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Internet & Society: The Technologies and Politics of Control
Professor Jonathan Zittrain co-taught with Professor Joi Ito, Director of the MIT Media Lab
Harvard Law School
Winter 2017
Mon-Fri
10:30am-noon; 12:45pm-2pm
Milstein West AB
Syllabus
I. Course Description
This course offers a rigorous introduction to the field of cyberlaw. We will investigate the
evolving nature of online architecture and activities, and the ways in which law has been, and
will be, leveraged to influence them.
Course themes include the complex interaction between Internet governance organizations and
sovereign states, the search for balance between the ease of disseminating information online
and the interest of copyright holders, privacy advocates, and others in controlling that
dissemination, and the roles of intermediaries and platforms in shaping what people can and
cannot do online. The course will include an array of learning and teaching methods. Students
will be expected to participate in a variety of activities.
II. Class Schedule
Afternoon
Session
Morning
Session
The class meets every day from January 3rd to January 13th in
Milstein West AB. Each day will be divided into three phases: the
morning session from 10:30am to noon, lunch from noon to 12:45pm,
and the afternoon session from 12:45pm to 2pm. Lunch will be
provided.
A more detailed schedule of the topics we will be covering each day
follows below.
Topics (2 per day other than the last day)
Day 1: Introduction, Right to Be Forgotten and Jurisdiction
Day 2: Copyright, DRM debate between Professor Ito and Professor Zittrain (afternoon session)
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Day 3: Cryptocurrency
Day 4: Private Infrastructures for Government Surveillance, John DeLong/Bruce Schneier talk
(morning session)
Day 5: Net Neutrality and Internet Architecture, Dialogue with Andy Ellis (afternoon session)
Day 6: Weaponized Social, Open discussion with John Palfrey (morning session)
Day 7: Free vs. Proprietary Code and Content, Dialogue with David Clark (afternoon session)
Day 8: Governance, Artificial Intelligence
Day 9: Conclusion
III. Class Requirements
The purpose of this class is to give students a sense of the historical battles of the Internet, what
different actors were thinking, what they were trying to accomplish, and what levers they pulled
in order to select for specific outcomes. Students should apply what they have learned from
historical examples to a current Internet issue discussed in class and describe in a 12-15 page
paper what a viable solution might look like. Solutions could take the form of a policy
recommendation, project proposal, or code. The paper or project proposal will be due on
Friday, January 20th, and may be submitted by email to Samantha Bates at
sbates@law.harvard.edu.
IV. Class Materials
There is no required textbook for this class. All readings will be available online on the class
H20 playlist: https://h2o.law.harvard.edu/playlists/51511.
We will have a slack channel for the class. Please click on the following link to sign up:
https://internet-society2017.slack.com/signup.
Students should bring their laptops to class to use for daily activities, but all electrical devices
must remain off during lectures.
V. General Information
Professor Zittrain and Professor Ito will be available for group office hours after class on the
following dates:
• Wednesday, January 4th from 2:15-3:15pm in Milstein West.
• Monday, January 9th from 2:15-3:15pm in Milstein West.
• Wednesday, January 11th from 2:15-3:15pm in Milstein West.
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For other general scheduling/appointment questions, please contact:
Amanda McMahan
Assistant to Professor Zittrain
Office Phone:
Email:
Office location: Griswold Hall, 5th floor, Room #505
Yuko Barnaby
Assistant to Media Lab Director Ito
Office Phone:
Email:
Office location: MIT Media Lab, E-14, Director's Office 245
For course related (readings/paper) questions, please contact:
Samantha Bates
Research Associate
Email:
Natalie Saltiel
Coordinating Editor for the Journal of Design and Science (JoDS)
MIT Media Lab
Email: ________________________________
For other information about the class, please contact:
Shailin Thomas
Teaching Fellow
Email:
Jordi Weinstock
Visiting Scholar
Email:
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Reading Assignments
Day 1: Introduction
Welcome! We aspire to the implausible: a nine-day introduction to the unusual dynamics of the
world's digital space, sufficient for a strategic understanding of what makes it difficult (but far
from impossible) to regulate or shape; who's trying to do it nonetheless; and how such efforts
have fared over the past twenty years, with an eye towards lessons for influencing the space
and the behavior within it today.
