https://cyber.harvard.edu/iif/api.php?action=feedcontributions&user=Danray&feedformat=atomThe Internet: Issues at the Frontier (course wiki) - User contributions [en]2024-03-28T09:52:50ZUser contributionsMediaWiki 1.39.5https://cyber.harvard.edu/iif/?title=Open_Networks,_Closed_Regimes&diff=3290Open Networks, Closed Regimes2009-05-15T20:58:15Z<p>Danray: /* Problem to be solved */</p>
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<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 />
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<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; float:right; 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] (additional readings mentioned in the document are [http://danray.org/Readings.zip here])<br />
*[http://iifap.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/group2readings.doc Group 2: Vietnamese Pro-Democracy Bloggers]<br />
*[http://iifap.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/group3readings.doc Group 3: The US Government]<br />
*[http://iifap.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/group4readings.doc Group 4: Yahoo! (the most popular blogging service in Vietnam)]<br />
*[http://iifap.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/group5readings.doc Group 5: Amnesty International]<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]; the front of the room is on top. 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 />
[http://www.zshare.net/video/600669309e9a007b/ Conor's Presentation]<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 />
[http://www.zshare.net/video/60066833c480f445/ Colin Maclay and Andrew McLaughlin]<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 />
[http://www.zshare.net/video/600668249bd7e31f/ Joshua Intros the Sim]<br />
[http://www.zshare.net/video/60066842fe0aa667/ Groups Discussing]<br />
<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 />
[http://www.zshare.net/video/60066804d2db3acf/ The Proposals]<br />
<br />
[http://www.zshare.net/video/60066837277be85b/ Colin's Feedback and Class Conclusion]<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 />
There's disagreement about whether the class's discomfort with our shakeup of the standard IIF classroom layout was worth the pedagogical benefits. On the one hand, without tables or computers creating physical boundaries between students, they were much more likely to explore the classroom during the simulation. On the other,open seating in a large room with the students facing the speaker rather than each other might have disoriented students who were used to dividing attention between their computer screens and the presenter in the front of the room. In any case, the class's interest in the topic seemed to bring them back, and they remained engaged throughout the introduction and the discussion portions of the session.<br />
<br />
We could have done a better job in preparing our guest presenters for the session. In particular, it now seems clear that running an activity as hands-on as a simulated negotiation would have benefited from more time for questions and answers. This might have let students get into their roles in front of the rest of the class, which may in turn have quickened the initial "enrolling" process once the simulation began. <br />
<br />
The dynamic between one speaker in the room and another over the web was interesting, but presented the challenge of equalizing the debate. When one person appears ten times as large as the other, the default is for the audience to pay more attention to the bigger speaker. <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, but no solution has emerged from any real world equivalents of the negotiation over human rights and internet privacy in China. <br />
<br />
The best part of the simulation was that it served as an open venue that induced a sort of deliberate democracy, in which students started with an idea of their stakeholders' interests but changed that idea during open debate. There was active participation because our readings were well prepared, the introduction to the simulation was spot on, and the classroom permitted exploration.<br />
<br />
=== Role of Technology ===<br />
==== Introduction ====<br />
<br />
For our presentation, we turned to PowerPoint. There are a few basic trade offs to keep in mind when presenting on a complex topic:<br />
<br />
*Keep the audience engaged v. substance<br />
*Length of presentations v. depth<br />
*Accounting for a large differential in pre-existing knowledge on the topic<br />
*Navigating the political winds: recognizing what's fact, what's opinion/analysis, and what falls between the two<br />
<br />
The best approach to balancing these trade offs is working on the presentation over time, so that you have time to react to your own work when you come back to it. Otherwise, make sure to solicit audience opinion so that nobody feels there's a perspective that you're consciously keeping out of the discussion.<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 the latter. Either would probably have worked fine, but Skype didn't immediately show Andrew as being online. The important thing here is to try out whatever videoconferencing tool you use ahead of time, with the actual guest if possible. We were able to get place room microphone in the middle of the area our students were sitting; this made it possible for them to ask questions and respond to Andrew directly.<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 />
==== 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. Perhaps it would make sense to distribute Colin's rubric ahead of time, so students know what kind of results we're looking for. On this note, it might also make sense to distribute a worksheet with (suggested?) proposal components: e.g.,<br />
<blockquote>'''______________'s PROPOSAL'''<br />
*Actions to be taken by individual states: ______________________________________<br />
*Actions to be taken by the United Nations: ______________________________________<br />
*Actions to be taken by a particular NGO: ______________________________________</blockquote><br />
This might reduce outside-the-box solutions, but it would counter some group's tendency to state their position on the issue rather than suggesting a new policy.<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>Danrayhttps://cyber.harvard.edu/iif/?title=Open_Networks,_Closed_Regimes&diff=3287Open Networks, Closed Regimes2009-05-15T20:51:18Z<p>Danray: /* Introduction */</p>
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<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; float:right; 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] (additional readings mentioned in the document are [http://danray.org/Readings.zip here])<br />
*[http://iifap.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/group2readings.doc Group 2: Vietnamese Pro-Democracy Bloggers]<br />
*[http://iifap.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/group3readings.doc Group 3: The US Government]<br />
*[http://iifap.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/group4readings.doc Group 4: Yahoo! (the most popular blogging service in Vietnam)]<br />
*[http://iifap.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/group5readings.doc Group 5: Amnesty International]<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]; the front of the room is on top. 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 />
There's disagreement about whether the class's discomfort with our shakeup of the standard IIF classroom layout was worth the pedagogical benefits. On the one hand, without tables or computers creating physical boundaries between students, they were much more likely to explore the classroom during the simulation. On the other,open seating in a large room with the students facing the speaker rather than each other might have disoriented students who were used to dividing attention between their computer screens and the presenter in the front of the room. In any case, the class's interest in the topic seemed to bring them back, and they remained engaged throughout the introduction and the discussion portions of the session.<br />
