacceptable behaviors for companies entrusted with private information which could endanger lives and liberty, and discussing ways to incentivize companies to agree to follow these guidelines.<br />
<br />
=== Guests ===<br />
* Rebecca MacKinnon (former CNN journalist, former Berkman Fellow, and now Assistant Professor at the University of Hong Kong's Journalism and Media Center; see fourth and fifth links below)<br />
* Chris Smith (see third link), Congressman and GOFA co-sponsor<br />
* Mary Robertson, former President of Ireland<br />
* Mark Allison, or another Amnesty International researcher on East Asian issues<br />
* Nicola Wong (Google), Michael Samway (Yahoo) (see second link below), or other representatives of Google, Microsoft, or Yahoo who have dealt with China, S. Korea, Saudi Arabia, or other regimes in this context<br />
* Edward J. Markey, House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet<br />
* Marc Rotenberg, Executive Director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center<br />
* Chris Kelly, Facebook Chief Privacy Officer (candidate for AG of California in 2010)<br />
* Peter O’Kelly, Skype President [http://share.skype.com/sites/en/2008/10/answers_to_some_commonly_asked.html]<br />
* Representatives of Google, Microsoft, or Yahoo who have helped design GNI<br />
* Perhaps a representative of the government of South Korea (see seventh link below) or, ideally, China (hey, we can dream)<br />
* Perhaps also a continental civil law (French, German?) free speech scholar to talk about contrasting international ideas of free speech?<br />
* Caroline Nolan, John Palfrey, or this Zittrain guy on the GNI<br />
<br />
=== Links ===<br />
http://blogs.wsj.com/chinajournal/2008/10/28/parsing-the-google-yahoo-microsoft-global-network-initiative/<br />
<br />
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/30/magazine/30google-t.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink&adxnnlx=1229749063-T7qNc5xv9ZLDiLcjc8AZxQ&pagewanted=print<br />
<br />
http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/04/republican-hous.html<br />
<br />
http://rconversation.blogs.com/rconversation/2007/01/google_yahoo_mi.html<br />
<br />
http://www.circleid.com/posts/print/20081028_global_network_initiative/<br />
<br />
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/oct/30/amnesty-global-network-initiative<br />
<br />
http://www.economist.com/world/asia/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12783609<br />
<br />
== Brainstorming (On earlier topic: OpenID) ==<br />
=== Title ===<br />
<br />
OpenId and Internet Governance<br />
:: '''One of the other groups has a fun title (all together now for great justice dot org). Can we have one too? --Dan'''<br />
:: '''Once exams end. --Joshua'''<br />
<br />
=== Precis ===<br />
<br />
* Internet Regulation (as it relates specifically to online safety and security)<br />
* Privacy and anonymity as they relate to structures of control on the Internet<br />
: JZ: I like the idea of a case study, because the topic is too big otherwise. Would not mind someone from openID or even 2 competing groups talk about what they offer, and identify a problem that gives one of them a headache. My guesses on headaches: <br />
:: At what layer of the internet is appropriate for identity?<br />
:: How do you achieve critical mass, do you need the help of government or the help of something that's more than just the market?<br />
: Groups to look at, potentially:<br />
:: OpenID<br />
:: Higgins project<br />
:: Trustfuse (Auren Hoffman)<br />
: And then see which group is most interesting and bring them in. The problem ID architecture is meant to solve - what is it? What are the new problems it creates? What are the barriers to implementing this solution?<br />
<br />
=== Guest wish list (if any) ===<br />
* As an academic, you couldn't do better than Daniel Solove. If we do hone in on a very specific topic, though, we could go for someone with more specialized experience. [[User:Danray|Dan Ray]] 22:39, 7 December 2008 (UTC)<br />
* Although government is subject to all sorts of special legal provisos that the private sector doesn't have to manage, the privacy counsel at DHS, [http://www.dhs.gov/xabout/structure/bio_1166549785058.shtm Hugo Teufel], is pretty [http://www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/privacy/privacy_pia_einstein2.pdf on top of his game]. If we're looking for practitioners, [http://www.arnoldporter.com/attorneys.cfm?action=view&id=380 Ron Lee] of Arnold & Porter does work with private industry.<br />
* If we do OpenID, options for guests might include [http://www.crunchbase.com/person/bill-washburn Bill Washburn] of the OpenID Foundation and [http://blog.unto.net/ DeWitt Clinton] of Google.<br />
* Also, since Passport has foundered, Facebook Connect looks like the hot new thing on the proprietary side. Whoever runs that for Facebook would be a natural invite as well. (see Dan's links below (?))<br />
* And I still think the potential for the mobile phone to become the heretofore mythical convergence device and thus to become a necessary adjunct to personal identity is worth talking over.<br />
<br />
Perhaps a bloggingheads.tv-style video conference call between someone from an electronic privacy nonprofit and a representative from Microsoft or Facebook?<br />
<br />
:'''The Big Think team might be able help secure some of these folks -- hit me up at peter@bigthink.com if you'd like some assistance making contact. we can also help with video teleconferencing etc. [[User:PeterH|PeterH]] 07:11, 25 December 2008 (UTC)<br />
<br />
=== Readings ===<br />
[http://works.bepress.com/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1019&context=james_grimmelmann James Grimmelmann, Facebook and The Social Dyanmics of Privacy]<br />
<br />
[http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=998565 Solove, Daniel J. "'I've Got Nothing to Hide' and Other Misunderstandings of Privacy"]<br />
<br />
=== Links & Articles ===<br />
http://vizedu.com/2008/12/lifestreaming-what-why-and-how/<br />
<br />
http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/125/how-to-fix-the-web.html<br />
<br />
http://developers.facebook.com/connect.php<br />
<br />
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/facebook_connect_vs_open_id.php<br />
<br />
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/facebook_connect_readies.php<br />
<br />
http://chrissaad.wordpress.com/2008/12/01/facebook-connect-aka-hailstorm-20/<br />
<br />
http://wiki.openid.net/Lobbying<br />
<br />
http://planet.openid.net/<br />
<br />
http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/11/30/facebook-google-myspace-data/<br />
<br />
http://blog.socialmedia.com/slowly-reprogramming-the-web-for-social-networks/<br />
<br />
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/01/technology/internet/01facebook.html?_r=1&ref=technology&pagewanted=print<br />
<br />
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8XLfbos9cVocebook-connect-is-the-future-of-digg/&feature=player_embedded<br />
<br />
http://gigaom.com/2008/11/30/social-webs-big-question-federate-or-aggregate/<br />
<br />
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-10110382-2.html<br />
<br />
http://www.oecd.org/LongAbstract/0,3425,en_2649_34223_40204774_119684_1_1_1,00.html<br />
<br />
=== Concrete question(s) of the week ===<br />
<br />
What specific privacy expectations should be articulated to the groups who control the future of OpenID?<br />
<br />
=== Anything else material towards planning your topic ===<br />
<br />
<br />
* Facebook + google people?<br />
* another way to look at it is as a matter of cybercrime and such - new surveillence methods (also relevant in regards to child pornography, for example). i wander if these are too different topics or not. '''[[User:Ayelet|Ayelet]]'''<br />
* I'd like to see a segment on what "privacy" actually means in law and in culture. This would probably attach well to any other, more applied segment. [[User:Danray|Dan Ray]] 16:38, 3 December 2008 (EST)<br />
*Creating a series of Privacy Certification Marks</div>Jgruensphttps://cyber.harvard.edu/iif/?title=Open_Networks,_Closed_Regimes&diff=1008Open Networks, Closed Regimes2008-12-26T03:01:41Z<p>Jgruensp: Added final topic per email discussion - some details still to be worked out</p>
<hr />
<div>'''[[User:Danray|Dan Ray]]''', '''[[User:CKennedy|Conor]]''', '''[[User:Jgruensp|Joshua]]'''<br />
<br />
== The Plan ==<br />
=== Title ===<br />
::Open Network, Closed Regimes::<br />
With US-based internet services used by citizens of every regime in the world, information of interest to governments with widely varying standards of privacy is now in the hands of Western corporations. What should the response of American citizens and American internet service companies be to requests for user information from foreign governments?<br />
<br />
=== Precis ===<br />
<br />
<br />
Two major contenders have dominated discussion to date:<br />
<br />
(1) Global Online Freedoms Act<br />
<br />
-The proposed Global Online Freedoms Act "would make it a crime for U.S. companies to turn over personal information on their users to governments of 'internet-restricting countries' who would use the information to repress its citizens. There's an exception for information turned over for 'legitimate foreign law enforcement purposes'." [http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/04/republican-hous.html]<br />
<br />
-The bill's full text is available at [http://thomas.loc.gov/home/gpoxmlc110/h275_ih.xml].<br />
<br />
-Some human rights groups, including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, backed this in the spring. Just-reelected House Rep Chris Smith (R-NJ) did as well.<br />
<br />
(2) The Global Network Initiative<br />
<br />
-"this voluntary initiative applies to doing business everywhere, and works more as a framework to help Internet companies do the due diligence that can help them avoid the ethical lapses for which they've been roundly criticized." [http://blogs.wsj.com/chinajournal/2008/10/28/parsing-the-google-yahoo-microsoft-global-network-initiative/]<br />
<br />
-The content of the GNI can be found at [http://www.globalnetworkinitiative.org/].<br />
<br />
-Amnesty International objects to and criticizes the Initiative [http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/oct/30/amnesty-global-network-initiative].<br />
<br />
-The GNI is, however, backed by Mary Robinson, the first woman President of Ireland (1990-1997), and founder/current president of Rights Realized [http://www.realizingrights.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=46&Itemid=88]. Her quote: "I welcome the collaborative approach that the Global Network Initiative is taking to protect and advance freedom of expression and privacy. This new initiative provides a practical framework for business, human rights groups, the investment community, and academia to work together to advance fundamental human rights principles. While an important first step, the success of this and other multi-stakeholder initiatives addressing human rights issues will depend over the long run on whether they bring about concrete changes in the way businesses respond to unwarranted government restrictions, and whether they develop credible systems of accountability to assess implementation of commitments made.<br />
<br />
=== Guests ===<br />
* Rebecca MacKinnon (former CNN journalist, former Berkman Fellow, and now Assistant Professor at the University of Hong Kong's Journalism and Media Center; see fourth and fifth links below)<br />
* Chris Smith (see third link), Congressman and GOFA co-sponsor<br />
* Mary Robertson, former President of Ireland<br />
* Mark Allison, or another Amnesty International researcher on East Asian issues<br />
* Perhaps a representative of the government of South Korea (see seventh link below) or, ideally, China (hey, we can dream)<br />
* Perhaps also a continental civil law (French, German?) free speech scholar to talk about contrasting international ideas of free speech?<br />
* Representatives of Google, Microsoft, or Yahoo who have dealt with China, S. Korea, Saudi Arabia, or other regimes<br />
* Representatives of Google, Microsoft, or Yahoo who have helped design GNI<br />
* Caroline Nolan, John Palfrey, or this Zittrain guy<br />
<br />
=== Links ===<br />
http://blogs.wsj.com/chinajournal/2008/10/28/parsing-the-google-yahoo-microsoft-global-network-initiative/<br />
<br />
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/30/magazine/30google-t.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink&adxnnlx=1229749063-T7qNc5xv9ZLDiLcjc8AZxQ&pagewanted=print<br />
<br />
http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/04/republican-hous.html<br />
<br />
http://rconversation.blogs.com/rconversation/2007/01/google_yahoo_mi.html<br />
<br />
http://www.circleid.com/posts/print/20081028_global_network_initiative/<br />
<br />
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/oct/30/amnesty-global-network-initiative<br />
<br />
http://www.economist.com/world/asia/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12783609<br />
<br />
== Brainstorming (On earlier topic: OpenID) ==<br />
=== Title ===<br />
<br />
OpenId and Internet Governance<br />
:: '''One of the other groups has a fun title (all together now for great justice dot org). Can we have one too? --Dan'''<br />
:: '''Once exams end. --Joshua'''<br />
<br />
=== Precis ===<br />
<br />
* Internet Regulation (as it relates specifically to online safety and security)<br />
* Privacy and anonymity as they relate to structures of control on the Internet<br />
: JZ: I like the idea of a case study, because the topic is too big otherwise. Would not mind someone from openID or even 2 competing groups talk about what they offer, and identify a problem that gives one of them a headache. My guesses on headaches: <br />
:: At what layer of the internet is appropriate for identity?<br />
:: How do you achieve critical mass, do you need the help of government or the help of something that's more than just the market?<br />
: Groups to look at, potentially:<br />
:: OpenID<br />
:: Higgins project<br />
:: Trustfuse (Auren Hoffman)<br />
: And then see which group is most interesting and bring them in. The problem ID architecture is meant to solve - what is it? What are the new problems it creates? What are the barriers to implementing this solution?<br />
<br />
=== Guest wish list (if any) ===<br />
* As an academic, you couldn't do better than Daniel Solove. If we do hone in on a very specific topic, though, we could go for someone with more specialized experience. [[User:Danray|Dan Ray]] 22:39, 7 December 2008 (UTC)<br />
* Although government is subject to all sorts of special legal provisos that the private sector doesn't have to manage, the privacy counsel at DHS, [http://www.dhs.gov/xabout/structure/bio_1166549785058.shtm Hugo Teufel], is pretty [http://www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/privacy/privacy_pia_einstein2.pdf on top of his game]. If we're looking for practitioners, [http://www.arnoldporter.com/attorneys.cfm?action=view&id=380 Ron Lee] of Arnold & Porter does work with private industry.<br />
* If we do OpenID, options for guests might include [http://www.crunchbase.com/person/bill-washburn Bill Washburn] of the OpenID Foundation and [http://blog.unto.net/ DeWitt Clinton] of Google.<br />
* Also, since Passport has foundered, Facebook Connect looks like the hot new thing on the proprietary side. Whoever runs that for Facebook would be a natural invite as well. (see Dan's links below (?))<br />
* And I still think the potential for the mobile phone to become the heretofore mythical convergence device and thus to become a necessary adjunct to personal identity is worth talking over.<br />
<br />
Perhaps a bloggingheads.tv-style video conference call between someone from an electronic privacy nonprofit and a representative from Microsoft or Facebook?<br />
<br />
:'''The Big Think team might be able help secure some of these folks -- hit me up at peter@bigthink.com if you'd like some assistance making contact. we can also help with video teleconferencing etc. [[User:PeterH|PeterH]] 07:11, 25 December 2008 (UTC)<br />
<br />
=== Readings ===<br />
[http://works.bepress.com/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1019&context=james_grimmelmann James Grimmelmann, Facebook and The Social Dyanmics of Privacy]<br />
<br />
[http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=998565 Solove, Daniel J. "'I've Got Nothing to Hide' and Other Misunderstandings of Privacy"]<br />
<br />
=== Links & Articles ===<br />
http://vizedu.com/2008/12/lifestreaming-what-why-and-how/<br />
<br />
http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/125/how-to-fix-the-web.html<br />
<br />
http://developers.facebook.com/connect.php<br />
<br />
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/facebook_connect_vs_open_id.php<br />
<br />
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/facebook_connect_readies.php<br />
<br />
http://chrissaad.wordpress.com/2008/12/01/facebook-connect-aka-hailstorm-20/<br />
<br />
http://wiki.openid.net/Lobbying<br />
<br />
http://planet.openid.net/<br />
<br />
http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/11/30/facebook-google-myspace-data/<br />
<br />
http://blog.socialmedia.com/slowly-reprogramming-the-web-for-social-networks/<br />
<br />
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/01/technology/internet/01facebook.html?_r=1&ref=technology&pagewanted=print<br />
<br />
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8XLfbos9cVocebook-connect-is-the-future-of-digg/&feature=player_embedded<br />
<br />
http://gigaom.com/2008/11/30/social-webs-big-question-federate-or-aggregate/<br />
<br />
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-10110382-2.html<br />
<br />
http://www.oecd.org/LongAbstract/0,3425,en_2649_34223_40204774_119684_1_1_1,00.html<br />
<br />
=== Concrete question(s) of the week ===<br />
<br />
What specific privacy expectations should be articulated to the groups who control the future of OpenID?<br />
<br />
=== Anything else material towards planning your topic ===<br />
<br />
<br />
* Facebook + google people?<br />
* another way to look at it is as a matter of cybercrime and such - new surveillence methods (also relevant in regards to child pornography, for example). i wander if these are too different topics or not. '''[[User:Ayelet|Ayelet]]'''<br />
* I'd like to see a segment on what "privacy" actually means in law and in culture. This would probably attach well to any other, more applied segment. [[User:Danray|Dan Ray]] 16:38, 3 December 2008 (EST)<br />
*Creating a series of Privacy Certification Marks</div>Jgruensphttps://cyber.harvard.edu/iif/?title=Open_Networks,_Closed_Regimes&diff=799Open Networks, Closed Regimes2008-12-13T22:24:09Z<p>Jgruensp: </p>
<hr />
<div>'''[[User:Danray|Dan Ray]]''', '''[[User:CKennedy|Conor]]''', '''[[User:Jgruensp|Joshua]]'''<br />
<br />
=== Title ===<br />
<br />
OpenId and Internet Governance<br />
:: '''One of the other groups has a fun title (all together now for great justice dot org). Can we have one too? --Dan'''<br />
:: '''Once exams end. --Joshua'''<br />
<br />
=== Precis ===<br />
<br />
* Internet Regulation (as it relates specifically to online safety and security)<br />
* Privacy and anonymity as they relate to structures of control on the Internet<br />
: JZ: I like the idea of a case study, because the topic is too big otherwise. Would not mind someone from openID or even 2 competing groups talk about what they offer, and identify a problem that gives one of them a headache. My guesses on headaches: <br />
:: At what layer of the internet is appropriate for identity?<br />
:: How do you achieve critical mass, do you need the help of government or the help of something that's more than just the market?<br />
: Groups to look at, potentially:<br />
:: OpenID<br />
:: Higgins project<br />
:: Trustfuse (Auren Hoffman)<br />
: And then see which group is most interesting and bring them in. The problem ID architecture is meant to solve - what is it? What are the new problems it creates? What are the barriers to implementing this solution?<br />
<br />
=== Guest wish list (if any) ===<br />
* As an academic, you couldn't do better than Daniel Solove. If we do hone in on a very specific topic, though, we could go for someone with more specialized experience. [[User:Danray|Dan Ray]] 22:39, 7 December 2008 (UTC)<br />
* Although government is subject to all sorts of special legal provisos that the private sector doesn't have to manage, the privacy counsel at DHS, [http://www.dhs.gov/xabout/structure/bio_1166549785058.shtm Hugo Teufel], is pretty [http://www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/privacy/privacy_pia_einstein2.pdf on top of his game]. If we're looking for practitioners, [http://www.arnoldporter.com/attorneys.cfm?action=view&id=380 Ron Lee] of Arnold & Porter does work with private industry.<br />
* If we do OpenID, options for guests might include [http://www.crunchbase.com/person/bill-washburn Bill Washburn] of the OpenID Foundation and [http://blog.unto.net/ DeWitt Clinton] of Google.<br />
* Also, since Passport has foundered, Facebook Connect looks like the hot new thing on the proprietary side. Whoever runs that for Facebook would be a natural invite as well. (see Dan's links below (?))<br />
* And I still think the potential for the mobile phone to become the heretofore mythical convergence device and thus to become a necessary adjunct to personal identity is worth talking over.<br />
<br />
Perhaps a bloggingheads.tv-style video conference call between someone from an electronic privacy nonprofit and a representative from Microsoft or Facebook?<br />
<br />
=== Readings ===<br />
[http://works.bepress.com/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1019&context=james_grimmelmann James Grimmelmann, Facebook and The Social Dyanmics of Privacy]<br />
<br />
[http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=998565 Solove, Daniel J. "'I've Got Nothing to Hide' and Other Misunderstandings of Privacy"]<br />
<br />
=== Links ===<br />
http://vizedu.com/2008/12/lifestreaming-what-why-and-how/<br />
<br />
http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/125/how-to-fix-the-web.html<br />
<br />
http://developers.facebook.com/connect.php<br />
<br />
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/facebook_connect_vs_open_id.php<br />
<br />
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/facebook_connect_readies.php<br />
<br />
http://chrissaad.wordpress.com/2008/12/01/facebook-connect-aka-hailstorm-20/<br />
<br />
http://wiki.openid.net/Lobbying<br />
<br />
http://planet.openid.net/<br />
<br />
=== Concrete question(s) of the week ===<br />
<br />
What specific privacy expectations should be articulated to the groups who control the future of OpenID?<br />
<br />
=== Anything else material towards planning your topic ===<br />
<br />
<br />
* Facebook + google people?<br />
* another way to look at it is as a matter of cybercrime and such - new surveillence methods (also relevant in regards to child pornography, for example). i wander if these are too different topics or not. '''[[User:Ayelet|Ayelet]]'''<br />
* I'd like to see a segment on what "privacy" actually means in law and in culture. This would probably attach well to any other, more applied segment. [[User:Danray|Dan Ray]] 16:38, 3 December 2008 (EST)<br />
*Creating a series of Privacy Certification Marks</div>Jgruensphttps://cyber.harvard.edu/iif/?title=Syllabus&diff=651Syllabus2008-12-08T03:45:12Z<p>Jgruensp: </p>
<hr />
<div>== The Future of Copyright and Entertainment ==<br />
'''Presenters:''' ''[[User:Jfishman|Joe]], [[User:Miriam|Miriam]]''<br />
<br />
* fan fiction websites <br />
* right of privacy/publicity on social network sites <br />
<br />
==== Changing trends in Consumption & Creation of Music and other Performance Art ====<br />
<br />
We are beginning to see more and more choices for where and how to get copyrighted music. Gone are the days when it was either download illegally on programs such as Limewire or pay for them on iTunes. In some instances, copyright is even receding as a battleground issue altogether. In this session, we would be exploring how these new avenues of music consumption & creation might affect the way we experience music in our day to day lives--and just what exactly copyright has to do with any of it. The following are a few examples of some points of tension.<br />
<br />
First, we may consider the rise of alternative marketplaces for music. There have been attempts at creating new marketplaces from scratch such as at [http://amiestreet.com Aimee Street], which lowers the cost of discovering new music by setting price according to download popularity. Then there has been [http://grooveshark.com Grooveshark], which charges for downloads from its user-uploaded library but actually gives a cut to the original uploader. And then we find the advertisement-driven revenue model creeping in, such as at [http://www.imeem.com Imeem], the third-most popular social networking site on the Internet as of August (behind only facebook and MySpace). We also find Radiohead using a tip jar for their latest release, where customers pay as little or as much as they deem appropriate. <br />
<br />
Second, it has been said that iTunes is changing our musical culture from an "concept based" one to a "song based" one. The transition means that the album becomes less and less of a meaningful unit of creativity; consumers are more likely to think of the tracks as individual songs than as parts of a coherent whole. Music critics might follow suit. It's worth asking whether this trend will continue--does the move to digital media necessarily produce this result? The potential demise of the album provides a useful case study of how means of consumption and distribution affects how we conceptualize the music we experience.<br />
<br />
Third, with the rise of peer-recommendation services and internet-radio stations that are driven by a listener's past interests, it's worth asking just where & how we'll be discovering new music in the future. When we are downloading individual songs rather than albums, and discovering those songs through automated services, are we likely to discover new artists to follow? Or does "the artist" as a predictor of our aesthetic taste begin to recede in importance?<br />
<br />
''Some possible questions of the week:''<br />
<br />
* In 5 years, where are we likely to be getting our music from?<br />
* Are any of the models described above likely to succeed commercially? <br />
* Are our methods of music consumption likely to have an impact on our methods of music production? Is this likely to have an affect on the sort of music available to us?<br />
* How closely will we be following particular artist's careers? Is the rise of peer-recommendation services likely to decrease the importance of brand loyalty to an artist? With alternative indicators of whether we're likely to enjoy something, will we see fewer listeners buying the latest album? Does anyone even care about albums anymore? <br />
* What affect will all of this have on our inclination and capacity to branch out in our tastes? For those that worry about internet echo chambers, should we be just as worried about an echo chamber for the arts?<br />
* Just where does the recording industry fit in to all of this?<br />
* How much does copyright have to do with the new strategies being developed for distributing music online? Where would changes in copyright law make the most difference? The least difference?<br />
<br />
'''Possible Readings'''<br />
<br />
* James Boyle on [http://yupnet.org/boyle/archives/130 mashups]<br />
* [http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/04/arts/music/04radi.html Radiohead Fans, Guided by Conscience (and Budget), N.Y. Times, Oct. 4, 2007].<br />
* Diane Zimmerman, ''Living Without Copyright in a Digital World'', 70 Alb. L. Rev. 1375 (2007).<br />
* Michael W. Carroll, ''Whose Music Is It Anyway? How We Came to View Music as a Form of Property'', 72 U. Cin. L. Rev. 1405 (2004).<br />
<br />
'''Possible Guests'''<br />
<br />
* Radiohead (worth a shot, right?)<br />
* Brian Burton, aka DJ Danger Mouse<br />
* Girl Talk<br />
* Jan Jannink (co-founder of imeem, formerly of Napster)<br />
* James Boyle (Duke Law School & chair of Creative Commons)<br />
* Terry Fisher (HLS & Noank Media)<br />
* John Buckman (Magnatune Records)<br />
* Downhill Battle<br />
<br />
==== The Proliferation of Images Online ====<br />
tbd<br />
<br />
<br />
'''Possible Guests'''<br />
<br />
Rebecca Tushnet <br />
<br />
tbd<br />
<br />
== Old Laws/New Media ==<br />
<br />
Matt Sanchez, Debbie Rosenbaum, Shubham Mukherjee<br />
<br />
This topic concerns the tension that occurs when we attempt to apply old laws to new media and communications technologies (including the Internet). The discussions in this session should provide a useful legal perspective on the societal issues addressed in the sessions regarding music, news, and other communications media.<br />
<br />
'''Tentative "questions of the week" '''<br />
* How has new media affected traditional communications and media industries and challenged traditional law? <br />
* How has traditional law challenged new media?<br />
* Should new media be treated like one of the traditional media (print, broadcasting, or common carriers), a hybrid, or something entirely new? <br />
* How have the courts, Congress, and other lawmaking bodies responded to new media technologies? <br />
* What regulatory regime is emerging, if any, to govern new media?<br />
* How do we deal with the fact that there is little legal infrastructure that takes into account today's new media and technological environments? <br />
* Do we apply old laws to new technologies, or do we create new regulations? <br />
* How can we create sound policy that aligns with both traditional legal and moral aspirations while according with today's technological realities?<br />
<br />
<br />
'''Tentative ideas for topics'''<br />
* Copyright law (e.g., recording industry's litigation campaign against filesharing) (including the specific example of Sony BMG v. Tenenbaum, a federal file-sharing case the three of us are working on with Professor Charles Nesson, co-founder of the Berkman Center)<br />
* Speech-related law (e.g., defamation, anonymous speech rights)<br />
* Privacy laws<br />
<br />
<br />
'''Possible guests'''<br />
* Google Telecom Lawyer Rick Whitt<br />
* Google Antitrust Lawyer Dana Wagner<br />
* Berkman Center's David Ardia, who runs the Citizen Media Law Project <br />
* Cary Sherman of RIAA<br />
* Professor Charles Nesson<br />
* Public Citizen Litigation Group Attorney Paul Alan Levy<br />
* Electronic Frontier Foundation Attorney Fred Von Lohmann<br />
<br />
<br />
'''Possible readings'''<br />
* Various court documents and media coverage from the Sony v. Tenenbaum case<br />
* Materials related to online defamation and anonymity law (AutoAdmit, Roommates.com, etc.)<br />
* Reno v. ACLU, 521 U.S. 844 (1997) (Supreme Court decision striking down parts of Communications Decency Act and also the Court's leading statement on the constitutional status of the Internet)<br />
* Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc. v. Grokster Ltd., 545 U.S. 913 (2005) (Internet services that facilitate file sharing of copyrighted materials can be held liable for infringement)<br />
* Digital Millennium Copyright Act (1998 law that extended U.S. copyright principles to digital materials).<br />
<br />
''' Other considerations'''<br />
* TBD<br />
<br />
== The Internet and Publication ==<br />
'''Presenters: [[User:Gwen|Gwen]], [[User:Lbaker|Lee]], [[User:Cooper|Jon]]'''<br />
<br />
The internet has completely changed the meaning of publication, and the relationship between print and digital media is continually evolving. The advent of the personal computer and the internet have changed the way information is assembled, distributed, managed, and digested in ways at least as dramatic and consequential as the advent of the printing press. How are traditional publishers coping with these changes? What new forms of publishing are made possible by the internet, and what challenges do they entail? --[[User:Gwen|Gwen]] 16:34, 1 December 2008 (EST)<br />
<br />
=== The Publication Process ===<br />
<br />
==== Open Access Publishing ====<br />
<br />
Addressing whether there actually seems to be a movement toward this model, and away from traditional science/tech publishing. What effects movement toward this model might have on quality, oversight, etc. of published articles. Also, discussion of business models/funding, problems with open access models, etc. And any copyright issues (to tie things back to law).<br />
<br />
This can relate both to open access of full articles (as with [http://www.plos.org/ PLoS]) or single experiments/results (including [http://sciencecommons.org/ Science Commons] and like projects to both make the data available, and, perhaps more importantly, the technologies to make it available in usable form)<br />
<br />
Would "open review" (instead of "peer review") work? Are there any models around? What about a Slashdot-style system of moderation and meta-moderation?<br />
<br />
Yes, there is at least one example that I can think of. Lawrence Lessig published the first edition of his book Code in 1999. It came out in paper and ink. Several years later, in order to "translate" (his word) the book into a second edition, Lessig persuaded the publisher (Basic Books) to allow him to post the entire text of the first edition of the book on a wiki hosted by Jotspot. (The Wiki text was licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5 License.) Lessig explains, "a team of 'chapter captains' helped facilitate a conversation about the text. There were some edits to the text itself, and many more valuable comments and criticisms. I then took that text as of the end of 2005 and added my own edits to produce this book." (Preface to ''Code version 2.0'', x.) ''Code version 2.0'' is the result of this collaborative editing process. It is available for purchase in paper and ink, for free as a [http://pdf.codev2.cc/Lessig-Codev2.pdf PDF download], and also on a [http://www.socialtext.net/codev2/index.cgi wiki] hosted by Socialtext. --[[User:Gwen|Gwen]] 15:45, 1 December 2008 (EST)<br />
<br />
==== Collaborative and Customized Textbooks ====<br />
<br />
Maybe also Harvard's new open access policy for academic work?<br />
(note that the Harvard Free Culture group is working on the matter - see [http://wiki.freeculture.org/Open_University_Campaign The Weeler Declaration])<br />
<br />
JZ described an innovative publication option with which Foundation Press seems willing to experiment: essentially, individual chapters are available independently from one another, giving instructors the freedom to custom build a text book that contains exactly their desired materials (no more, and no less), in the desired sequence. Assuming this model is technologically, legally, and financially feasible, what benefits and drawbacks does it entail? Possible risks might include a lack of completeness and/or organization in the materials ultimately acquired by students as well as the possibility that pedagogical emphasis is dictated by sociologically driven group trends rather than deliberately thoughtful decision making. --[[User:Gwen|Gwen]] 15:57, 1 December 2008 (EST)<br />
<br />
==== Self Publication ====<br />
<br />
One of the biggest and most obvious changes wrought by the advent of the internet and PCs the ability of individuals to self-publish; it is now cheap, quick, and easy to reach a mass audience with one's own text, images, and sounds. The rise of blogging, Youtube, and other developments have further increased the ease of self-publication. I know that several scholars have studied the rise and impact of self publication opportunities, but I'm not sure what conclusions they've drawn or which of them might be interesting to bring in as a guest. Suggestions? --[[User:Gwen|Gwen]] 16:09, 1 December 2008 (EST)<br />
<br />