In addition to offering some frameworks for thinking about Internet architecture and policy, and
the curious open and generative nature of the phenomenon, we will delve into the net as a
contingently global phenomenon, and the way that complicates regulation by traditional
sovereigns. Our case study will be the current debates around implementation of Europe's "right
to be forgotten" in search engine results. As you complete the readings, you might see how
you'd answer the question of what a state like France's view should be towards the scope of its
RTBF regulation, and whether the kind of "zoning" described in the Cato Institute article from
thirteen years ago (!), is realizable and desirable.
Readings:
• C.P. Snow, "The Rede Lecture: The Two Cultures," (1959) pages 1-9
http://s-f-walker.org.uk/pubsebooks/2cultures/Rede-lecture-2-cultures.pdf archived at
https://perma.cc/XB6F-N9K8.
• John Perry Barlow, "A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace," Electronic
Frontier Foundation (February 8, 1996) https://www.eff.org/cyberspace-independence
archived at https://perma.cc/H2CZ-N2EX.
• Locke, Levine, Searles, & Weinberger, The Cluetrain Manifesto: 95 Theses (1999)
http://www.cluetrain.com/book/95-theses.html archived at https://perma.cc/2BLT-6ZEL.
• Jonathan Zittrain, The Future of the Internet and How to Stop It. New Haven: 2008
https://dash.harvard.edu/bitstream/handle/1/4455262/Zittrain Future%20of%20the%201
nternet.pdf?sequence=1 archived at https://perma.cc/NM9D-7Y2V.
o Read pages 1-5, 7-9, 57-61, 63-65, 67-71.
• Yochai Benkler, The Wealth of Networks. New Haven: 2006.
http://www.benkler.org/Benkler Wealth Of Networks.pdf archived at
https://perma.cc/BC4A-96KP.
o Read pages 154 (beginning "Imagine a world") - 161
Jurisdiction
• Jonathan Zittrain, "Be Careful What You Ask For: Reconciling a Global Internet and
Local Law," WHO RULES THE NET?, Cato Institute (2003)
http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/sites/cyber.law.harvard.edu/files/2003-03.pdf archived at
https://perma.cc/3JE9-GM3R.
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[OPTIONAL: Right to Be Forgotten readings]
• Zoe Bedell, "Google to France: 'Forget You' - An Update on the Right to Be Forgotten"
Lawfare (May 25, 2016)
https://www.lawfareblog.com/google-france-forget-you-%E2%80%93-update-right-be-for
gotten archived at https://perma.cc/W9EX-5AGZ.
• Google Spain v. Mario Costeja Gonzalez ECJ opinion (May 13, 2014)
http://curia.europa.eu/juris/document/document print.jsf?doclang=EN&docid=152065
archived at https://perma.cc/3ARS-3X04.
o Read paragraphs 89-99
• Brendan van Alsenoy and Marieke Koekkoek, The Extraterritorial Reach of the EU's
'Right to Be forgotten' (January 19, 2015). CiTiP Working paper 20/2015. Available at
SS RN: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract id =2551838 archived at
https://perma.cc/B3SF-YJ3W.
o Read pages 3-22
Day 2: Copyright
Copyright was once thought of as the defining battle of consumer networking. Academic
technologies brought into the mainstream made it trivial to prepare and distribute perfect copies
of copyrighted work without permission -- and the comparatively powerful organizations
representing copyright holders saw this as an existential threat.
We will read some of the "grim joy" experienced by Internet freedom types in dancing on the
grave of copyright in the mid-1990s -- and immerse in some of the law and policy changes
effected in the United States to deal with the problem without running up against the equities of
rapidly-growing intermediaries of online and Internet service providers (turns out, there's a
difference).