<br />
We could have done a better job in preparing our guest presenters for the session. In particular, it now seems clear that running an activity as hands-on as a simulated negotiation would have benefited from more time for questions and answers. This might have let students get into their roles in front of the rest of the class, which may in turn have quickened the initial "enrolling" process once the simulation began. <br />
<br />
The dynamic between one speaker in the room and another over the web was interesting, but presented the challenge of equalizing the debate. When one person appears ten times as large as the other, the default is for the audience to pay more attention to the bigger speaker. <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, but no solution has emerged from any real world equivalents of the negotiation over human rights and internet privacy in China. <br />
<br />
The best part of the simulation was that it served as an open venue that induced a sort of deliberate democracy, in which students started with an idea of their stakeholders' interests but changed that idea during open debate. There was active participation because our readings were well prepared, the introduction to the simulation was spot on, and the classroom permitted exploration.<br />
<br />
=== Role of Technology ===<br />
==== Introduction ====<br />
<br />
For our presentation, we turned to PowerPoint. There are a few basic trade offs to keep in mind when presenting on a complex topic:<br />
<br />
*Keep the audience engaged v. substance<br />
*Length of presentations v. depth<br />
*Accounting for a large differential in pre-existing knowledge on the topic<br />
*Navigating the political winds: recognizing what's fact, what's opinion/analysis, and what falls between the two<br />
<br />
The best approach to balancing these trade offs is working on the presentation over time, so that you have time to react to your own work when you come back to it. Otherwise, make sure to solicit audience opinion so that nobody feels there's a perspective that you're consciously keeping out of the discussion.<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 the latter. Either would probably have worked fine, but Skype didn't immediately show Andrew as being online. The important thing here is to try out whatever videoconferencing tool you use ahead of time, with the actual guest if possible. We were able to get place room microphone in the middle of the area our students were sitting; this made it possible for them to ask questions and respond to Andrew directly.<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 />
==== 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. Perhaps it would make sense to distribute Colin's rubric ahead of time, so students know what kind of results we're looking for. On this note, it might also make sense to distribute a worksheet with (suggested?) proposal components: e.g.,<br />
<blockquote>'''______________'s PROPOSAL'''<br />
*Actions to be taken by individual states: ______________________________________<br />
*Actions to be taken by the United Nations: ______________________________________<br />
*Actions to be taken by a particular NGO: ______________________________________</blockquote><br />
This might reduce outside-the-box solutions, but it would counter some group's tendency to state their position on the issue rather than suggesting a new policy.<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>Danrayhttps://cyber.harvard.edu/iif/?title=Open_Networks,_Closed_Regimes&diff=3279Open Networks, Closed Regimes2009-05-15T19:49:15Z<p>Danray: /* The Lead-up to the Class */</p>
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<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; float:right; 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] (additional readings mentioned in the document are [http://danray.org/Readings.zip here])<br />
*[http://iifap.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/group2readings.doc Group 2: Vietnamese Pro-Democracy Bloggers]<br />
*[http://iifap.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/group3readings.doc Group 3: The US Government]<br />
*[http://iifap.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/group4readings.doc Group 4: Yahoo! (the most popular blogging service in Vietnam)]<br />
*[http://iifap.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/group5readings.doc Group 5: Amnesty International]<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]; the front of the room is on top. 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 />
We could have done a better job in preparing our guest presenters for the session. In particular, it now seems clear that running an activity as hands-on as a simulated negotiation would have benefited from more time for questions and answers. This might have let students get into their roles in front of the rest of the class, which may in turn have quickened the initial "enroling" process once the simulation began.<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 the latter. Either would probably have worked fine, but Skype didn't immediately show Andrew as being online. The important thing here is to try out whatever videoconferencing tool you use ahead of time, with the actual guest if possible. We were able to get place room microphone in the middle of the area our students were sitting; this made it possible for them to ask questions and respond to Andrew directly.<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 />
==== 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. Perhaps it would make sense to distribute Colin's rubric ahead of time, so students know what kind of results we're looking for. On this note, it might also make sense to distribute a worksheet with (suggested?) proposal components: e.g.,<br />
<blockquote>'''______________'s PROPOSAL'''<br />
*Actions to be taken by individual states: ______________________________________<br />
*Actions to be taken by the United Nations: ______________________________________<br />
*Actions to be taken by a particular NGO: ______________________________________</blockquote><br />
This might reduce outside-the-box solutions, but it would counter some group's tendency to state their position on the issue rather than suggesting a new policy.<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>Danrayhttps://cyber.harvard.edu/iif/?title=Open_Networks,_Closed_Regimes&diff=3275Open Networks, Closed Regimes2009-05-15T19:06:55Z<p>Danray: /* Part II: Planning and Execution/The Week of the Class */</p>
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<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; float:right; 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] (additional readings mentioned in the document are [http://iifap.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/Readings.zip here])<br />
*[http://iifap.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/group2readings.doc Group 2: Vietnamese Pro-Democracy Bloggers]<br />
*[http://iifap.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/group3readings.doc Group 3: The US Government]<br />
*[http://iifap.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/group4readings.doc Group 4: Yahoo! (the most popular blogging service in Vietnam)]<br />
*[http://iifap.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/group5readings.doc Group 5: Amnesty International]<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]; the front of the room is on top. 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 />