=== The Relationship Between Print and Digital Media ===<br />
<br />
==== Google Book Search ====<br />
<br />
What does the [http://www.authorsguild.org/advocacy/articles/settlement-resources.html recent settlement] between Google and the Authors Guild/American Association of Publishers regarding online accessibility of digitalized books mean? Many have hailed it for both improving access to knowledge by creating [http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/30/opinion/30gleick.html?em "the long dreamed of universal library"] and for avoiding a judicial resolution that might have exposed antiquated aspects of US copyright law. But there may also be troubling aspects of having access to such a large and unique collection of content controlled by a single for-profit company (the agreement is non-exclusive to Google, but it may be difficult for a legitimate competitor to emerge, given Google's sizable first mover advantage). <br />
<br />
Is this settlement optimal for all interested groups? Presumably it is for Google and the Authors Guild/AAP, but what about externalities for non-parties, such as the reading public? Is some sort of government intervention appropriate to ensure access to this "universal library"? What difference does it make, if any, that this "universal library" is operated by a private company reliant on many [http://www.google.com/googlebooks/partners.html public university libraries?]<br />
<br />
==== The Shifting Role of Publishing Companies ====<br />
<br />
As noted above under "Self Publication," the internet makes it very easy for individuals to make their work widely available. However, actually garnering a sizable audience or realizing a profit from one's work remains a greater challenge; it appears to be with respect to this step that the services of traditional publishers appear to retain some value. After all, publishing companies offer marketing channels and name recognition in addition to simply machines that print a books. Are traditional publishing companies threatened by the new forms of publishing that the internet makes possible? Are publishers better off battling the internet (for example, by emphasizing the superiority and reliability of their traditional services) or embracing it (for example, by offering digital and internet-based publication services)? --[[User:Gwen|Gwen]] 16:16, 1 December 2008 (EST) Should the latter services and items -- such as ebooks, audiobooks in mp3 format, and Amazon Kindle -- be replacements for or compliments to printed books? --[[User:Gwen|Gwen]] 07:32, 2 December 2008 (EST)<br />
<br />
==== The Fate of Printed Materials ====<br />
<br />
Will the internet cause the use of printed materials to decline to the point that printed materials become obsolete? Obsolescence is reality in my own experience with The ''Harvard Journal of Law and Technology'' (''JOLT''). ''JOLT'' publishes its articles online on its [http://jolt.law.harvard.edu/ website], and it also publishes shorter and more timely posts online in its companion, the [http://jolt.law.harvard.edu/digest/ JOLT Digest]. In addition to being available directly to any internet user, all ''JOLT'' articles are made available through legal research databases, including Westlaw and Lexis. Each semester, we order from our publisher (Hein) enormous boxes of the new issue in print, but we have no idea what to do with them. Even after giving away copies to our parents, there are still stacks and stacks of unwanted and unneeded paper copies, and a lighthearted dialogue about what to do with them has steadily taken over the dry erase board in our office. These printed copies of our journal are literally useless. --[[User:Gwen|Gwen]] 16:32, 1 December 2008 (EST)<br />
<br />
The way that readers encounter and digest information is vastly different in the context of printed materials and in the context of digital and online materials. These differences have consequences for both academic researchers and regular citizens in terms of both the kind of information an individual is exposed to and the way that the individual approaches those sources. If a dramatic shift away from printed media is happening, what other shifts does that entail for the way that people learn, synthesize, and evaluate information? --[[User:Gwen|Gwen]] 16:45, 1 December 2008 (EST)<br />
<br />
We talked about an [http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200807/google interesting article] relating to the topic of how digital media and the internet are affecting the way in which people read in JZ's 1L reading group. The article relates more to how the presentation of written material on the 'net (short and skimmable, links galore, etc.) is affecting the way we process information and our ability to read "long" pieces (ie. more than a page or so) without becoming distracted. It is a bit tangential to the specific discussion of the movement of print media onto digital form (since it mostly discusses the ''differences'' between the format of media in each of the forms), but is interesting regardless. [[User:Lbaker|Lbaker]] 08:55, 2 December 2008 (EST)<br />
<br />
==== Distribution Channels ====<br />
<br />
How is the internet changing the way printed materials are distributed? [http://www.amazon.com Amazon.com] appears to be taking over the role of brick-and-mortar bookstores by offering a cheaper and more convenient way to purchase new printed books; their "look inside" feature makes the online shopping experience even more similar to being in a live bookstore. Similarly, [http://www.abebooks.com Abebooks.com] and similar websites have made it possible for individuals to locate and purchase used, out-of-print, and rare books from one another without requiring the research services of specialized booksellers. Even if hard copy printed materials remain in demand, might bookstores become obsolete? --[[User:Gwen|Gwen]] 19:41, 4 December 2008 (EST)<br />
<br />
=== Possible Guests ===<br />
* Google book digitization people and/or members of the authors guild<br />
* Amazon Kindle people<br />
* People from publishing companies doing offering innovative services, products, or editing processes involving the internet. (Does anybody know of such companies?)<br />
* Someone who has studied self publication on the internet (names?)<br />
* Someone who has studied reading habits in conjunction with the shift away from printed media (names?)<br />
* Lessig? (he is probably more useful for a different topic)<br />
<br />
== Free and Open Source Software ==<br />
'''Presenters: [[dulles]]''','''[[User:Ayelet|Ayelet]]''' <br />
<br />
* How can a dispersed, multilingual collection of coders working for free assemble something as complicated as a web browser, let alone an entire operating system? Open-source projects are famously free-wheeling, but different organizational models and tools have sprung up to solve these obstacles.<br />
<br />
What are the forces that drive hackers to contribute to open source projects? What, if anything, can we learn from applying theories of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gift_economy gift economies] to open source projects? Should we read Lewis Hyde's [http://southerncrossreview.org/4/schwartz.html The Gift]? (n.b. i may be motivated by my own desire to read the book -- [[dulles]])<br />
<br />
* Eric Raymond/OSI ?<br />
* PJ/Groklaw<br />
* Strategies and indemnities (e.g. SCO v. IBM)<br />
* Questioning the foundations of the free software movement (i.e. the "four freedoms")[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_software#cite_ref-bull6_3-0] -- how much does access to the source code really matter anymore? Are there alternative theories (e.g. "generativity") that better capture the values at stake? Affero License? (Eben Moglen?)<br />
* The organization/groups/cooperation questions: how do free software projects organize and govern themselves, and what broader lessons might be learned from it? (e.g. debian, IETF)<br />
<br />
(This marks my initial claim to the topic, though I would be overjoyed to work with others - [[dulles]])<br />
<br />
== Philanthropy/Causes/Cooperation via the Internet ==<br />
'''Presenters:''' '''[[User:Hoellra|Rainer]]''' + [[User:Elanaberkowitz|'''Elana''']] + '''[[User:Mchua|Mchua]]'''<br />
<br />
=== Title ===<br />
<br />
Suggestions:<br />
<br />
* All Together Now For Great Justice Dot Org<br />
<br />
=== Precis ===<br />
<br />
Examples:<br />
* Pledgebank<br />
* Facebook Causes<br />
<br />
::Yeah, we probably should work on this part more. [[User:Mchua|Mchua]] 06:07, 5 December 2008 (EST)<br />
<br />
* www.zoosa.org<br />
* [http://citizenbase.org/approach Citizenbase]<br />
<br />
=== Guest wish list ===<br />
* Prof. Yochai Benkler<br />
* Tom Steinberg<br />
* Sean Parker and Joe Green, founders of Project Agape, the start-up that created Facebook Causes<br />
<br />
=== Readings ===<br />
<br />
* [http://www.opendemocracy.net/article/globalisation/philanthropy_on_the_commons Philanthropy on the Commons]<br />
* [http://www.opendemocracy.net/media-copyrightlaw/benkler_3487.jsp Mining the wealth of networks with Yochai Benkler]<br />
* [http://www.comnetwork.org/resources/brotherton_new_media_091608.pdf Foundations and New Media]<br />
* [http://www.netsquared.org Netsquared]<br />
* [http://www.benkler.org/Benkler_Wealth_Of_Networks.pdf Benkler: The Wealth of Networks]<br />
<br />
=== Concrete question(s) of the week ===<br />
<br />
* What makes online campaigning successful?<br />
* What makes online fundraising successful?<br />
* Waht makes online activism/mobilization successful?<br />
* What makes online collaboration for good causes successful?<br />
* Is there a generalizable model here?<br />
* If yes, has this model different success factors from the business world?<br />
* What are cutting-edge examples of campaigning/fundraising/mobilization/collaboration? How do they harness different channels and media (www, email, SMS, etc.)?<br />
<br />
=== Anything else material towards planning your topic ===<br />
<br />
Of course there are a lot of custom-built tools for mobilizing people online to get things done in the real world. On the other hand, what about more general tools? We've all been invited, via Facebook, to join groups and attend events (the Obama campaign certainly made good use of this); is there a generalizable model here?<br />
<br />
Facebook groups dedicated to particular causes remind me of the online petitions that began circulating widely via email about ten years ago: their effectiveness in accomplishing real world change--and even their visibility to individuals capable of affecting the desired changes--are dubious. Is the real purpose of these movements simply to make participants ''feel'' like they are being active and involved? What percentage of those who signed email petitions in the 1990s were aware that their signatures were unverifiable and that the widely-distributed emails were unlikely to be collated and submitted to an official authority? What expectations do participants in facebook group causes have for their involvement and its consequences? The facebook group causes are certainly more centralized and visible than the old email petitions, and they provide a better tool for identifying and communicating with supporters in order to mobilize them in an organized fashion. How often is such mobilization attempted, and with what degree of success? As a tool of online activism, is facebook a step forward from chain emails, is it a step in a different direction, or does it just serve the same old functions but in newer packaging? --[[User:Gwen|Gwen]] 08:26, 29 November 2008 (EST)<br />
<br />
Maybe we can invite some of the leaders of the various social networking sites or Jascha Franklin-Hodge, who was an architect of the Obama campaign's use of social technology.<br />
<br />
Might also be worth considering SMS applications that interface with the internet in this context especially since cell phones will presumably be the nexus of tech activism in the developing world. See FrontlineSMS or Ushahidi, a web crisis mapping project that let any user with a cell phone text in reports of violence in post-election Kenya as a way to geographically report real-time citizen reporting. (ELANA)<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
== The Internet and Societal Inequity ==<br />
'''Presenters:''' '''[[User:Megerman|Mark]]''', '''[[User:G|Graham]]'''<br />
<br />
=== Socio-technical Gap ===<br />
<br />
Problems encountered in the act of discoursing itself are sometimes addressed via social means, technological means, or both. It has been suggested that technological tools should support social processes, but there is an adaptation of each realm to the other - how does this back-and-forth take place in the design of a successful technology-enabled discussion?<br />
<br />
Which inequalities are created or strengthened due the increasing reliance on technology and the differences in the ability to access the Internet(e.g. global and socio-economic differences)? Does the net actually re-distribute and decentralize power and influence, or does it also reinforce the existing political and economic hierarchies? In short - is the Internet really a good thing for everybody?<br />
<br />
*A solutions-focused question here might be: what tools might encourage a more egalitarian internet, both nationally and internationally? How can online applications be designed to encourage social equality? (Berkman Fellow [http://eszter.com Eszter Hargittai] has worked on some related questions, focusing on research about how people actually use the internet.) --[[User:G|G]] 12:12, 28 November 2008 (EST)<br />
<br />
=== One Laptop Per Child ===<br />
<br />
Happy to help this group with info as I can. [[User:Mchua|Mchua]]<br />
<br />
=== Environmental Concerns ===<br />
<br />
To what extent is the hardware upon which the Internet exists damaging the environment? Where does old tech go when it dies? What distributive impact does the "recycling" of old tech have. Was the Internet build with principles of physical sustainbility in mind? Is it too late to change? How do individual companies, like Google, view their own practices? Does the cost of a server internalize the cost of disposal? Why has it been cheaper to just keep throwing on new machines? What of the electricity necessary to run these machines? What does it say about society that we are so willing to pollute our own communities to create a second life? Has technological innovation and advancement dislocated the true impact of non-zero cost transactions? --[[User:Megerman|Megerman]] 19:36, 29 November 2008 (EST)<br />
<br />
== Prediction Markets ==<br />
'''Presenters:''' '''[[User:Mwansley|Matthew]]''', '''[[User:EST|Elisabeth]]'''<br />
<br />
Intrade, etc.<br />
<br />
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TradeSports Tradesports] announced last week that it will [http://www.tradesports.com/ cease operations] at the end of this month. Does fallout from the current economic crisis include regulatory changes that spell doom for online prediction markets? Or is something else going on here? --[[User:Gwen|Gwen]] 11:05, 26 November 2008 (EST)<br />
<br />
Could prediction markets transform how we govern ourselves? Robin Hanson proposes [http://hanson.gmu.edu/futarchy.pdf Futarchy]. The idea in brief:<br />
<br />
"Democracies often fail to aggregate information, while speculative markets excel at this task. We consider a new form of governance, wherein voters would say what we want, but speculators would say how to get it. Elected representatives would oversee the after-the-fact measurement of national welfare, while market speculators would say which policies they expect to raise national welfare. Those who recommend policies that regressions suggest will raise GDP should be willing to endorse similar market advice."<br />
<br />
'''Some general and tentative questions'''<br />
<br />
* To what extent should the government be engaged in the regulation of prediction markets; should it and how might it change current structures to be more accommodating?<br />
<br />
* To what extent should government be involved in administering or using prediction markets (e.g., a la Hanson's suggestions)? <br />
<br />
* For ethical or other reasons, should we be skeptical about using prediction markets for purposes such as predicting [http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/07/29/terror.market/index.html terrorist attacks] and the like? What about for predicting regular crime (see [http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1118931 this proposal])? <br />
<br />
* More generally, if we think prediction markets are a useful tool, and yet it seems clear that they generate a considerable amount of unease, can we think about why and how policymakers might respond? Can design of the markets (reducing inaccuracy, or reducing concerns about rewarding misbehavior that might crop up if we have terrorism or crime futures) solve these problems or are some more fundamental? <br />
<br />
'''Some tentative guest ideas'''<br />
<br />
* Michael Abramowicz <br />
* Justin Wolfers<br />
* Bo Cowgill, Hal Varian: Google prediction markets<br />
<br />
'''Possible Readings'''<br />
<br />
* academic literature on prediction markets, either [http://bpp.wharton.upenn.edu/jwolfers/Papers/Predictionmarkets.pdf generally] or focusing on [http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1118931 particular] [http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=928896 applications]<br />
<br />
* relevant chapters from Professor Sunstein's Infotopia <br />
<br />
* Michael Abramowicz's book [http://www.amazon.com/Predictocracy-Market-Mechanisms-Private-Decision/dp/0300115997 Predictocracy]<br />
<br />
'''Other ideas'''<br />
<br />
One obvious thought is to see whether the class can play around with using prediction markets, though more thought needed on what we'd want to predict. Incentives for accurate predictions like t-shirts?<br />
<br />
== Anonymity and privacy ==<br />
'''[[User:Danray|Dan Ray]]''', '''[[User:CKennedy|Conor]]''', '''[[User:Jgruensp|Joshua]]'''<br />
<br />
=== Title ===<br />
<br />
OpenId and Internet Governance<br />
<br />
=== Precis ===<br />
<br />
* Internet Regulation (as it relates specifically to online safety and security)<br />
* Privacy and anonymity as they relate to structures of control on the Internet<br />
<br />
=== Guest wish list (if any) ===<br />
* As an academic, you couldn't do better than Daniel Solove. If we do hone in on a very specific topic, though, we could go for someone with more specialized experience. [[User:Danray|Dan Ray]] 22:39, 7 December 2008 (UTC)<br />
* Although government is subject to all sorts of special legal provisos that the private sector doesn't have to manage, the privacy counsel at DHS, [http://www.dhs.gov/xabout/structure/bio_1166549785058.shtm Hugo Teufel], is pretty [http://www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/privacy/privacy_pia_einstein2.pdf on top of his game]. If we're looking for practitioners, [http://www.arnoldporter.com/attorneys.cfm?action=view&id=380 Ron Lee] of Arnold & Porter does work with private industry.<br />
* If we do OpenID, options for guests might include [http://www.crunchbase.com/person/bill-washburn Bill Washburn] of the OpenID Foundation and [http://blog.unto.net/ DeWitt Clinton] of Google.<br />
* Also, since Passport has foundered, Facebook Connect looks like the hot new thing on the proprietary side. Whoever runs that for Facebook would be a natural invite as well. (see Dan's links below (?))<br />
* And I still think the potential for the mobile phone to become the heretofore mythical convergence device and thus to become a necessary adjunct to personal identity is worth talking over.<br />
<br />
Perhaps a bloggingheads.tv-style video conference call between someone from an electronic privacy nonprofit and a representative from Microsoft or Facebook?<br />
<br />
=== Readings ===<br />
[http://works.bepress.com/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1019&context=james_grimmelmann James Grimmelmann, Facebook and The Social Dyanmics of Privacy]<br />
<br />
[http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=998565 Solove, Daniel J. "'I've Got Nothing to Hide' and Other Misunderstandings of Privacy"]<br />
<br />
=== Links ===<br />
http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/125/how-to-fix-the-web.html<br />
<br />
http://developers.facebook.com/connect.php<br />
<br />
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/facebook_connect_vs_open_id.php<br />
<br />
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/facebook_connect_readies.php<br />
<br />
http://chrissaad.wordpress.com/2008/12/01/facebook-connect-aka-hailstorm-20/<br />
<br />
http://wiki.openid.net/Lobbying<br />
<br />
http://planet.openid.net/<br />
<br />
<br />
=== Concrete question(s) of the week ===<br />
<br />
=== Anything else material towards planning your topic ===<br />
<br />
<br />
* Facebook + google people?<br />
* another way to look at it is as a matter of cybercrime and such - new surveillence methods (also relevant in regards to child pornography, for example). i wander if these are too different topics or not. '''[[User:Ayelet|Ayelet]]'''<br />
* I'd like to see a segment on what "privacy" actually means in law and in culture. This would probably attach well to any other, more applied segment. [[User:Danray|Dan Ray]] 16:38, 3 December 2008 (EST)<br />
*Creating a series of Privacy Certification Marks<br />
<br />
== The Future of News ==<br />
<br />
'''Presenters:''' ''Dharmishta Rood, Jon Fildes''<br />
<br />
The traditional media industry is in turmoil. Circulation of newspapers is [http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/28/business/media/28circ.html?_r=1 falling]. Staff are being laid off, costs are being cut and foreign bureaus are being shut. Audiences are fragmenting, advertising spending is plummeting and the valuations of companies is [http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/21/business/media/21times.html?ref=business dropping]. TV and radio are experiencing similar problems. Some [http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/30/opinion/30dowd.html?hp papers] are even outsourcing local news reporting to India!<br />
<br />
Most of these changes have been blamed on the arrival of the web, which has changed how information is produced and consumed. Now, anyone can be a news gatherer, publisher and distributor. The balance of power has changed.<br />
<br />
Yet at the same time, the web offers these organisations a huge opportunity. Already, groups such as [http://spot.us/ spot.us] and [http://www.propublica.org/ Pro Publica] are experimenting with new business models. Others, such as the Christian Science Monitor, [http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/1029/p25s01-usgn.html have ditched] the old way of doing things and have gone entirely online. Many are using the web to reach out to audiences and connect with them in new ways. <br />
<br />
But, are they doing enough? Will experiments like this be enough to save news organisations? Does it matter if they disappear? Should governments intervene to save them in the same way as they have decided to prop up the ailing car manufacturing industry? Is this an appropriate intervention? Should it be left to market forces? What values are at stake beyond what the markets appear to be able to sustain? Ultimately, what is the future for “old media”?<br />
<br />
Possible contributors:<br />
<br />
*[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_Gillmor Dan Gilmour]<br />
*[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Jarvis Jeff Jarvis]<br />
* someone from a major paper: NYT, LA Times, Washington Post etc?<br />
* someone from the [http://civic.mit.edu/ MIT Center for Future Civic Media]? <br />
<br />
Possible readings:<br />
* Columbia Journalism Review article: [http://www.cjr.org/feature/overload_1.php Overload!]- Journalism’s battle for relevance in an age of too much information<br />
* The [http://www.ap.org/newmodel.pdf AP report (PDF)] mentioned in Overload! <br />
<br />
The Communication Initiative is an organization in this domain with a compelling problem that they'd like advice on solving, and they're very enthusiastic and willing to work with the class. They're focused on the use and support of communication for economic and social development (http://www.comminit.com) with a large and varied network (over 70,000 total) of members all over the world. Their question: given the challenges the face (enumerated more in the details section), how do we guide and engage our network more through our interactive online processes instead of through email?" More information available at [[The Communication Initiative]] (they wrote up a problem statement for us!) - is this something people would be interested in taking on? I would be... [[User:Mchua|Mchua]] 21:21, 30 November 2008 (EST)<br />
<br />
== Internet/network Security ==<br />
<br />
'''[[User:Jgruensp|Jgruensp]]''' (fun topics, all: we could invite [http://www.csis.org/component/option,com_csis_progj/task,view/id,1117/ the CSIS commission] which has been grappling with all these issues and is desperate for legal guidance)<br />
<br />
=== Internet Dependency (What if someone somehow takes down the net?) ===<br />
<br />
'''[[User:Danray|Dan Ray]] (maybe)'''<br />
<br />
We have come to rely on the Internet for almost every aspect of our lives. If the Internet somehow suddenly went "down" (through either a cyberattack or physical attack on key backbone pieces of infrastructure), the result would likely be calamity, as well as hordes of people who wouldn't know what to do with themselves. Can we even imagine what the world would look like the morning after such an attack if it was successful? Are we wrong to rely so heavily on a single tool whose detailed technical inner workings so few people truly understand? Are we setting ourselves up to be ruined when someone compromises this tool? What about the tradeoffs between keeping the Net free+open vs. regulation to ensure that it retains its functional integrity in the face of attack? <br />
<br />
We can invite Dan Kaminsky, who recently discovered a flaw in the inner-workings of the Net that could have caused some serious damage. See, e.g., http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/09/technology/09flaw.html?hp<br />
(or we could invite will smith, who defeated the aliens in independence day with the help of cyber-attack).<br />
<br />
* I vote Will Smith. Unless everyone wants to get into the desirability of a DNS nonce of sufficient bitlength, in which case... no, still Will Smith. That guy's an elliptic curve cryptography fiend. However, if we do want to talk about design issues in the internet, and the failure of the marketplace to handle externalities created by poor software design, leading to the perpetual crisis of bugginess, we could do worse than to invite [http://cr.yp.to/djb.html Daniel Bernstein]. Plus, as an added bonus, he saw the issues that gave rise to the Kaminsky bug coming down the pike [http://cr.yp.to/djbdns.html a long] [http://cr.yp.to/djbdns/forgery.html time ago]. --[[User:Jgruensp|Jgruensp]]<br />
<br />
=== Internet as International Conflict Zone ===<br />
<br />
'''[[User:Danray|Dan Ray]] (maybe)'''<br />
<br />
In light of the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyberattacks_on_Estonia_2007 recent events in Estonia], have we finally reached the long-predicted era of cyberwarfare? Is cyber-espionage a counterintelligence problem or something more? ([http://www.nationaljournal.com/njmagazine/cs_20080531_6948.php This article from the National Journal] talks bluntly about perceived threats, although is perhaps a little too willing to attribute causation of certain events to Chinese actors on dubious evidence)<br />
<br />
=== Internet as an Extension of National Infrastructure ===<br />
<br />
'''[[User:Danray|Dan Ray]] (maybe)'''<br />
<br />
It is easy to define the borders of the nation in realspace (ports, airports, land crossings), and the tradeoffs between private propertyholders' rights and national security interests (making those tradeoffs? Not always so easy). But what are the national borders in cyberspace? Given the dangers described in the two topics above, what kind of role, if any, should national government play in monitoring and regulating major backbone communications links? What about the networks of semi-public industries such as utilities? Private corporations that store government secrets? Financial systems? Other types of privately owned networks?<br />
<br />
--[[User:Jgruensp|Jgruensp]] 23:54, 30 November 2008 (EST)<br />
<br />
== Internet Governance & Regulation ==<br />
<br />
Presenters: '''[[User:Bepa|Vera]]''', '''[[User: AMehra|Arjun]]'''<br />
<br />
Much like open-source software, the Internet can be considered a collection of servers, pipes, and users spread all over the world. How does it keep working? One easy answer is that the United States (through actors public and private) just sort of gets its way. This isn't really a satisfying answer descriptively or normatively, though. With the rest of the world contributing more and more to the Internet as a whole, is it time for a change?<br />
<br />
Guests: Susan Crawford?<br />
<br />
Some questions:<br />
:What are the options for internet governance? An ad-hoc system, or something more formalized? What should the regulations cover - everything or only the vital areas, such as cybercrime and technical standards? Should it be local or international in scope? --[[User:AMehra|AMehra]] 19:18, 7 December 2008 (UTC)<br />
<br />
=== International Regulation ===<br />
*The UN's [http://www.itu.int/wsis/index.html World Summit On the Information Society] has come up with the [http://www.intgovforum.org/cms/index.php/aboutigf Internet Governance Forum] to help tackle some of these issues - is this a good idea?<br />
<br />
:Possible reading: [http://publius.cc/2008/12/02/internet-governance-under-the-un-part-1/ The Path Towards Centralization of Internet Governance Under the UN] - a series of three essays recently published on the Berkman Center's Publius Project. <br />
<br />
:Possible speakers: staff members of the IGF? --[[User:AMehra|AMehra]] 18:52, 6 December 2008 (EST)<br />
<br />
=== Local/national Regulation ===<br />
*Efforts by the FCC - in conjunction with and separate from the UN efforts.<br />
<br />
:Possible speakers: Kevin Martin --[[User:AMehra|AMehra]] 19:18, 7 December 2008 (UTC)<br />
<br />
=== Rights of Minors ===<br />
<br />
Minors have long been recognized to not have free speech rights that are co-extensive with adults. But with the Internet, how do we define those rights? And what, if any, regulation should the government enact to protect minors on the Internet, while also respecting their rights?<br />
<br />
There are two traditional categories where minors' free speech rights have been restricted. The first is with respect to pornography, the second with respect to the school environment. These two areas raise different concerns.<br />
<br />
== Internet + Environment + Venture Capital ==<br />
* Peter Thiel, John Doerr, Google people<br />
* Presenters: Andrew Klaber and DAL</div>Jgruensphttps://cyber.harvard.edu/iif/?title=User_talk:Jgruensp&diff=524User talk:Jgruensp2008-12-04T05:57:06Z<p>Jgruensp: I don't want to be part of any club that would have me as a member, Part I</p>
<hr />
<div>* So, while my name is currently associated w/ Privacy as a topic, it looks like there are lots of other parties interested in presenting it as well. Therefore, I'm going to assume there's a class or two of topics there without my input, and stray from the safety of numbers to make a pitch for a less popular topic: Internet and Nat'l Security/Crime issues such as 1) How to encourage the development of safer code, 2) What the proper role for government is in regulating private-sector network security (This is a particularly difficult problem that I spent some of this summer discussing in the Senate), 3) How to develop a fail-resistant Internet or a fail-resistant Internet user population, and so on. Anyone interested in taking something along these lines on? -- [[Jgruensp|Joshua]]</div>Jgruensphttps://cyber.harvard.edu/iif/?title=Topics&diff=497Topics2008-12-02T03:53:45Z<p>Jgruensp: /* Internet/network Security */</p>
<hr />
<div>= Topic Guidance =<br />
<br />
* Are you excited about it?<br />
* Does it relate to law (not entirely necessary)<br />
* Does it relate to tech (not entirely necessary)<br />
** To be sure, these are rebuttable presumptions :)<br />
<br />
Q: Are there any circumstances in which we can do a team of three?<br />
A: Yes! If I'm doing the math right, there are 12 seminar slots next term, of which we'll be using 11. There are 26 people. So with 2 per session that leaves 4 floaters; there can be 4 of the 11 sessions with 3 instead of 2. [[User:JZ|JZ]] 17:30, 27 November 2008 (EST)<br />
<br />
* Wish list of dream people<br />
** Michael Geist<br />
** Eric Schmidt/Larry Page/Sergey Brin<br />
<br />
<br />
= Officially Proposed Topics =<br />
<br />
== Topics put forward today (please merge as appropriate with ones below or vice versa) ==<br />
<br />
=== Strategic issues in free + open source software ===<br />
* Eric Raymond, Siobhan O’Mahoney ?<br />
<br />
=== Open university ===<br />
* Nesson, Shieber, Wheeler Declaration People<br />
<br />
=== Lessig ===<br />
* Remix<br />
<br />
=== The Future of Copyright and Entertainment ===<br />
* Alternative compensation and consumption models (Terry Fisher/Noank, anystreet, imeem, hulu, tip jars, the MPAA deal, girl talk; Gray Tuesday/downhill battle)<br />
* RIAA case against individual file sharers as a strategic move<br />
* Comparative/int’l angles<br />
<br />
==== Changing trends in Consumption & Creation of Music and other Performance Art====<br />
<br />
'''Presenters:''' ''Joe Fishman, Miriam Weiler'' (perhaps there is some possibility of collaboration with those working on the Tenenbaum suit?)<br />
<br />
===== Alternatives to iTunes for Access to Copyrighted Works =====<br />
<br />
We are beginning to see more and more choices for where and how to get copyrighted music. Gone are the days when it was either download illegally on programs such as Limewire or pay for them on iTunes. There have been attempts at creating new marketplaces from scratch such as at [http://amiestreet.com Aimee Street], which lowers the cost of discovering new music by setting price according to download popularity. Then there has been [http://grooveshark.com Grooveshark], which charges for downloads from its user-uploaded library but actually gives a cut to the original uploader. And then we find the advertisement-driven revenue model creeping in, such as at [http://www.imeem.com Imeem], the third-most popular social networking site on the Internet as of August (behind only facebook and MySpace).<br />
<br />
It's clear that the days of CD browsing at Tower Records are behind us. And while iTunes has been the one primarily filling the vacuum, the proliferation of web-based alternatives is making things interesting. Are any of these models likely to succeed? Are our methods of music consumption likely to have an impact on our methods of music production? And just where does the recording industry fit in to all of it?<br />
<br />
:Maybe John Buckman, from Magnatune?<br />
<br />
:Not sure how to integrate Fan Culture & Vidding into a broader discussion of changing consumption patterns of music?<br />
<br />
<br />
==== Old Laws/New Media ====<br />
Shubham Mukherjee, Debbie Rosenbaum, and Matt Sanchez (as noted above, collaboration with the "Changing Trends..." group? Are these separate topics warranting their own respective days? <br />
<br />
<br />
How has new media affected traditional communications and media industries and challenged traditional law? How do we deal with the fact that there is little legal infrastructure that takes into account today's new media environments? Do we apply old laws to new technologies, or do we create new regulations? How can we create sound policy that aligns with both traditional legal and moral aspirations while according with today's technological realities?<br />