The copyright wars revealed a variety of strategies that we'll look at with the benefit of years of
hindsight, including lawsuits against network providers, software makers, and individual users
both sending and receiving files, as well as technical changes designed to make it more difficult
to share items that wish not to be shared. Ultimately we are drawn to the question of whether
the wars were won by one side or another, or whether it's more accurate to say that they simply
faded away. What issues today feel make-or-break, yet could simply fade rather than be
resolved, and why?
We'll end the day with a peek into, and practice of, a current intense if obscure debate: that of
whether digital rights management hooks should be placed into standards for Web browsers.
Readings:
• John Perry Barlow, "The Economy of Ideas," Wired (March 1994)
http://archive.wired.com/wired/archive/2.03/economy.ideas.html?topic=&topic set=
archived at https://perma.cc/P82S-RZP3.
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• Matthew Green, Napster Opens Pandora's Box: Examining How File-Sharing Services
Threaten the Enforcement of Copyright on the Internet, 63 Oh. St. L. J. 799 (2002)
http://moritzlaw.osu.edu/students/groups/oslyfiles/2012/03/63.2.green .pdf archived at
https://perma.cc/H77J-TN43.
• Brad Hill, "The iTunes Influence, Part I: How Apple Changed the Face of the Music
Marketplace," En gadget (April 29, 2013)
https://www.engadget.com/2013/04/29/the-itunes-influence-part-one/ archived at
https://perma.cc/MEU4-W5N9.
• David Kravets, "10 Years Later, Misunderstood DMCA is the Law That Saved the Web,"
Wired (October 27, 2008) https://www.wired.com/2008/10/ten-years-later/ archived at
https://perma.cc/VH2T-7S7V.
• Lawrence Lessig, The Creative Commons, 55 Fla. L. Rev. 763 (2003)
http://homepages.law.asu.edu/—dkarjala/OpposingCopyrightExtension/commentary/Less
igCreativeCommonsFlaLRev2003.htm archived at https://perma.cc/T7UD-JHYZ.
• Alex Davies, "The EPA Opposes Rules That Could've Exposed VW's Cheating," Wired
(September 18, 2015)
https://www.wired.com/2015/09/epa-opposes-rules-couldve-exposed-vws-cheating/
archived at https://perma.cc/W4RK-Q6QJ.
DRM and HTML5 background readings:
• "Information about W3C and Encrypted Media Extensions (EME)" W3C (March 2016)
https://www.w3.org/2016/03/EME-factsheet.html archived at
https://perma.cc/4ZPR-DXTA.
• Peter Bright, "DRM in HTML5 is a victory for the open Web, not a defeat," Ars Technica
(May 10, 2013)
http://arstechnica.com/business/2013/05/drm-in-htm15-is-a-victory-for-the-open-web-not-
a-defeat/ archived at https://perma.cc/UM8C-NFPV.
Day 3: Cryptocurrency
One view of the progression of digital technology has been roughly from amateur to
professional, from open to closed, and from chaotic to ordered -- as the early successes from
left field of Google, Facebook, and Twitter enter publicly-traded adulthood. At the ripe year of
2017, are there still digital disruptions to be had?
The phenomenon (and increasing literal value) of cryptocurrency -- and, for that matter, the
foundational blockchain technologies on which it can be based -- seems to indicate that there
are still surprises from left field. What does the rise of cryptocurrency tell us about the state of
cyberspace, and what should we expect -- and hope for -- next?
Readings:
Introduction
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• Coin Center, Blockchain 101, https://coincenter.org/learn archived at
https://perma.cc/M2TZ-B9YX.
• Eli Dourado and Jerry Brito, "The New Pa!grave Dictionary of Economics:
cryptocurrency," Online Edition, 2014
http://coincenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/cryptocurrency-article.pdf archived at
https://perma.cc/3YFE-QS5P.