We could have done a better job in preparing our guest presenters for the session. In particular, it now seems clear that running an activity as hands-on as a simulated negotiation would have benefited from more time for questions and answers. This might have let students get into their roles in front of the rest of the class, which may in turn have quickened the initial "enroling" process once the simulation began.<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 the latter. Either would probably have worked fine, but Skype didn't immediately show Andrew as being online. The important thing here is to try out whatever videoconferencing tool you use ahead of time, with the actual guest if possible. We were able to get place room microphone in the middle of the area our students were sitting; this made it possible for them to ask questions and respond to Andrew directly.<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 />
==== 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. Perhaps it would make sense to distribute Colin's rubric ahead of time, so students know what kind of results we're looking for. On this note, it might also make sense to distribute a worksheet with (suggested?) proposal components: e.g.,<br />
<blockquote>'''______________'s PROPOSAL'''<br />
*Actions to be taken by individual states: ______________________________________<br />
*Actions to be taken by the United Nations: ______________________________________<br />
*Actions to be taken by a particular NGO: ______________________________________</blockquote><br />
This might reduce outside-the-box solutions, but it would counter some group's tendency to state their position on the issue rather than suggesting a new policy.<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>Danrayhttps://cyber.harvard.edu/iif/?title=Open_Networks,_Closed_Regimes&diff=3274Open Networks, Closed Regimes2009-05-15T18:54:52Z<p>Danray: /* Additional Suggestions for Future Classes */</p>
<hr />
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For the paragraph-sized boxes, use this code and place your text where it says "text":<br />
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For the inline boxes, use this code and place your text where it says "text":<br />
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<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; float:right; 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]; the front of the room is on top. 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 />
We could have done a better job in preparing our guest presenters for the session. In particular, it now seems clear that running an activity as hands-on as a simulated negotiation would have benefited from more time for questions and answers. This might have let students get into their roles in front of the rest of the class, which may in turn have quickened the initial "enroling" process once the simulation began.<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 the latter. Either would probably have worked fine, but Skype didn't immediately show Andrew as being online. The important thing here is to try out whatever videoconferencing tool you use ahead of time, with the actual guest if possible. We were able to get place room microphone in the middle of the area our students were sitting; this made it possible for them to ask questions and respond to Andrew directly.<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 />
==== 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. Perhaps it would make sense to distribute Colin's rubric ahead of time, so students know what kind of results we're looking for. On this note, it might also make sense to distribute a worksheet with (suggested?) proposal components: e.g.,<br />
<blockquote>'''______________'s PROPOSAL'''<br />
*Actions to be taken by individual states: ______________________________________<br />
*Actions to be taken by the United Nations: ______________________________________<br />
*Actions to be taken by a particular NGO: ______________________________________</blockquote><br />
This might reduce outside-the-box solutions, but it would counter some group's tendency to state their position on the issue rather than suggesting a new policy.<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>Danrayhttps://cyber.harvard.edu/iif/?title=Open_Networks,_Closed_Regimes&diff=3273Open Networks, Closed Regimes2009-05-15T18:52:26Z<p>Danray: /* The Day 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 />
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<div style="padding:1em; margin:1em 0 1em 31%; clear:both; background:#ffc; border:1px dashed #575744; width:66%; align:right;">text</div><br />
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For the inline boxes, use this code and place your text where it says "text":<br />
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<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; float:right; 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]; the front of the room is on top. 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 />
We could have done a better job in preparing our guest presenters for the session. In particular, it now seems clear that running an activity as hands-on as a simulated negotiation would have benefited from more time for questions and answers. This might have let students get into their roles in front of the rest of the class, which may in turn have quickened the initial "enroling" process once the simulation began.<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 the latter. Either would probably have worked fine, but Skype didn't immediately show Andrew as being online. The important thing here is to try out whatever videoconferencing tool you use ahead of time, with the actual guest if possible. We were able to get place room microphone in the middle of the area our students were sitting; this made it possible for them to ask questions and respond to Andrew directly.<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. Perhaps it would make sense to distribute Colin's rubric ahead of time, so students know what kind of results we're looking for. On this note, it might also make sense to distribute a worksheet with (suggested?) proposal components: e.g.,<br />
<blockquote>'''______________'s PROPOSAL'''<br />
*Actions to be taken by individual states: ______________________________________<br />
*Actions to be taken by the United Nations: ______________________________________<br />
*Actions to be taken by a particular NGO: ______________________________________</blockquote><br />
This might reduce outside-the-box solutions, but it would counter some group's tendency to state their position on the issue rather than suggesting a new policy.<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>Danrayhttps://cyber.harvard.edu/iif/?title=Open_Networks,_Closed_Regimes&diff=3272Open Networks, Closed Regimes2009-05-15T18:50:22Z<p>Danray: /* Part II: Planning and Execution/The Week of the Class */</p>
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<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; float:right; 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 />
We could have done a better job in preparing our guest presenters for the session. In particular, it now seems clear that running an activity as hands-on as a simulated negotiation would have benefited from more time for questions and answers. This might have let students get into their roles in front of the rest of the class, which may in turn have quickened the initial "enroling" process once the simulation began.<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 the latter. Either would probably have worked fine, but Skype didn't immediately show Andrew as being online. The important thing here is to try out whatever videoconferencing tool you use ahead of time, with the actual guest if possible. We were able to get place room microphone in the middle of the area our students were sitting; this made it possible for them to ask questions and respond to Andrew directly.<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. Perhaps it would make sense to distribute Colin's rubric ahead of time, so students know what kind of results we're looking for. On this note, it might also make sense to distribute a worksheet with (suggested?) proposal components: e.g.,<br />