<br />
This topic will aim to explore these general questions through the specific example of Sony BMG v. Tenenbaum, a federal file-sharing case the three of us are working on with Professor Charles Nesson, co-founder of the Berkman Center.<br />
<br />
Speaker Ideas: Google Telecom Lawyer Rick Whitt or Google Antitrust lawyer Dana Wagner.<br />
<br />
<br />
==== Collaborative Composing ====<br />
<br />
:[http://www.kompoz.com Kompoz.com]<br />
:[http://www.musicollaborate.com Musicollaborate.com]<br />
:[http://www.indabamusic.com Indabamusic]<br />
:[http://www.ejamming.com eJamming]<br />
<br />
Should we expect a rise in collaborative composition on par with the rise of collaborative software? Do musical works composed by complete strangers threaten the "authenticity" of authorship that has so often been defined by artistic unity in the past?<br />
<br />
=== Cooperation ===<br />
* Benkler; pledgebank + Tom Steinberg<br />
<br />
=== Anonymity and privacy ===<br />
* Facebook + google people?<br />
* another way to look at it is as a matter of cybercrime and such - new surveillence methods (also relevant in regards to child pornography, for example). i wander if these are too different topics or not. '''[[User:Ayelet|Ayelet]]'''<br />
<br />
=== The Future of News ===<br />
<br />
'''Presenters:''' ''Dharmishta Rood, Jon Fildes''<br />
<br />
The traditional media industry is in turmoil. Circulation of newspapers is [http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/28/business/media/28circ.html?_r=1 falling]. Staff are being laid off, costs are being cut and foreign bureaus are being shut. Audiences are fragmenting, advertising spending is plummeting and the valuations of companies is [http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/21/business/media/21times.html?ref=business dropping]. TV and radio are experiencing similar problems. Some [http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/30/opinion/30dowd.html?hp papers] are even outsourcing local news reporting to India!<br />
<br />
Most of these changes have been blamed on the arrival of the web, which has changed how information is produced and consumed. Now, anyone can be a news gatherer, publisher and distributor. The balance of power has changed.<br />
<br />
Yet at the same time, the web offers these organisations a huge opportunity. Already, groups such as [http://spot.us/ spot.us] and [http://www.propublica.org/ Pro Publica] are experimenting with new business models. Others, such as the Christian Science Monitor, [http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/1029/p25s01-usgn.html have ditched] the old way of doing things and have gone entirely online. Many are using the web to reach out to audiences and connect with them in new ways. <br />
<br />
But, are they doing enough? Will experiments like this be enough to save news organisations? Does it matter if they disappear? Should governments intervene to save them in the same way as they have decided to prop up the ailing car manufacturing industry? Is this an appropriate intervention? Should it be left to market forces? What values are at stake beyond what the markets appear to be able to sustain? Ultimately, what is the future for “old media”?<br />
<br />
Possible contributors:<br />
<br />
*[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_Gillmor Dan Gilmour]<br />
*[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Jarvis Jeff Jarvis]<br />
* someone from the NYT?<br />
* someone from the [http://civic.mit.edu/ MIT Center for Future Civic Media]? <br />
<br />
The Communication Initiative is an organization in this domain with a compelling problem that they'd like advice on solving, and they're very enthusiastic and willing to work with the class. They're focused on the use and support of communication for economic and social development (http://www.comminit.com) with a large and varied network (over 70,000 total) of members all over the world. Their question: given the challenges the face (enumerated more in the details section), how do we guide and engage our network more through our interactive online processes instead of through email?" More information available at [[The Communication Initiative]] (they wrote up a problem statement for us!) - is this something people would be interested in taking on? I would be... [[User:Mchua|Mchua]] 21:21, 30 November 2008 (EST)<br />
<br />
== Internet + Environment + Venture Capital ==<br />
* Peter Thiel, John Doerr, Google people<br />
* Presenter: Andrew Klaber<br />
<br />
== The Internet and Societal Inequity ==<br />
* Eszter Hargitaii<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
== The Internet and Publication ==<br />
'''Presenters: [[User:Gwen|Gwen]], [[User:Lbaker|Lee]] (maybe)'''<br />
<br />
The internet has completely changed the meaning of publication, and the relationship between print and digital media is continually evolving. The advent of the personal computer and the internet have changed the way information is assembled, distributed, managed, and digested in ways at least as dramatic and consequential as the advent of the printing press. How are traditional publishers coping with these changes? What new forms of publishing are made possible by the internet, and what challenges do they entail? --[[User:Gwen|Gwen]] 16:34, 1 December 2008 (EST)<br />
<br />
=== The Publication Process ===<br />
<br />
==== Open Access Publishing ====<br />
<br />
Addressing whether there actually seems to be a movement toward this model, and away from traditional science/tech publishing. What effects movement toward this model might have on quality, oversight, etc. of published articles. Also, discussion of business models/funding, problems with open access models, etc. And any copyright issues (to tie things back to law).<br />
<br />
This can relate both to open access of full articles (as with [http://www.plos.org/ PLoS]) or single experiments/results (including [http://sciencecommons.org/ Science Commons] and like projects to both make the data available, and, perhaps more importantly, the technologies to make it available in usable form)<br />
<br />
Would "open review" (instead of "peer review") work? Are there any models around? What about a Slashdot-style system of moderation and meta-moderation?<br />
<br />
Yes, there is at least one example that I can think of. Lawrence Lessig published the first edition of his book Code in 1999. It came out in paper and ink. Several years later, in order to "translate" (his word) the book into a second edition, Lessig persuaded the publisher (Basic Books) to allow him to post the entire text of the first edition of the book on a wiki hosted by Jotspot. (The Wiki text was licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5 License.) Lessig explains, "a team of 'chapter captains' helped facilitate a conversation about the text. There were some edits to the text itself, and many more valuable comments and criticisms. I then took that text as of the end of 2005 and added my own edits to produce this book." (Preface to ''Code version 2.0'', x.) ''Code version 2.0'' is the result of this collaborative editing process. It is available for purchase in paper and ink, for free as a [http://pdf.codev2.cc/Lessig-Codev2.pdf PDF download], and also on a [http://www.socialtext.net/codev2/index.cgi wiki] hosted by Socialtext. --[[User:Gwen|Gwen]] 15:45, 1 December 2008 (EST)<br />
<br />
==== Collaborative and Customized Textbooks ====<br />
<br />
Maybe also Harvard's new open access policy for academic work?<br />
(note that the Harvard Free Culture group is working on the matter - see [http://wiki.freeculture.org/Open_University_Campaign The Weeler Declaration])<br />
<br />
JZ described an innovative publication option with which Foundation Press seems willing to experiment: essentially, individual chapters are available independently from one another, giving instructors the freedom to custom build a text book that contains exactly their desired materials (no more, and no less), in the desired sequence. Assuming this model is technologically, legally, and financially feasible, what benefits and drawbacks does it entail? Possible risks might include a lack of completeness and/or organization in the materials ultimately acquired by students as well as the possibility that pedagogical emphasis is dictated by sociologically driven group trends rather than deliberately thoughtful decision making. --[[User:Gwen|Gwen]] 15:57, 1 December 2008 (EST)<br />
<br />
==== Self Publication ====<br />
<br />
One of the biggest and most obvious changes wrought by the advent of the internet and PCs the ability of individuals to self-publish; it is now cheap, quick, and easy to reach a mass audience with one's own text, images, and sounds. The rise of blogging, Youtube, and other developments have further increased the ease of self-publication. I know that several scholars have studied the rise and impact of self publication opportunities, but I'm not sure what conclusions they've drawn or which of them might be interesting to bring in as a guest. Suggestions? --[[User:Gwen|Gwen]] 16:09, 1 December 2008 (EST)<br />
<br />
=== The Relationship Between Print and Digital Media ===<br />
<br />
==== Google Book Search ====<br />
<br />
What does the recent settlement between Google and American publishers regarding online accessibility of digitalized books mean? Many have hailed it for both improving universal access to knowledge and avoiding a judicial resolution that might have exposed antiquated aspects of US copyright law. But there may also be some troubling aspects of having access to so much content controlled by a single company. Should government intervene in any way to regulate such access?<br />
<br />
From a regulatory perspective, there is also a question as to whether Google Book Search should be treated as a public or private entity, or whether such a distinction is even applicable (or does much work) in the internet context. Many of Google's library partners are public universities (e.g. Universities of California, Michigan, Texas, Virginia, and Wisconsin -- see http://www.google.com/googlebooks/partners.html), though Google is of course private. And does Google Book Search's laudable mission "to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful" (http://books.google.com/googlebooks/agreement/) mean we should shy away from regulation, or should we be skeptical of such claims by a large for-profit corporation.<br />
<br />
==== The Shifting Role of Publishing Companies ====<br />
<br />
As noted above under "Self Publication," the internet makes it very easy for individuals to make their work widely available. However, actually garnering a sizable audience or realizing a profit from one's work remains a greater challenge; it appears to be with respect to this step that the services of traditional publishers appear to retain some value. After all, publishing companies offer marketing channels and name recognition in addition to simply machines that print a books. Are traditional publishing companies threatened by the new forms of publishing that the internet makes possible? Are publishers better off battling the internet (for example, by emphasizing the superiority and reliability of their traditional services) or embracing it (for example, by offering digital and internet-based publication services)? --[[User:Gwen|Gwen]] 16:16, 1 December 2008 (EST)<br />
<br />
==== The Fate of Printed Materials ====<br />
<br />
Will the internet cause the use of printed materials to decline to the point that printed materials become obsolete? Obsolescence is reality in my own experience with The ''Harvard Journal of Law and Technology'' (''JOLT''). ''JOLT'' publishes its articles online on its [http://jolt.law.harvard.edu/ website], and it also publishes shorter and more timely posts online in its companion, the [http://jolt.law.harvard.edu/digest/ JOLT Digest]. In addition to being available directly to any internet user, all ''JOLT'' articles are made available through legal research databases, including Westlaw and Lexis. Each semester, we order from our publisher (Hein) enormous boxes of the new issue in print, but we have no idea what to do with them. Even after giving away copies to our parents, there are still stacks and stacks of unwanted and unneeded paper copies, and a lighthearted dialogue about what to do with them has steadily taken over the dry erase board in our office. These printed copies of our journal are literally useless. --[[User:Gwen|Gwen]] 16:32, 1 December 2008 (EST)<br />
<br />
The way that readers encounter and digest information is vastly different in the context of printed materials and in the context of digital and online materials. These differences have consequences for both academic researchers and regular citizens in terms of both the kind of information an individual is exposed to and the way that the individual approaches those sources. If a dramatic shift away from printed media is happening, what other shifts does that entail for the way that people learn, synthesize, and evaluate information? --[[User:Gwen|Gwen]] 16:45, 1 December 2008 (EST)<br />
<br />
=== Possible Guests ===<br />
* Google book digitization people<br />
* People from publishing companies doing offering innovative services, products, or editing processes involving the internet. (Does anybody know of such companies?)<br />
* Someone who has studied self publication on the internet (names?)<br />
* Someone who has studied reading habits in conjunction with the shift away from printed media (names?)<br />
* Lessig? (he is probably more useful for a different topic)<br />
<br />
<br />
== Free and Open Source Software ==<br />
'''Presenters: [[dulles]]''','''[[User:Ayelet|Ayelet]]''' (Maybe)<br />
<br />
How can a dispersed, multilingual collection of coders working for free assemble something as complicated as a web browser, let alone an entire operating system? Open-source projects are famously free-wheeling, but different organizational models and tools have sprung up to solve these obstacles.<br />
<br />
What are the forces that drive hackers to contribute to open source projects? What, if anything, can we learn from applying theories of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gift_economy gift economies] to open source projects? Should we read Lewis Hyde's [http://southerncrossreview.org/4/schwartz.html The Gift]? (n.b. i may be motivated by my own desire to read the book -- [[dulles]])<br />
<br />
* Eric Raymond/OSI ?<br />
* PJ/Groklaw<br />
* Strategies and indemnities (e.g. SCO v. IBM)<br />
* Questioning the foundations of the free software movement (i.e. the "four freedoms")[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_software#cite_ref-bull6_3-0] -- how much does access to the source code really matter anymore? Are there alternative theories (e.g. "generativity") that better capture the values at stake? Affero License? (Eben Moglen?)<br />
* The organization/groups/cooperation questions: how do free software projects organize and govern themselves, and what broader lessons might be learned from it? (e.g. debian, IETF)<br />
<br />
(This marks my initial claim to the topic, though I would be overjoyed to work with others - [[dulles]])<br />
<br />
== Philanthropy/Causes/Cooperation via the Internet ==<br />
'''Presenters:''' '''[[User:Hoellra|Rainer]]'''<br />
<br />
When does it work, when does it not? and why?<br />
<br />
Examples:<br />
* Pledgebank<br />
* Facebook Causes<br />
<br />
People:<br />
* Prof. Yochai Benkler<br />
<br />
Of course there are a lot of custom-built tools for mobilizing people online to get things done in the real world. On the other hand, what about more general tools? We've all been invited, via Facebook, to join groups and attend events (the Obama campaign certainly made good use of this); is there a generalizable model here?<br />
<br />
Facebook groups dedicated to particular causes remind me of the online petitions that began circulating widely via email about ten years ago: their effectiveness in accomplishing real world change--and even their visibility to individuals capable of affecting the desired changes--are dubious. Is the real purpose of these movements simply to make participants ''feel'' like they are being active and involved? What percentage of those who signed email petitions in the 1990s were aware that their signatures were unverifiable and that the widely-distributed emails were unlikely to be collated and submitted to an official authority? What expectations do participants in facebook group causes have for their involvement and its consequences? The facebook group causes are certainly more centralized and visible than the old email petitions, and they provide a better tool for identifying and communicating with supporters in order to mobilize them in an organized fashion. How often is such mobilization attempted, and with what degree of success? As a tool of online activism, is facebook a step forward from chain emails, is it a step in a different direction, or does it just serve the same old functions but in newer packaging? --[[User:Gwen|Gwen]] 08:26, 29 November 2008 (EST)<br />
<br />
Maybe we can invite some of the leaders of the various social networking sites or Jascha Franklin-Hodge, who was an architect of the Obama campaign's use of social technology.<br />
<br />
Might also be worth considering SMS applications that interface with the internet in this context especially since cell phones will presumably be the nexus of tech activism in the developing world. See FrontlineSMS or Ushahidi, a web crisis mapping project that let any user with a cell phone text in reports of violence in post-election Kenya as a way to geographically report real-time citizen reporting. (ELANA)<br />
<br />
<br />
== Meta-Pundit ==<br />
<br />
'''Presenters:''' ''Conor Kennedy''<br />
<br />
'''PREMISE'''<br />
<br />
During the 2008 Presidential Campaign, web-only advertisements helped to shape the talking points of media personalities like [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Matthews Chris Matthews] , [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keith_Olbermann Keith Olbermann], [http://www.foxnews.com/ontherecord/ Greta Van Susteren], and [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Scarborough Joe Scarborough], and sometimes even individuals who try to operate "above the fray" of punditry like [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon_Stewart Jon Stewart], [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jay_Leno Jay Leno], and [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Letterman David Letterman] (See [http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2008/02/09/web_only_campaign_advertisements_flood_presidential_race/ "Web-only campaign advertisements flood presidential race"] "In a study released last summer....the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press found most Americans heard about the most famous viral videos because they saw them replayed on TV").<br />
<br />
Because a large and increasing number of Americans get their news from media personalities rather than from traditional broadcast or print media sources, these individuals have significant power to shape the national political discussion. Still, beyond campaigns' web-only ads, there hasn't ''yet'' been a concerted effort to use the Internet to directly influence these personalities and their television shows. <br />
<br />
'''PROPOSAL'''<br />
<br />
This void can be filled by a website that publishes a rating system and gauges/grades each of these media personalities (over multiple periods of time: daily [i.e., per episode], monthly, etc.) with a variety of qualitative metrics. <br />
<br />
Ideally, such metrics would focus on process rather than substance (e.g., % of material that avoids explicit mention of either party's talking-points-of-the-day; % of in-show discussion that is active, fair dialogue with guests of opposing perspectives). Some metrics would be determined by the site's designers while others would be generated and selected (i.e., voted on) by the site's users. A team of qualitative analysts would code each media personality's episodes for (1) the site designers' metrics and (2) any given metric a critical mass the website's users select, and publish the results daily. <br />
<br />
This website would be most influential as a source for audience feedback beyond bare headcounts (i.e., network viewer ratings). For some media personalities, that feedback will act as a friendly nudge that helps them improve their shows. For others, the ultimate message might sound more like [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmj6JADOZ-8 Jon Stewart on Crossfire].<br />
<br />
'''QUESTIONS (each followed by potential answers)'''<br />
<br />
*(1) How should this kind of a site be funded, and by whom? <br />
**Non-partisan journalism NGOs through a project grant<br />
**The Berkman Center (see "Donations" link in navigation pane in left frame)<br />
*(2) What kind of knowledge workers would the daily operations require? <br />
**College research assistants as coders<br />
*(3) What kind of goals should such a website pursue? <br />
**Active dialogue<br />
**More informed discussion<br />
**Sophistication of television personalities<br />
**Honesty<br />
**Bipartisanship<br />
**Dedication to truth<br />
**Fighting the political class's elitism<br />
**Fighting prejudices/smears<br />
**Deconstructing euphemistic language/political correctness<br />
**Strengthening/Weakening political parties' control of the national political dialogue<br />
**Expansion of the national political dialogue to include new and unique perspectives<br />
*(4) How else could a pundit-centric website serve to channel the widespread complaints of "Media Bias" into a polished online platform?<br />
**Hall of Shame for self-proclaimed (one-time guest) "Analysts" and "Experts" who actually have no rightful claim to either title.<br />
**Sponsor and/or Host Op-Eds, Blogs, Vlogs, [http://www.beliefnet.com/Faiths/Secular-Philosophies/Is-Religion-Built-Upon-Lies.aspx?p=1 "Blogologues"], and [http://bloggingheads.tv/ "Diavlogs"] by premier Media/Journalism academics.<br />
**Work to immediately uncover the ''original'' sources of stories in order (1) to get a sense of who is already influencing media personalities (and their writers) and (2) to push back against rushed vetting of unsubstantiated stories (a la [http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/13/arts/television/13hoax.html Martin Eisenstadt])<br />
**Highlight stories/angles the traditional anchors are broadcasting that these hosts are ignoring/purposely passing on.<br />
*(5) How much embedded footage of ''actual shows'' can such a website legally display under Fair Use? <br />
**A good place to start looking is [http://tpmtv.talkingpointsmemo.com/ Talking Points Memo's "The Day in 100 Seconds" Vidcast Series]<br />
--[[User:CKennedy|CKennedy]] 01:42, 25 November 2008 (EST)<br />
<br />
:There was a group at the University of Michigan looking at a similar issue a couple years ago... if you'd like, I can try to look them up. [[User:Danray|Dan Ray]] 13:10, 1 December 2008 (EST)<br />
<br />
<br />
== The Internet and Societal Inequity ==<br />
'''Presenters:''' '''[[User:Megerman|Mark]]''', '''[[User:G|Graham]] (possibly)'''<br />
<br />
=== Socio-technical Gap ===<br />
<br />
Problems encountered in the act of discoursing itself are sometimes addressed via social means, technological means, or both. It has been suggested that technological tools should support social processes, but there is an adaptation of each realm to the other - how does this back-and-forth take place in the design of a successful technology-enabled discussion?<br />
<br />
Which inequalities are created or strengthened due the increasing reliance on technology and the differences in the ability to access the Internet(e.g. global and socio-economic differences)? Does the net actually re-distribute and decentralize power and influence, or does it also reinforce the existing political and economic hierarchies? In short - is the Internet really a good thing for everybody?<br />
<br />
*A solutions-focused question here might be: what tools might encourage a more egalitarian internet, both nationally and internationally? How can online applications be designed to encourage social equality? (Berkman Fellow [http://eszter.com Eszter Hargittai] has worked on some related questions, focusing on research about how people actually use the internet.) --[[User:G|G]] 12:12, 28 November 2008 (EST)<br />
<br />
=== One Laptop Per Child ===<br />
<br />
Happy to help this group with info as I can. [[User:Mchua|Mchua]]<br />
<br />
=== Environmental Concerns ===<br />
<br />
To what extent is the hardware upon which the Internet exists damaging the environment? Where does old tech go when it dies? What distributive impact does the "recycling" of old tech have. Was the Internet build with principles of physical sustainbility in mind? Is it too late to change? How do individual companies, like Google, view their own practices? Does the cost of a server internalize the cost of disposal? Why has it been cheaper to just keep throwing on new machines? What of the electricity necessary to run these machines? What does it say about society that we are so willing to pollute our own communities to create a second life? Has technological innovation and advancement dislocated the true impact of non-zero cost transactions? --[[User:Megerman|Megerman]] 19:36, 29 November 2008 (EST)<br />
<br />
== Prediction Markets ==<br />
'''Presenters:''' '''[[User:Mwansley|Matthew]]''', '''[[User:EST|Elisabeth]] (possibly)'''<br />
<br />
Intrade, etc.<br />
<br />
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TradeSports Tradesports] announced last week that it will [http://www.tradesports.com/ cease operations] at the end of this month. Does fallout from the current economic crisis include regulatory changes that spell doom for online prediction markets? Or is something else going on here? --[[User:Gwen|Gwen]] 11:05, 26 November 2008 (EST)<br />
<br />
Could prediction markets transform how we govern ourselves? Robin Hanson proposes [http://hanson.gmu.edu/futarchy.pdf Futarchy]. The idea in brief:<br />
<br />
"Democracies often fail to aggregate information, while speculative markets excel at this task. We consider a new form of governance, wherein voters would say what we want, but speculators would say how to get it. Elected representatives would oversee the after-the-fact measurement of national welfare, while market speculators would say which policies they expect to raise national welfare. Those who recommend policies that regressions suggest will raise GDP should be willing to endorse similar market advice."<br />
<br />
* Michael Abramowitz (sp?), book on prediction markets<br />
* Justin Wolfers<br />
* Bo Cowgill, Hal Varian: Google prediction markets<br />
<br />
= Unclaimed Topics, Categorized =<br />
''Now, with categories! See [[Talk:Topics|Talk page]] for more.''<br />
--[[User:Jgruensp|Jgruensp]] 14:23, 29 November 2008 (EST)<br />
<br />
This page is for topics that we have not yet scheduled (but potentially should). Please add suggestions to the bottom of this page, and feel free to modify the descriptions for topics already listed.<br />
<br />
== Philosophical Approaches to Internet Communications ==<br />
<br />
=== Discourse Theory ===<br />
We should do a survey overview of the topic.<br />
<br />
[http://www.bible.org/page.php?page_id=1238 A Summary of Discourse Theory]<br />
<br />
Whom do we know as a great person -- a visitor? -- on discourse theory?<br />
* Habermas<br />
* Manuel Castells<br />
<br />
=== Marxism ===<br />
should we be thinking about the connection between technology and society and question of an infrastructure and a superstructure?<br />
<br />
=== Libertarianism ===<br />
[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarianism|Libertarianism]]<br />
<br />
=== Network Theory ===<br />
Another frame for thinking?<br />
idea for speaker maybe [[http://www.stanford.edu/group/song/woody_index.html | Walter Powell]].<br />
<br />
== The Internet as a Social and Economic Tool Today ==<br />
<br />
<br />
=== Interactive Education ===<br />
<br />
Building on the work of MWesch (video here: http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=dGCJ46vyR9o) think about innovation in the classroom beyond the blackboard. How can we better interact in the classroom and how can technology help?<br />
<br />
* Case studies - what does and doesn't work, e.g. tools to train journalists in E. Africa that may have more amounted to dysfunctional imperialism<br />
<br />
=== Unconferences ===<br />
<br />
Unconferences represent a form of event-based discourse that seems chaotic but is actually organized around a set of well-codified rules intended to encourage initiative-taking by participants and ensure that the event is truly community-run and ad-hoc. Also known as "[http://www.openspaceworld.com/users_guide.htm Open Space]" events, they take several different forms, including [http://www.barcamp.org/ Barcamps] (which have been expanded to podcamps, etc.)<br />
<br />
* Tim O'Reilly, foo camp<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
=== Deliberative Polling Online ===<br />
<br />
In a nutshell, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deliberative_opinion_poll<br />
<br />
Here and in other topics, are we too sanguine about deliberative democracy? If we opt for some of these topics, perhaps we should read Ch. 4-5 of [http://books.google.com/books?id=A543N977rS0C Law, Pragmatism, and Democracy].<br />
<br />
Use the internet to get not only participation but also reflection<br />
<br />
* Deliberative methods more generally<br />
* Jim Fishkin<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
=== Recording Harvard Law School Classes and Posting Them on iTunes U ===<br />
<br />
Law schools tend not to post free class recordings on iTunes U. Should HLS take the opportunity to trailblaze? What are the law-school-specific challenges and the legal issues surrounding publishing audio recordings of HLS classes? What are the benefits? What about recording classes just for the benefit of the students (posted, as on religious holidays, solely on enrolled students' MyHLS pages)<br />
<br />
<br />
=== Path Dependence and Academia ===<br />
<br />
This course inadvertently raises a meta question (at least to me): is academia radically path dependent? That is, do "obsolete" disciplines hang around because of tenure, risk-aversion, or more subtle social pressures? And, for parallel reasons, does academia neglect more recently emergent topics? For one perspective on what a different, future academy could be like, do visit Oxford's [http://www.fhi.ox.ac.uk/ Future of Humanity Institute] and see some of the work of its director, [http://www.nickbostrom.com/ Nick Bostrom].<br />
<br />
We might also want to have a look at Thomas Kuhn's "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions".<br />
<br />
: It seems to me (as a casual observer) that one of the problems is predicting what disciplines will generate future advances at what rate (and, necessarily, what constitutes an "advance") in the first place. [[User:Danray|Dan Ray]] 12:54, 1 December 2008 (EST)<br />
<br />
=== Peer-to-Patent ===<br />
<br />
See http://www.peertopatent.org/<br />
<br />
=== Systran ===<br />
<br />
== Implications of Internet Tools of the Future ==<br />
<br />
=== The Semantic Web ===<br />
<br />
What has become of this idea? Are we already there? Is it yet to come? Or has it died along the way? [Rainer]<br />
<br />
One potential Semantic Web application is [http://www.freebase.com/ Freebase]. It is primitive right now, far less useful than (the simpler) Wikipedia or even Knol. Perhaps there is someone in the field we could bring in with technical expertise?<br />
<br />
:Consider this my e-hum in favor of this topic... [[User:Danray|Dan Ray]] 12:55, 1 December 2008 (EST)<br />
:I ([[User:Mwansley|Matthew]]) am still interested in this one as well; does anyone (perhaps Prof. Zittrain) have any connections to Semantic Web researchers in business/academia?<br />
<br />
=== Language Divides/Autotranslation ===<br />
<br />
Though it doesn't penetrate to every physical location on Earth (unless you can afford sattelite link-ups), the internet is an exceptionally global medium. With the barriers to access lower than any earlier medium for high-volume international communication, it represents an opportunity for greater international discourse and the deepening of a sense of global society. But unless we can reassemble the Tower of Babel, significant and entrenched divides exist: people simply don't always understand each other's language.<br />
<br />
As certain languages become prevalent for international discourse, native users of that language have an advantage in communication. Auto-translation software such as Google Translate, Babelfish, and many others represent an opportunity to flatten this embeded advantage structure that favors people educated where linguae francae are native languages. Moreover, human translation communities such as [http://globalvoicesonline.org Global Voices Online] provide an edited and selected digest of what the editors notice in many languages. <br />
<br />
What are the potential bridges for language divides? Which work better and for what? What are the implications of mistranslations by machines? --[[User:G|G]] 12:25, 28 November 2008 (EST)<br />
<br />
=== Cloud computing ===<br />
<br />
'''[[User:Danray|Dan Ray]] (maybe)'''<br />
<br />
Do we really want to store all of our personal documents on Microsoft or Google servers one day? [Rainer]<br />
<br />
:Very interested in this. I think Prof. Zittrain's theory of generativity is at the center of this, and Danny O'Brien (the inventer of the term "life hack" and, I'm certain, a ''great'' guest) gave an interesting talk on why we should avoid centralization (e.g., identi.ca rather than Twitter) last summer at Open Tech 2008. [[User:Danray|Dan Ray]] 13:01, 1 December 2008 (EST)<br />
<br />
=== IPv6 ===<br />
<br />
Why are we so slow with the transition to IPv6? Is this a technical, financial or legal issue?<br />
China is far ahead. How does this change the game? [http://news.cnet.com/China-launches-largest-IPv6-network/2100-1025_3-5506914.html Article] [Rainer]<br />
<br />
== Communications Norms , Free Speech and the Internet ==<br />
<br />
=== The Rise of Anonymity... ===<br />
<br />
'''[[User:Jgruensp|Jgruensp]]''' (maybe: see below)<br />
<br />
"on the internet, nobody knows that you're a dog." Or tall, or 12 years old, or a hairdresser by day, or a lesbian, or in India, or with a harelip, or... but also: now that we can't filter by that by default, what do we filter by? Do we now bias towards good writers - and what of people who communicate best non-verbally?<br />
<br />
What legitimate and illegitimate uses for anonymity are available on the internet? When is personal information useful, and when is verification appropriate? Last week's discussion about the different cultures on Wikipedia and Ebay and the use of behavioral enforcement mechanisms (ebay rating system, thumbs up/down-ing other drivers, etc.) reminded me of a panel from my favorite webcomic: http://xkcd.com/325/. As noted in the Properties subtext to the comic, "You can do this one in every 30 times and still have 97% positive feedback." How concerned should we be that people--be they selfish, malicious, or simply lunatics--can exploit such weaknesses in systems for building online reputations? If this is a real problem, how can we change current systems or create new ones to better protect users? And what are the trade-offs that come with better protection? --[[User:Gwen|Gwen]] 11:21, 26 November 2008 (EST)<br />
<br />