• Joel Monegro, "The Blockchain Application Stack"
http://www.coindesk.com/blockchain-application-stack/ archived at
https://perma.cc/4E3V-SCAL.
[OPTIONAL: for a more in depth technical introduction to Bitcoin]
• Michael Nielson, "How the Bitcoin Protocol Actually works"
http://www.michaelnielsen.org/ddi/how-the-bitcoin-protocol-actually-works/ archived at
https://perma.cc/C2QJ-YFEY.
Bitcoin & the Blockchain
• Joi Ito, "Why Bitcoin is and isn't like the Internet"
https://joi.ito.com/weblog/2015/01/23/why-bitcoin-is-.html archived at
https://perma.cc/CBE8-2UXQ.
• Joi Ito, "Why anti-money laundering laws and poorly designed copyright laws are similar
and should be revised," (March 12, 2016)
http://pubpub.ito.com/pub/dmca-drm-aml-kyc-backdoors archived at
https://perma.cc/7T7T-UPJK.
• Rachel O'Dwyer, "The Revolution Will Not Be Decentralized: Blockchains," Common
Transition (June 11, 2015)
http://commonstransition.org/the-revolution-will-not-be-decentralised-blockchains/
archived at https://perma.cc/MNP7-JZZL.
• Vili Lehdonvirta and Edward Castronova, Virtual Economies: Design and Analysis. 2014.
MIT Press.
o Read Chapter 10: Money
• Raskin, Max and Yermack, David, Digital Currencies, Decentralized Ledgers, and the
Future of Central Banking (May 1, 2016). Peter Conti-Brown & Rosa Lastra (eds.),
Research Handbook on Central Banking, Edward Elgar Publishing, Spring 2017,
Forthcoming. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2773973 archived at
https://perma.cc/FTC3-M6EF.
Ethereum
• Vitalik Buterin, "What is Ethereum?," Coin Center
https://coincenter.org/entry/what-is-ethereum archived at https://perma.cc/WKN4-33XF.
Smart Contracts
• Houman Shadab,"What are Smart Contracts and What Can We do with Them?," Coin
Center (December 15, 2014)
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https://coincenter.org/entry/what-are-smart-contracts-and-what-can-we-do-with-them
archived at https://perma.cc/BH6T-J6S7.
[OPTIONAL]
• Arvind Narayanan; "What Happened to the Crypt° Dream, Part 1," Co-published by the
IEEE Computer and Reliability Societies (March/April 2013)
http://randomwalker.info/publications/crypto-dream-part1.pdf archived at
https://perma.cc/DX8U-QJ5A.
• Arvind Narayanan, "What Happened to the Crypt° Dream?, Part 2," Co-published by the
IEEE and Reliability Societies (May/June 2013)
http://randomwalker.info/publications/crypto-dream-part2.pdf archived at
https://perma.cc/F482-84AY.
• Lawrence Lessig Code 2.0 lecture from COALA Blockchain Workshop:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcYJTIbhYFO.
• Chelsea Barabas and Ethan Zuckerman, "Can Bitcoin be used for Good?," The Atlantic
(April 7, 2016)
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2016/04/bitcoin-hype/477141/ archived at
https://perma.cc/V94Q-CCP3.
Day 4: Private Infrastructures for Government Surveillance
Digital privacy has at times been understood as privacy against corporate intrusion (think ad
networks); against government (think the various government intelligence-gathering
establishments around the world); and against one another (think drones as well as more
pedestrian technologies that empower people to document facts about, or even doxx, each
other).
This session will look at the second form of surveillance, especially as effectuated through the
cooperation or compulsion of private intermediaries. How successful is such surveillance, and
will it continue to be effective as the public reacts by potentially adopting privacy-enhancing
tools? How successful do we want it to be, and how might frameworks agreeable within
jurisdictions that embrace the rule of law be used or abused within those that do not?
