Weaving a New 'net

Résumé du livre

"Recent developments, from the mass release of sensitive diplomatic cables by Wikileaks to the social media-fueled revolutions and protests currently gripping the Middle East and North Africa, have underscored the increasingly vital role of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in geopolitical affairs. Further, a wealth of recent research demonstrates the growing importance of digital networks in fostering cultural innovation and a vibrant public sphere, and the increasing centrality of these technologies to the daily lives of billions of individuals across the globe. Given the centrality of ICTs to these emerging changes in our social, cultural, and political landscapes, and the oft-invoked observation that "code is law," it is essential that we develop and maintain a communications infrastructure that will enable individuals and communities (especially those in danger of political repression) to participate and contribute fully and actively to the public sphere, and to communicate confidently in private. Unfortunately, today's infrastructure is not fully adequate to achieve this end. As U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton recently observed, "the internet continues to be constricted in myriad ways worldwide." While this is certainly the case in repressive political regimes from China to Iran, we face significant obstacles to "internet freedom" in America, as well. Although the internet is highly decentralized in its communication and social patterns, its technical and regulatory foundations are extremely hierarchical, due to centralized control by organizations like ICANN and oligopolistic ownership of network access. As a result of this centralization, digital communications are vulnerable to a degree of surveillance and censorship that would be unthinkable in traditional social arenas, threatening free speech and cyberliberties. Many laws and regulations exploit, rather than ameliorate this threat. Seemingly disparate factors like tiered access, intellectual property laws and national security measures, taken in combination, threaten to produce a communications environment in which cultural innovation is stifled, normative behaviors are criminalized, and political dissidence is dangerous or impossible. We believe that a new architecture is required in order to protect the continuance of civil liberties in networked society. In this article, we propose 10 "social specifications" describing the requirements of such an architecture, and outline a project called MondoNet designed to meet these specifications using ad hoc, wireless mesh networking technologies. We also address the legal and technical challenges facing the MondoNet project, and anticipate future developments in this field."--Page 2-3.