Also, what are the political and social implications of anonymitiy in countries with less free expression than the United States. In the Chinese example, we might speculate that with the internet more discourse is going on, in contexts ranging from political debates to hobby and commercial communities, but people may be motivated to try to remain anonymous. "Real name" requirements in some countries may challenge this, but circumvention methods exist. Then, how many people use circumvention methods, and how many users use them in a way that truly maintains anonymity? What does it mean that civic discourse might explode, but without real names attached? --[[User:G|G]] 11:58, 28 November 2008 (EST)<br />
<br />
To what extent does our received wisdom on anonymity reflect previous modes of technological development? With the advent of data mining, can an author truly be anonymous by leaving his/her name out, if that information can be ascertained quickly? Did old-style pamphletting allow for better anonymity? How good are names at identifying something that is person-like? Does the repeated use of a pseudonym change anything? Could anyone in revolutionary times write under the name Publius? Can anyone do that on wikipedia? Does the design of the internet allow/encourage anonymous postings or have we been lulled into a false sense of security by programs like [http://www.torproject.org/ Tor]? How do avatars and pseudonyms change these discussions? Is this a question of identity or accountability or neither? What does it mean to sue a username? Does the ability to remain unnammed expand the range of discourse or have a chilling effect of its own? Is the act of remaining unnammed ultimately a collective move, as in the case of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anonymous_(group) Anonymous], or an inherently individuating move? Would granting users the right to remain pseudononymous create a tragedy of the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anticommons anticommons], effectively rendering all userboards unusable? Does anonymity allow users to transcend bigotry or does it reinforce it? --[[User:Megerman|Megerman]] 09:00, 29 November 2008 (EST)<br />
<br />
--I would be interested in narrowing this down with someone to a more focused topic, as JZ recommended. --[[User:AMehra|AMehra]] 18:11, 1 December 2008 (EST)<br />
<br />
=== ... or the Fall of Privacy? ===<br />
<br />
'''[[User:Danray|Dan Ray]]''' (it looks like there are at least a few presentations' worth of topics under this heading), <br />
'''[[User:Ayelet|Ayelet]]''' (maybe),<br />
'''[[User:Jgruensp|Jgruensp]]''' (maybe: I'm not sure whether it's better to try to talk about added anonymity and reduced privacy together or separately, and how to break privacy up further; it all depends on the focusing issue and/or if we have several classes' worth of interest)<br />
<br />
Despite the superficial anonymity provided by Internet communications, tracing a user of communications technologies has become ever-easier for the backbone provider, government actor, communications tool purveyor, and even the dedicated outside observer. Moreover, many members of the generation raised alongside the Internet spurn the option to use superficial anonymization altogether, posting photos and intimate personal details on social networking sites and rejecting pseudonymization on message boards. How will norms of [http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/privacy/ privacy] change for the coming Internet generation? How are they already changing?<br />
<br />
[http://www.accessmylibrary.com/coms2/summary_0286-23465941_ITM Alan Westin proposed] four states of privacy: ''Anonymity'' (freedom from identification and surveillance in public places and performing public acts), ''Solitude'' (freedom from observation from others), ''Reserve'' (freedom from disclosure of personal information to others), and ''Intimacy'' (freedom from surveillance in a group, in order to allow for free and open personal relationships).<br />
<br />
''Anonymity'': As [[User:Megerman|Megerman]] asks in the topic above, has the average citizen lost the ability to pamphlet anonymously with the movement of the public discourse online? What about anonymous protest? Does the fact that the vast majority of participants in online discussion do not have the tools to penetrate superficial anonymity more than make up for the ability of a few dedicated actors to do so (i.e. is the new anonymity "better" than the old)?<br />
<br />
''Solitude'': Are reading habits now an open secret, with the URLs of favorite webpages subject to disclosure upon request under the [http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/uscode18/usc_sec_18_00002703----000-.html Stored Communications Act]? What about citizens' commercial activity online? [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanley_v._Georgia Stanley v. Georgia] strongly suggested that what a person did in the privacy of her own home was her own business as long as others were not harmed. Is this no longer true w/r/t commercial actors such as internet service providers? The government? Requests of commercial actors made by the government?<br />
<br />
''Reserve'': What kind of right of reserve should we expect in our commercial transactional records? Health care records? Credit information? Should we rely on general laws like [http://www.hhs.gov/ocr/privacysummary.pdf HIPAA] to navigate these issues? Terms of Service and other one-on-one negotiations via contract law? Can social and commercial norms do this work in place of law?<br />
<br />
''Intimacy'': As communications technologies make conversation over greater distances with fewer obstacles possible, is there a corresponding tradeoff in the loss of intimacy when using such technologies? Is it simply to be expected that email and message-board gatherings will not be free from surveillance? Is it even technologically feasible to make them so? As people rely more on such innovations and less on face-to-face meetings to stay in touch with friends and family, or to engage in political organization and political discourse, will certain bonds of intimacy be loosened or severed?<br />
<br />
Is there an inexorable push toward a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Transparent_Society Transparent Society]? Is that a good thing? Is it both [http://www.wired.com/politics/security/commentary/securitymatters/2008/03/securitymatters_0306 undesirable] and [http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&id=_bodvczXUIsC&dq=solove+digital+person&printsec=frontcover&source=web&ots=wnpy3t0qKS&sig=IivUDdJKJ_bmaxDN3R5Ccdg37Dw&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=1&ct=result#PPP9,M1 avoidable]? Or is this all overblown hype?<br />
--[[User:Jgruensp|Jgruensp]] 15:17, 29 November 2008 (EST)<br />
<br />
=== Sources ===<br />
<br />
Where does the information for/during discussions come from? Interfaces/ease-of-access/digestibility of information affects how quickly it can get injected into conversations? (examples: hitting wikipedia in the middle of a dinner discussion, calling an expert friend or hitting another IRC channel to answer a quick question, etc). How does this affect how people prepare for conversations? (If you can easily look up notes during the meeting, why take them down beforehand?) Trying to apply some thoughts about [http://blog.melchua.com/2006/03/31/on-the-future-of-libraries-2/ info access in libraries] to this.<br />
<br />
Also, what if any tools exist to help people archive previous states of dynamic sites such as BBSs and news pages? In other words, after information comes into discussions, how can we see what happened after the fact? --[[User:G|G]] 12:01, 28 November 2008 (EST)<br />
<br />
=== Identity and Expertise ===<br />
<br />
How are participants in an internet dialog identified and credentialed? What gives weight to a participants' arguments - or phrased another way, what type of participants and arguments have weight, and what determines this for each discussion, participant, and discussion point?<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
=== Free Speech ===<br />
<br />
==== Rights of Minors ====<br />
<br />
Minors have long been recognized to not have free speech rights that are co-extensive with adults. But with the Internet, how do we define those rights? And what, if any, regulation should the government enact to protect minors on the Internet, while also respecting their rights?<br />
<br />
There are two traditional categories where minors' free speech rights have been restricted. The first is with respect to pornography, the second with respect to the school environment. These two areas raise different concerns.<br />
<br />
===== Pornography =====<br />
presenters: '''[[User:Ayelet|Ayelet]]''' (Maybe)<br />
<br />
* Re: Pornography: I think we might think of Porn on the net not only through the free speech/pedophilia topics. Pornography is one of the main uses of the net, whether we like it or not, and it seems that a great part of the architecture and governance of the web today must have been influenced by that fact. It could be interesting to think about this connection as a structural idea.<br />
* a second point to make is the globalization of police enforcement of child porn. It raises some interesting legal and practical concepts. <br />
--[[User:Ayelet|Ayelet]]<br />
<br />
The Government has on several occasions attempted to place restrictions on Internet access with the intention of preventing minors from viewing pornography. Nobody questions the Government's legitimate interest in restricting pornography, however the Government has run into substantial legal problems with most legislation it has enacted - primarily because the statutes were found to curtail the free speech rights of adults. <br />
<br />
Issues:<br />
*Should the Government attempt regulation in this field at all?<br />
** Does self regulation work?<br />
** Is there any way to enact legislation to protect minors without limiting protected adult access?<br />
*What would be defined as the community?<br />
** Is there any way to develop a "community standard" where the Internet is inherently national/global?<br />
*Do adults' rights to view porn mean that the Government must allow them to do so should it create free public access to the Internet?<br />
*Privacy<br />
** If, as currently proposed, a method is developed to determine whether an Internet user is a minor, how do we protect the privacy of the users?<br />
** Do opt-in/opt-out policies go against our rights to privacy?<br />
<br />
<br />
* The above discussion confuses obscenity with pornography. Obscenity law conveys a form of moral condemnation from the position of the status quo. Pornography law, if it ever existed, attempted a political analysis of equality principles. There are few things that will guarantee a messageboard clusterfuck like a discussion of pornography and heaven forbid you ever suggest that someone might one day take somone's porn away. One of the reasons for this situation is that the views and voices of the pornography-skeptical left have been almost completely drowned out and the vast majority of pornography viewers think that only a puritanical right opposes the idea (and thus each pornographic image consumed becomes a blow against Pat Robertson on behalf of liberty). If you believe that pornography involves serious concerns of civil rights then it's unclear how the internet or modern modes of transmission ultimately changes much other than providing easier access to rights violations. A radical position might exhort an abandonment of a commitment to equality in the face of overwhelming firepower, but that's not one that many would adopt. That said, it's pretty clear you're talking about obscenity, given the reference to community standards and so on. Keeping these two issues analytically separate is always the second thing to go in these discussions (once we've silenced certain voices). --[[User:Megerman|Megerman]] 17:30, 30 November 2008 (EST)<br />
<br />
**I can see how the confusion about pornography and obscenity can arise, but just to be clear, its the regulation of pornography with respect to minors that is raising the issue - not pornography in general. From my limited knowledge of free speech laws, it seems pretty clear that regulation of access to porn by minors is pretty much established. As to the "community standards" this in fact has been raised with respect to porn by the FCC. Currently, there is a proposal to auction spectrum to allow free broadband access to the Internet, provided that it is "porn free." The rationale given is that this is to protect minors, and what porn would be filtered would be based on community standards. <i>See Service Rules for Advanced Wireless Services</i>, WT Docket Nos. 07-195 and 05-356, Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, FCC 08-158 (rel. June 20, 2008). It explicitly states that the provider of the free Internet would need to have a filter that "filters or blocks images and text that constitute obscenity or pornography and, in context, <i>as measured by contemporary community standards and existing law</i>, any images or text that otherwise would be harmful to teens and adolescents. For purposes of this rule, teens and adolescents are children 5 through 17 years of age[.]" <i>Id.</i> (emphasis added). -- [[User:Bepa|Bepa]] 18:30, 30 November 2008 (EST)<br />
<br />
***The rabbit gets put in the hat when you say "regulation of pornography with respect to minors." We regulate child pornography (that is, pornography involving minors) and the access to obscene materials by minors. Since [http://www.bc.edu/bc_org/avp/cas/comm/free_speech/hudnut.html Hudnut] this country has not regulated pornography that does not involve children. [http://ifea.net/cipa.pdf CIPA] and other laws regulate the ability of children to access obscene material on the Internet, but does not regulate pornography that does not involve children. Of course, this point is often lost even by somewhat credible observers and it certainly seems a little beyond Rehnquist in [http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/02-361.ZO.html United States V. American Library Assn., Inc.]. As far as the proposed FCC rules, my guess is that the Court would find them to be unconstitutional insofar that they prohibited the dissemination of pornography, but they'd be fine if they were just limited to obscenity. Intuitively, this tracks the larger discussion. Those who seek to protect children from obscenity are concerned about issues of morality and sin, not equality and justice. The community standards issue only applies to obscenity and for these reasons. I'm less concerned with the substance of this actual debate (which may be beyond the scope of this class) than keeping the terms straight (and thereby unsilencing a valid viewpoint in these discussions). --[[User:Megerman|Megerman]] 19:13, 30 November 2008 (EST)<br />
<br />
===== Schools =====<br />
<br />
Courts have recognized that the minors do not have rights to engage in speech that has a substantial impact on the school setting, or runs against pedagogical interests. For example, displaying a sign that questionably promotes drug use while at a school sponsored event is not protected speech. Minors are also most likely prevented from passing around a flier encouraging students to riot if they pass that flier around at school. But what if they pass the message as a digital flier? Perhaps the students create a group on Facebook encouraging students to simultaneously drop their pencils at 11:30 am, and again every 5 minutes for the rest of the day. Is that speech protected if all the activity takes place from the home?<br />
<br />
<br />
Issues:<br />
<br />
*What type of activity should be regulated, if at all?<br />
** Should Internet activity that takes place primarily at home, but creates a disruption at school, be protected?<br />
*** What if the disruption at school is substantial? Not substantial?<br />
*** What if the speech is only tangentially related to the school setting, but still creates some impact there?<br />
*How do we balance the legitimate pedagogical needs of minors to have access to the Internet with the need to create an environment where students can learn, free from distraction?<br />
<br />
==== Political Speech and Political Change====<br />
<br />
===== Meta-Public Policy =====<br />
<br />
'''[[User:Danray|Dan Ray]] (maybe)'''<br />
<br />
See, e.g., Larry Lessig's Change Congress movement: http://change-congress.org/about/. Being Larry Lessig, the whole thing is tech-friendly.<br />
<br />
<br />
===== The First USA CTO =====<br />
<br />
'''[[User:Danray|Dan Ray]] (maybe)'''<br />
<br />
President-elect Obama's promise to appoint the first USA CTO has turned many heads, and discussions on what the (as of yet unappointed) CTO should do have started up, notably at http://obamacto.org/. Several other related links not purely focused on "US CTO" issues:<br />
<br />
* http://www.techpresident.com/blog/entry/32788/presidential_transition_2_0_how_to_use_new_social_media<br />
* http://www.govloop.com/<br />
<br />
===== Deliberation Day =====<br />
<br />
The paper on the study, and where similar effects re: citizen participation may be seen.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
'''Images online'''<br />
<br />
Fanvids<br />
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Songvid<br />
<br />
copyright and privacy issues regarding images on social networking sites<br />
<br />
== New Legal Issues Raised by the Internet ==<br />
<br />
=== Net Neutrality ===<br />
<br />
=== Chillingeffects.org ===<br />
<br />
'''[[User:Danray|Dan Ray]] (maybe)'''<br />
<br />
And other, similar layman-focused legal projects<br />
<br />
:I think I added this topic header, but it's just something that interests me; I'm not sure what, if any, ''frontier'' issue we could take up with them. I'm really interested in this kind of online legal services application, though I wonder if Chilling Effects itself has stabilized as an institution. Is there another group doing peer-powered legal work, or can anyone think of an interesting problem to tackle? [[User:Danray|Dan Ray]] 12:40, 1 December 2008 (EST)<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
== The Internet as a "Place" ==<br />
<br />
=== Internet Governance ===<br />
<br />
Much like open-source software, the Internet can be considered a collection of servers, pipes, and users spread all over the world. How does it keep working? One easy answer is that the United States (through actors public and private) just sort of gets its way. This isn't really a satisfying answer descriptively or normatively, though. With the rest of the world contributing more and more to the Internet as a whole, is it time for a change?<br />
<br />
== Internet/network Security ==<br />
<br />
'''[[User:Jgruensp|Jgruensp]]''' (fun topics, all: we could invite [http://www.csis.org/component/option,com_csis_progj/task,view/id,1117/ the CSIS commission] which has been grappling with all these issues and is desperate for legal guidance)<br />
<br />
=== Internet Dependency (What if someone somehow takes down the net?) ===<br />
<br />
'''[[User:Danray|Dan Ray]] (maybe)'''<br />
<br />
We have come to rely on the Internet for almost every aspect of our lives. If the Internet somehow suddenly went "down" (through either a cyberattack or physical attack on key backbone pieces of infrastructure), the result would likely be calamity, as well as hordes of people who wouldn't know what to do with themselves. Can we even imagine what the world would look like the morning after such an attack if it was successful? Are we wrong to rely so heavily on a single tool whose detailed technical inner workings so few people truly understand? Are we setting ourselves up to be ruined when someone compromises this tool? What about the tradeoffs between keeping the Net free+open vs. regulation to ensure that it retains its functional integrity in the face of attack? <br />
<br />
We can invite Dan Kaminsky, who recently discovered a flaw in the inner-workings of the Net that could have caused some serious damage. See, e.g., http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/09/technology/09flaw.html?hp<br />
(or we could invite will smith, who defeated the aliens in independence day with the help of cyber-attack).<br />
<br />
* I vote Will Smith. Unless everyone wants to get into the desirability of a DNS nonce of sufficient bitlength, in which case... no, still Will Smith. That guy's an elliptic curve cryptography fiend. However, if we do want to talk about design issues in the internet, and the failure of the marketplace to handle externalities created by poor software design, leading to the perpetual crisis of bugginess, we could do worse than to invite [http://cr.yp.to/djb.html Daniel Bernstein]. Plus, as an added bonus, he saw the issues that gave rise to the Kaminsky bug coming down the pike [http://cr.yp.to/djbdns.html a long] [http://cr.yp.to/djbdns/forgery.html time ago]. --[[User:Jgruensp|Jgruensp]]<br />
<br />
=== Internet as International Conflict Zone ===<br />
<br />
'''[[User:Danray|Dan Ray]] (maybe)'''<br />
<br />
In light of the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyberattacks_on_Estonia_2007 recent events in Estonia], have we finally reached the long-predicted era of cyberwarfare? Is cyber-espionage a counterintelligence problem or something more? ([http://www.nationaljournal.com/njmagazine/cs_20080531_6948.php This article from the National Journal] talks bluntly about perceived threats, although is perhaps a little too willing to attribute causation of certain events to Chinese actors on dubious evidence)<br />
<br />
=== Internet as an Extension of National Infrastructure ===<br />
<br />
'''[[User:Danray|Dan Ray]] (maybe)'''<br />
<br />
It is easy to define the borders of the nation in realspace (ports, airports, land crossings), and the tradeoffs between private propertyholders' rights and national security interests (making those tradeoffs? Not always so easy). But what are the national borders in cyberspace? Given the dangers described in the two topics above, what kind of role, if any, should national government play in monitoring and regulating major backbone communications links? What about the networks of semi-public industries such as utilities? Private corporations that store government secrets? Financial systems? Other types of privately owned networks?<br />
<br />
--[[User:Jgruensp|Jgruensp]] 23:54, 30 November 2008 (EST)</div>Jgruensphttps://cyber.harvard.edu/iif/?title=Topics&diff=496Topics2008-12-02T03:50:46Z<p>Jgruensp: /* Communications Norms , Free Speech and the Internet */</p>
<hr />
<div>= Topic Guidance =<br />
<br />
* Are you excited about it?<br />
* Does it relate to law (not entirely necessary)<br />
* Does it relate to tech (not entirely necessary)<br />
** To be sure, these are rebuttable presumptions :)<br />
<br />
Q: Are there any circumstances in which we can do a team of three?<br />
A: Yes! If I'm doing the math right, there are 12 seminar slots next term, of which we'll be using 11. There are 26 people. So with 2 per session that leaves 4 floaters; there can be 4 of the 11 sessions with 3 instead of 2. [[User:JZ|JZ]] 17:30, 27 November 2008 (EST)<br />
<br />
* Wish list of dream people<br />
** Michael Geist<br />
** Eric Schmidt/Larry Page/Sergey Brin<br />
<br />
<br />
= Officially Proposed Topics =<br />
<br />
== Topics put forward today (please merge as appropriate with ones below or vice versa) ==<br />
<br />
=== Strategic issues in free + open source software ===<br />
* Eric Raymond, Siobhan O’Mahoney ?<br />
<br />
=== Open university ===<br />
* Nesson, Shieber, Wheeler Declaration People<br />
<br />
=== Lessig ===<br />
* Remix<br />
<br />
=== The Future of Copyright and Entertainment ===<br />
* Alternative compensation and consumption models (Terry Fisher/Noank, anystreet, imeem, hulu, tip jars, the MPAA deal, girl talk; Gray Tuesday/downhill battle)<br />
* RIAA case against individual file sharers as a strategic move<br />
* Comparative/int’l angles<br />
<br />
==== Changing trends in Consumption & Creation of Music and other Performance Art====<br />
<br />
'''Presenters:''' ''Joe Fishman, Miriam Weiler'' (perhaps there is some possibility of collaboration with those working on the Tenenbaum suit?)<br />
<br />
===== Alternatives to iTunes for Access to Copyrighted Works =====<br />
<br />
We are beginning to see more and more choices for where and how to get copyrighted music. Gone are the days when it was either download illegally on programs such as Limewire or pay for them on iTunes. There have been attempts at creating new marketplaces from scratch such as at [http://amiestreet.com Aimee Street], which lowers the cost of discovering new music by setting price according to download popularity. Then there has been [http://grooveshark.com Grooveshark], which charges for downloads from its user-uploaded library but actually gives a cut to the original uploader. And then we find the advertisement-driven revenue model creeping in, such as at [http://www.imeem.com Imeem], the third-most popular social networking site on the Internet as of August (behind only facebook and MySpace).<br />
<br />
It's clear that the days of CD browsing at Tower Records are behind us. And while iTunes has been the one primarily filling the vacuum, the proliferation of web-based alternatives is making things interesting. Are any of these models likely to succeed? Are our methods of music consumption likely to have an impact on our methods of music production? And just where does the recording industry fit in to all of it?<br />
<br />
:Maybe John Buckman, from Magnatune?<br />
<br />
:Not sure how to integrate Fan Culture & Vidding into a broader discussion of changing consumption patterns of music?<br />
<br />
<br />
==== Old Laws/New Media ====<br />
Shubham Mukherjee, Debbie Rosenbaum, and Matt Sanchez (as noted above, collaboration with the "Changing Trends..." group? Are these separate topics warranting their own respective days? <br />
<br />
<br />
How has new media affected traditional communications and media industries and challenged traditional law? How do we deal with the fact that there is little legal infrastructure that takes into account today's new media environments? Do we apply old laws to new technologies, or do we create new regulations? How can we create sound policy that aligns with both traditional legal and moral aspirations while according with today's technological realities?<br />
<br />
This topic will aim to explore these general questions through the specific example of Sony BMG v. Tenenbaum, a federal file-sharing case the three of us are working on with Professor Charles Nesson, co-founder of the Berkman Center.<br />
<br />
Speaker Ideas: Google Telecom Lawyer Rick Whitt or Google Antitrust lawyer Dana Wagner.<br />
<br />
<br />
==== Collaborative Composing ====<br />
<br />
:[http://www.kompoz.com Kompoz.com]<br />
:[http://www.musicollaborate.com Musicollaborate.com]<br />
:[http://www.indabamusic.com Indabamusic]<br />
:[http://www.ejamming.com eJamming]<br />
<br />
Should we expect a rise in collaborative composition on par with the rise of collaborative software? Do musical works composed by complete strangers threaten the "authenticity" of authorship that has so often been defined by artistic unity in the past?<br />
<br />
=== Cooperation ===<br />
* Benkler; pledgebank + Tom Steinberg<br />
<br />
=== Anonymity and privacy ===<br />
* Facebook + google people?<br />
* another way to look at it is as a matter of cybercrime and such - new surveillence methods (also relevant in regards to child pornography, for example). i wander if these are too different topics or not. '''[[User:Ayelet|Ayelet]]'''<br />
<br />
=== The Future of News ===<br />
<br />
'''Presenters:''' ''Dharmishta Rood, Jon Fildes''<br />
<br />
The traditional media industry is in turmoil. Circulation of newspapers is [http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/28/business/media/28circ.html?_r=1 falling]. Staff are being laid off, costs are being cut and foreign bureaus are being shut. Audiences are fragmenting, advertising spending is plummeting and the valuations of companies is [http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/21/business/media/21times.html?ref=business dropping]. TV and radio are experiencing similar problems. Some [http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/30/opinion/30dowd.html?hp papers] are even outsourcing local news reporting to India!<br />
<br />
Most of these changes have been blamed on the arrival of the web, which has changed how information is produced and consumed. Now, anyone can be a news gatherer, publisher and distributor. The balance of power has changed.<br />
<br />
Yet at the same time, the web offers these organisations a huge opportunity. Already, groups such as [http://spot.us/ spot.us] and [http://www.propublica.org/ Pro Publica] are experimenting with new business models. Others, such as the Christian Science Monitor, [http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/1029/p25s01-usgn.html have ditched] the old way of doing things and have gone entirely online. Many are using the web to reach out to audiences and connect with them in new ways. <br />
<br />
But, are they doing enough? Will experiments like this be enough to save news organisations? Does it matter if they disappear? Should governments intervene to save them in the same way as they have decided to prop up the ailing car manufacturing industry? Is this an appropriate intervention? Should it be left to market forces? What values are at stake beyond what the markets appear to be able to sustain? Ultimately, what is the future for “old media”?<br />
<br />
Possible contributors:<br />
<br />
*[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_Gillmor Dan Gilmour]<br />
*[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Jarvis Jeff Jarvis]<br />
* someone from the NYT?<br />
* someone from the [http://civic.mit.edu/ MIT Center for Future Civic Media]? <br />
<br />
The Communication Initiative is an organization in this domain with a compelling problem that they'd like advice on solving, and they're very enthusiastic and willing to work with the class. They're focused on the use and support of communication for economic and social development (http://www.comminit.com) with a large and varied network (over 70,000 total) of members all over the world. Their question: given the challenges the face (enumerated more in the details section), how do we guide and engage our network more through our interactive online processes instead of through email?" More information available at [[The Communication Initiative]] (they wrote up a problem statement for us!) - is this something people would be interested in taking on? I would be... [[User:Mchua|Mchua]] 21:21, 30 November 2008 (EST)<br />
<br />
== Internet + Environment + Venture Capital ==<br />
* Peter Thiel, John Doerr, Google people<br />
* Presenter: Andrew Klaber<br />
<br />
== The Internet and Societal Inequity ==<br />
* Eszter Hargitaii<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
== The Internet and Publication ==<br />
'''Presenters: [[User:Gwen|Gwen]], [[User:Lbaker|Lee]] (maybe)'''<br />
<br />
The internet has completely changed the meaning of publication, and the relationship between print and digital media is continually evolving. The advent of the personal computer and the internet have changed the way information is assembled, distributed, managed, and digested in ways at least as dramatic and consequential as the advent of the printing press. How are traditional publishers coping with these changes? What new forms of publishing are made possible by the internet, and what challenges do they entail? --[[User:Gwen|Gwen]] 16:34, 1 December 2008 (EST)<br />
<br />
=== The Publication Process ===<br />
<br />
==== Open Access Publishing ====<br />
<br />
Addressing whether there actually seems to be a movement toward this model, and away from traditional science/tech publishing. What effects movement toward this model might have on quality, oversight, etc. of published articles. Also, discussion of business models/funding, problems with open access models, etc. And any copyright issues (to tie things back to law).<br />
<br />
This can relate both to open access of full articles (as with [http://www.plos.org/ PLoS]) or single experiments/results (including [http://sciencecommons.org/ Science Commons] and like projects to both make the data available, and, perhaps more importantly, the technologies to make it available in usable form)<br />
<br />
Would "open review" (instead of "peer review") work? Are there any models around? What about a Slashdot-style system of moderation and meta-moderation?<br />
<br />
Yes, there is at least one example that I can think of. Lawrence Lessig published the first edition of his book Code in 1999. It came out in paper and ink. Several years later, in order to "translate" (his word) the book into a second edition, Lessig persuaded the publisher (Basic Books) to allow him to post the entire text of the first edition of the book on a wiki hosted by Jotspot. (The Wiki text was licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5 License.) Lessig explains, "a team of 'chapter captains' helped facilitate a conversation about the text. There were some edits to the text itself, and many more valuable comments and criticisms. I then took that text as of the end of 2005 and added my own edits to produce this book." (Preface to ''Code version 2.0'', x.) ''Code version 2.0'' is the result of this collaborative editing process. It is available for purchase in paper and ink, for free as a [http://pdf.codev2.cc/Lessig-Codev2.pdf PDF download], and also on a [http://www.socialtext.net/codev2/index.cgi wiki] hosted by Socialtext. --[[User:Gwen|Gwen]] 15:45, 1 December 2008 (EST)<br />
<br />
==== Collaborative and Customized Textbooks ====<br />
<br />
Maybe also Harvard's new open access policy for academic work?<br />
(note that the Harvard Free Culture group is working on the matter - see [http://wiki.freeculture.org/Open_University_Campaign The Weeler Declaration])<br />
<br />
JZ described an innovative publication option with which Foundation Press seems willing to experiment: essentially, individual chapters are available independently from one another, giving instructors the freedom to custom build a text book that contains exactly their desired materials (no more, and no less), in the desired sequence. Assuming this model is technologically, legally, and financially feasible, what benefits and drawbacks does it entail? Possible risks might include a lack of completeness and/or organization in the materials ultimately acquired by students as well as the possibility that pedagogical emphasis is dictated by sociologically driven group trends rather than deliberately thoughtful decision making. --[[User:Gwen|Gwen]] 15:57, 1 December 2008 (EST)<br />
<br />
==== Self Publication ====<br />
<br />
One of the biggest and most obvious changes wrought by the advent of the internet and PCs the ability of individuals to self-publish; it is now cheap, quick, and easy to reach a mass audience with one's own text, images, and sounds. The rise of blogging, Youtube, and other developments have further increased the ease of self-publication. I know that several scholars have studied the rise and impact of self publication opportunities, but I'm not sure what conclusions they've drawn or which of them might be interesting to bring in as a guest. Suggestions? --[[User:Gwen|Gwen]] 16:09, 1 December 2008 (EST)<br />
<br />
=== The Relationship Between Print and Digital Media ===<br />
<br />
==== Google Book Search ====<br />
<br />
What does the recent settlement between Google and American publishers regarding online accessibility of digitalized books mean? Many have hailed it for both improving universal access to knowledge and avoiding a judicial resolution that might have exposed antiquated aspects of US copyright law. But there may also be some troubling aspects of having access to so much content controlled by a single company. Should government intervene in any way to regulate such access?<br />
<br />