<blockquote>'''______________'s PROPOSAL'''<br />
*Actions to be taken by individual states: ______________________________________<br />
*Actions to be taken by the United Nations: ______________________________________<br />
*Actions to be taken by a particular NGO: ______________________________________</blockquote><br />
This might reduce outside-the-box solutions, but it would counter some group's tendency to state their position on the issue rather than suggesting a new policy.<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>Danrayhttps://cyber.harvard.edu/iif/?title=Open_Networks,_Closed_Regimes&diff=3271Open Networks, Closed Regimes2009-05-15T18:49:13Z<p>Danray: /* Framing */</p>
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For the inline boxes, use this code and place your text where it says "text":<br />
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<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 />
We could have done a better job in preparing our guest presenters for the session. In particular, it now seems clear that running an activity as hands-on as a simulated negotiation would have benefited from more time for questions and answers. This might have let students get into their roles in front of the rest of the class, which may in turn have quickened the initial "enroling" process once the simulation began.<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 the latter. Either would probably have worked fine, but Skype didn't immediately show Andrew as being online. The important thing here is to try out whatever videoconferencing tool you use ahead of time, with the actual guest if possible. We were able to get place room microphone in the middle of the area our students were sitting; this made it possible for them to ask questions and respond to Andrew directly.<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. Perhaps it would make sense to distribute Colin's rubric ahead of time, so students know what kind of results we're looking for. On this note, it might also make sense to distribute a worksheet with (suggested?) proposal components: e.g.,<br />
<blockquote>'''______________'s PROPOSAL'''<br />
*Actions to be taken by individual states: ______________________________________<br />
*Actions to be taken by the United Nations: ______________________________________<br />
*Actions to be taken by a particular NGO: ______________________________________</blockquote><br />
This might reduce outside-the-box solutions, but it would counter some group's tendency to state their position on the issue rather than suggesting a new policy.<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>Danrayhttps://cyber.harvard.edu/iif/?title=Open_Networks,_Closed_Regimes&diff=3270Open Networks, Closed Regimes2009-05-15T18:42:15Z<p>Danray: /* 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 />
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<div style="padding:1em; margin:1em 0 1em 31%; clear:both; background:#ffc; border:1px dashed #575744; width:66%; align:right;">text</div><br />
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For the inline boxes, use this code and place your text where it says "text":<br />
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<span style="border:1px dashed #575744; padding:0 .25em; margin:0 .25em; background:#ffc;">text</span><br />
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<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 />
We could have done a better job in preparing our guest presenters for the session. In particular, it now seems clear that running an activity as hands-on as a simulated negotiation would have benefited from more time for questions and answers. This might have let students get into their roles in front of the rest of the class, which may in turn have quickened the initial "enroling" process once the simulation began.<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 the latter. Either would probably have worked fine, but Skype didn't immediately show Andrew as being online. The important thing here is to try out whatever videoconferencing tool you use ahead of time, with the actual guest if possible. We were able to get place room microphone in the middle of the area our students were sitting; this made it possible for them to ask questions and respond to Andrew directly.<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. Perhaps it would make sense to distribute Colin's rubric ahead of time, so students know what kind of results we're looking for.<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>Danrayhttps://cyber.harvard.edu/iif/?title=Open_Networks,_Closed_Regimes&diff=3269Open Networks, Closed Regimes2009-05-15T18:32:13Z<p>Danray: /* Discussion */</p>
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<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 />
We could have done a better job in preparing our guest presenters for the session. In particular, it now seems clear that running an activity as hands-on as a simulated negotiation would have benefited from more time for questions and answers. This might have let students get into their roles in front of the rest of the class, which may in turn have quickened the initial "enroling" process once the simulation began.<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 the latter. Either would probably have worked fine, but Skype didn't immediately show Andrew as being online. The important thing here is to try out whatever videoconferencing tool you use ahead of time, with the actual guest if possible. We were able to get place room microphone in the middle of the area our students were sitting; this made it possible for them to ask questions and respond to Andrew directly.<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>Danrayhttps://cyber.harvard.edu/iif/?title=Open_Networks,_Closed_Regimes&diff=3268Open Networks, Closed Regimes2009-05-15T18:28:20Z<p>Danray: /* Successes and Failures */</p>
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<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 />
We could have done a better job in preparing our guest presenters for the session. In particular, it now seems clear that running an activity as hands-on as a simulated negotiation would have benefited from more time for questions and answers. This might have let students get into their roles in front of the rest of the class, which may in turn have quickened the initial "enroling" process once the simulation began.<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>Danrayhttps://cyber.harvard.edu/iif/?title=Open_Networks,_Closed_Regimes&diff=3109Open Networks, Closed Regimes2009-05-15T05:49:13Z<p>Danray: /* The lead-up to 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 />
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<span style="border:1px dashed #575744; padding:0 .25em; margin:0 .25em; background:#ffc;">text</span><br />
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/--><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 />
=== 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>Danrayhttps://cyber.harvard.edu/iif/?title=Open_Networks,_Closed_Regimes&diff=3108Open Networks, Closed Regimes2009-05-15T05:44:51Z<p>Danray: /* Part I: Early Preparation/The Original Wiki */</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 />
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<div style="padding:1em; margin:1em 0 1em 31%; clear:both; background:#ffc; border:1px dashed #575744; width:66%; align:right;">text</div><br />
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For the inline boxes, use this code and place your text where it says "text":<br />
