Chapter 2Regulating and Governing the Internet

Governing Cyberspace*Jonathan Katz it is the freest community in AmericaHow should it be governed or regulated?Debates over pornographySelling illegal drugsWeb sites advocating illicit activitiesMany users want tighter, centralized controlsSome (libertarians) says the internet thrives because there is no central governing authority

Brief History of the Internet*Late 1950s US Department of Defense was concerned about need for survivable communications system1961 Paul Baran developed packet switching (break message into fixed size packages labeled with source and destination address then passed from node to node in network)1971 Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) gave grants to universities and corporations to establish communications network

Brief History continued*Electronic Mail soon became another functionEarly 80s subdivided into ARPANET and Milnet; interaction between the 2 became known as the InternetLate 80s National Science Foundation linked research universities and government researchers using NSFNET (replaced ARPANET)

Brief History continued*Early 90s the Internet became available to corporate users and e-mail providersIn 1993 had 29% of Internet usage being corporate usersCommercial use is now the majorityUsers of Internet1983 5002000 200 million2005 1 billion (approx. 15% of world population)2009 1.7 billion (approx. 25%)Africa still lags behind rest of world in usage of internet

Internets Architecture*Uses existing telephone networkTCP/IP allows computers to communicate with each otherIP establishes the unique numeric addressExplain nnn.nnn.nnn.nnn (0-255)TCP enables communications, breaks data into packetsRouters use IP address to determine how to send the packet and to where

What Routers Do*When packet arrives at router, the router looks at IP address to see if knows where to send it by looking at its routing tableIf it exists in the table it knows where to send itIf not, it sends it along a default path to the next router in the backbone hierarchy

Important Characteristics of the Internet*Openness main strength, users become producers of technologyAsynchronous no need for coordination between sender and receiverPermits many-to-many format of coordinationDistributed format where data can take many routes to it destinationBecause it is a decentralized packet-based network it is difficult to censor5. Highly scalable not directly affected when new computer links are added/deleted.

World Wide Web*Contributed to Internets popularityCollection of multimedia documents that can be easily accessedHTML and use of tags to create documentsLast 3 letters represent top level identification (.com .edu .gov)Hyperlinks link to other documentsServers store documents, video, music, etcVast tangled networkSearch engines help locate information

Electronic Commerce*Trade that occurs on the InternetBenefitsBrowse and shop anytimeLow-cost/overhead for the businessAbility to advertize to each individual customer4 digital business modelsB2C - AmazonC2B - PricelineB2B ecommerce between 2 businessesC2C - eBay

*Portal gateways to web, contains information like weather, stocks, news, sports, and links to many places

Social Networking*Web has new faade thanks to social networking sites such as:MySpaceFacebookLinkedInTwitterUsers create their own personal space sharing personal data and allow friends and family to follow their life via postings

Social Networking*MySpaceBegan in 2004Based on features of predecessor called FriendsterPioneer in social networkingMost popular social network in US Averages over 70 million unique visitors per month in 2009

Social Networking*FacebookBegan in 2004Began an a social network exclusively for Harvard studentsExpanded to include all college and now anyone with an e-mail addressMost formidable competitor to MySpaceFastest growing demographic -users older than 30Most popular social network worldwideAverages over 275 million unique visitors per month in 2009

Social Networking*LinkedInBegan in 2002Social network for careers and colleagues TwitterQuickly becoming social phenomenonPost short text messages known as tweetsRead by anyone who subscribes to a persons twittering serviceOver 105 million registered users (April 2010)New users are signing up about 300,000 per day180 million unique visitors per month

Social NetworkingFacebook and MySpace allow marketers to purchase targeted ads based on data shared by usersAdvertisements on Facebook pageLiving locationFavorite Football TeamYear graduated*

Social Networking*Same factors that make social networking sites popular also make them difficult to controlChallenge to guard against illegal activitiesSextingDissemination of child pornographyProtect users from online predatorsCyberbullyingCommunications Decency Act gives online service providers fairly broad immunity from defamation and other offenses perpetrated by users

Social Problems and CostsE-commerce vendors and consumers are victimized by fraud and attacks by hackersLessig doesnt think law, the market, code, or social norms can fix these problemsSpam uses resourcesSale of personally identifiable data to a third party

Regulating*Spam who/what can stop itThe marketplaceGovernmentBottom-up approach shifting control from the state to the individual to filterLessig fears that a school or workplace will use their standards on unsuspecting usersThe question: Should control of the Internet be in the hands of private parties or should it be a top-down approach?

Internet Governance*Must be bodies that maintain technical standards, domain names, and IP addresses2 main policy groupsWorld Wide Web Consortium - international standards setting body Internet Engineering Task Force develops technical standards such as protocolsICANN governs Domain Name System

Domain NamesDomain names introduced to maintain some order (6 originally).com.net.org.edu.gov.milICANN recently created several new ones.aero.coop.biz.name.infopro*Cybersquatting issues are covered in Chapter 4

Internet Regulation and Ethics*Can we trust the Internet to regulate itself?Who maintains the level playing field?Countries?Do we use:LawsCodeThe marketplaceNorms

Can market forces handle these forces or is government intervention essential?How underlying technologies change our ability to establish and enforce policy?**Main function of ARPANET was resource sharing,enabling connected sites to share hardware processing power,software and data.***Internets physical infrastructure is composed of many large interconnected networks that are known as NSPs(Backbone providers)**Was developed at the European Particle Physics Lab as a means of exchanging data about high-energy physics among physicists**************