From a regulatory perspective, there is also a question as to whether Google Book Search should be treated as a public or private entity, or whether such a distinction is even applicable (or does much work) in the internet context. Many of Google's library partners are public universities (e.g. Universities of California, Michigan, Texas, Virginia, and Wisconsin -- see http://www.google.com/googlebooks/partners.html), though Google is of course private. And does Google Book Search's laudable mission "to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful" (http://books.google.com/googlebooks/agreement/) mean we should shy away from regulation, or should we be skeptical of such claims by a large for-profit corporation.<br />
<br />
==== The Shifting Role of Publishing Companies ====<br />
<br />
As noted above under "Self Publication," the internet makes it very easy for individuals to make their work widely available. However, actually garnering a sizable audience or realizing a profit from one's work remains a greater challenge; it appears to be with respect to this step that the services of traditional publishers appear to retain some value. After all, publishing companies offer marketing channels and name recognition in addition to simply machines that print a books. Are traditional publishing companies threatened by the new forms of publishing that the internet makes possible? Are publishers better off battling the internet (for example, by emphasizing the superiority and reliability of their traditional services) or embracing it (for example, by offering digital and internet-based publication services)? --[[User:Gwen|Gwen]] 16:16, 1 December 2008 (EST)<br />
<br />
==== The Fate of Printed Materials ====<br />
<br />
Will the internet cause the use of printed materials to decline to the point that printed materials become obsolete? Obsolescence is reality in my own experience with The ''Harvard Journal of Law and Technology'' (''JOLT''). ''JOLT'' publishes its articles online on its [http://jolt.law.harvard.edu/ website], and it also publishes shorter and more timely posts online in its companion, the [http://jolt.law.harvard.edu/digest/ JOLT Digest]. In addition to being available directly to any internet user, all ''JOLT'' articles are made available through legal research databases, including Westlaw and Lexis. Each semester, we order from our publisher (Hein) enormous boxes of the new issue in print, but we have no idea what to do with them. Even after giving away copies to our parents, there are still stacks and stacks of unwanted and unneeded paper copies, and a lighthearted dialogue about what to do with them has steadily taken over the dry erase board in our office. These printed copies of our journal are literally useless. --[[User:Gwen|Gwen]] 16:32, 1 December 2008 (EST)<br />
<br />
The way that readers encounter and digest information is vastly different in the context of printed materials and in the context of digital and online materials. These differences have consequences for both academic researchers and regular citizens in terms of both the kind of information an individual is exposed to and the way that the individual approaches those sources. If a dramatic shift away from printed media is happening, what other shifts does that entail for the way that people learn, synthesize, and evaluate information? --[[User:Gwen|Gwen]] 16:45, 1 December 2008 (EST)<br />
<br />
=== Possible Guests ===<br />
* Google book digitization people<br />
* People from publishing companies doing offering innovative services, products, or editing processes involving the internet. (Does anybody know of such companies?)<br />
* Someone who has studied self publication on the internet (names?)<br />
* Someone who has studied reading habits in conjunction with the shift away from printed media (names?)<br />
* Lessig? (he is probably more useful for a different topic)<br />
<br />
<br />
== Free and Open Source Software ==<br />
'''Presenters: [[dulles]]''','''[[User:Ayelet|Ayelet]]''' (Maybe)<br />
<br />
How can a dispersed, multilingual collection of coders working for free assemble something as complicated as a web browser, let alone an entire operating system? Open-source projects are famously free-wheeling, but different organizational models and tools have sprung up to solve these obstacles.<br />
<br />
What are the forces that drive hackers to contribute to open source projects? What, if anything, can we learn from applying theories of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gift_economy gift economies] to open source projects? Should we read Lewis Hyde's [http://southerncrossreview.org/4/schwartz.html The Gift]? (n.b. i may be motivated by my own desire to read the book -- [[dulles]])<br />
<br />
* Eric Raymond/OSI ?<br />
* PJ/Groklaw<br />
* Strategies and indemnities (e.g. SCO v. IBM)<br />
* Questioning the foundations of the free software movement (i.e. the "four freedoms")[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_software#cite_ref-bull6_3-0] -- how much does access to the source code really matter anymore? Are there alternative theories (e.g. "generativity") that better capture the values at stake? Affero License? (Eben Moglen?)<br />
* The organization/groups/cooperation questions: how do free software projects organize and govern themselves, and what broader lessons might be learned from it? (e.g. debian, IETF)<br />
<br />
(This marks my initial claim to the topic, though I would be overjoyed to work with others - [[dulles]])<br />
<br />
== Philanthropy/Causes/Cooperation via the Internet ==<br />
'''Presenters:''' '''[[User:Hoellra|Rainer]]'''<br />
<br />
When does it work, when does it not? and why?<br />
<br />
Examples:<br />
* Pledgebank<br />
* Facebook Causes<br />
<br />
People:<br />
* Prof. Yochai Benkler<br />
<br />
Of course there are a lot of custom-built tools for mobilizing people online to get things done in the real world. On the other hand, what about more general tools? We've all been invited, via Facebook, to join groups and attend events (the Obama campaign certainly made good use of this); is there a generalizable model here?<br />
<br />
Facebook groups dedicated to particular causes remind me of the online petitions that began circulating widely via email about ten years ago: their effectiveness in accomplishing real world change--and even their visibility to individuals capable of affecting the desired changes--are dubious. Is the real purpose of these movements simply to make participants ''feel'' like they are being active and involved? What percentage of those who signed email petitions in the 1990s were aware that their signatures were unverifiable and that the widely-distributed emails were unlikely to be collated and submitted to an official authority? What expectations do participants in facebook group causes have for their involvement and its consequences? The facebook group causes are certainly more centralized and visible than the old email petitions, and they provide a better tool for identifying and communicating with supporters in order to mobilize them in an organized fashion. How often is such mobilization attempted, and with what degree of success? As a tool of online activism, is facebook a step forward from chain emails, is it a step in a different direction, or does it just serve the same old functions but in newer packaging? --[[User:Gwen|Gwen]] 08:26, 29 November 2008 (EST)<br />
<br />
Maybe we can invite some of the leaders of the various social networking sites or Jascha Franklin-Hodge, who was an architect of the Obama campaign's use of social technology.<br />
<br />
Might also be worth considering SMS applications that interface with the internet in this context especially since cell phones will presumably be the nexus of tech activism in the developing world. See FrontlineSMS or Ushahidi, a web crisis mapping project that let any user with a cell phone text in reports of violence in post-election Kenya as a way to geographically report real-time citizen reporting. (ELANA)<br />
<br />
<br />
== Meta-Pundit ==<br />
<br />
'''Presenters:''' ''Conor Kennedy''<br />
<br />
'''PREMISE'''<br />
<br />
During the 2008 Presidential Campaign, web-only advertisements helped to shape the talking points of media personalities like [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Matthews Chris Matthews] , [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keith_Olbermann Keith Olbermann], [http://www.foxnews.com/ontherecord/ Greta Van Susteren], and [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Scarborough Joe Scarborough], and sometimes even individuals who try to operate "above the fray" of punditry like [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon_Stewart Jon Stewart], [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jay_Leno Jay Leno], and [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Letterman David Letterman] (See [http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2008/02/09/web_only_campaign_advertisements_flood_presidential_race/ "Web-only campaign advertisements flood presidential race"] "In a study released last summer....the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press found most Americans heard about the most famous viral videos because they saw them replayed on TV").<br />
<br />
Because a large and increasing number of Americans get their news from media personalities rather than from traditional broadcast or print media sources, these individuals have significant power to shape the national political discussion. Still, beyond campaigns' web-only ads, there hasn't ''yet'' been a concerted effort to use the Internet to directly influence these personalities and their television shows. <br />
<br />
'''PROPOSAL'''<br />
<br />
This void can be filled by a website that publishes a rating system and gauges/grades each of these media personalities (over multiple periods of time: daily [i.e., per episode], monthly, etc.) with a variety of qualitative metrics. <br />
<br />
Ideally, such metrics would focus on process rather than substance (e.g., % of material that avoids explicit mention of either party's talking-points-of-the-day; % of in-show discussion that is active, fair dialogue with guests of opposing perspectives). Some metrics would be determined by the site's designers while others would be generated and selected (i.e., voted on) by the site's users. A team of qualitative analysts would code each media personality's episodes for (1) the site designers' metrics and (2) any given metric a critical mass the website's users select, and publish the results daily. <br />
<br />
This website would be most influential as a source for audience feedback beyond bare headcounts (i.e., network viewer ratings). For some media personalities, that feedback will act as a friendly nudge that helps them improve their shows. For others, the ultimate message might sound more like [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmj6JADOZ-8 Jon Stewart on Crossfire].<br />
<br />
'''QUESTIONS (each followed by potential answers)'''<br />
<br />
*(1) How should this kind of a site be funded, and by whom? <br />
**Non-partisan journalism NGOs through a project grant<br />
**The Berkman Center (see "Donations" link in navigation pane in left frame)<br />
*(2) What kind of knowledge workers would the daily operations require? <br />
**College research assistants as coders<br />
*(3) What kind of goals should such a website pursue? <br />
**Active dialogue<br />
**More informed discussion<br />
**Sophistication of television personalities<br />
**Honesty<br />
**Bipartisanship<br />
**Dedication to truth<br />
**Fighting the political class's elitism<br />
**Fighting prejudices/smears<br />
**Deconstructing euphemistic language/political correctness<br />
**Strengthening/Weakening political parties' control of the national political dialogue<br />
**Expansion of the national political dialogue to include new and unique perspectives<br />
*(4) How else could a pundit-centric website serve to channel the widespread complaints of "Media Bias" into a polished online platform?<br />
**Hall of Shame for self-proclaimed (one-time guest) "Analysts" and "Experts" who actually have no rightful claim to either title.<br />
**Sponsor and/or Host Op-Eds, Blogs, Vlogs, [http://www.beliefnet.com/Faiths/Secular-Philosophies/Is-Religion-Built-Upon-Lies.aspx?p=1 "Blogologues"], and [http://bloggingheads.tv/ "Diavlogs"] by premier Media/Journalism academics.<br />
**Work to immediately uncover the ''original'' sources of stories in order (1) to get a sense of who is already influencing media personalities (and their writers) and (2) to push back against rushed vetting of unsubstantiated stories (a la [http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/13/arts/television/13hoax.html Martin Eisenstadt])<br />
**Highlight stories/angles the traditional anchors are broadcasting that these hosts are ignoring/purposely passing on.<br />
*(5) How much embedded footage of ''actual shows'' can such a website legally display under Fair Use? <br />
**A good place to start looking is [http://tpmtv.talkingpointsmemo.com/ Talking Points Memo's "The Day in 100 Seconds" Vidcast Series]<br />
--[[User:CKennedy|CKennedy]] 01:42, 25 November 2008 (EST)<br />
<br />
:There was a group at the University of Michigan looking at a similar issue a couple years ago... if you'd like, I can try to look them up. [[User:Danray|Dan Ray]] 13:10, 1 December 2008 (EST)<br />
<br />
<br />
== The Internet and Societal Inequity ==<br />
'''Presenters:''' '''[[User:Megerman|Mark]]''', '''[[User:G|Graham]] (possibly)'''<br />
<br />
=== Socio-technical Gap ===<br />
<br />
Problems encountered in the act of discoursing itself are sometimes addressed via social means, technological means, or both. It has been suggested that technological tools should support social processes, but there is an adaptation of each realm to the other - how does this back-and-forth take place in the design of a successful technology-enabled discussion?<br />
<br />
Which inequalities are created or strengthened due the increasing reliance on technology and the differences in the ability to access the Internet(e.g. global and socio-economic differences)? Does the net actually re-distribute and decentralize power and influence, or does it also reinforce the existing political and economic hierarchies? In short - is the Internet really a good thing for everybody?<br />
<br />
*A solutions-focused question here might be: what tools might encourage a more egalitarian internet, both nationally and internationally? How can online applications be designed to encourage social equality? (Berkman Fellow [http://eszter.com Eszter Hargittai] has worked on some related questions, focusing on research about how people actually use the internet.) --[[User:G|G]] 12:12, 28 November 2008 (EST)<br />
<br />
=== One Laptop Per Child ===<br />
<br />
Happy to help this group with info as I can. [[User:Mchua|Mchua]]<br />
<br />
=== Environmental Concerns ===<br />
<br />
To what extent is the hardware upon which the Internet exists damaging the environment? Where does old tech go when it dies? What distributive impact does the "recycling" of old tech have. Was the Internet build with principles of physical sustainbility in mind? Is it too late to change? How do individual companies, like Google, view their own practices? Does the cost of a server internalize the cost of disposal? Why has it been cheaper to just keep throwing on new machines? What of the electricity necessary to run these machines? What does it say about society that we are so willing to pollute our own communities to create a second life? Has technological innovation and advancement dislocated the true impact of non-zero cost transactions? --[[User:Megerman|Megerman]] 19:36, 29 November 2008 (EST)<br />
<br />
== Prediction Markets ==<br />
'''Presenters:''' '''[[User:Mwansley|Matthew]]''', '''[[User:EST|Elisabeth]] (possibly)'''<br />
<br />
Intrade, etc.<br />
<br />
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TradeSports Tradesports] announced last week that it will [http://www.tradesports.com/ cease operations] at the end of this month. Does fallout from the current economic crisis include regulatory changes that spell doom for online prediction markets? Or is something else going on here? --[[User:Gwen|Gwen]] 11:05, 26 November 2008 (EST)<br />
<br />
Could prediction markets transform how we govern ourselves? Robin Hanson proposes [http://hanson.gmu.edu/futarchy.pdf Futarchy]. The idea in brief:<br />
<br />
"Democracies often fail to aggregate information, while speculative markets excel at this task. We consider a new form of governance, wherein voters would say what we want, but speculators would say how to get it. Elected representatives would oversee the after-the-fact measurement of national welfare, while market speculators would say which policies they expect to raise national welfare. Those who recommend policies that regressions suggest will raise GDP should be willing to endorse similar market advice."<br />
<br />
* Michael Abramowitz (sp?), book on prediction markets<br />
* Justin Wolfers<br />
* Bo Cowgill, Hal Varian: Google prediction markets<br />
<br />
= Unclaimed Topics, Categorized =<br />
''Now, with categories! See [[Talk:Topics|Talk page]] for more.''<br />
--[[User:Jgruensp|Jgruensp]] 14:23, 29 November 2008 (EST)<br />
<br />
This page is for topics that we have not yet scheduled (but potentially should). Please add suggestions to the bottom of this page, and feel free to modify the descriptions for topics already listed.<br />
<br />
== Philosophical Approaches to Internet Communications ==<br />
<br />
=== Discourse Theory ===<br />
We should do a survey overview of the topic.<br />
<br />
[http://www.bible.org/page.php?page_id=1238 A Summary of Discourse Theory]<br />
<br />
Whom do we know as a great person -- a visitor? -- on discourse theory?<br />
* Habermas<br />
* Manuel Castells<br />
<br />
=== Marxism ===<br />
should we be thinking about the connection between technology and society and question of an infrastructure and a superstructure?<br />
<br />
=== Libertarianism ===<br />
[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarianism|Libertarianism]]<br />
<br />
=== Network Theory ===<br />
Another frame for thinking?<br />
idea for speaker maybe [[http://www.stanford.edu/group/song/woody_index.html | Walter Powell]].<br />
<br />
== The Internet as a Social and Economic Tool Today ==<br />
<br />
<br />
=== Interactive Education ===<br />
<br />
Building on the work of MWesch (video here: http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=dGCJ46vyR9o) think about innovation in the classroom beyond the blackboard. How can we better interact in the classroom and how can technology help?<br />
<br />
* Case studies - what does and doesn't work, e.g. tools to train journalists in E. Africa that may have more amounted to dysfunctional imperialism<br />
<br />
=== Unconferences ===<br />
<br />
Unconferences represent a form of event-based discourse that seems chaotic but is actually organized around a set of well-codified rules intended to encourage initiative-taking by participants and ensure that the event is truly community-run and ad-hoc. Also known as "[http://www.openspaceworld.com/users_guide.htm Open Space]" events, they take several different forms, including [http://www.barcamp.org/ Barcamps] (which have been expanded to podcamps, etc.)<br />
<br />
* Tim O'Reilly, foo camp<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
=== Deliberative Polling Online ===<br />
<br />
In a nutshell, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deliberative_opinion_poll<br />
<br />
Here and in other topics, are we too sanguine about deliberative democracy? If we opt for some of these topics, perhaps we should read Ch. 4-5 of [http://books.google.com/books?id=A543N977rS0C Law, Pragmatism, and Democracy].<br />
<br />
Use the internet to get not only participation but also reflection<br />
<br />
* Deliberative methods more generally<br />
* Jim Fishkin<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
=== Recording Harvard Law School Classes and Posting Them on iTunes U ===<br />
<br />
Law schools tend not to post free class recordings on iTunes U. Should HLS take the opportunity to trailblaze? What are the law-school-specific challenges and the legal issues surrounding publishing audio recordings of HLS classes? What are the benefits? What about recording classes just for the benefit of the students (posted, as on religious holidays, solely on enrolled students' MyHLS pages)<br />
<br />
<br />
=== Path Dependence and Academia ===<br />
<br />
This course inadvertently raises a meta question (at least to me): is academia radically path dependent? That is, do "obsolete" disciplines hang around because of tenure, risk-aversion, or more subtle social pressures? And, for parallel reasons, does academia neglect more recently emergent topics? For one perspective on what a different, future academy could be like, do visit Oxford's [http://www.fhi.ox.ac.uk/ Future of Humanity Institute] and see some of the work of its director, [http://www.nickbostrom.com/ Nick Bostrom].<br />
<br />
We might also want to have a look at Thomas Kuhn's "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions".<br />
<br />
: It seems to me (as a casual observer) that one of the problems is predicting what disciplines will generate future advances at what rate (and, necessarily, what constitutes an "advance") in the first place. [[User:Danray|Dan Ray]] 12:54, 1 December 2008 (EST)<br />
<br />
=== Peer-to-Patent ===<br />
<br />
See http://www.peertopatent.org/<br />
<br />
=== Systran ===<br />
<br />
== Implications of Internet Tools of the Future ==<br />
<br />
=== The Semantic Web ===<br />
<br />
What has become of this idea? Are we already there? Is it yet to come? Or has it died along the way? [Rainer]<br />
<br />
One potential Semantic Web application is [http://www.freebase.com/ Freebase]. It is primitive right now, far less useful than (the simpler) Wikipedia or even Knol. Perhaps there is someone in the field we could bring in with technical expertise?<br />
<br />
:Consider this my e-hum in favor of this topic... [[User:Danray|Dan Ray]] 12:55, 1 December 2008 (EST)<br />
:I ([[User:Mwansley|Matthew]]) am still interested in this one as well; does anyone (perhaps Prof. Zittrain) have any connections to Semantic Web researchers in business/academia?<br />
<br />
=== Language Divides/Autotranslation ===<br />
<br />
Though it doesn't penetrate to every physical location on Earth (unless you can afford sattelite link-ups), the internet is an exceptionally global medium. With the barriers to access lower than any earlier medium for high-volume international communication, it represents an opportunity for greater international discourse and the deepening of a sense of global society. But unless we can reassemble the Tower of Babel, significant and entrenched divides exist: people simply don't always understand each other's language.<br />
<br />
As certain languages become prevalent for international discourse, native users of that language have an advantage in communication. Auto-translation software such as Google Translate, Babelfish, and many others represent an opportunity to flatten this embeded advantage structure that favors people educated where linguae francae are native languages. Moreover, human translation communities such as [http://globalvoicesonline.org Global Voices Online] provide an edited and selected digest of what the editors notice in many languages. <br />
<br />
What are the potential bridges for language divides? Which work better and for what? What are the implications of mistranslations by machines? --[[User:G|G]] 12:25, 28 November 2008 (EST)<br />
<br />
=== Cloud computing ===<br />
<br />
'''[[User:Danray|Dan Ray]] (maybe)'''<br />
<br />
Do we really want to store all of our personal documents on Microsoft or Google servers one day? [Rainer]<br />
<br />
:Very interested in this. I think Prof. Zittrain's theory of generativity is at the center of this, and Danny O'Brien (the inventer of the term "life hack" and, I'm certain, a ''great'' guest) gave an interesting talk on why we should avoid centralization (e.g., identi.ca rather than Twitter) last summer at Open Tech 2008. [[User:Danray|Dan Ray]] 13:01, 1 December 2008 (EST)<br />
<br />
=== IPv6 ===<br />
<br />
Why are we so slow with the transition to IPv6? Is this a technical, financial or legal issue?<br />
China is far ahead. How does this change the game? [http://news.cnet.com/China-launches-largest-IPv6-network/2100-1025_3-5506914.html Article] [Rainer]<br />
<br />
== Communications Norms , Free Speech and the Internet ==<br />
<br />
=== The Rise of Anonymity... ===<br />
<br />
'''[[User:Jgruensp|Jgruensp]]''' (maybe: see below)<br />
<br />
"on the internet, nobody knows that you're a dog." Or tall, or 12 years old, or a hairdresser by day, or a lesbian, or in India, or with a harelip, or... but also: now that we can't filter by that by default, what do we filter by? Do we now bias towards good writers - and what of people who communicate best non-verbally?<br />
<br />
What legitimate and illegitimate uses for anonymity are available on the internet? When is personal information useful, and when is verification appropriate? Last week's discussion about the different cultures on Wikipedia and Ebay and the use of behavioral enforcement mechanisms (ebay rating system, thumbs up/down-ing other drivers, etc.) reminded me of a panel from my favorite webcomic: http://xkcd.com/325/. As noted in the Properties subtext to the comic, "You can do this one in every 30 times and still have 97% positive feedback." How concerned should we be that people--be they selfish, malicious, or simply lunatics--can exploit such weaknesses in systems for building online reputations? If this is a real problem, how can we change current systems or create new ones to better protect users? And what are the trade-offs that come with better protection? --[[User:Gwen|Gwen]] 11:21, 26 November 2008 (EST)<br />
<br />
Also, what are the political and social implications of anonymitiy in countries with less free expression than the United States. In the Chinese example, we might speculate that with the internet more discourse is going on, in contexts ranging from political debates to hobby and commercial communities, but people may be motivated to try to remain anonymous. "Real name" requirements in some countries may challenge this, but circumvention methods exist. Then, how many people use circumvention methods, and how many users use them in a way that truly maintains anonymity? What does it mean that civic discourse might explode, but without real names attached? --[[User:G|G]] 11:58, 28 November 2008 (EST)<br />
<br />
To what extent does our received wisdom on anonymity reflect previous modes of technological development? With the advent of data mining, can an author truly be anonymous by leaving his/her name out, if that information can be ascertained quickly? Did old-style pamphletting allow for better anonymity? How good are names at identifying something that is person-like? Does the repeated use of a pseudonym change anything? Could anyone in revolutionary times write under the name Publius? Can anyone do that on wikipedia? Does the design of the internet allow/encourage anonymous postings or have we been lulled into a false sense of security by programs like [http://www.torproject.org/ Tor]? How do avatars and pseudonyms change these discussions? Is this a question of identity or accountability or neither? What does it mean to sue a username? Does the ability to remain unnammed expand the range of discourse or have a chilling effect of its own? Is the act of remaining unnammed ultimately a collective move, as in the case of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anonymous_(group) Anonymous], or an inherently individuating move? Would granting users the right to remain pseudononymous create a tragedy of the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anticommons anticommons], effectively rendering all userboards unusable? Does anonymity allow users to transcend bigotry or does it reinforce it? --[[User:Megerman|Megerman]] 09:00, 29 November 2008 (EST)<br />
<br />
--I would be interested in narrowing this down with someone to a more focused topic, as JZ recommended. --[[User:AMehra|AMehra]] 18:11, 1 December 2008 (EST)<br />
<br />
=== ... or the Fall of Privacy? ===<br />
<br />
'''[[User:Danray|Dan Ray]]''' (it looks like there are at least a few presentations' worth of topics under this heading), <br />
'''[[User:Ayelet|Ayelet]]''' (maybe),<br />
'''[[User:Jgruensp|Jgruensp]]''' (maybe: I'm not sure whether it's better to try to talk about added anonymity and reduced privacy together or separately, and how to break privacy up further; it all depends on the focusing issue and/or if we have several classes' worth of interest)<br />
<br />
Despite the superficial anonymity provided by Internet communications, tracing a user of communications technologies has become ever-easier for the backbone provider, government actor, communications tool purveyor, and even the dedicated outside observer. Moreover, many members of the generation raised alongside the Internet spurn the option to use superficial anonymization altogether, posting photos and intimate personal details on social networking sites and rejecting pseudonymization on message boards. How will norms of [http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/privacy/ privacy] change for the coming Internet generation? How are they already changing?<br />
<br />
[http://www.accessmylibrary.com/coms2/summary_0286-23465941_ITM Alan Westin proposed] four states of privacy: ''Anonymity'' (freedom from identification and surveillance in public places and performing public acts), ''Solitude'' (freedom from observation from others), ''Reserve'' (freedom from disclosure of personal information to others), and ''Intimacy'' (freedom from surveillance in a group, in order to allow for free and open personal relationships).<br />
<br />
''Anonymity'': As [[User:Megerman|Megerman]] asks in the topic above, has the average citizen lost the ability to pamphlet anonymously with the movement of the public discourse online? What about anonymous protest? Does the fact that the vast majority of participants in online discussion do not have the tools to penetrate superficial anonymity more than make up for the ability of a few dedicated actors to do so (i.e. is the new anonymity "better" than the old)?<br />
<br />
''Solitude'': Are reading habits now an open secret, with the URLs of favorite webpages subject to disclosure upon request under the [http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/uscode18/usc_sec_18_00002703----000-.html Stored Communications Act]? What about citizens' commercial activity online? [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanley_v._Georgia Stanley v. Georgia] strongly suggested that what a person did in the privacy of her own home was her own business as long as others were not harmed. Is this no longer true w/r/t commercial actors such as internet service providers? The government? Requests of commercial actors made by the government?<br />
<br />
''Reserve'': What kind of right of reserve should we expect in our commercial transactional records? Health care records? Credit information? Should we rely on general laws like [http://www.hhs.gov/ocr/privacysummary.pdf HIPAA] to navigate these issues? Terms of Service and other one-on-one negotiations via contract law? Can social and commercial norms do this work in place of law?<br />
<br />
''Intimacy'': As communications technologies make conversation over greater distances with fewer obstacles possible, is there a corresponding tradeoff in the loss of intimacy when using such technologies? Is it simply to be expected that email and message-board gatherings will not be free from surveillance? Is it even technologically feasible to make them so? As people rely more on such innovations and less on face-to-face meetings to stay in touch with friends and family, or to engage in political organization and political discourse, will certain bonds of intimacy be loosened or severed?<br />
<br />
Is there an inexorable push toward a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Transparent_Society Transparent Society]? Is that a good thing? Is it both [http://www.wired.com/politics/security/commentary/securitymatters/2008/03/securitymatters_0306 undesirable] and [http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&id=_bodvczXUIsC&dq=solove+digital+person&printsec=frontcover&source=web&ots=wnpy3t0qKS&sig=IivUDdJKJ_bmaxDN3R5Ccdg37Dw&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=1&ct=result#PPP9,M1 avoidable]? Or is this all overblown hype?<br />
--[[User:Jgruensp|Jgruensp]] 15:17, 29 November 2008 (EST)<br />
<br />
=== Sources ===<br />
<br />
Where does the information for/during discussions come from? Interfaces/ease-of-access/digestibility of information affects how quickly it can get injected into conversations? (examples: hitting wikipedia in the middle of a dinner discussion, calling an expert friend or hitting another IRC channel to answer a quick question, etc). How does this affect how people prepare for conversations? (If you can easily look up notes during the meeting, why take them down beforehand?) Trying to apply some thoughts about [http://blog.melchua.com/2006/03/31/on-the-future-of-libraries-2/ info access in libraries] to this.<br />
<br />
Also, what if any tools exist to help people archive previous states of dynamic sites such as BBSs and news pages? In other words, after information comes into discussions, how can we see what happened after the fact? --[[User:G|G]] 12:01, 28 November 2008 (EST)<br />
<br />
=== Identity and Expertise ===<br />
<br />
How are participants in an internet dialog identified and credentialed? What gives weight to a participants' arguments - or phrased another way, what type of participants and arguments have weight, and what determines this for each discussion, participant, and discussion point?<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
=== Free Speech ===<br />
<br />
==== Rights of Minors ====<br />
<br />
Minors have long been recognized to not have free speech rights that are co-extensive with adults. But with the Internet, how do we define those rights? And what, if any, regulation should the government enact to protect minors on the Internet, while also respecting their rights?<br />
<br />
There are two traditional categories where minors' free speech rights have been restricted. The first is with respect to pornography, the second with respect to the school environment. These two areas raise different concerns.<br />
<br />
===== Pornography =====<br />
presenters: '''[[User:Ayelet|Ayelet]]''' (Maybe)<br />
<br />
* Re: Pornography: I think we might think of Porn on the net not only through the free speech/pedophilia topics. Pornography is one of the main uses of the net, whether we like it or not, and it seems that a great part of the architecture and governance of the web today must have been influenced by that fact. It could be interesting to think about this connection as a structural idea.<br />
* a second point to make is the globalization of police enforcement of child porn. It raises some interesting legal and practical concepts. <br />
--[[User:Ayelet|Ayelet]]<br />
<br />
The Government has on several occasions attempted to place restrictions on Internet access with the intention of preventing minors from viewing pornography. Nobody questions the Government's legitimate interest in restricting pornography, however the Government has run into substantial legal problems with most legislation it has enacted - primarily because the statutes were found to curtail the free speech rights of adults. <br />
<br />
Issues:<br />
*Should the Government attempt regulation in this field at all?<br />
** Does self regulation work?<br />
** Is there any way to enact legislation to protect minors without limiting protected adult access?<br />
*What would be defined as the community?<br />
** Is there any way to develop a "community standard" where the Internet is inherently national/global?<br />
*Do adults' rights to view porn mean that the Government must allow them to do so should it create free public access to the Internet?<br />
*Privacy<br />