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<span style="border:1px dashed #575744; padding:0 .25em; margin:0 .25em; background:#ffc;">text</span><br />
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/--><br />
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<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 />
<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>Danrayhttps://cyber.harvard.edu/iif/?title=Open_Networks,_Closed_Regimes&diff=2947Open Networks, Closed Regimes2009-05-14T04:34:11Z<p>Danray: /* The original wiki page */</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 />
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<div style="padding:1em; margin:1em 0 1em 31%; clear:both; background:#ffc; border:1px dashed #575744; width:66%; align:right;">text</div><br />
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For the inline boxes, use this code and place your text where it says "text":<br />
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<span style="border:1px dashed #575744; padding:0 .25em; margin:0 .25em; background:#ffc;">text</span><br />
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/--><br />
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<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 />
== The original wiki page ==<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 />
<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 />
== How Administered ==<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>Danrayhttps://cyber.harvard.edu/iif/?title=Open_Networks,_Closed_Regimes&diff=2946Open Networks, Closed Regimes2009-05-14T04:30:41Z<p>Danray: /* The Story So Far */</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 />
== The original wiki page ==<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 />
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 />
<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 />
== How Administered ==<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>Danrayhttps://cyber.harvard.edu/iif/?title=Open_Networks,_Closed_Regimes&diff=2943Open Networks, Closed Regimes2009-05-14T04:08:53Z<p>Danray: </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 />
== The original wiki page ==<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 />
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 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 />
<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 />
== How Administered ==<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>Danrayhttps://cyber.harvard.edu/iif/?title=Open_Networks,_Closed_Regimes&diff=2942Open Networks, Closed Regimes2009-05-14T04:07:47Z<p>Danray: /* The original wiki page */</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 />
== The original wiki page ==<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 />
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 <acronym title="that is, they can participate using assumed names">pseudonymity</acronym>): 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 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 />
<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 />
== How Administered ==<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>Danrayhttps://cyber.harvard.edu/iif/?title=Open_Networks,_Closed_Regimes&diff=2940Open Networks, Closed Regimes2009-05-14T03:33:27Z<p>Danray: /* The original wiki page */</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 />
== The original wiki page ==<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 />
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 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 />
<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 />
== How Administered ==<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>Danrayhttps://cyber.harvard.edu/iif/?title=Open_Networks,_Closed_Regimes&diff=2713Open Networks, Closed Regimes2009-05-11T20:49:51Z<p>Danray: </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 />
== The original wiki page ==<br />
<br />
<div style="padding:1em; margin:1em 0 1em 31%; clear:both; background:#ffc; border:1px dashed #575744; width:66%; align:right;">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><br />
<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] <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 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 />
<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 />
== How Administered ==<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>Danrayhttps://cyber.harvard.edu/iif/?title=Open_Networks,_Closed_Regimes&diff=2619Open Networks, Closed Regimes2009-05-07T02:22:49Z<p>Danray: /* The original wiki page */</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:Danray|Dan Ray]], [[User:CKennedy|Conor Kennedy]], and [[User:Jgruensp|Joshua Gruenspecht]] 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 />
== The original wiki page ==<br />
<br />
<div style="padding:1em; margin:1em 0 1em 31%; clear:both; background:#ffc; border:1px dashed #575744; width:66%; align:right;">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><br />
<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] <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 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 />
<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 />
== How Administered ==<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>Danrayhttps://cyber.harvard.edu/iif/?title=Open_Networks,_Closed_Regimes&diff=2500Open Networks, Closed Regimes2009-05-04T01:01:54Z<p>Danray: </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:Danray|Dan Ray]], [[User:CKennedy|Conor Kennedy]], and [[User:Jgruensp|Joshua Gruenspecht]] 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 />
== The original wiki page ==<br />
<br />
<div style="padding:1em; margin:1em 0 1em 31%; clear:both; background:#ffc; border:1px dashed #575744; width:66%; align:right;">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.</div><br />
<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] <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 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 />
== 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>Danrayhttps://cyber.harvard.edu/iif/?title=Open_Networks,_Closed_Regimes&diff=2499Open Networks, Closed Regimes2009-05-04T00:59:01Z<p>Danray: </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:Danray|Dan Ray]], [[User:CKennedy|Conor Kennedy]], and [[User:Jgruensp|Joshua Gruenspecht]] 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 />
== The original wiki page ==<br />
<br />
<div style="padding:1em; margin:1em 0 1em 31%; clear:both; background:#ffc; border:1px dashed #575744; width:66%; align:right;">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.</div><br />
<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] <span style="border:1px dashed #575744; padding:0 .25em; margin:0 .25em; background:#ffc;">(this refers to the readings for an earlier class)</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 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 />
== 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>Danrayhttps://cyber.harvard.edu/iif/?title=Open_Networks,_Closed_Regimes&diff=2498Open Networks, Closed Regimes2009-05-04T00:53:46Z<p>Danray: </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 />
<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:Danray|Dan Ray]], [[User:CKennedy|Conor Kennedy]], and [[User:Jgruensp|Joshua Gruenspecht]] 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 />
== The original wiki page ==<br />
<br />
<div style="padding:1em; margin:1em 0 1em 31%; clear:both; background:#ffc; border:1px dashed #575744; width:66%; align:right;">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.</div><br />