Readings:
• David O'Brien, Matt Olsen, Bruce Schneier, and Jonathan Zittrain, et al. "Don't Panic.
Making Progress on the 'Going Dark' Debate," The Berkman Center for Internet &
Society at Harvard University (Feb 1, 2016)
https://cyber.law.harvard.edu/pubrelease/dont-panic/Dont Panic Making Progress on
Going Dark Debate.pdf archived at https://perma.cc/NT9M-ELAG.
• John Cassidy, "Lessons from Apple vs. The F.B.I.," The New Yorker (March 29, 2016)
http://www.newyorker.com/news/john-cassidy/lessons-from-apple-versus-the-f-b-i
archived at https://perma.cc/282P-A7MS.
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• Susan Landau, Testimony for House Judiciary Committee Hearing on "The Encryption
Tightrope: Balancing Americans' Security and Privacy" (March 1, 2016)
https://judiciary.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Landau-Written-Testimony.pdf
archived at https://perma.cc/N9D9-JTYQ.
• Bruce Schneier, "Data Is a Toxic Asset, So Why Not Throw It Out?," Schneier on
Security (March 1, 2016)
https://www.schneier.com/essays/archives/2016/03/data is a toxic asse.html archived
at https://perma.cc/7NUL-W5YJ.
• Stewart Baker, "Why the NSA Needs Your Phone Calls...and why you (probably)
shouldn't worry about it," Foreign Policy (June 6, 2013)
http://foreignpolicy.com/2013/06/06/why-the-nsa-needs-your-phone-calls/ archived at
https://perma.cc/YE3N-TSWU.
• [OPTIONAL] Harold Abelson et al., "Keys Under Doormats: Mandating insecurity by
requiring government access to all data and communications," CSAIL (Jul 7, 2015).
https://www.schneier.com/academic/paperfiles/paper-keys-under-doormats-CSAIL.pdf
archived at https://perma.cc/2L3U-QST8.
Day 5: Internet Architecture/Net Neutrality
We increasingly assume the availability of commodity networking -- a flat fee for access -- even
as the way in which we experience the Internet is evolving through a curious microeconomics, a
mishmash of policies designed to subsidize or regulate access, and a sometime ability to
arbitrage around arrangements through technologies to facilitate access sharing and virtual
tunneling.
How is Internet access likely to evolve, and what choices exist for polities with particular ideals
about how it should work?
Discussion will include Andy Ellis, Berkman Klein Center Fellow and CSO of Akamai, one of the
most important companies that people haven't heard of.
Readings:
Net Neutrality
• [FOR REFERENCE] Net Neutrality timeline, Public Knowledge:
http://whatisnetneutrality.org/timeline archived at https://perma.cc/L8JE-QYP8.
• Tim Wu, Network Neutrality, Broadband Discrimination. Journal of Telecommunications
and High Technology Law, Vol. 2, p. 141 (2003). Available at SSRN:
https://ssrn.com/abstract=388863 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.388863 archived at
https://perma.cc/X856-RWSC.
o Read the introduction and Part I A, pages 141-147.
• Tim Wu and Christopher Yoo, "Keeping the Internet Neutral?: Tim Wu and Christopher
Yoo Debate," Federal Communications Law Journal. 59 (2007), pp. 575-592
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https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract id=953989 archived at
https://perma.cc/FHE3-XUED.
• Tom Wheeler, "This is How We Will Ensure Net Neutrality," Wired (February 4, 2015)
https://www.wired.com/2015/02/fcc-chairman-wheeler-net-neutrality/ archived at
https://perma.cc/C8DE-2PJB.
Zero-rating
• Jeremy Malcolm, Corynne Mcsherry, and Kit Walsh, "Zero rating: What It Is and Why
You Should Care," Electronic Frontier Foundation (February 18, 2016)
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/02/zero-rating-what-it-is-why-you-should-care
archived at https://perma.ccN6TW-2QAG.