** If, as currently proposed, a method is developed to determine whether an Internet user is a minor, how do we protect the privacy of the users?<br />
** Do opt-in/opt-out policies go against our rights to privacy?<br />
<br />
<br />
* The above discussion confuses obscenity with pornography. Obscenity law conveys a form of moral condemnation from the position of the status quo. Pornography law, if it ever existed, attempted a political analysis of equality principles. There are few things that will guarantee a messageboard clusterfuck like a discussion of pornography and heaven forbid you ever suggest that someone might one day take somone's porn away. One of the reasons for this situation is that the views and voices of the pornography-skeptical left have been almost completely drowned out and the vast majority of pornography viewers think that only a puritanical right opposes the idea (and thus each pornographic image consumed becomes a blow against Pat Robertson on behalf of liberty). If you believe that pornography involves serious concerns of civil rights then it's unclear how the internet or modern modes of transmission ultimately changes much other than providing easier access to rights violations. A radical position might exhort an abandonment of a commitment to equality in the face of overwhelming firepower, but that's not one that many would adopt. That said, it's pretty clear you're talking about obscenity, given the reference to community standards and so on. Keeping these two issues analytically separate is always the second thing to go in these discussions (once we've silenced certain voices). --[[User:Megerman|Megerman]] 17:30, 30 November 2008 (EST)<br />
<br />
**I can see how the confusion about pornography and obscenity can arise, but just to be clear, its the regulation of pornography with respect to minors that is raising the issue - not pornography in general. From my limited knowledge of free speech laws, it seems pretty clear that regulation of access to porn by minors is pretty much established. As to the "community standards" this in fact has been raised with respect to porn by the FCC. Currently, there is a proposal to auction spectrum to allow free broadband access to the Internet, provided that it is "porn free." The rationale given is that this is to protect minors, and what porn would be filtered would be based on community standards. <i>See Service Rules for Advanced Wireless Services</i>, WT Docket Nos. 07-195 and 05-356, Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, FCC 08-158 (rel. June 20, 2008). It explicitly states that the provider of the free Internet would need to have a filter that "filters or blocks images and text that constitute obscenity or pornography and, in context, <i>as measured by contemporary community standards and existing law</i>, any images or text that otherwise would be harmful to teens and adolescents. For purposes of this rule, teens and adolescents are children 5 through 17 years of age[.]" <i>Id.</i> (emphasis added). -- [[User:Bepa|Bepa]] 18:30, 30 November 2008 (EST)<br />
<br />
***The rabbit gets put in the hat when you say "regulation of pornography with respect to minors." We regulate child pornography (that is, pornography involving minors) and the access to obscene materials by minors. Since [http://www.bc.edu/bc_org/avp/cas/comm/free_speech/hudnut.html Hudnut] this country has not regulated pornography that does not involve children. [http://ifea.net/cipa.pdf CIPA] and other laws regulate the ability of children to access obscene material on the Internet, but does not regulate pornography that does not involve children. Of course, this point is often lost even by somewhat credible observers and it certainly seems a little beyond Rehnquist in [http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/02-361.ZO.html United States V. American Library Assn., Inc.]. As far as the proposed FCC rules, my guess is that the Court would find them to be unconstitutional insofar that they prohibited the dissemination of pornography, but they'd be fine if they were just limited to obscenity. Intuitively, this tracks the larger discussion. Those who seek to protect children from obscenity are concerned about issues of morality and sin, not equality and justice. The community standards issue only applies to obscenity and for these reasons. I'm less concerned with the substance of this actual debate (which may be beyond the scope of this class) than keeping the terms straight (and thereby unsilencing a valid viewpoint in these discussions). --[[User:Megerman|Megerman]] 19:13, 30 November 2008 (EST)<br />
<br />
===== Schools =====<br />
<br />
Courts have recognized that the minors do not have rights to engage in speech that has a substantial impact on the school setting, or runs against pedagogical interests. For example, displaying a sign that questionably promotes drug use while at a school sponsored event is not protected speech. Minors are also most likely prevented from passing around a flier encouraging students to riot if they pass that flier around at school. But what if they pass the message as a digital flier? Perhaps the students create a group on Facebook encouraging students to simultaneously drop their pencils at 11:30 am, and again every 5 minutes for the rest of the day. Is that speech protected if all the activity takes place from the home?<br />
<br />
<br />
Issues:<br />
<br />
*What type of activity should be regulated, if at all?<br />
** Should Internet activity that takes place primarily at home, but creates a disruption at school, be protected?<br />
*** What if the disruption at school is substantial? Not substantial?<br />
*** What if the speech is only tangentially related to the school setting, but still creates some impact there?<br />
*How do we balance the legitimate pedagogical needs of minors to have access to the Internet with the need to create an environment where students can learn, free from distraction?<br />
<br />
==== Political Speech and Political Change====<br />
<br />
===== Meta-Public Policy =====<br />
<br />
'''[[User:Danray|Dan Ray]] (maybe)'''<br />
<br />
See, e.g., Larry Lessig's Change Congress movement: http://change-congress.org/about/. Being Larry Lessig, the whole thing is tech-friendly.<br />
<br />
<br />
===== The First USA CTO =====<br />
<br />
'''[[User:Danray|Dan Ray]] (maybe)'''<br />
<br />
President-elect Obama's promise to appoint the first USA CTO has turned many heads, and discussions on what the (as of yet unappointed) CTO should do have started up, notably at http://obamacto.org/. Several other related links not purely focused on "US CTO" issues:<br />
<br />
* http://www.techpresident.com/blog/entry/32788/presidential_transition_2_0_how_to_use_new_social_media<br />
* http://www.govloop.com/<br />
<br />
===== Deliberation Day =====<br />
<br />
The paper on the study, and where similar effects re: citizen participation may be seen.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
'''Images online'''<br />
<br />
Fanvids<br />
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Songvid<br />
<br />
copyright and privacy issues regarding images on social networking sites<br />
<br />
== New Legal Issues Raised by the Internet ==<br />
<br />
=== Net Neutrality ===<br />
<br />
=== Chillingeffects.org ===<br />
<br />
'''[[User:Danray|Dan Ray]] (maybe)'''<br />
<br />
And other, similar layman-focused legal projects<br />
<br />
:I think I added this topic header, but it's just something that interests me; I'm not sure what, if any, ''frontier'' issue we could take up with them. I'm really interested in this kind of online legal services application, though I wonder if Chilling Effects itself has stabilized as an institution. Is there another group doing peer-powered legal work, or can anyone think of an interesting problem to tackle? [[User:Danray|Dan Ray]] 12:40, 1 December 2008 (EST)<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
== The Internet as a "Place" ==<br />
<br />
=== Internet Governance ===<br />
<br />
Much like open-source software, the Internet can be considered a collection of servers, pipes, and users spread all over the world. How does it keep working? One easy answer is that the United States (through actors public and private) just sort of gets its way. This isn't really a satisfying answer descriptively or normatively, though. With the rest of the world contributing more and more to the Internet as a whole, is it time for a change?<br />
<br />
== Internet/network Security ==<br />
<br />
=== Internet Dependency (What if someone somehow takes down the net?) ===<br />
<br />
'''[[User:Danray|Dan Ray]] (maybe)'''<br />
<br />
We have come to rely on the Internet for almost every aspect of our lives. If the Internet somehow suddenly went "down" (through either a cyberattack or physical attack on key backbone pieces of infrastructure), the result would likely be calamity, as well as hordes of people who wouldn't know what to do with themselves. Can we even imagine what the world would look like the morning after such an attack if it was successful? Are we wrong to rely so heavily on a single tool whose detailed technical inner workings so few people truly understand? Are we setting ourselves up to be ruined when someone compromises this tool? What about the tradeoffs between keeping the Net free+open vs. regulation to ensure that it retains its functional integrity in the face of attack? <br />
<br />
We can invite Dan Kaminsky, who recently discovered a flaw in the inner-workings of the Net that could have caused some serious damage. See, e.g., http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/09/technology/09flaw.html?hp<br />
(or we could invite will smith, who defeated the aliens in independence day with the help of cyber-attack).<br />
<br />
* I vote Will Smith. Unless everyone wants to get into the desirability of a DNS nonce of sufficient bitlength, in which case... no, still Will Smith. That guy's an elliptic curve cryptography fiend. However, if we do want to talk about design issues in the internet, and the failure of the marketplace to handle externalities created by poor software design, leading to the perpetual crisis of bugginess, we could do worse than to invite [http://cr.yp.to/djb.html Daniel Bernstein]. Plus, as an added bonus, he saw the issues that gave rise to the Kaminsky bug coming down the pike [http://cr.yp.to/djbdns.html a long] [http://cr.yp.to/djbdns/forgery.html time ago]. --[[User:Jgruensp|Jgruensp]]<br />
<br />
=== Internet as International Conflict Zone ===<br />
<br />
'''[[User:Danray|Dan Ray]] (maybe)'''<br />
<br />
In light of the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyberattacks_on_Estonia_2007 recent events in Estonia], have we finally reached the long-predicted era of cyberwarfare? Is cyber-espionage a counterintelligence problem or something more? ([http://www.nationaljournal.com/njmagazine/cs_20080531_6948.php This article from the National Journal] talks bluntly about perceived threats, although is perhaps a little too willing to attribute causation of certain events to Chinese actors on dubious evidence)<br />
<br />
=== Internet as an Extension of National Infrastructure ===<br />
<br />
'''[[User:Danray|Dan Ray]] (maybe)'''<br />
<br />
It is easy to define the borders of the nation in realspace (ports, airports, land crossings), and the tradeoffs between private propertyholders' rights and national security interests (making those tradeoffs? Not always so easy). But what are the national borders in cyberspace? Given the dangers described in the two topics above, what kind of role, if any, should national government play in monitoring and regulating major backbone communications links? What about the networks of semi-public industries such as utilities? Private corporations that store government secrets? Financial systems? Other types of privately owned networks?<br />
<br />
--[[User:Jgruensp|Jgruensp]] 23:54, 30 November 2008 (EST)</div>Jgruensphttps://cyber.harvard.edu/iif/?title=Topics&diff=312Topics2008-12-01T04:57:43Z<p>Jgruensp: More on Internet security topics</p>
<hr />
<div>= Topic Guidance =<br />
<br />
* Are you excited about it?<br />
* Does it relate to law (not entirely necessary)<br />
* Does it relate to tech (not entirely necessary)<br />
** To be sure, these are rebuttable presumptions :)<br />
<br />
Q: Are there any circumstances in which we can do a team of three?<br />
A: Yes! If I'm doing the math right, there are 12 seminar slots next term, of which we'll be using 11. There are 26 people. So with 2 per session that leaves 4 floaters; there can be 4 of the 11 sessions with 3 instead of 2. [[User:JZ|JZ]] 17:30, 27 November 2008 (EST)<br />
<br />
= Topics, Categorized =<br />
''Now, with categories! See [[Talk:Topics|Talk page]] for more.''<br />
--[[User:Jgruensp|Jgruensp]] 14:23, 29 November 2008 (EST)<br />
<br />
This page is for topics that we have not yet scheduled (but potentially should). Please add suggestions to the bottom of this page, and feel free to modify the descriptions for topics already listed.<br />
<br />
== Philosophical Approaches to Internet Communications ==<br />
<br />
=== Discourse Theory ===<br />
We should do a survey overview of the topic.<br />
<br />
[http://www.bible.org/page.php?page_id=1238 A Summary of Discourse Theory]<br />
<br />
=== Discursive Tools and Practices ===<br />
<br />
We should do a survey overview of the topic!<br />
<br />
== The Internet as a Social and Economic Tool Today ==<br />
<br />
=== Prediction Markets ===<br />
<br />
Intrade, etc.<br />
<br />
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TradeSports Tradesports] announced last week that it will [http://www.tradesports.com/ cease operations] at the end of this month. Does fallout from the current economic crisis include regulatory changes that spell doom for online prediction markets? Or is something else going on here? --[[User:Gwen|Gwen]] 11:05, 26 November 2008 (EST)<br />
<br />
=== Interactive Education ===<br />
<br />
Building on the work of MWesch (video here: http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=dGCJ46vyR9o) think about innovation in the classroom beyond the blackboard. How can we better interact in the classroom and how can technology help?<br />
<br />
=== Unconferences ===<br />
<br />
Unconferences represent a form of event-based discourse that seems chaotic but is actually organized around a set of well-codified rules intended to encourage initiative-taking by participants and ensure that the event is truly community-run and ad-hoc. Also known as "[http://www.openspaceworld.com/users_guide.htm Open Space]" events, they take several different forms, including [http://www.barcamp.org/ Barcamps] (which have been expanded to podcamps, etc.)<br />
<br />
=== Open Source Software ===<br />
<br />
How can a dispersed, multilingual collection of coders working for free assemble something as complicated as a web browser, let alone an entire operating system? Open-source projects are famously free-wheeling, but different organizational models and tools have sprung up to solve these obstacles.<br />
<br />
=== Deliberative Polling Online ===<br />
<br />
In a nutshell, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deliberative_opinion_poll<br />
<br />
=== Collaborative Textbooks ===<br />
<br />
Maybe also Harvard's new open access policy for academic work?<br />
(note that the Harvard Free Culture group is working on the matter - see [http://wiki.freeculture.org/Open_University_Campaign The Weeler Declaration])<br />
<br />
=== Recording Harvard Law School Classes and Posting Them on iTunes U ===<br />
<br />
Law schools tend not to post free class recordings on iTunes U. Should HLS take the opportunity to trailblaze? What are the law-school-specific challenges and the legal issues surrounding publishing audio recordings of HLS classes? What are the benefits? What about recording classes just for the benefit of the students (posted, as on religious holidays, solely on enrolled students' MyHLS pages)<br />
<br />
=== Open Access Publishing ===<br />
<br />
Addressing whether there actually seems to be a movement toward this model, and away from traditional science/tech publishing. What effects movement toward this model might have on quality, oversight, etc. of published articles. Also, discussion of business models/funding, problems with open access models, etc. And any copyright issues (to tie things back to law).<br />
<br />
This can relate both to open access of full articles (as with [http://www.plos.org/ PLoS]) or single experiments/results (including [http://sciencecommons.org/ Science Commons] and like projects to both make the data available, and, perhaps more importantly, the technologies to make it available in usable form)<br />
<br />
=== Peer-to-Patent ===<br />
<br />
See http://www.peertopatent.org/<br />
<br />
=== Systran ===<br />
<br />
== Implications of Internet Tools of the Future ==<br />
<br />
=== The Semantic Web ===<br />
<br />
What has become of this idea? Are we already there? Is it yet to come? Or has it died along the way? [Rainer]<br />
<br />
=== Language Divides/Autotranslation ===<br />
<br />
Though it doesn't penetrate to every physical location on Earth (unless you can afford sattelite link-ups), the internet is an exceptionally global medium. With the barriers to access lower than any earlier medium for high-volume international communication, it represents an opportunity for greater international discourse and the deepening of a sense of global society. But unless we can reassemble the Tower of Babel, significant and entrenched divides exist: people simply don't always understand each other's language.<br />
<br />
As certain languages become prevalent for international discourse, native users of that language have an advantage in communication. Auto-translation software such as Google Translate, Babelfish, and many others represent an opportunity to flatten this embeded advantage structure that favors people educated where linguae francae are native languages. Moreover, human translation communities such as [http://globalvoicesonline.org Global Voices Online] provide an edited and selected digest of what the editors notice in many languages. <br />
<br />
What are the potential bridges for language divides? Which work better and for what? What are the implications of mistranslations by machines? --[[User:G|G]] 12:25, 28 November 2008 (EST)<br />
<br />
<br />
== Communications Norms and the Internet ==<br />
<br />
=== The Rise of Anonymity... ===<br />
<br />
"on the internet, nobody knows that you're a dog." Or tall, or 12 years old, or a hairdresser by day, or a lesbian, or in India, or with a harelip, or... but also: now that we can't filter by that by default, what do we filter by? Do we now bias towards good writers - and what of people who communicate best non-verbally?<br />
<br />
What legitimate and illegitimate uses for anonymity are available on the internet? When is personal information useful, and when is verification appropriate? Last week's discussion about the different cultures on Wikipedia and Ebay and the use of behavioral enforcement mechanisms (ebay rating system, thumbs up/down-ing other drivers, etc.) reminded me of a panel from my favorite webcomic: http://xkcd.com/325/. As noted in the Properties subtext to the comic, "You can do this one in every 30 times and still have 97% positive feedback." How concerned should we be that people--be they selfish, malicious, or simply lunatics--can exploit such weaknesses in systems for building online reputations? If this is a real problem, how can we change current systems or create new ones to better protect users? And what are the trade-offs that come with better protection? --[[User:Gwen|Gwen]] 11:21, 26 November 2008 (EST)<br />
<br />
Also, what are the political and social implications of anonymitiy in countries with less free expression than the United States. In the Chinese example, we might speculate that with the internet more discourse is going on, in contexts ranging from political debates to hobby and commercial communities, but people may be motivated to try to remain anonymous. "Real name" requirements in some countries may challenge this, but circumvention methods exist. Then, how many people use circumvention methods, and how many users use them in a way that truly maintains anonymity? What does it mean that civic discourse might explode, but without real names attached? --[[User:G|G]] 11:58, 28 November 2008 (EST)<br />
<br />
To what extent does our received wisdom on anonymity reflect previous modes of technological development? With the advent of data mining, can an author truly be anonymous by leaving his/her name out, if that information can be ascertained quickly? Did old-style pamphletting allow for better anonymity? How good are names at identifying something that is person-like? Does the repeated use of a pseudonym change anything? Could anyone in revolutionary times write under the name Publius? Can anyone do that on wikipedia? Does the design of the internet allow/encourage anonymous postings or have we been lulled into a false sense of security by programs like [http://www.torproject.org/ Tor]? How do avatars and pseudonyms change these discussions? Is this a question of identity or accountability or neither? What does it mean to sue a username? Does the ability to remain unnammed expand the range of discourse or have a chilling effect of its own? Is the act of remaining unnammed ultimately a collective move, as in the case of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anonymous_(group) Anonymous], or an inherently individuating move? Would granting users the right to remain pseudononymous create a tragedy of the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anticommons anticommons], effectively rendering all userboards unusable? Does anonymity allow users to transcend bigotry or does it reinforce it? --[[User:Megerman|Megerman]] 09:00, 29 November 2008 (EST)<br />
<br />
=== ... or the Fall of Privacy? ===<br />
<br />
Despite the superficial anonymity provided by Internet communications, tracing a user of communications technologies has become ever-easier for the backbone provider, government actor, communications tool purveyor, and even the dedicated outside observer. Moreover, many members of the generation raised alongside the Internet spurn the option to use superficial anonymization altogether, posting photos and intimate personal details on social networking sites and rejecting pseudonymization on message boards. How will norms of [http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/privacy/ privacy] change for the coming Internet generation? How are they already changing?<br />
<br />
[http://www.accessmylibrary.com/coms2/summary_0286-23465941_ITM Alan Westin proposed] four states of privacy: ''Anonymity'' (freedom from identification and surveillance in public places and performing public acts), ''Solitude'' (freedom from observation from others), ''Reserve'' (freedom from disclosure of personal information to others), and ''Intimacy'' (freedom from surveillance in a group, in order to allow for free and open personal relationships).<br />
<br />
''Anonymity'': As [[User:Megerman|Megerman]] asks in the topic above, has the average citizen lost the ability to pamphlet anonymously with the movement of the public discourse online? What about anonymous protest? Does the fact that the vast majority of participants in online discussion do not have the tools to penetrate superficial anonymity more than make up for the ability of a few dedicated actors to do so (i.e. is the new anonymity "better" than the old)?<br />
<br />
''Solitude'': Are reading habits now an open secret, with the URLs of favorite webpages subject to disclosure upon request under the [http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/uscode18/usc_sec_18_00002703----000-.html Stored Communications Act]? What about citizens' commercial activity online? [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanley_v._Georgia Stanley v. Georgia] strongly suggested that what a person did in the privacy of her own home was her own business as long as others were not harmed. Is this no longer true w/r/t commercial actors such as internet service providers? The government? Requests of commercial actors made by the government?<br />
<br />
''Reserve'': What kind of right of reserve should we expect in our commercial transactional records? Health care records? Credit information? Should we rely on general laws like [http://www.hhs.gov/ocr/privacysummary.pdf HIPAA] to navigate these issues? Terms of Service and other one-on-one negotiations via contract law? Can social and commercial norms do this work in place of law?<br />
<br />
''Intimacy'': As communications technologies make conversation over greater distances with fewer obstacles possible, is there a corresponding tradeoff in the loss of intimacy when using such technologies? Is it simply to be expected that email and message-board gatherings will not be free from surveillance? Is it even technologically feasible to make them so? As people rely more on such innovations and less on face-to-face meetings to stay in touch with friends and family, or to engage in political organization and political discourse, will certain bonds of intimacy be loosened or severed?<br />
<br />
Is there an inexorable push toward a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Transparent_Society Transparent Society]? Is that a good thing? Is it both [http://www.wired.com/politics/security/commentary/securitymatters/2008/03/securitymatters_0306 undesirable] and [http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&id=_bodvczXUIsC&dq=solove+digital+person&printsec=frontcover&source=web&ots=wnpy3t0qKS&sig=IivUDdJKJ_bmaxDN3R5Ccdg37Dw&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=1&ct=result#PPP9,M1 avoidable]? Or is this all overblown hype?<br />
--[[User:Jgruensp|Jgruensp]] 15:17, 29 November 2008 (EST)<br />
<br />
=== Sources ===<br />
<br />
Where does the information for/during discussions come from? Interfaces/ease-of-access/digestibility of information affects how quickly it can get injected into conversations? (examples: hitting wikipedia in the middle of a dinner discussion, calling an expert friend or hitting another IRC channel to answer a quick question, etc). How does this affect how people prepare for conversations? (If you can easily look up notes during the meeting, why take them down beforehand?) Trying to apply some thoughts about [http://blog.melchua.com/2006/03/31/on-the-future-of-libraries-2/ info access in libraries] to this.<br />
<br />
Also, what if any tools exist to help people archive previous states of dynamic sites such as BBSs and news pages? In other words, after information comes into discussions, how can we see what happened after the fact? --[[User:G|G]] 12:01, 28 November 2008 (EST)<br />
<br />
=== Identity and Expertise ===<br />
<br />
How are participants in an internet dialog identified and credentialed? What gives weight to a participants' arguments - or phrased another way, what type of participants and arguments have weight, and what determines this for each discussion, participant, and discussion point?<br />
<br />
=== The Future of News ===<br />
<br />
The traditional media industry is in turmoil. Circulation of newspapers is [http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/28/business/media/28circ.html?_r=1 falling]. Staff are being laid off, costs are being cut and foreign bureaus are being shut. Audiences are fragmenting, advertising spending is plummeting and the valuations of companies is [http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/21/business/media/21times.html?ref=business dropping]. TV and radio are experiencing similar problems. Some [http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/30/opinion/30dowd.html?hp papers] are even outsourcing local news reporting to India!<br />
<br />
Most of these changes have been blamed on the arrival of the web, which has changed how information is produced and consumed. Now, anyone can be a news gatherer, publisher and distributor. The balance of power has changed.<br />
<br />
Yet at the same time, the web offers these organisations a huge opportunity. Already, groups such as [http://spot.us/ spot.us] and [http://www.propublica.org/ Pro Publica] are experimenting with new business models. Others, such as the Christian Science Monitor, [http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/1029/p25s01-usgn.html have ditched] the old way of doing things and have gone entirely online. Many are using the web to reach out to audiences and connect with them in new ways. <br />
<br />
But, are they doing enough? Will experiments like this be enough to save news organisations? Does it matter if they disappear? Should governments intervene to save them in the same way as they have decided to prop up the ailing car manufacturing industry? Is this an appropriate intervention? Should it be left to market forces? Ultimately, what is the future for “old media”?<br />
<br />
The Communication Initiative is an organization in this domain with a compelling problem that they'd like advice on solving, and they're very enthusiastic and willing to work with the class. They're focused on the use and support of communication for economic and social development (http://www.comminit.com) with a large and varied network (over 70,000 total) of members all over the world. Their question: given the challenges the face (enumerated more in the details section), how do we guide and engage our network more through our interactive online processes instead of through email?" More information available at [[The Communication Initiative]] (they wrote up a problem statement for us!) - is this something people would be interested in taking on? I would be... [[User:Mchua|Mchua]] 21:21, 30 November 2008 (EST)<br />
<br />
== The Internet and Societal Inequity ==<br />
<br />
=== Socio-technical Gap ===<br />
<br />
Problems encountered in the act of discoursing itself are sometimes addressed via social means, technological means, or both. It has been suggested that technological tools should support social processes, but there is an adaptation of each realm to the other - how does this back-and-forth take place in the design of a successful technology-enabled discussion?<br />
<br />
=== Internet and Power ===<br />
<br />
Which inequalities are created or strengthened due the increasing reliance on technology and the differences in the ability to access the Internet(e.g. global and socio-economic differences)? Does the net actually re-distribute and decentralize power and influence, or does it also reinforce the existing political and economic hierarchies? In short - is the Internet really a good thing for everybody?<br />
<br />
*A solutions-focused question here might be: what tools might encourage a more egalitarian internet, both nationally and internationally? How can online applications be designed to encourage social equality? (Berkman Fellow [http://eszter.com Eszter Hargittai] has worked on some related questions, focusing on research about how people actually use the internet.) --[[User:G|G]] 12:12, 28 November 2008 (EST)<br />
<br />
=== One Laptop Per Child ===<br />
<br />
=== Environmental Concerns ===<br />
<br />
To what extent is the hardware upon which the Internet exists damaging the environment? Where does old tech go when it dies? What distributive impact does the "recycling" of old tech have. Was the Internet build with principles of physical sustainbility in mind? Is it too late to change? How do individual companies, like Google, view their own practices? Does the cost of a server internalize the cost of disposal? Why has it been cheaper to just keep throwing on new machines? What of the electricity necessary to run these machines? What does it say about society that we are so willing to pollute our own communities to create a second life? Has technological innovation and advancement dislocated the true impact of non-zero cost transactions? --[[User:Megerman|Megerman]] 19:36, 29 November 2008 (EST)<br />
<br />
== The Internet, Political Speech, and Political Change ==<br />
<br />
=== Meta-Public Policy ===<br />
<br />
See, e.g., Larry Lessig's Change Congress movement: http://change-congress.org/about/. Being Larry Lessig, the whole thing is tech-friendly.<br />
<br />
=== Online Activism ===<br />
<br />
Of course there are a lot of custom-built tools for mobilizing people online to get things done in the real world. On the other hand, what about more general tools? We've all been invited, via Facebook, to join groups and attend events (the Obama campaign certainly made good use of this); is there a generalizable model here?<br />
<br />
Facebook groups dedicated to particular causes remind me of the online petitions that began circulating widely via email about ten years ago: their effectiveness in accomplishing real world change--and even their visibility to individuals capable of affecting the desired changes--are dubious. Is the real purpose of these movements simply to make participants ''feel'' like they are being active and involved? What percentage of those who signed email petitions in the 1990s were aware that their signatures were unverifiable and that the widely-distributed emails were unlikely to be collated and submitted to an official authority? What expectations do participants in facebook group causes have for their involvement and its consequences? The facebook group causes are certainly more centralized and visible than the old email petitions, and they provide a better tool for identifying and communicating with supporters in order to mobilize them in an organized fashion. How often is such mobilization attempted, and with what degree of success? As a tool of online activism, is facebook a step forward from chain emails, is it a step in a different direction, or does it just serve the same old functions but in newer packaging? --[[User:Gwen|Gwen]] 08:26, 29 November 2008 (EST)<br />
<br />
Maybe we can invite some of the leaders of the various social networking sites or Jascha Franklin-Hodge, who was an architect of the Obama campaign's use of social technology.<br />
<br />
Might also be worth considering SMS applications that interface with the internet in this context especially since cell phones will presumably be the nexus of tech activism in the developing world. See FrontlineSMS or Ushahidi, a web crisis mapping project that let any user with a cell phone text in reports of violence in post-election Kenya as a way to geographically report real-time citizen reporting. (ELANA)<br />
<br />
=== Meta-Pundit ===<br />
<br />
''Conor Kennedy''<br />
<br />
'''PREMISE'''<br />
<br />
During the 2008 Presidential Campaign, web-only advertisements helped to shape the talking points of media personalities like [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Matthews Chris Matthews] , [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keith_Olbermann Keith Olbermann], [http://www.foxnews.com/ontherecord/ Greta Van Susteren], and [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Scarborough Joe Scarborough], and sometimes even individuals who try to operate "above the fray" of punditry like [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon_Stewart Jon Stewart], [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jay_Leno Jay Leno], and [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Letterman David Letterman] (See [http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2008/02/09/web_only_campaign_advertisements_flood_presidential_race/ "Web-only campaign advertisements flood presidential race"] "In a study released last summer....the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press found most Americans heard about the most famous viral videos because they saw them replayed on TV").<br />
<br />
Because a large and increasing number of Americans get their news from media personalities rather than from traditional broadcast or print media sources, these individuals have significant power to shape the national political discussion. Still, beyond campaigns' web-only ads, there hasn't ''yet'' been a concerted effort to use the Internet to directly influence these personalities and their television shows. <br />