<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] <span style="border:1px dashed #575744; padding:0 .25em; margin:0 .25em; background:#ffc;">(this refers to the readings for an earlier class)</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 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 />
== 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>Danrayhttps://cyber.harvard.edu/iif/?title=Open_Networks,_Closed_Regimes&diff=2497Open Networks, Closed Regimes2009-05-04T00:46:41Z<p>Danray: </p>
<hr />
<div><div style="float:right; padding:1em; margin:1em; clear:both; width:60%; background:#ffc; border:5px #000; align:center;"><p>This page documents a single class session on worldwide Internet restrictions taught by [[User:Danray|Dan Ray]], [[User:CKennedy|Conor Kennedy]], and [[User:Jgruensp|Joshua Gruenspecht]] 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.</p></div><br />
<br />
== The original wiki page ==<br />
<br />
<div style="padding:1em; margin:1em 0 1em 31%; clear:both; background:#ffc; border:1px dashed #575744; width:66%; align:right;">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.</div><br />
<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] <span style="border:1px dashed #575744; padding:0 .25em; margin:0 .25em; background:#ffc;">(this refers to the readings for an earlier class)</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 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 />
== 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>Danrayhttps://cyber.harvard.edu/iif/?title=Open_Networks,_Closed_Regimes&diff=2496Open Networks, Closed Regimes2009-05-04T00:26:21Z<p>Danray: </p>
<hr />
<div><div style="float:right; padding:1em; margin:1em; clear:both; width:60%; background:#ffc; border:5px #000; align:center;"><p>This page documents a single class session on worldwide Internet restrictions taught by [[User:Danray|Dan Ray]], [[User:CKennedy|Conor Kennedy]], and [[User:Jgruensp|Joshua Gruenspecht]] 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.</p></div><br />
<br />
== The original wiki page ==<br />
<br />
<div style="padding:1em; margin:1em; clear:both; width:60%; background:#ffc; border:5px #000; align:center;"><p>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 offset boxes like this one are annotations added after the fact think of them like the director's commentary.</p></div><br />
<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 />
== 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>Danrayhttps://cyber.harvard.edu/iif/?title=Open_Networks,_Closed_Regimes&diff=2495Open Networks, Closed Regimes2009-05-04T00:17:16Z<p>Danray: </p>
<hr />
<div><div style="float:right; padding:1em; margin:1em; clear:both; width:60%; background:#ffc; border:5px #000; align:center;"><p>This page documents a single class session on worldwide Internet restrictions taught by [[User:Danray|Dan Ray]], [[User:CKennedy|Conor Kennedy]], and [[User:Jgruensp|Joshua Gruenspecht]] 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.</p></div><br />
<br />
<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 />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Note to self: Joe, Miriam, Mark, Jon Fildes, Elana, Melissa</div>Danrayhttps://cyber.harvard.edu/iif/?title=Open_Networks,_Closed_Regimes&diff=2494Open Networks, Closed Regimes2009-05-04T00:08:47Z<p>Danray: </p>
<hr />
<div><div style="float:right; padding:1em; margin:1em; clear:both; width:60%; background:#ffc; border:5px #000; align:center;">Div test.</div><br />
<br />
'''[[User:Danray|Dan Ray]]''', '''[[User:CKennedy|Conor]]''', '''[[User:Jgruensp|Joshua]]'''<br />
<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 />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Note to self: Joe, Miriam, Mark, Jon Fildes, Elana, Melissa</div>Danrayhttps://cyber.harvard.edu/iif/?title=Open_Networks,_Closed_Regimes&diff=2436Open Networks, Closed Regimes2009-04-28T02:12:15Z<p>Danray: </p>
<hr />
<div>'''[[User:Danray|Dan Ray]]''', '''[[User:CKennedy|Conor]]''', '''[[User:Jgruensp|Joshua]]'''<br />
<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 />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Note to self: Joe, Miriam, Mark, Jon Fildes, Elana, Melissa</div>Danrayhttps://cyber.harvard.edu/iif/?title=Anonymity_and_privacy&diff=2435Anonymity and privacy2009-04-28T02:07:29Z<p>Danray: Anonymity and privacy moved to Open Networks, Closed Regimes: "Anonymity and privacy" was a carry-over from a previous idea for the class. "Open Networks, Closed Regimes" is both more mellifluous and more accurate about the content of the course.</p>
<hr />
<div>#REDIRECT [[Open Networks, Closed Regimes]]</div>Danrayhttps://cyber.harvard.edu/iif/?title=Open_Networks,_Closed_Regimes&diff=2434Open Networks, Closed Regimes2009-04-28T02:07:29Z<p>Danray: Anonymity and privacy moved to Open Networks, Closed Regimes: "Anonymity and privacy" was a carry-over from a previous idea for the class. "Open Networks, Closed Regimes" is both more mellifluous and more accurate about the content of the course.</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>Danrayhttps://cyber.harvard.edu/iif/?title=Scheduling&diff=2283Scheduling2009-04-15T14:39:44Z<p>Danray: </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]]||||Benjami Mako Hill<br />
|-<br />
|style="background: #dddddd;"|16-Feb||Graham, Mark||[[The Internet and Societal Inequity|Internet and Social Inequity]]||Eszter Hargittai||<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, Nicco Mele||<br />
|-<br />
|style="background: #dddddd;"|2-Mar||Jason & Michelle||[[Tools: Twitter in the Classroom]]||||<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||Jason & Michelle||[[Tools: Seesmic]]||||<br />
|-<br />
|style="background: #dddddd;"|30-Mar||Gwen, Jon, Lee||[[The Google Book Search Settlement]]||Prof. John Palfrey, Jeffrey Cunard (remote), Allan A. Ryan||<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, Andrew McLaughlin<br />
|-<br />
|style="background: #dddddd;"|13-Apr||Andrew Klaber & David Levine||[[Internet, Industry, and Investing|The Internet, Industry and Investing]]||Peter Thiel||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>Danrayhttps://cyber.harvard.edu/iif/?title=Prediction_Markets&diff=2135Prediction Markets2009-03-18T18:35:15Z<p>Danray: </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 />
* 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]</div>Danrayhttps://cyber.harvard.edu/iif/?title=Earlier&diff=2126Earlier2009-03-17T02:07:00Z<p>Danray: New page: "1/ We're trying to explore how not to impinge on the next class's turf. They currently start at exactly the moment we end. Would it be possible, even desirable, to start and end the cla...</p>
<hr />
<div>"1/ We're trying to explore how not to impinge on the next class's turf. They currently start at exactly the moment we end. Would it be possible, even desirable, to start and end the class 15 minutes earlier (food available 30 mins earlier)?"<br />
<br />
:I could do 15 minutes earlier. I suggest we take this vote by consensus, though (If we're not already by default), since it would be bad for the class and the students affected if a few people had to miss the beginning of every class. --[[User:Danray|Dan Ray]] 02:07, 17 March 2009 (UTC)</div>Danrayhttps://cyber.harvard.edu/iif/?title=All_Together_Now_For_Great_Justice_Dot_Org&diff=1907All Together Now For Great Justice Dot Org2009-03-02T02:29:08Z<p>Danray: /* Tools and Examples */ preview button? what's that?</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.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</div>Danrayhttps://cyber.harvard.edu/iif/?title=All_Together_Now_For_Great_Justice_Dot_Org&diff=1906All Together Now For Great Justice Dot Org2009-03-02T02:27:56Z<p>Danray: /* Tools and Examples */</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.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</div>Danrayhttps://cyber.harvard.edu/iif/?title=Session_checklist&diff=1705Session checklist2009-02-16T20:47:13Z<p>Danray: /* After class */</p>