• Arturo J Carrillo, Having Your Cake and Eating it Too? Zero-Rating, Net Neutrality and
International Law (March 6, 2016). 19 Stan. Tech. L. Rev. 364 (2016). Available at
SS RN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2746447 archived at https://perma.cc/9Z28-X6A4.
o Read part IV (pages 418-428).
Internet Architecture
• Mike Masnick, "Can We Kill This Ridiculous Shill-Spread Myth That CDNs Violate Net
Neutrality? They Don't," TechDirt (August 13, 2014)
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140812/04314528184/can-we-kill-this-ridiculous-sh ill-
spread-myth-that-cdns-violate-net-neutrality-they-dont.shtml archived at
https://perma.cc/YK3D-3BQG.
Day 6: Weaponized Social
The time when the solution to bad speech could be advanced as simply more speech might
seem quaint. The famously libertarian Electronic Frontier Foundation recently released a white
paper in which it acknowledged a line between a clash of ideas and flat-out harassment, with
the latter causing less rather than more robust debate. Separately, concerns about outright
false news that spreads virally have inspired calls for action by intermediaries like Facebook -- a
self-described technology, rather than media, company.
Applying lessons from the conflicts of the past two decades online, how might we agree upon a
vision for social networking even if we disagree on many substantive issues to be debated
there, and what are the roles, if any, of regulators and private platforms in establishing
boundaries on behavior online through code or legal sanction?
Is it more difficult to agree on a vision is our media is no longer about the battlefield or the real
world but is the battlefield and the real world?
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Readings:
The Problem
• Eugene Volokh, "No, there's no 'hate speech' exception to the First Amendment," The
Washington Post (May 7, 2015)
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2015/05/07/no-theres-no-h
ate-speech-exception-to-the-first-amendment/?utm term =.78330882267d  archived at
https://perma.cc/A5ES-HMQE.
• Jon Ronson, "How One Stupid Tweet Blew Up Justine Sacco's Life," The New York
Times Magazine (February 12, 2015)
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/15/magazine/how-one-stupid-tweet-ruined-justine-sacc
os-life.html? r=0 archived at https://perma.cc/3AHS-Z9EU.
• Adrian Chen, "The Agency," The New York Times Magazine (June 2, 2015)
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/07/magazine/the-agency.html? r=0 archived at
https://perma.cc/BER2-TD6E.
• Reeves Wiedeman, "The Sandy Hook Hoax," The New York Magazine (September 5,
2016) http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/09/the-sandy-hook-hoax.html archived
at https://perma.cc/T9YD-U8Z9.
• Gilad Lotan, "Fake News Is Not the Only Problem," Points (November 22, 2016)
https://points.datasociety.net/fake-news-is-not-the-problem-f0Oec8cdfcb#.kwtO1pk4h
archived at https://perma.cc/B3FK-FJVX.
• Craig Silverman, "How Teens In The Balkans Are Duping Trump Supporters With Fake
News," BuzzFeed (November 3, 2016)
https://www.buzzfeed.com/craigsilverman/how-macedonia-became-a-global-hub-for-pro-
trump-misinfo?utm term=.n1pEm5kbY#.apomjgWID archived at
https://perma.cc/SB2G-9XUM.
• Caitlin Dewey, "Facebook fake-news writer: 'I think Donald Trump is in the White House
because of me,- The Washington Post (November 17, 2016)
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2016/11/17/facebook-fake-news
-writer-i-think-donald-trump-is-in-the-white-house-because-of-me/?utm term=.e2d9c7b0
d5e6 archived at https://perma.cc/B6S4-UBJC.
The Search for Solutions
• Andy Greenberg, "Inside Google's Internet Justice League and Its AI-Powered War on
Trolls," Wired (September 19, 2016)
https://www.wired.com/2016/09/inside-googles-internet-justice-league-ai-powered-war-tr
olls/ archived at https://perma.cc/K56R-MGBX.