<br />
'''PROPOSAL'''<br />
<br />
This void can be filled by a website that publishes a rating system and gauges/grades each of these media personalities (over multiple periods of time: daily [i.e., per episode], monthly, etc.) with a variety of qualitative metrics. <br />
<br />
Ideally, such metrics would focus on process rather than substance (e.g., % of material that avoids explicit mention of either party's talking-points-of-the-day; % of in-show discussion that is active, fair dialogue with guests of opposing perspectives). Some metrics would be determined by the site's designers while others would be generated and selected (i.e., voted on) by the site's users. A team of qualitative analysts would code each media personality's episodes for (1) the site designers' metrics and (2) any given metric a critical mass the website's users select, and publish the results daily. <br />
<br />
This website would be most influential as a source for audience feedback beyond bare headcounts (i.e., network viewer ratings). For some media personalities, that feedback will act as a friendly nudge that helps them improve their shows. For others, the ultimate message might sound more like [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmj6JADOZ-8 Jon Stewart on Crossfire].<br />
<br />
'''QUESTIONS (each followed by potential answers)'''<br />
<br />
*(1) How should this kind of a site be funded, and by whom? <br />
**Non-partisan journalism NGOs through a project grant<br />
**The Berkman Center (see "Donations" link in navigation pane in left frame)<br />
*(2) What kind of knowledge workers would the daily operations require? <br />
**College research assistants as coders<br />
*(3) What kind of goals should such a website pursue? <br />
**Active dialogue<br />
**More informed discussion<br />
**Sophistication of television personalities<br />
**Honesty<br />
**Bipartisanship<br />
**Dedication to truth<br />
**Fighting the political class's elitism<br />
**Fighting prejudices/smears<br />
**Deconstructing euphemistic language/political correctness<br />
**Strengthening/Weakening political parties' control of the national political dialogue<br />
**Expansion of the national political dialogue to include new and unique perspectives<br />
*(4) How else could a pundit-centric website serve to channel the widespread complaints of "Media Bias" into a polished online platform?<br />
**Hall of Shame for self-proclaimed (one-time guest) "Analysts" and "Experts" who actually have no rightful claim to either title.<br />
**Sponsor and/or Host Op-Eds, Blogs, Vlogs, [http://www.beliefnet.com/Faiths/Secular-Philosophies/Is-Religion-Built-Upon-Lies.aspx?p=1 "Blogologues"], and [http://bloggingheads.tv/ "Diavlogs"] by premier Media/Journalism academics.<br />
**Work to immediately uncover the ''original'' sources of stories in order (1) to get a sense of who is already influencing media personalities (and their writers) and (2) to push back against rushed vetting of unsubstantiated stories (a la [http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/13/arts/television/13hoax.html Martin Eisenstadt])<br />
**Highlight stories/angles the traditional anchors are broadcasting that these hosts are ignoring/purposely passing on.<br />
*(5) How much embedded footage of ''actual shows'' can such a website legally display under Fair Use? <br />
**A good place to start looking is [http://tpmtv.talkingpointsmemo.com/ Talking Points Memo's "The Day in 100 Seconds" Vidcast Series]<br />
--[[User:CKennedy|CKennedy]] 01:42, 25 November 2008 (EST)<br />
<br />
=== The First USA CTO ===<br />
<br />
President-elect Obama's promise to appoint the first USA CTO has turned many heads, and discussions on what the (as of yet unappointed) CTO should do have started up, notably at http://obamacto.org/. Several other related links not purely focused on "US CTO" issues:<br />
<br />
* http://www.techpresident.com/blog/entry/32788/presidential_transition_2_0_how_to_use_new_social_media<br />
* http://www.govloop.com/<br />
<br />
=== Deliberation Day ===<br />
<br />
The paper on the study, and where similar effects re: citizen participation may be seen.<br />
<br />
== New Legal Issues Raised by the Internet ==<br />
<br />
=== Net Neutrality ===<br />
<br />
=== Chillingeffects.org ===<br />
<br />
And other, similar layman-focused legal projects<br />
<br />
=== Google Book Search ===<br />
<br />
What does the recent settlement between Google and American publishers regarding online accessibility of digitalized books mean? Many have hailed it for both improving universal access to knowledge and avoiding a judicial resolution that might have exposed antiquated aspects of US copyright law. But there may also be some troubling aspects of having access to so much content controlled by a single company. Should government intervene in any way to regulate such access?<br />
<br />
From a regulatory perspective, there is also a question as to whether Google Book Search should be treated as a public or private entity, or whether such a distinction is even applicable (or does much work) in the internet context. Many of Google's library partners are public universities (e.g. Universities of California, Michigan, Texas, Virginia, and Wisconsin -- see http://www.google.com/googlebooks/partners.html), though Google is of course private. And does Google Book Search's laudable mission "to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful" (http://books.google.com/googlebooks/agreement/) mean we should shy away from regulation, or should we be skeptical of such claims by a large for-profit corporation.<br />
<br />
=== Free Speech ===<br />
<br />
==== Rights of Minors ====<br />
<br />
Minors have long been recognized to not have free speech rights that are co-extensive with adults. But with the Internet, how do we define those rights? And what, if any, regulation should the government enact to protect minors on the Internet, while also respecting their rights?<br />
<br />
There are two traditional categories where minors' free speech rights have been restricted. The first is with respect to pornography, the second with respect to the school environment. These two areas raise different concerns.<br />
<br />
===== Pornography =====<br />
<br />
The Government has on several occasions attempted to place restrictions on Internet access with the intention of preventing minors from viewing pornography. Nobody questions the Government's legitimate interest in restricting pornography, however the Government has run into substantial legal problems with most legislation it has enacted - primarily because the statutes were found to curtail the free speech rights of adults. <br />
<br />
Issues:<br />
*Should the Government attempt regulation in this field at all?<br />
** Does self regulation work?<br />
** Is there any way to enact legislation to protect minors without limiting protected adult access?<br />
*What would be defined as the community?<br />
** Is there any way to develop a "community standard" where the Internet is inherently national/global?<br />
*Do adults' rights to view porn mean that the Government must allow them to do so should it create free public access to the Internet?<br />
*Privacy<br />
** If, as currently proposed, a method is developed to determine whether an Internet user is a minor, how do we protect the privacy of the users?<br />
** Do opt-in/opt-out policies go against our rights to privacy?<br />
<br />
<br />
* The above discussion confuses obscenity with pornography. Obscenity law conveys a form of moral condemnation from the position of the status quo. Pornography law, if it ever existed, attempted a political analysis of equality principles. There are few things that will guarantee a messageboard clusterfuck like a discussion of pornography and heaven forbid you ever suggest that someone might one day take somone's porn away. One of the reasons for this situation is that the views and voices of the pornography-skeptical left have been almost completely drowned out and the vast majority of pornography viewers think that only a puritanical right opposes the idea (and thus each pornographic image consumed becomes a blow against Pat Robertson on behalf of liberty). If you believe that pornography involves serious concerns of civil rights then it's unclear how the internet or modern modes of transmission ultimately changes much other than providing easier access to rights violations. A radical position might exhort an abandonment of a commitment to equality in the face of overwhelming firepower, but that's not one that many would adopt. That said, it's pretty clear you're talking about obscenity, given the reference to community standards and so on. Keeping these two issues analytically separate is always the second thing to go in these discussions (once we've silenced certain voices). --[[User:Megerman|Megerman]] 17:30, 30 November 2008 (EST)<br />
<br />
**I can see how the confusion about pornography and obscenity can arise, but just to be clear, its the regulation of pornography with respect to minors that is raising the issue - not pornography in general. From my limited knowledge of free speech laws, it seems pretty clear that regulation of access to porn by minors is pretty much established. As to the "community standards" this in fact has been raised with respect to porn by the FCC. Currently, there is a proposal to auction spectrum to allow free broadband access to the Internet, provided that it is "porn free." The rationale given is that this is to protect minors, and what porn would be filtered would be based on community standards. <i>See Service Rules for Advanced Wireless Services</i>, WT Docket Nos. 07-195 and 05-356, Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, FCC 08-158 (rel. June 20, 2008). It explicitly states that the provider of the free Internet would need to have a filter that "filters or blocks images and text that constitute obscenity or pornography and, in context, <i>as measured by contemporary community standards and existing law</i>, any images or text that otherwise would be harmful to teens and adolescents. For purposes of this rule, teens and adolescents are children 5 through 17 years of age[.]" <i>Id.</i> (emphasis added). -- [[User:Bepa|Bepa]] 18:30, 30 November 2008 (EST)<br />
<br />
***The rabbit gets put in the hat when you say "regulation of pornography with respect to minors." We regulate child pornography (that is, pornography involving minors) and the access to obscene materials by minors. Since [http://www.bc.edu/bc_org/avp/cas/comm/free_speech/hudnut.html Hudnut] this country has not regulated pornography that does not involve children. [http://ifea.net/cipa.pdf CIPA] and other laws regulate the ability of children to access obscene material on the Internet, but does not regulate pornography that does not involve children. Of course, this point is often lost even by somewhat credible observers and it certainly seems a little beyond Rehnquist in [http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/02-361.ZO.html United States V. American Library Assn., Inc.]. As far as the proposed FCC rules, my guess is that the Court would find them to be unconstitutional insofar that they prohibited the dissemination of pornography, but they'd be fine if they were just limited to obscenity. Intuitively, this tracks the larger discussion. Those who seek to protect children from obscenity are concerned about issues of morality and sin, not equality and justice. The community standards issue only applies to obscenity and for these reasons. I'm less concerned with the substance of this actual debate (which may be beyond the scope of this class) than keeping the terms straight (and thereby unsilencing a valid viewpoint in these discussions). --[[User:Megerman|Megerman]] 19:13, 30 November 2008 (EST)<br />
<br />
===== Schools =====<br />
<br />
Courts have recognized that the minors do not have rights to engage in speech that has a substantial impact on the school setting, or runs against pedagogical interests. For example, displaying a sign that questionably promotes drug use while at a school sponsored event is not protected speech. Minors are also most likely prevented from passing around a flier encouraging students to riot if they pass that flier around at school. But what if they pass the message as a digital flier? Perhaps the students create a group on Facebook encouraging students to simultaneously drop their pencils at 11:30 am, and again every 5 minutes for the rest of the day. Is that speech protected if all the activity takes place from the home?<br />
<br />
<br />
Issues:<br />
<br />
*What type of activity should be regulated, if at all?<br />
** Should Internet activity that takes place primarily at home, but creates a disruption at school, be protected?<br />
*** What if the disruption at school is substantial? Not substantial?<br />
*** What if the speech is only tangentially related to the school setting, but still creates some impact there?<br />
*How do we balance the legitimate pedagogical needs of minors to have access to the Internet with the need to create an environment where students can learn, free from distraction?<br />
<br />
=== Old Laws/New Media ===<br />
Shubham Mukherjee<br />
Debbie Rosenbaum<br />
Matt Sanchez<br />
<br />
How has new media affected traditional industries and challenged traditional law? How do we deal with the fact that there is little legal infrastructure in today's new media environments? Do we apply old laws to new technologies? Do we create new regulations? How can we create good sound policy that aligns with both our legal aspirations and the technological realities of today?<br />
<br />
This topic will aim to explore these questions by analyzing the music industry v. Tenenbaum, a case the three of us are working on pro-bono with Professor Charles Nesson, co-founder of the Berkman Center.<br />
<br />
== The Internet as a "Place" ==<br />
<br />
=== Internet Governance ===<br />
<br />
Much like open-source software, the Internet can be considered a collection of servers, pipes, and users spread all over the world. How does it keep working? One easy answer is that the United States (through actors public and private) just sort of gets its way. This isn't really a satisfying answer descriptively or normatively, though. With the rest of the world contributing more and more to the Internet as a whole, is it time for a change?<br />
<br />
== Internet/network Security ==<br />
<br />
=== Internet Dependency (What if someone somehow takes down the net?) ===<br />
<br />
We have come to rely on the Internet for almost every aspect of our lives. If the Internet somehow suddenly went "down" (through either a cyberattack or physical attack on key backbone pieces of infrastructure), the result would likely be calamity, as well as hordes of people who wouldn't know what to do with themselves. Can we even imagine what the world would look like the morning after such an attack if it was successful? Are we wrong to rely so heavily on a single tool whose detailed technical inner workings so few people truly understand? Are we setting ourselves up to be ruined when someone compromises this tool? What about the tradeoffs between keeping the Net free+open vs. regulation to ensure that it retains its functional integrity in the face of attack? <br />
<br />
We can invite Dan Kaminsky, who recently discovered a flaw in the inner-workings of the Net that could have caused some serious damage. See, e.g., http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/09/technology/09flaw.html?hp<br />
(or we could invite will smith, who defeated the aliens in independence day with the help of cyber-attack).<br />
<br />
* I vote Will Smith. Unless everyone wants to get into the desirability of a DNS nonce of sufficient bitlength, in which case... no, still Will Smith. That guy's an elliptic curve cryptography fiend. However, if we do want to talk about design issues in the internet, and the failure of the marketplace to handle externalities created by poor software design, leading to the perpetual crisis of bugginess, we could do worse than to invite [http://cr.yp.to/djb.html Daniel Bernstein]. Plus, as an added bonus, he saw the issues that gave rise to the Kaminsky bug coming down the pike [http://cr.yp.to/djbdns.html a long] [http://cr.yp.to/djbdns/forgery.html time ago]. --[[User:Jgruensp|Jgruensp]]<br />
<br />
=== Internet as International Conflict Zone ===<br />
<br />
In light of the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyberattacks_on_Estonia_2007 recent events in Estonia], have we finally reached the long-predicted era of cyberwarfare? Is cyber-espionage a counterintelligence problem or something more? ([http://www.nationaljournal.com/njmagazine/cs_20080531_6948.php This article from the National Journal] talks bluntly about perceived threats, although is perhaps a little too willing to attribute causation of certain events to Chinese actors on dubious evidence)<br />
<br />
=== Internet as an Extension of National Infrastructure ===<br />
<br />
It is easy to define the borders of the nation in realspace (ports, airports, land crossings), and the tradeoffs between private propertyholders' rights and national security interests (making those tradeoffs? Not always so easy). But what are the national borders in cyberspace? Given the dangers described in the two topics above, what kind of role, if any, should national government play in monitoring and regulating major backbone communications links? What about the networks of semi-public industries such as utilities? Private corporations that store government secrets? Financial systems? Other types of privately owned networks?<br />
<br />
--[[User:Jgruensp|Jgruensp]] 23:54, 30 November 2008 (EST)</div>Jgruensphttps://cyber.harvard.edu/iif/?title=Topics&diff=282Topics2008-11-29T20:26:10Z<p>Jgruensp: Added Privacy as a topic</p>
<hr />
<div>= Topic Guidance =<br />
<br />
* Are you excited about it?<br />
* Does it relate to law (not entirely necessary)<br />
* Does it relate to tech (not entirely necessary)<br />
** To be sure, these are rebuttable presumptions :)<br />
<br />
Q: Are there any circumstances in which we can do a team of three?<br />
A: Yes! If I'm doing the math right, there are 12 seminar slots next term, of which we'll be using 11. There are 26 people. So with 2 per session that leaves 4 floaters; there can be 4 of the 11 sessions with 3 instead of 2. [[User:JZ|JZ]] 17:30, 27 November 2008 (EST)<br />
<br />
= Topics, Categorized =<br />
''Now, with categories! See [[Talk:Topics|Talk page]] for more.''<br />
--[[User:Jgruensp|Jgruensp]] 14:23, 29 November 2008 (EST)<br />
<br />
This page is for topics that we have not yet scheduled (but potentially should). Please add suggestions to the bottom of this page, and feel free to modify the descriptions for topics already listed.<br />
<br />
== Philosophical Approaches to Internet Communications ==<br />
<br />
=== Discourse Theory ===<br />
We should do a survey overview of the topic.<br />
<br />
[http://www.bible.org/page.php?page_id=1238 A Summary of Discourse Theory]<br />
<br />
=== Discursive Tools and Practices ===<br />
<br />
We should do a survey overview of the topic!<br />
<br />
== The Internet as a Social and Economic Tool Today ==<br />
<br />
=== Prediction Markets ===<br />
<br />
Intrade, etc.<br />
<br />
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TradeSports Tradesports] announced last week that it will [http://www.tradesports.com/ cease operations] at the end of this month. Does fallout from the current economic crisis include regulatory changes that spell doom for online prediction markets? Or is something else going on here? --[[User:Gwen|Gwen]] 11:05, 26 November 2008 (EST)<br />
<br />
=== Interactive Education ===<br />
<br />
Building on the work of MWesch (video here: http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=dGCJ46vyR9o) think about innovation in the classroom beyond the blackboard. How can we better interact in the classroom and how can technology help?<br />
<br />
=== Unconferences ===<br />
<br />
Unconferences represent a form of event-based discourse that seems chaotic but is actually organized around a set of well-codified rules intended to encourage initiative-taking by participants and ensure that the event is truly community-run and ad-hoc. Also known as "[http://www.openspaceworld.com/users_guide.htm Open Space]" events, they take several different forms, including [http://www.barcamp.org/ Barcamps] (which have been expanded to podcamps, etc.)<br />
<br />
=== Open Source Software ===<br />
<br />
How can a dispersed, multilingual collection of coders working for free assemble something as complicated as a web browser, let alone an entire operating system? Open-source projects are famously free-wheeling, but different organizational models and tools have sprung up to solve these obstacles.<br />
<br />
=== Deliberative Polling Online ===<br />
<br />
In a nutshell, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deliberative_opinion_poll<br />
<br />
=== Collaborative Textbooks ===<br />
<br />
Maybe also Harvard's new open access policy for academic work?<br />
(note that the Harvard Free Culture group is working on the matter - see [http://wiki.freeculture.org/Open_University_Campaign The Weeler Declaration])<br />
<br />
=== Recording Harvard Law School Classes and Posting Them on iTunes U ===<br />
<br />
Law schools tend not to post free class recordings on iTunes U. Should HLS take the opportunity to trailblaze? What are the law-school-specific challenges and the legal issues surrounding publishing audio recordings of HLS classes? What are the benefits? What about recording classes just for the benefit of the students (posted, as on religious holidays, solely on enrolled students' MyHLS pages)<br />
<br />
=== Open Access Publishing ===<br />
<br />
Addressing whether there actually seems to be a movement toward this model, and away from traditional science/tech publishing. What effects movement toward this model might have on quality, oversight, etc. of published articles. Also, discussion of business models/funding, problems with open access models, etc. And any copyright issues (to tie things back to law).<br />
<br />
This can relate both to open access of full articles (as with [http://www.plos.org/ PLoS]) or single experiments/results (including [http://sciencecommons.org/ Science Commons] and like projects to both make the data available, and, perhaps more importantly, the technologies to make it available in usable form)<br />
<br />
=== Peer-to-Patent ===<br />
<br />
See http://www.peertopatent.org/<br />
<br />
=== Systran ===<br />
<br />
== Implications of Internet Tools of the Future ==<br />
<br />
=== The Semantic Web ===<br />
<br />
What has become of this idea? Are we already there? Is it yet to come? Or has it died along the way? [Rainer]<br />
<br />
=== Language Divides/Autotranslation ===<br />
<br />
Though it doesn't penetrate to every physical location on Earth (unless you can afford sattelite link-ups), the internet is an exceptionally global medium. With the barriers to access lower than any earlier medium for high-volume international communication, it represents an opportunity for greater international discourse and the deepening of a sense of global society. But unless we can reassemble the Tower of Babel, significant and entrenched divides exist: people simply don't always understand each other's language.<br />
<br />
As certain languages become prevalent for international discourse, native users of that language have an advantage in communication. Auto-translation software such as Google Translate, Babelfish, and many others represent an opportunity to flatten this embeded advantage structure that favors people educated where linguae francae are native languages. Moreover, human translation communities such as [http://globalvoicesonline.org Global Voices Online] provide an edited and selected digest of what the editors notice in many languages. <br />
<br />
What are the potential bridges for language divides? Which work better and for what? What are the implications of mistranslations by machines? --[[User:G|G]] 12:25, 28 November 2008 (EST)<br />
<br />
<br />
== Communications Norms and the Internet ==<br />
<br />
=== The Rise of Anonymity... ===<br />
<br />
"on the internet, nobody knows that you're a dog." Or tall, or 12 years old, or a hairdresser by day, or a lesbian, or in India, or with a harelip, or... but also: now that we can't filter by that by default, what do we filter by? Do we now bias towards good writers - and what of people who communicate best non-verbally?<br />
<br />
What legitimate and illegitimate uses for anonymity are available on the internet? When is personal information useful, and when is verification appropriate? Last week's discussion about the different cultures on Wikipedia and Ebay and the use of behavioral enforcement mechanisms (ebay rating system, thumbs up/down-ing other drivers, etc.) reminded me of a panel from my favorite webcomic: http://xkcd.com/325/. As noted in the Properties subtext to the comic, "You can do this one in every 30 times and still have 97% positive feedback." How concerned should we be that people--be they selfish, malicious, or simply lunatics--can exploit such weaknesses in systems for building online reputations? If this is a real problem, how can we change current systems or create new ones to better protect users? And what are the trade-offs that come with better protection? --[[User:Gwen|Gwen]] 11:21, 26 November 2008 (EST)<br />
<br />
Also, what are the political and social implications of anonymitiy in countries with less free expression than the United States. In the Chinese example, we might speculate that with the internet more discourse is going on, in contexts ranging from political debates to hobby and commercial communities, but people may be motivated to try to remain anonymous. "Real name" requirements in some countries may challenge this, but circumvention methods exist. Then, how many people use circumvention methods, and how many users use them in a way that truly maintains anonymity? What does it mean that civic discourse might explode, but without real names attached? --[[User:G|G]] 11:58, 28 November 2008 (EST)<br />
<br />
To what extent does our received wisdom on anonymity reflect previous modes of technological development? With the advent of data mining, can an author truly be anonymous by leaving his/her name out, if that information can be ascertained quickly? Did old-style pamphletting allow for better anonymity? How good are names at identifying something that is person-like? Does the repeated use of a pseudonym change anything? Could anyone in revolutionary times write under the name Publius? Can anyone do that on wikipedia? Does the design of the internet allow/encourage anonymous postings or have we been lulled into a false sense of security by programs like [http://www.torproject.org/ Tor]? How do avatars and pseudonyms change these discussions? Is this a question of identity or accountability or neither? What does it mean to sue a username? Does the ability to remain unnammed expand the range of discourse or have a chilling effect of its own? Is the act of remaining unnammed ultimately a collective move, as in the case of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anonymous_(group) Anonymous], or an inherently individuating move? Would granting users the right to remain pseudononymous create a tragedy of the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anticommons anticommons], effectively rendering all userboards unusable? Does anonymity allow users to transcend bigotry or does it reinforce it? --[[User:Megerman|Megerman]] 09:00, 29 November 2008 (EST)<br />
<br />
=== ... or the Fall of Privacy? ===<br />
<br />
Despite the superficial anonymity provided by Internet communications, tracing a user of communications technologies has become ever-easier for the backbone provider, government actor, communications tool purveyor, and even the dedicated outside observer. Moreover, many members of the generation raised alongside the Internet spurn the option to use superficial anonymization altogether, posting photos and intimate personal details on social networking sites and rejecting pseudonymization on message boards. How will norms of [http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/privacy/ privacy] change for the coming Internet generation? How are they already changing?<br />
<br />
[http://www.accessmylibrary.com/coms2/summary_0286-23465941_ITM Alan Westin proposed] four states of privacy: ''Anonymity'' (freedom from identification and surveillance in public places and performing public acts), ''Solitude'' (freedom from observation from others), ''Reserve'' (freedom from disclosure of personal information to others), and ''Intimacy'' (freedom from surveillance in a group, in order to allow for free and open personal relationships).<br />
<br />
''Anonymity'': As [[User:Megerman|Megerman]] asks in the topic above, has the average citizen lost the ability to pamphlet anonymously with the movement of the public discourse online? What about anonymous protest? Does the fact that the vast majority of participants in online discussion do not have the tools to penetrate superficial anonymity more than make up for the ability of a few dedicated actors to do so (i.e. is the new anonymity "better" than the old)?<br />
<br />
''Solitude'': Are reading habits now an open secret, with the URLs of favorite webpages subject to disclosure upon request under the [http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/uscode18/usc_sec_18_00002703----000-.html Stored Communications Act]? What about citizens' commercial activity online? [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanley_v._Georgia Stanley v. Georgia] strongly suggested that what a person did in the privacy of her own home was her own business as long as others were not harmed. Is this no longer true w/r/t commercial actors such as internet service providers? The government? Requests of commercial actors made by the government?<br />
<br />
''Reserve'': What kind of right of reserve should we expect in our commercial transactional records? Health care records? Credit information? Should we rely on general laws like [http://www.hhs.gov/ocr/privacysummary.pdf HIPAA] to navigate these issues? Terms of Service and other one-on-one negotiations via contract law? Can social and commercial norms do this work in place of law?<br />
<br />
''Intimacy'': As communications technologies make conversation over greater distances with fewer obstacles possible, is there a corresponding tradeoff in the loss of intimacy when using such technologies? Is it simply to be expected that email and message-board gatherings will not be free from surveillance? Is it even technologically feasible to make them so? As people rely more on such innovations and less on face-to-face meetings to stay in touch with friends and family, or to engage in political organization and political discourse, will certain bonds of intimacy be loosened or severed?<br />
<br />
Is there an inexorable push toward a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Transparent_Society Transparent Society]? Is that a good thing? Is it both [http://www.wired.com/politics/security/commentary/securitymatters/2008/03/securitymatters_0306 undesirable] and [http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&id=_bodvczXUIsC&dq=solove+digital+person&printsec=frontcover&source=web&ots=wnpy3t0qKS&sig=IivUDdJKJ_bmaxDN3R5Ccdg37Dw&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=1&ct=result#PPP9,M1 avoidable]? Or is this all overblown hype?<br />
--[[User:Jgruensp|Jgruensp]] 15:17, 29 November 2008 (EST)<br />
<br />
=== Sources ===<br />
<br />
Where does the information for/during discussions come from? Interfaces/ease-of-access/digestibility of information affects how quickly it can get injected into conversations? (examples: hitting wikipedia in the middle of a dinner discussion, calling an expert friend or hitting another IRC channel to answer a quick question, etc). How does this affect how people prepare for conversations? (If you can easily look up notes during the meeting, why take them down beforehand?) Trying to apply some thoughts about [http://blog.melchua.com/2006/03/31/on-the-future-of-libraries-2/ info access in libraries] to this.<br />
<br />
Also, what if any tools exist to help people archive previous states of dynamic sites such as BBSs and news pages? In other words, after information comes into discussions, how can we see what happened after the fact? --[[User:G|G]] 12:01, 28 November 2008 (EST)<br />
<br />
=== Identity and Expertise ===<br />
<br />
How are participants in an internet dialog identified and credentialed? What gives weight to a participants' arguments - or phrased another way, what type of participants and arguments have weight, and what determines this for each discussion, participant, and discussion point?<br />
<br />
=== The Future of News ===<br />
<br />
The traditional media industry is in turmoil. Circulation of newspapers is [http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/28/business/media/28circ.html?_r=1 falling]. Staff are being laid off, costs are being cut and foreign bureaus are being shut. Audiences are fragmenting, advertising spending is plummeting and the valuations of companies is [http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/21/business/media/21times.html?ref=business dropping]. TV and radio are experiencing similar problems. <br />
<br />
Most of these changes have been blamed on the arrival of the web, which has changed how information is produced and consumed. Now, anyone can be a news gatherer, publisher and distributor. The balance of power has changed.<br />
<br />
Yet at the same time, the web offers these organisations a huge opportunity. Already, groups such as [http://spot.us/ spot.us] and [http://www.propublica.org/ Pro Publica] are experimenting with new business models. Others, such as the Christian Science Monitor, [http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/1029/p25s01-usgn.html have ditched] the old way of doing things and have gone entirely online. Many are using the web to reach out to audiences and connect with them in new ways. <br />
<br />
But, are they doing enough? Will experiments like this be enough to save news organisations? Does it matter if they disappear? Should governments intervene to save them in the same way as they have decided to prop up the ailing car manufacturing industry? Is this an appropriate intervention? Should it be left to market forces? Ultimately, what is the future for “old media”?<br />
<br />
== The Internet and Societal Inequity ==<br />
<br />
=== Socio-technical Gap ===<br />
<br />
Problems encountered in the act of discoursing itself are sometimes addressed via social means, technological means, or both. It has been suggested that technological tools should support social processes, but there is an adaptation of each realm to the other - how does this back-and-forth take place in the design of a successful technology-enabled discussion?<br />
<br />
=== Internet and Power ===<br />
<br />
Which inequalities are created or strengthened due the increasing reliance on technology and the differences in the ability to access the Internet(e.g. global and socio-economic differences)? Does the net actually re-distribute and decentralize power and influence, or does it also reinforce the existing political and economic hierarchies? In short - is the Internet really a good thing for everybody?<br />
<br />
*A solutions-focused question here might be: what tools might encourage a more egalitarian internet, both nationally and internationally? How can online applications be designed to encourage social equality? (Berkman Fellow [http://eszter.com Eszter Hargittai] has worked on some related questions, focusing on research about how people actually use the internet.) --[[User:G|G]] 12:12, 28 November 2008 (EST)<br />
<br />
=== One Laptop Per Child ===<br />
<br />
== The Internet, Political Speech, and Political Change ==<br />
<br />