<hr />
<div>== Before class ==<br />
<br />
* Have you confirmed your guest list? (As early as possible)<br />
* Have you settled arrangements with your guests, such as when and where they will arrive, who will meet them, how they will find the room, what they will be doing with the session, whether they will stay for dinner, and so forth? (As early as possible)<br />
* Do you have a room reserved if it will not be Hauser 105 (useful if you've chosen an audience beyond that of the class)? (2 weeks advance notice required; arrange with Moira)<br />
* Do you know what discussion techniques and formats you will be using during class, and is how to use them documented on your wiki page? Have you sent out the relevant prepwork to your classmates so that they can come in ready? (1 week in advance)<br />
* Do you know what technologies you will be using? Have you tested them, and is how to use them documented on your wiki page? Have you sent out the relevant installation/training links to your classmates so that they can come in ready? (1 week in advance; IT needs at least 48 business hours notice for AV requests)<br />
* Do you have your readings worked out and documented, with links, on your wiki page? Have you sent your classmates an announcement/reminder of your finalized readings? (1 week in advance)<br />
* Do you have a precis/briefing summary of your topic up on the wiki, emphasizing the intellectual trajectory of your topic -- what is deemed settled and what questions are thought open? Have you sent a link to this to your classmates? (1 week in advance)<br />
* Do you have a time allocation (how much you plan on spending on each activity and who will lead it) for the 2 hours of class you will be running? Is this posted on your wiki? (1 day in advance)<br />
<br />
== During class ==<br />
<br />
* Has your A/V equipment been hooked up at least 10 minutes before class start?<br />
* Do you have an IM backchannel to the IIF team (or at least JZ's AIM/Gtalk) prearranged and open?<br />
* Is someone recording/photographing/taking notes of the session?<br />
* Do you have copies of all handouts/worksheets/materials the class will be working with?<br />
* Have the tables, chairs, blackboards, etc. been arranged and cleared for the kinds of interactions you want to have?<br />
* Have you set aside space (and possibly time) for food consumption? Has the food team told you what they'll be bringing?<br />
* Have you introduced your guests to the class?<br />
<br />
== After class ==<br />
<br />
* Have you sent thank-you notes to your guests?<br />
* Have you checked to make sure that your classmates have finished and posted their deliverables for you so that they are accessible from your wiki page?<br />
* Have you given your classmates feedback on their deliverables?<br />
* Have you updated your wiki page with a summary of results?<br />
* Have you asked the IIF team and an external party for feedback on your updated/summarized wiki page?<br />
* Have you settled food arrangements for next week's class? You can refer to the dietary restrictions [[Dietary notes|here]], young foodwalla.<br />
<br />
== End of term ==<br />
<br />
Have you finalized the page for your class session so that it could be used by educators and others looking to cover your topic? (This includes integrating into the page any useful materials or ideas generated in the class session itself.)</div>Danrayhttps://cyber.harvard.edu/iif/?title=Open_Networks,_Closed_Regimes&diff=1671Open Networks, Closed Regimes2009-02-14T21:40:07Z<p>Danray: /* Critiques */</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 />
== <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>Danrayhttps://cyber.harvard.edu/iif/?title=MediaWiki:Sidebar&diff=1639MediaWiki:Sidebar2009-02-09T22:31:06Z<p>Danray: Was trying to add the "this is all Google-indexed" warning to the sidebar. Failed. Reverted.</p>
<hr />
<div>* navigation<br />
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** Scheduling|Schedule<br />
** recentchanges-url|recentchanges<br />
** randompage-url|randompage<br />
** helppage|help<br />
* SEARCH<br />
* TOOLBOX<br />
* LANGUAGES</div>Danrayhttps://cyber.harvard.edu/iif/?title=MediaWiki:Sidebar&diff=1638MediaWiki:Sidebar2009-02-09T22:29:26Z<p>Danray: </p>
<hr />
<div>* navigation<br />
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** template:Nb<br />
* SEARCH<br />
* TOOLBOX<br />
* LANGUAGES</div>Danrayhttps://cyber.harvard.edu/iif/?title=MediaWiki:Sidebar&diff=1637MediaWiki:Sidebar2009-02-09T22:29:11Z<p>Danray: </p>
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<div>* navigation<br />
** mainpage|mainpage-description<br />
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** :Template:Nb<br />
* SEARCH<br />
* TOOLBOX<br />
* LANGUAGES</div>Danrayhttps://cyber.harvard.edu/iif/?title=MediaWiki:Sidebar&diff=1636MediaWiki:Sidebar2009-02-09T22:28:37Z<p>Danray: </p>
<hr />
<div>* navigation<br />
** mainpage|mainpage-description<br />
** Scheduling|Schedule<br />
** recentchanges-url|recentchanges<br />
** randompage-url|randompage<br />
** helppage|help<br />
* SEARCH<br />
* TOOLBOX<br />
* LANGUAGES<br />
* N.B.<br />
** :Template:Nb</div>Danrayhttps://cyber.harvard.edu/iif/?title=Template:Nb&diff=1635Template:Nb2009-02-09T22:24:59Z<p>Danray: New page: Every page of the IIF wiki is public and indexed by search engines, although only registered users may edit entries. Thus, your posts may be read by people outside the Spring 2009 IIF clas...</p>
<hr />
<div>Every page of the IIF wiki is public and indexed by search engines, although only registered users may edit entries. Thus, your posts may be read by people outside the Spring 2009 IIF class.</div>Danrayhttps://cyber.harvard.edu/iif/?title=Open_Networks,_Closed_Regimes&diff=1557Open Networks, Closed Regimes2009-02-04T01:19:05Z<p>Danray: /* Brainstorming (On earlier topic: OpenID) */</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 />
=== 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>Danrayhttps://cyber.harvard.edu/iif/?title=Legacy_support&diff=1556Legacy support2009-02-04T01:17:12Z<p>Danray: New page: == Brainstorming (On earlier topic: OpenID) == === Title === OpenId and Internet Governance :: '''One of the other groups has a fun title (all together now for great justice dot org). Can...</p>
<hr />
<div>== 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>Danrayhttps://cyber.harvard.edu/iif/?title=Permissions&diff=1547Permissions2009-02-03T15:51:01Z<p>Danray: /* Attribution is OK by default */</p>
<hr />
<div>== Introduction ==<br />
<br />
Unless explicitly stated otherwise, all content from the class wiki, mailing list, the class time itself, and class-related discussions may be quoted and paraphrased so long as the anonymity of the speaker is preserved. In other words, it is all right to say "Someone in my IIF class said that..." <br />
<br />
== Options ==<br />
<br />
For things that can be attributed to individuals, or for which identification with an individual is unavoidable (for instance, video), we have two options; please comment regarding which one you would prefer. <br />
<br />
=== Attribution is OK by default ===<br />
<br />
Everything that can be attributed must be attributed. Everything is okay to share and attribute to relevant individuals by default; if you want something to remain private or unattributed, you must explicitly request it.<br />
<br />
* '''support.''' I don't think we will be sharing any confidential details amongst ourselves, and this will make it much easier for our work to be spread. I'd even suggest [http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/ cc-by] for all our coursework. [[User:Mchua|Mchua]] 10:20, 3 February 2009 (UTC)<br />
* I hereby license all my brilliant pearls of wisdom under this "OK by default" license. [[User:Danray|Dan Ray]] 15:51, 3 February 2009 (UTC)<br />
<br />
=== Attribution must be asked for by default ===<br />
<br />