• Dia Kayyali and Danny O'Brien, "Facing the Challenge of Online Harassment" Electronic
Frontier Foundation (January 8, 2015)
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/01/facing-challenge-online-harassment, archived at
https://perma.cc/98RS-L876.
• State v. Robert Bishop, 223PA15 (June 10, 2016)
https://h2o.law.harvard.edu/collages/42536.
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Day 7: Free vs. Proprietary Code and Content
This day examines quite different models for the development and distribution of software --
which can also serve as models for hardware, and for content. What kind of ecosystem,
featuring what models, is desirable?
We will think about current issues in cybersecurity as a case study in why free vs. proprietary
code might matter, and take up the question of how regulation might be applied when there are
no easily identified intermediaries in the production of code.
And we will hear from the legendary David Clark, one of the framers of the Internet.
Readings:
• Richard Stallman, "Original Announcement of the GNU Project," GNU Operating System
(September 27, 1983) https://www.gnu.org/gnu/initial-announcement.html archived at
https://perma.cc/2V5W-89P3.
• The Free Software Foundation, "What is free software?," GNU Operating System
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html archived at https://perma.cc/7884-5ZUR.
o [FOR REFERENCE] The Free Software Foundation, "Categories of Free and
nonfree software," GNU Operating System:
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/categories.html archived at
https://perma.cc/HH79-6YVX.
• Jonathan Zittrain, The Future of the Internet and How to Stop It. New Haven: 2008
https://dash.harvard.edu/bitstream/handle/1/4455262/Zittrain Future%20of%20the%201
nternet.pdf?sequence=1 archived at https://perma.cc/B7RL-JRKK.
o Read Chapter 4: Generative Patterns (pages 67-100).
• Jeff Atwood, "Tivoization and the GPL," Coding Horror (February 18, 2008),
https://blog.codinghorror.com/tivoization-and-the-gpl/ archived at
https://perma.cc/YFQ5-42XW.
• Rusty Foster, "The Internet's Telltale Heartbleed," The New Yorker (April 9, 2014)
http://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/the-internets-telltale-heartbleed archived at
https://perma.cc/AC9L-HW34.
• Ron Amadeo, "Google's iron grip on Android: Controlling open source by any means
necessary," Ars Technica (October 20, 2013)
http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/10/googles-iron-grip-on-android-controlling-open-so
urce-by-any-means-necessary/ archived at https://perma.cc/QKW2-3EQH.
• [OPTIONAL] Open Source Licenses: Richard Fontana et. al, A Legal Issues Primer For
Open Source and Free Software Projects. Software Freedom Law Center (June 4, 2008)
https://www.softwarefreedom.org/resources/2008/foss-primer.pdf archived at
https://perma.cc/2CMH-UP4G.
o Read Chapter 2 only.
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Day 8: Governance
The tensions between free vs. proprietary software help focus us on foundational questions of
governance that are threaded through the course. To what extent should new technologies be
shaped and shared by anyone without gatekeeping? 2017 may find the Internet in middle age.
Do its puzzles suggest anything about whether and how to resolve governance questions for
more newly mainstreamed technologies like machine learning and other Al?
In addition to the challenges that the Internet has provided in regulation and governance, the
inability to really understand what many "learned" algorithms do, and their ability to have
properties and abilities beyond the capabilities of their initial designers, presents additional
challenges when thinking about whether and how to regulate the research, as well as the
deployment, of Al. Phenomena like digital currencies and distributed Al systems reprises the
ideas and challenges of Barlow's declaration of independence of cyberspace.
Readings:
Governance: loT Security
• J.M. Porup, "Internet of Things' security is hilariously broken and getting worse" Ars
Technica (January 23, 2016)
http://arstechnica.com/security/2016/01/how-to-search-the-internet-of-things-for-photos-o
f-sleeping-babies/ archived at https://perma.cc/R8LZ-MULJ.
• Nicole Perlroth, "Hackers Used New Weapons to Disrupt Major Websites Across U.S."