=== Meta-Public Policy ===<br />
<br />
See, e.g., Larry Lessig's Change Congress movement: http://change-congress.org/about/. Being Larry Lessig, the whole thing is tech-friendly.<br />
<br />
=== Online Activism ===<br />
<br />
Of course there are a lot of custom-built tools for mobilizing people online to get things done in the real world. On the other hand, what about more general tools? We've all been invited, via Facebook, to join groups and attend events (the Obama campaign certainly made good use of this); is there a generalizable model here?<br />
<br />
Facebook groups dedicated to particular causes remind me of the online petitions that began circulating widely via email about ten years ago: their effectiveness in accomplishing real world change--and even their visibility to individuals capable of affecting the desired changes--are dubious. Is the real purpose of these movements simply to make participants ''feel'' like they are being active and involved? What percentage of those who signed email petitions in the 1990s were aware that their signatures were unverifiable and that the widely-distributed emails were unlikely to be collated and submitted to an official authority? What expectations do participants in facebook group causes have for their involvement and its consequences? The facebook group causes are certainly more centralized and visible than the old email petitions, and they provide a better tool for identifying and communicating with supporters in order to mobilize them in an organized fashion. How often is such mobilization attempted, and with what degree of success? As a tool of online activism, is facebook a step forward from chain emails, is it a step in a different direction, or does it just serve the same old functions but in newer packaging? --[[User:Gwen|Gwen]] 08:26, 29 November 2008 (EST)<br />
<br />
=== Meta-Pundit ===<br />
<br />
''Conor Kennedy''<br />
<br />
'''PREMISE'''<br />
<br />
During the 2008 Presidential Campaign, web-only advertisements helped to shape the talking points of media personalities like [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Matthews Chris Matthews] , [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keith_Olbermann Keith Olbermann], [http://www.foxnews.com/ontherecord/ Greta Van Susteren], and [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Scarborough Joe Scarborough], and sometimes even individuals who try to operate "above the fray" of punditry like [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon_Stewart Jon Stewart], [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jay_Leno Jay Leno], and [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Letterman David Letterman] (See [http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2008/02/09/web_only_campaign_advertisements_flood_presidential_race/ "Web-only campaign advertisements flood presidential race"] "In a study released last summer....the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press found most Americans heard about the most famous viral videos because they saw them replayed on TV").<br />
<br />
Because a large and increasing number of Americans get their news from media personalities rather than from traditional broadcast or print media sources, these individuals have significant power to shape the national political discussion. Still, beyond campaigns' web-only ads, there hasn't ''yet'' been a concerted effort to use the Internet to directly influence these personalities and their television shows. <br />
<br />
'''PROPOSAL'''<br />
<br />
This void can be filled by a website that publishes a rating system and gauges/grades each of these media personalities (over multiple periods of time: daily [i.e., per episode], monthly, etc.) with a variety of qualitative metrics. <br />
<br />
Ideally, such metrics would focus on process rather than substance (e.g., % of material that avoids explicit mention of either party's talking-points-of-the-day; % of in-show discussion that is active, fair dialogue with guests of opposing perspectives). Some metrics would be determined by the site's designers while others would be generated and selected (i.e., voted on) by the site's users. A team of qualitative analysts would code each media personality's episodes for (1) the site designers' metrics and (2) any given metric a critical mass the website's users select, and publish the results daily. <br />
<br />
This website would be most influential as a source for audience feedback beyond bare headcounts (i.e., network viewer ratings). For some media personalities, that feedback will act as a friendly nudge that helps them improve their shows. For others, the ultimate message might sound more like [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmj6JADOZ-8 Jon Stewart on Crossfire].<br />
<br />
'''QUESTIONS (each followed by potential answers)'''<br />
<br />
*(1) How should this kind of a site be funded, and by whom? <br />
**Non-partisan journalism NGOs through a project grant<br />
**The Berkman Center (see "Donations" link in navigation pane in left frame)<br />
*(2) What kind of knowledge workers would the daily operations require? <br />
**College research assistants as coders<br />
*(3) What kind of goals should such a website pursue? <br />
**Active dialogue<br />
**More informed discussion<br />
**Sophistication of television personalities<br />
**Honesty<br />
**Bipartisanship<br />
**Dedication to truth<br />
**Fighting the political class's elitism<br />
**Fighting prejudices/smears<br />
**Deconstructing euphemistic language/political correctness<br />
**Strengthening/Weakening political parties' control of the national political dialogue<br />
**Expansion of the national political dialogue to include new and unique perspectives<br />
*(4) How else could a pundit-centric website serve to channel the widespread complaints of "Media Bias" into a polished online platform?<br />
**Hall of Shame for self-proclaimed (one-time guest) "Analysts" and "Experts" who actually have no rightful claim to either title.<br />
**Sponsor and/or Host Op-Eds, Blogs, Vlogs, [http://www.beliefnet.com/Faiths/Secular-Philosophies/Is-Religion-Built-Upon-Lies.aspx?p=1 "Blogologues"], and [http://bloggingheads.tv/ "Diavlogs"] by premier Media/Journalism academics.<br />
**Work to immediately uncover the ''original'' sources of stories in order (1) to get a sense of who is already influencing media personalities (and their writers) and (2) to push back against rushed vetting of unsubstantiated stories (a la [http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/13/arts/television/13hoax.html Martin Eisenstadt])<br />
**Highlight stories/angles the traditional anchors are broadcasting that these hosts are ignoring/purposely passing on.<br />
*(5) How much embedded footage of ''actual shows'' can such a website legally display under Fair Use? <br />
**A good place to start looking is [http://tpmtv.talkingpointsmemo.com/ Talking Points Memo's "The Day in 100 Seconds" Vidcast Series]<br />
--[[User:CKennedy|CKennedy]] 01:42, 25 November 2008 (EST)<br />
<br />
=== The First USA CTO ===<br />
<br />
President-elect Obama's promise to appoint the first USA CTO has turned many heads, and discussions on what the (as of yet unappointed) CTO should do have started up, notably at http://obamacto.org/. Several other related links not purely focused on "US CTO" issues:<br />
<br />
* http://www.techpresident.com/blog/entry/32788/presidential_transition_2_0_how_to_use_new_social_media<br />
* http://www.govloop.com/<br />
<br />
=== Deliberation Day ===<br />
<br />
The paper on the study, and where similar effects re: citizen participation may be seen.<br />
<br />
== New Legal Issues Raised by the Internet ==<br />
<br />
=== Net Neutrality ===<br />
<br />
=== Chillingeffects.org ===<br />
<br />
And other, similar layman-focused legal projects<br />
<br />
=== Google Book Search ===<br />
<br />
What does the recent settlement between Google and American publishers regarding online accessibility of digitalized books mean? Many have hailed it for both improving universal access to knowledge and avoiding a judicial resolution that might have exposed antiquated aspects of US copyright law. But there may also be some troubling aspects of having access to so much content controlled by a single company. Should government intervene in any way to regulate such access?<br />
<br />
From a regulatory perspective, there is also a question as to whether Google Book Search should be treated as a public or private entity, or whether such a distinction is even applicable (or does much work) in the internet context. Many of Google's library partners are public universities (e.g. Universities of California, Michigan, Texas, Virginia, and Wisconsin -- see http://www.google.com/googlebooks/partners.html), though Google is of course private. And does Google Book Search's laudable mission "to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful" (http://books.google.com/googlebooks/agreement/) mean we should shy away from regulation, or should we be skeptical of such claims by a large for-profit corporation.<br />
<br />
== The Internet as a "Place" ==<br />
<br />
=== Internet Governance ===<br />
<br />
Much like open-source software, the Internet can be considered a collection of servers, pipes, and users spread all over the world. How does it keep working? One easy answer is that the United States (through actors public and private) just sort of gets its way. This isn't really a satisfying answer descriptively or normatively, though. With the rest of the world contributing more and more to the Internet as a whole, is it time for a change?</div>Jgruensphttps://cyber.harvard.edu/iif/?title=Topics&diff=281Topics2008-11-29T19:37:03Z<p>Jgruensp: </p>
<hr />
<div>= Topic Guidance =<br />
<br />
* Are you excited about it?<br />
* Does it relate to law (not entirely necessary)<br />
* Does it relate to tech (not entirely necessary)<br />
** To be sure, these are rebuttable presumptions :)<br />
<br />
Q: Are there any circumstances in which we can do a team of three?<br />
A: Yes! If I'm doing the math right, there are 12 seminar slots next term, of which we'll be using 11. There are 26 people. So with 2 per session that leaves 4 floaters; there can be 4 of the 11 sessions with 3 instead of 2. [[User:JZ|JZ]] 17:30, 27 November 2008 (EST)<br />
<br />
= Topics, Categorized =<br />
''Now, with categories! See [[Talk:Topics|Talk page]] for more.''<br />
--[[User:Jgruensp|Jgruensp]] 14:23, 29 November 2008 (EST)<br />
<br />
This page is for topics that we have not yet scheduled (but potentially should). Please add suggestions to the bottom of this page, and feel free to modify the descriptions for topics already listed.<br />
<br />
== Philosophical Approaches to Internet Communications ==<br />
<br />
=== Discourse Theory ===<br />
We should do a survey overview of the topic.<br />
<br />
[http://www.bible.org/page.php?page_id=1238 A Summary of Discourse Theory]<br />
<br />
=== Discursive Tools and Practices ===<br />
<br />
We should do a survey overview of the topic!<br />
<br />
== The Internet as a Social and Economic Tool Today ==<br />
<br />
=== Prediction Markets ===<br />
<br />
Intrade, etc.<br />
<br />
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TradeSports Tradesports] announced last week that it will [http://www.tradesports.com/ cease operations] at the end of this month. Does fallout from the current economic crisis include regulatory changes that spell doom for online prediction markets? Or is something else going on here? --[[User:Gwen|Gwen]] 11:05, 26 November 2008 (EST)<br />
<br />
=== Interactive Education ===<br />
<br />
Building on the work of MWesch (video here: http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=dGCJ46vyR9o) think about innovation in the classroom beyond the blackboard. How can we better interact in the classroom and how can technology help?<br />
<br />
=== Unconferences ===<br />
<br />
Unconferences represent a form of event-based discourse that seems chaotic but is actually organized around a set of well-codified rules intended to encourage initiative-taking by participants and ensure that the event is truly community-run and ad-hoc. Also known as "[http://www.openspaceworld.com/users_guide.htm Open Space]" events, they take several different forms, including [http://www.barcamp.org/ Barcamps] (which have been expanded to podcamps, etc.)<br />
<br />
=== Open Source Software ===<br />
<br />
How can a dispersed, multilingual collection of coders working for free assemble something as complicated as a web browser, let alone an entire operating system? Open-source projects are famously free-wheeling, but different organizational models and tools have sprung up to solve these obstacles.<br />
<br />
=== Deliberative Polling Online ===<br />
<br />
In a nutshell, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deliberative_opinion_poll<br />
<br />
=== Collaborative Textbooks ===<br />
<br />
Maybe also Harvard's new open access policy for academic work?<br />
(note that the Harvard Free Culture group is working on the matter - see [http://wiki.freeculture.org/Open_University_Campaign The Weeler Declaration])<br />
<br />
=== Recording Harvard Law School Classes and Posting Them on iTunes U ===<br />
<br />
Law schools tend not to post free class recordings on iTunes U. Should HLS take the opportunity to trailblaze? What are the law-school-specific challenges and the legal issues surrounding publishing audio recordings of HLS classes? What are the benefits? What about recording classes just for the benefit of the students (posted, as on religious holidays, solely on enrolled students' MyHLS pages)<br />
<br />
=== Open Access Publishing ===<br />
<br />
Addressing whether there actually seems to be a movement toward this model, and away from traditional science/tech publishing. What effects movement toward this model might have on quality, oversight, etc. of published articles. Also, discussion of business models/funding, problems with open access models, etc. And any copyright issues (to tie things back to law).<br />
<br />
This can relate both to open access of full articles (as with [http://www.plos.org/ PLoS]) or single experiments/results (including [http://sciencecommons.org/ Science Commons] and like projects to both make the data available, and, perhaps more importantly, the technologies to make it available in usable form)<br />
<br />
=== Peer-to-Patent ===<br />
<br />
See http://www.peertopatent.org/<br />
<br />
=== Systran ===<br />
<br />
== Implications of Internet Tools of the Future ==<br />
<br />
=== The Semantic Web ===<br />
<br />
What has become of this idea? Are we already there? Is it yet to come? Or has it died along the way? [Rainer]<br />
<br />
=== Language Divides/Autotranslation ===<br />
<br />
Though it doesn't penetrate to every physical location on Earth (unless you can afford sattelite link-ups), the internet is an exceptionally global medium. With the barriers to access lower than any earlier medium for high-volume international communication, it represents an opportunity for greater international discourse and the deepening of a sense of global society. But unless we can reassemble the Tower of Babel, significant and entrenched divides exist: people simply don't always understand each other's language.<br />
<br />
As certain languages become prevalent for international discourse, native users of that language have an advantage in communication. Auto-translation software such as Google Translate, Babelfish, and many others represent an opportunity to flatten this embeded advantage structure that favors people educated where linguae francae are native languages. Moreover, human translation communities such as [http://globalvoicesonline.org Global Voices Online] provide an edited and selected digest of what the editors notice in many languages. <br />
<br />
What are the potential bridges for language divides? Which work better and for what? What are the implications of mistranslations by machines? --[[User:G|G]] 12:25, 28 November 2008 (EST)<br />
<br />
<br />
== Communications Norms and the Internet ==<br />
<br />
=== Anonymity ===<br />
<br />
"on the internet, nobody knows that you're a dog." Or tall, or 12 years old, or a hairdresser by day, or a lesbian, or in India, or with a harelip, or... but also: now that we can't filter by that by default, what do we filter by? Do we now bias towards good writers - and what of people who communicate best non-verbally?<br />
<br />
What legitimate and illegitimate uses for anonymity are available on the internet? When is personal information useful, and when is verification appropriate? Last week's discussion about the different cultures on Wikipedia and Ebay and the use of behavioral enforcement mechanisms (ebay rating system, thumbs up/down-ing other drivers, etc.) reminded me of a panel from my favorite webcomic: http://xkcd.com/325/. As noted in the Properties subtext to the comic, "You can do this one in every 30 times and still have 97% positive feedback." How concerned should we be that people--be they selfish, malicious, or simply lunatics--can exploit such weaknesses in systems for building online reputations? If this is a real problem, how can we change current systems or create new ones to better protect users? And what are the trade-offs that come with better protection? --[[User:Gwen|Gwen]] 11:21, 26 November 2008 (EST)<br />
<br />
Also, what are the political and social implications of anonymitiy in countries with less free expression than the United States. In the Chinese example, we might speculate that with the internet more discourse is going on, in contexts ranging from political debates to hobby and commercial communities, but people may be motivated to try to remain anonymous. "Real name" requirements in some countries may challenge this, but circumvention methods exist. Then, how many people use circumvention methods, and how many users use them in a way that truly maintains anonymity? What does it mean that civic discourse might explode, but without real names attached? --[[User:G|G]] 11:58, 28 November 2008 (EST)<br />
<br />
To what extent does our received wisdom on anonymity reflect previous modes of technological development? With the advent of data mining, can an author truly be anonymous by leaving his/her name out, if that information can be ascertained quickly? Did old-style pamphletting allow for better anonymity? How good are names at identifying something that is person-like? Does the repeated use of a pseudonym change anything? Could anyone in revolutionary times write under the name Publius? Can anyone do that on wikipedia? Does the design of the internet allow/encourage anonymous postings or have we been lulled into a false sense of security by programs like [http://www.torproject.org/ Tor]? How do avatars and pseudonyms change these discussions? Is this a question of identity or accountability or neither? What does it mean to sue a username? Does the ability to remain unnammed expand the range of discourse or have a chilling effect of its own? Is the act of remaining unnammed ultimately a collective move, as in the case of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anonymous_(group) Anonymous], or an inherently individuating move? Would granting users the right to remain pseudononymous create a tragedy of the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anticommons anticommons], effectively rendering all userboards unusable? Does anonymity allow users to transcend bigotry or does it reinforce it? --[[User:Megerman|Megerman]] 09:00, 29 November 2008 (EST)<br />
<br />
=== Sources ===<br />
<br />
Where does the information for/during discussions come from? Interfaces/ease-of-access/digestibility of information affects how quickly it can get injected into conversations? (examples: hitting wikipedia in the middle of a dinner discussion, calling an expert friend or hitting another IRC channel to answer a quick question, etc). How does this affect how people prepare for conversations? (If you can easily look up notes during the meeting, why take them down beforehand?) Trying to apply some thoughts about [http://blog.melchua.com/2006/03/31/on-the-future-of-libraries-2/ info access in libraries] to this.<br />
<br />
Also, what if any tools exist to help people archive previous states of dynamic sites such as BBSs and news pages? In other words, after information comes into discussions, how can we see what happened after the fact? --[[User:G|G]] 12:01, 28 November 2008 (EST)<br />
<br />
=== Identity and Expertise ===<br />
<br />
How are participants in an internet dialog identified and credentialed? What gives weight to a participants' arguments - or phrased another way, what type of participants and arguments have weight, and what determines this for each discussion, participant, and discussion point?<br />
<br />
=== The Future of News ===<br />
<br />
The traditional media industry is in turmoil. Circulation of newspapers is [http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/28/business/media/28circ.html?_r=1 falling]. Staff are being laid off, costs are being cut and foreign bureaus are being shut. Audiences are fragmenting, advertising spending is plummeting and the valuations of companies is [http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/21/business/media/21times.html?ref=business dropping]. TV and radio are experiencing similar problems. <br />
<br />
Most of these changes have been blamed on the arrival of the web, which has changed how information is produced and consumed. Now, anyone can be a news gatherer, publisher and distributor. The balance of power has changed.<br />
<br />
Yet at the same time, the web offers these organisations a huge opportunity. Already, groups such as [http://spot.us/ spot.us] and [http://www.propublica.org/ Pro Publica] are experimenting with new business models. Others, such as the Christian Science Monitor, [http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/1029/p25s01-usgn.html have ditched] the old way of doing things and have gone entirely online. Many are using the web to reach out to audiences and connect with them in new ways. <br />
<br />
But, are they doing enough? Will experiments like this be enough to save news organisations? Does it matter if they disappear? Should governments intervene to save them in the same way as they have decided to prop up the ailing car manufacturing industry? Is this an appropriate intervention? Should it be left to market forces? Ultimately, what is the future for “old media”?<br />
<br />
== The Internet and Societal Inequity ==<br />
<br />
=== Socio-technical Gap ===<br />
<br />
Problems encountered in the act of discoursing itself are sometimes addressed via social means, technological means, or both. It has been suggested that technological tools should support social processes, but there is an adaptation of each realm to the other - how does this back-and-forth take place in the design of a successful technology-enabled discussion?<br />
<br />
=== Internet and Power ===<br />
<br />
Which inequalities are created or strengthened due the increasing reliance on technology and the differences in the ability to access the Internet(e.g. global and socio-economic differences)? Does the net actually re-distribute and decentralize power and influence, or does it also reinforce the existing political and economic hierarchies? In short - is the Internet really a good thing for everybody?<br />
<br />
*A solutions-focused question here might be: what tools might encourage a more egalitarian internet, both nationally and internationally? How can online applications be designed to encourage social equality? (Berkman Fellow [http://eszter.com Eszter Hargittai] has worked on some related questions, focusing on research about how people actually use the internet.) --[[User:G|G]] 12:12, 28 November 2008 (EST)<br />
<br />
=== One Laptop Per Child ===<br />
<br />
== The Internet, Political Speech, and Political Change ==<br />
<br />
=== Meta-Public Policy ===<br />
<br />
See, e.g., Larry Lessig's Change Congress movement: http://change-congress.org/about/. Being Larry Lessig, the whole thing is tech-friendly.<br />
<br />
=== Online Activism ===<br />
<br />
Of course there are a lot of custom-built tools for mobilizing people online to get things done in the real world. On the other hand, what about more general tools? We've all been invited, via Facebook, to join groups and attend events (the Obama campaign certainly made good use of this); is there a generalizable model here?<br />
<br />
Facebook groups dedicated to particular causes remind me of the online petitions that began circulating widely via email about ten years ago: their effectiveness in accomplishing real world change--and even their visibility to individuals capable of affecting the desired changes--are dubious. Is the real purpose of these movements simply to make participants ''feel'' like they are being active and involved? What percentage of those who signed email petitions in the 1990s were aware that their signatures were unverifiable and that the widely-distributed emails were unlikely to be collated and submitted to an official authority? What expectations do participants in facebook group causes have for their involvement and its consequences? The facebook group causes are certainly more centralized and visible than the old email petitions, and they provide a better tool for identifying and communicating with supporters in order to mobilize them in an organized fashion. How often is such mobilization attempted, and with what degree of success? As a tool of online activism, is facebook a step forward from chain emails, is it a step in a different direction, or does it just serve the same old functions but in newer packaging? --[[User:Gwen|Gwen]] 08:26, 29 November 2008 (EST)<br />
<br />
=== Meta-Pundit ===<br />
<br />
''Conor Kennedy''<br />
<br />
'''PREMISE'''<br />
<br />
During the 2008 Presidential Campaign, web-only advertisements helped to shape the talking points of media personalities like [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Matthews Chris Matthews] , [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keith_Olbermann Keith Olbermann], [http://www.foxnews.com/ontherecord/ Greta Van Susteren], and [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Scarborough Joe Scarborough], and sometimes even individuals who try to operate "above the fray" of punditry like [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon_Stewart Jon Stewart], [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jay_Leno Jay Leno], and [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Letterman David Letterman] (See [http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2008/02/09/web_only_campaign_advertisements_flood_presidential_race/ "Web-only campaign advertisements flood presidential race"] "In a study released last summer....the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press found most Americans heard about the most famous viral videos because they saw them replayed on TV").<br />
<br />
Because a large and increasing number of Americans get their news from media personalities rather than from traditional broadcast or print media sources, these individuals have significant power to shape the national political discussion. Still, beyond campaigns' web-only ads, there hasn't ''yet'' been a concerted effort to use the Internet to directly influence these personalities and their television shows. <br />
<br />
'''PROPOSAL'''<br />
<br />
This void can be filled by a website that publishes a rating system and gauges/grades each of these media personalities (over multiple periods of time: daily [i.e., per episode], monthly, etc.) with a variety of qualitative metrics. <br />
<br />
Ideally, such metrics would focus on process rather than substance (e.g., % of material that avoids explicit mention of either party's talking-points-of-the-day; % of in-show discussion that is active, fair dialogue with guests of opposing perspectives). Some metrics would be determined by the site's designers while others would be generated and selected (i.e., voted on) by the site's users. A team of qualitative analysts would code each media personality's episodes for (1) the site designers' metrics and (2) any given metric a critical mass the website's users select, and publish the results daily. <br />
<br />
This website would be most influential as a source for audience feedback beyond bare headcounts (i.e., network viewer ratings). For some media personalities, that feedback will act as a friendly nudge that helps them improve their shows. For others, the ultimate message might sound more like [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmj6JADOZ-8 Jon Stewart on Crossfire].<br />
<br />
'''QUESTIONS (each followed by potential answers)'''<br />
<br />
*(1) How should this kind of a site be funded, and by whom? <br />
**Non-partisan journalism NGOs through a project grant<br />
**The Berkman Center (see "Donations" link in navigation pane in left frame)<br />
*(2) What kind of knowledge workers would the daily operations require? <br />
**College research assistants as coders<br />
*(3) What kind of goals should such a website pursue? <br />
**Active dialogue<br />
**More informed discussion<br />
**Sophistication of television personalities<br />
**Honesty<br />
**Bipartisanship<br />
**Dedication to truth<br />
**Fighting the political class's elitism<br />
**Fighting prejudices/smears<br />
**Deconstructing euphemistic language/political correctness<br />
**Strengthening/Weakening political parties' control of the national political dialogue<br />
**Expansion of the national political dialogue to include new and unique perspectives<br />
*(4) How else could a pundit-centric website serve to channel the widespread complaints of "Media Bias" into a polished online platform?<br />
**Hall of Shame for self-proclaimed (one-time guest) "Analysts" and "Experts" who actually have no rightful claim to either title.<br />
**Sponsor and/or Host Op-Eds, Blogs, Vlogs, [http://www.beliefnet.com/Faiths/Secular-Philosophies/Is-Religion-Built-Upon-Lies.aspx?p=1 "Blogologues"], and [http://bloggingheads.tv/ "Diavlogs"] by premier Media/Journalism academics.<br />
**Work to immediately uncover the ''original'' sources of stories in order (1) to get a sense of who is already influencing media personalities (and their writers) and (2) to push back against rushed vetting of unsubstantiated stories (a la [http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/13/arts/television/13hoax.html Martin Eisenstadt])<br />
**Highlight stories/angles the traditional anchors are broadcasting that these hosts are ignoring/purposely passing on.<br />
*(5) How much embedded footage of ''actual shows'' can such a website legally display under Fair Use? <br />
**A good place to start looking is [http://tpmtv.talkingpointsmemo.com/ Talking Points Memo's "The Day in 100 Seconds" Vidcast Series]<br />
--[[User:CKennedy|CKennedy]] 01:42, 25 November 2008 (EST)<br />
<br />
=== The First USA CTO ===<br />
<br />
President-elect Obama's promise to appoint the first USA CTO has turned many heads, and discussions on what the (as of yet unappointed) CTO should do have started up, notably at http://obamacto.org/. Several other related links not purely focused on "US CTO" issues:<br />
<br />
* http://www.techpresident.com/blog/entry/32788/presidential_transition_2_0_how_to_use_new_social_media<br />
* http://www.govloop.com/<br />
<br />
=== Deliberation Day ===<br />
<br />
The paper on the study, and where similar effects re: citizen participation may be seen.<br />
<br />
== New Legal Issues Raised by the Internet ==<br />
<br />
=== Net Neutrality ===<br />
<br />
=== Chillingeffects.org ===<br />
<br />
And other, similar layman-focused legal projects<br />
<br />
=== Google Book Search ===<br />
<br />
What does the recent settlement between Google and American publishers regarding online accessibility of digitalized books mean? Many have hailed it for both improving universal access to knowledge and avoiding a judicial resolution that might have exposed antiquated aspects of US copyright law. But there may also be some troubling aspects of having access to so much content controlled by a single company. Should government intervene in any way to regulate such access?<br />
<br />
From a regulatory perspective, there is also a question as to whether Google Book Search should be treated as a public or private entity, or whether such a distinction is even applicable (or does much work) in the internet context. Many of Google's library partners are public universities (e.g. Universities of California, Michigan, Texas, Virginia, and Wisconsin -- see http://www.google.com/googlebooks/partners.html), though Google is of course private. And does Google Book Search's laudable mission "to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful" (http://books.google.com/googlebooks/agreement/) mean we should shy away from regulation, or should we be skeptical of such claims by a large for-profit corporation.<br />
<br />
== The Internet as a "Place" ==<br />
<br />
=== Internet Governance ===<br />
<br />
Much like open-source software, the Internet can be considered a collection of servers, pipes, and users spread all over the world. How does it keep working? One easy answer is that the United States (through actors public and private) just sort of gets its way. This isn't really a satisfying answer descriptively or normatively, though. With the rest of the world contributing more and more to the Internet as a whole, is it time for a change?</div>Jgruensphttps://cyber.harvard.edu/iif/?title=Talk:Topics&diff=280Talk:Topics2008-11-29T19:31:07Z<p>Jgruensp: </p>
<hr />
<div>Does anyone feel inclined to group the topics on this list? For instance I would like to list transparency in congressional voting records and other gov data: Sunlight Foundation, Govtrack.us, and others. Does it makes sense to group this topic under any general heading? [[User:Sethwoodworth|Sethwoodworth]] 12:58, 24 November 2008 (EST)<br />
<br />
* This sounse like a good idea, but I'm not sure how to do it. Perhaps it's something just to do and ask later. --[[User:G|G]] 12:28, 28 November 2008 (EST)<br />
<br />
* Went ahead and organized it. Forgiveness, not permission. Plus, it kept me from studying for 15 minutes, and you can't put a price on procrastination. Feel free to reorg (natch), especially if you know something more about discourse theory than I do (= spending two minutes on Wikipedia). Topics could change categories according to the perspective people wish to bring to them (e.g. Google Book Search, which could easily be discussed as a social/economic tool, but the existing writeup made it sound like the author wanted to discuss it as a new legal issue instead). --[[User:Jgruensp|Jgruensp]] 14:28, 29 November 2008 (EST)</div>Jgruensphttps://cyber.harvard.edu/iif/?title=Talk:Topics&diff=279Talk:Topics2008-11-29T19:30:52Z<p>Jgruensp: Notes about changes to main page</p>
<hr />
<div>Does anyone feel inclined to group the topics on this list? For instance I would like to list transparency in congressional voting records and other gov data: Sunlight Foundation, Govtrack.us, and others. Does it makes sense to group this topic under any general heading? [[User:Sethwoodworth|Sethwoodworth]] 12:58, 24 November 2008 (EST)<br />
<br />
* This sounse like a good idea, but I'm not sure how to do it. Perhaps it's something just to do and ask later. --[[User:G|G]] 12:28, 28 November 2008 (EST)<br />
<br />
* Went ahead and organized it. Forgiveness, not permission. Plus, it kept me from studying for 15 minutes, and you can't put a price on procrastination. Feel free to reorg (natch), especially if you know something more about discourse theory than I do (= spending two minutes on Wikipedia). Topics could change categories according to the perspective people wish to bring to them (e.g. Google Book Search, which could easily be discussed as a social/economic tool, but the existing writeup made it sound like the author wanted to discuss it as a new legal issue instead).<br />
--[[User:Jgruensp|Jgruensp]] 14:28, 29 November 2008 (EST)</div>Jgruensp