If you want permission to attribute a contribution or post something with identifiable individuals, you must get permission from each individual that would be identified in the work.</div>Danrayhttps://cyber.harvard.edu/iif/?title=Main_Page&diff=1536Main Page2009-02-03T00:54:14Z<p>Danray: </p>
<hr />
<div>{{TOCright}}<br />
<br />
== Introduction ==<br />
<br />
This is the course wiki for the Spring 2009 Harvard Law School seminar [http://www.law.harvard.edu/academics/courses/2008-09/?id=6444 The Internet: Issues at the Frontiers], LAW-99045A (abbreviated name: iif). It is taught by Professors Cass Sunstein and Jonathan Zittrain and meets Mondays from 5:00 PM - 7:00 PM in Hauser 105.<br />
<br />
Course description:<br />
<br />
''This seminar explores frontiers question involving the Internet. Anticipated issues involve innovation, copyright, new uses of the wiki form, prediction markets, democratic polarization, and collective intelligence. Students will be expected to participate actively in innovative course design, and we might attempt to involve numerous people all over the world in the course through the Internet.''<br />
<br />
== Schedule ==<br />
<br />
Unless otherwise indicated, dates given are for normal class meetings from 5-7PM on Monday nights.<br />
<br />
* [[2008-11-21]] Optional wiki tutorial<br />
* [[2008-11-24]] Monday 12-1pm (class)<br />
* [[2008-12-01]] Monday 12-1pm (class)<br />
* [[2009-02-02]] Monday 5-7pm (REALLY class!)<br />
* ''TBA'' ([[Tech demo]])<br />
<br />
== Resources ==<br />
<br />
* [[Syllabus]]<br />
* [[Scheduling]] for class slots<br />
* [[Tools]]<br />
* [[Topics]]<br />
* [[Readings]]<br />
* [[People]]<br />
* [[Links]]<br />
* [[Supplementary interviews]]<br />
<br />
<br />
Note: Every page of the IIF wiki is public and indexed by search engines, although only registered users may edit entries. Thus, your posts may be read by people outside the Spring 2009 IIF class.</div>Danrayhttps://cyber.harvard.edu/iif/?title=Scheduling&diff=1517Scheduling2009-02-02T22:46:35Z<p>Danray: </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, Jonathan Hulbert, 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:''' Andrew McLaughlin, a rep from Yahoo's Bus. & Hum. Rights Program, or another rep 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, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rick_Boucher House Subcommittee on Communications, Technology and the Internet]; Chris Smith, [http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=27237 House Representative from New Jersey])<br />
|-<br />
|style="background: #dddddd;"|13-Apr||Andrew Klaber & David Levine||[[Internet, Industry, and Investing|The Internet, Industry and Investing]]||Peter Thiel||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>Danrayhttps://cyber.harvard.edu/iif/?title=Open_Networks,_Closed_Regimes&diff=1452Open Networks, Closed Regimes2009-01-31T06:01:44Z<p>Danray: </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 />
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 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?<br />
<br />
=== Guests ===<br />
<br />
# Caroline Nolan, Colin, or John Palfrey from Berkman/GNI<br />
# <strike>Michael Samway - Yahoo VP and General Counsel</strike> A rep from Yahoo or Google <br />
## Waiting to hear from Andrew McLaughlin, Google's Head of Global Public Policy and Government Affairs<br />
# <strike>Prof. Ruggie's suggested expert on Vietnam</strike> A rep from the Vietnamese consulate?<br />
# ...<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 (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 />
<br />
=== Course structure ===<br />
<br />
# First 10-15 minutes: Exposition on the problem and potential solutions<br />
# Next 45 minutes: Q&A with guests on what the terrain looks like now, and what's left to do.<br />
# Remainder: Classwide simulation, with students playing the various stakeholder groups<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 />
=== Process ===<br />
<br />
# Simulation (How does the GNI relate to the new Vietnamese blog code? What should a major tech company do when asked for details on violators?)<br />
<br />
## Alternatively, or in addition, an alternating hi-tech (videos, laptops open) and low-tech (video off, laptops closed) experiment to see how the conversational dynamic changes. <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>Danrayhttps://cyber.harvard.edu/iif/?title=Open_Networks,_Closed_Regimes&diff=1451Open Networks, Closed Regimes2009-01-31T06:00:22Z<p>Danray: /* Open Network, Closed Regimes */</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 />
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 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?<br />
<br />
=== Guests ===<br />
<br />
# Caroline Nolan, Colin, or John Palfrey from Berkman/GNI<br />
# <strike>Michael Samway - Yahoo VP and General Counsel</strike> A rep from Yahoo or Google <br />
## Waiting to hear from Andrew McLaughlin, Google's Head of Global Public Policy and Government Affairs<br />
# <strike>Prof. Ruggie's suggested expert on Vietnam</strike> A rep from the Vietnamese consulate?<br />
# ...<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 (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 />
<br />
=== Course structure ===<br />
<br />
# First 10-15 minutes: Exposition on the problem and potential solutions<br />
# Next 45 minutes: Q&A with guests on what the terrain looks like now, and what's left to do.<br />
# Remainder: Classwide simulation, with students playing the various stakeholder groups<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 />
=== Process ===<br />
<br />
# Simulation (How does the GNI relate to the new Vietnamese blog code? What should a major tech company do when asked for details on violators?)<br />
<br />
## Alternatively, or in addition, an alternating hi-tech (videos, laptops open) and low-tech (video off, laptops closed) experiment to see how the conversational dynamic changes. <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 />
== 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>Danrayhttps://cyber.harvard.edu/iif/?title=Open_Networks,_Closed_Regimes&diff=1450Open Networks, Closed Regimes2009-01-31T05:59:51Z<p>Danray: /* The Plan */</p>
<hr />
<div>'''[[User:Danray|Dan Ray]]''', '''[[User:CKennedy|Conor]]''', '''[[User:Jgruensp|Joshua]]'''<br />
<br />
== Open Network, Closed Regimes ==<br />
=== Capsule ===<br />
<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 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?<br />
<br />
=== Guests ===<br />
<br />
# Caroline Nolan, Colin, or John Palfrey from Berkman/GNI<br />
# <strike>Michael Samway - Yahoo VP and General Counsel</strike> A rep from Yahoo or Google <br />
## Waiting to hear from Andrew McLaughlin, Google's Head of Global Public Policy and Government Affairs<br />
# <strikeProf. Ruggie's suggested expert on Vietnam</strike> A rep from the Vietnamese consulate?<br />
# ...<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 (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 />
<br />
=== Course structure ===<br />
<br />
# First 10-15 minutes: Exposition on the problem and potential solutions<br />
# Next 45 minutes: Q&A with guests on what the terrain looks like now, and what's left to do.<br />
# Remainder: Classwide simulation, with students playing the various stakeholder groups<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 />
=== Process ===<br />
<br />
# Simulation (How does the GNI relate to the new Vietnamese blog code? What should a major tech company do when asked for details on violators?)<br />
<br />
## Alternatively, or in addition, an alternating hi-tech (videos, laptops open) and low-tech (video off, laptops closed) experiment to see how the conversational dynamic changes. <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 />
== 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>Danray