The New York Times (October 21, 2016)
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/22/business/internet-problems-attack.html.
Governance: Algorithmic Accountability
• Jonathan Zittrain, "Facebook Could Decide an Election Without Anyone Ever Finding
Out," New Republic (June 1, 2014)
https://newrepublic.com/article/117878/information-fiduciary-solution-facebook-digital-ger
rymandering archived at https://perma.cc/ED8B-C7YL.
• Carole Cadwalladr, "Google, democracy and the truth about internet search," The
Guardian (December 4, 2016)
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/04/google-democracy-truth-internet-s
earch-facebook archived at https://perma.cc/JC7F-XDUM.
• Cathy O'Neil, Weapons Of Math Destruction : How Big Data Increases Inequality And
Threatens Democracy [e-book]. New York: Crown; 2016. Available from: eBook
Collection (EBSCOhost), Ipswich, MA. Accessed December 10, 2016
o Read the Introduction and Chapter 1 (will print for the students)
• Jack Balkin and Jonathan Zittrain, "A Grand Bargain to Make Tech Companies
Trustworthy," The Atlantic (October 3, 2016)
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2016/10/information-fiduciary/502346/
archived at https://perma.cc/QXX4-VASM.
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Artificial Intelligence
• Joichi Ito, Extended Intelligence (February, 2016)
http://www.pubpub.org/pub/extended-intelligence.
• Joichi Ito, Society in the Loop (June 23, 2016)
https://joi.ito.com/weblog/2016/06/23/society-in-the-.html archived at
https://perma.cc/AU7Y-BABZ.
• Kevin Kelly, "The Three Breakthroughs That Have Finally Unleashed Al on the World,"
Wired (October 17, 2014) https://www.wired.com/2014/10/future-of-artificial-intelligence/
archived at https://perma.cc/CA2Y-3T58.
• Kate Crawford and Ryan Cab, "There is a Blind Spot in Al Research," Nature (October
13, 2016) http://www.nature.com/news/there-is-a-blind-spot-in-ai-research-1.20805
archived at https://perma.cc/5EZ5-HWQJ.
• Azim Shariff, lyad Rahwan and Jean-Francois Bonnefon, "Whose Life Should Your Car
Save?" The New York Times (November, 3, 2016)
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/06/opinion/sunday/whose-life-should-your-car-save.htm
• John Danaher, "Is Effective Regulation of Al Possible? Eight Potential Regulatory
Problems" Philosophical Disquistions (July 7, 2015)
http://philosophicaldisquisitions.blogspot.com/2015/07/is-effective-regulation-of-ai-possib
le.html archived at https://perma.cc/2GBN-FVMM.
• John Danaher, "Is Anyone Competent to Regulate Artificial Intelligence?" Philosophical
Disquistions (November 16, 2015)
http://philosophicaldisquisitions.blogspot.ie/2015/11/is-anyone-competent-to-regulate.ht
ml archived at https://perma.cc/LZ9L-HZJY.
Day 9: Conclusion
• John Perry Barlow, "A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace," Electronic
Frontier Foundation (February 8, 1996) https://www.eff.org/cyberspace-independence
archived at https://perma.cc/H2CZ-N2EX.
• Locke, Levine, Searls, & Weinberger, The Cluetrain Manifesto: 95 Theses (1999)
http://www.cluetrain.com/book/95-theses.html archived at https://perma.cc/2BLT-6ZEL.
• Ethan Zuckerman, "The Internet's Original Sin," The Atlantic (August 14, 2014)
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/08/advertising-is-the-internets-origin
al-sin/376041/ archived at https://perma.cc/C7D5-754L?type=image.
• Maciej Ceglowski, "An Internet With A Human Face," Idle Words (May 2014)
http://idlewords.com/talks/internet with a human face.htm.
• Weinberger & Searls, Cluetrain Manifesto: New Clues (2015)
http://newclues.cluetrain.com/ archived at https://perma.cc/P7K9-UXXP.
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