Controlling Cyberspace

Reports on a new generation of Internet controls that establish a new normative terrain in which surveillance and censorship are routine. Internet filtering, censorship of Web content, and online surveillance are increasing in scale, scope, and sophistication around the world, in democratic countries as well as in authoritarian states. The first generation of Internet controls consisted largely of building firewalls at key Internet gateways; China's famous “Great Firewall of China” is one of the first national Internet filtering systems. Today the new tools for Internet controls that are emerging go beyond mere denial of information. These new techniques, which aim to normalize (or even legalize) Internet control, include targeted viruses and the strategically timed deployment of distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks, surveillance at key points of the Internet's infrastructure, take-down notices, stringent terms of usage policies, and national information shaping strategies. Access Controlled reports on this new normative terrain. The book, a project from the OpenNet Initiative (ONI), a collaboration of the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto's Munk Centre for International Studies, Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet and Society, and the SecDev Group, offers six substantial chapters that analyze Internet control in both Western and Eastern Europe and a section of shorter regional reports and country profiles drawn from material gathered by the ONI around the world through a combination of technical interrogation and field research methods.

Informed by theories of international relations, this book assesses global political conflicts over cyberspace. It also analyzes the unique governance challenges that the Internet presents, both in terms of technical problems and control over content. The internet is a resource of unparalleled importance to all countries and societies, but the current decentralized system of Internet governance is being challenged by governments that seek to assert sovereign control over the technology. The political battles over governing the Internet-ones that are coming and conflicts that have already started-have far-reaching implications. This book analyzes the shifting nature of internet governance as it affects timely and significant issues including internet freedom, privacy, and security, as well as individual and corporate rights. Controlling Cyberspace covers a broad range of issues related to internet governance, presenting a technical description of how the internet works, an overview of the internet governance ecosystem from its earliest days to the present, an examination of the roles of the United Nations and other international and regional organizations in internet governance, and a discussion of internet governance in relation to specific national and international policies and debates. Readers will consider if internet access is a human right and if the right to freedom of expression applies equally to the exchange of information online. The book also addresses how the digital divide between those in developed countries and the approximately 5 billion people who do not have access to the internet affects the issue of internet governance, and it identifies the challenges involved in protecting online privacy in light of government and corporate control of information.

This volume unites cyber and mainstream regulatory theory. Using the scientific techniques of chaos and synchronicity it explains how regulatory design functions, and offers a model for the design of effective regulation.

Informed by theories of international relations, this book assesses global political conflicts over cyberspace. It also analyzes the unique governance challenges that the Internet presents, both in terms of technical problems and control over content. The internet is a resource of unparalleled importance to all countries and societies, but the current decentralized system of Internet governance is being challenged by governments that seek to assert sovereign control over the technology. The political battles over governing the Internet-ones that are coming and conflicts that have already started-have far-reaching implications. This book analyzes the shifting nature of internet governance as it affects timely and significant issues including internet freedom, privacy, and security, as well as individual and corporate rights. Controlling Cyberspace covers a broad range of issues related to internet governance, presenting a technical description of how the internet works, an overview of the internet governance ecosystem from its earliest days to the present, an examination of the roles of the United Nations and other international and regional organizations in internet governance, and a discussion of internet governance in relation to specific national and international policies and debates. Readers will consider if internet access is a human right and if the right to freedom of expression applies equally to the exchange of information online. The book also addresses how the digital divide between those in developed countries and the approximately 5 billion people who do not have access to the internet affects the issue of internet governance, and it identifies the challenges involved in protecting online privacy in light of government and corporate control of information.

An examination of current and emerging issues in cyberlaw. This book provides a framework for thinking about the law and cyberspace, examining the extent to which the Internet is currently under control and the extent to which it can or should be controlled. It focuses in part on the proliferation of MP3 file sharing, a practice made possible by the development of a file format that enables users to store large audio files with near-CD sound quality on a computer. By 1998, software available for free on the Web enabled users to copy existing digital files from CDs. Later technologies such as Napster and Gnutella allowed users to exchange MP3 files in cyberspace without having to post anything online. This ability of online users to download free music caused an uproar among music executives and many musicians, as well as a range of much-discussed legal action. Regulation strategies identified and discussed include legislation, policy changes, administrative agency activity, international cooperation, architectural changes, private ordering, and self-regulation. The book also applies major regulatory models to some of the most volatile Internet issues, including cyber-security, consumer fraud, free speech rights, intellectual property rights, and file-sharing programs.

Is the Internet erasing national borders? Will the future of the Net be set by Internet engineers, rogue programmers, the United Nations, or powerful countries? Who's really in control of what's happening on the Net? In this provocative new book, Jack Goldsmith and Tim Wu tell the fascinating story of the Internet's challenge to governmental rule in the 1990s, and the ensuing battles with governments around the world. It's a book about the fate of one idea--that the Internet might liberate us forever from government, borders, and even our physical selves. We learn of Google's struggles with the French government and Yahoo's capitulation to the Chinese regime; of how the European Union sets privacy standards on the Net for the entire world; and of eBay's struggles with fraud and how it slowly learned to trust the FBI. In a decade of events the original vision is uprooted, as governments time and time again assert their power to direct the future of the Internet. The destiny of the Internet over the next decades, argue Goldsmith and Wu, will reflect the interests of powerful nations and the conflicts within and between them. While acknowledging the many attractions of the earliest visions of the Internet, the authors describe the new order, and speaking to both its surprising virtues and unavoidable vices. Far from destroying the Internet, the experience of the last decade has lead to a quiet rediscovery of some of the oldest functions and justifications for territorial government. While territorial governments have unavoidable problems, it has proven hard to replace what legitimacy governments have, and harder yet to replace the system of rule of law that controls the unchecked evils of anarchy. While the Net will change some of the ways that territorial states govern, it will not diminish the oldest and most fundamental roles of government and challenges of governance. Well written and filled with fascinating examples, including colorful portraits of many key players in Internet history, this is a work that is bound to stir heated debate in the cyberspace community.

There's a common belief that cyberspace cannot be regulated-that it is, in its very essence, immune from the government's (or anyone else's) control. Code, first published in 2000, argues that this belief is wrong. It is not in the nature of cyberspace to be unregulable; cyberspace has no "nature." It only has code-the software and hardware that make cyberspace what it is. That code can create a place of freedom-as the original architecture of the Net did-or a place of oppressive control. Under the influence of commerce, cyberspace is becoming a highly regulable space, where behavior is much more tightly controlled than in real space. But that's not inevitable either. We can-we must-choose what kind of cyberspace we want and what freedoms we will guarantee. These choices are all about architecture: about what kind of code will govern cyberspace, and who will control it. In this realm, code is the most significant form of law, and it is up to lawyers, policymakers, and especially citizens to decide what values that code embodies. Since its original publication, this seminal book has earned the status of a minor classic. This second edition, or Version 2.0, has been prepared through the author's wiki, a web site that allows readers to edit the text, making this the first reader-edited revision of a popular book.

Issues of surveillance, control and privacy in relation to the internet are coming to the fore as a result of state concern with security, crime and economic advantage. Through an exploration of emerging debates regarding the possible desirability, form and agencies responsible for the regulation of the internet and an analysis of issues of surveillance, control, rights and privacy, The Governance of Cyberspace develops contemporary theories and considers issues of access, equity and economic advancement. The Governance of Cyberspace encourages a more informed discussion about the nature of the changes which the new information and communications technologies (ICTs) are heralding in and will be of considerable interest to all those who are concerned about the technological shaping of our political future.