Chapter 2, Regulating and Governing the Internet
Notes for the class CSCI 2070
Textbook: Cyberethics Morality and Law in Cyberspace, 3rd Edition, Richard a. Spinello
<note: these notes contain short hand notations and topics for class lecture, they are not in the form of
grammatically correct sentences
Please refer to your textbook for additional information on these topics
In some cases, additional material was brought in to the lecture from outside sources, they are listed in
the notes.
/end note:>
- “It is the freest community in America” says Jonathan Katz, regarding the Internet
Why?
In What Context?
- One issue faced by policy makers throughout the world is whether or not to impose limitations on the
free information flow.
- Even if decisions are made to do so, how could it be implemented?
. What are some of the challenges?
. Internet is complex and Internet is global
- The Internet has little structure, some excesses, many do not want it changed
- Civil Libertarians feel Internet thrives b/c there is no central governing authority
. believe Internet should set its own political structure, set appropriate standards, handle its own
disputes
- They are slowly losing this issue
. mentions Europeans having extensive data protection policies
. international treaty on cybercrime (students should Google it)
- Author says as regulations increase, haze of legal ambiguity will steadily dissipate
. confusion along the way though
Look @ Blue Note story on pg. 28
- How will Govt’s resolve jurisdictional problems of the Internet?
.Will regulation stifle the innovative spirit of the Internet?
- Primary purpose of the chapter is to discuss the appropriate regulatory response to the social
problems of the Internet
. Can market forces handle the problems or do we need Governmental Laws?
Short History of the Internet p. 29
- Author hopes that by looking at the past we can learn about the future
- Starts in 1950’s with DODs efforts to develop a survivable communications system
- Paul Baran developed packet switching
. package labeled w/ origin and destination and passed from node to node
. Donald Davies in Europe developing this too, first to use term, packet
- ARPA – developed 1st large scale packet switching network in 1960s
. ARPA is a research agency of the DOD
- Late 60s, grants to Universities by DOD and later NSF led to ARPANET
. Architecture of ARPANET was several timesharing computers, packet switching interface message
processors (IMPs), and leased telephone lines
. AT&T provided the phone lines, IMPs
. by end of 71 basic ARPANET was up allowing connected sites to share hw processing power, sw,
and data
. users discovered a new function, email
. huge volumes of email sent, but little use of remote hw and sw.
. the notion of a tool to facilitate resource sharing became an idea of bringing people together.
- Early 80s system divided ARPANET and MILNET and users could communicate between the 2, this
connection became known as the Internet, a network of networks
- Late 80s NSFNET replaced ARPANET, and NSF network
. began to encompass many smaller networks from academic institutions and the Internet was born
. Early days the Internet was subsidized by Govt w/ no commercial activities allowed
. domain of Govt researchers, scientists, profs
. early 90s the Internet became commercial.
. by 93, 29% of hosts belonged to corporations, now most traffic is commercial
- Private telecommunication carriers manage the network backbone
- In 1983 500 host computers w/ unique IP addresses
- Over 200 million at the start of 2000
- By 2005, estimated 1 billion users, 15% of population
- growth rate between 2000-2005, 160%
- A large disparity exists between developed and developing countries
- Latin America from 30 million to 68 million users from 2000 – 2005.
- The Economist has said the Internet brings millions of people together bringing about the “death of
distance.”
The Internets current Architecture p 31
. A high level discussion of the basic architecture of the Internet
- The Internet is driven by key dedicated computers
- uses telephone network for most work
- data transferred using a protocol, TCP/IP
. Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol
. Students, be able to define protocol
. TCP/IP allows computers to talk, even w/ different OS’s
. IP establishes 4 numbers: nnn.nnn.nnn.nnn each number has a range of 0-255
Go over binary and hexadecimal numbers, do some simple conversions in class.
Q: For an IP numbers, how many bits does it take for each digit, nnn?
Q: How many bits for the entire IP address?
Q: How many bytes is that?
. Used for each system on the Internet, IP address is like a house address
.TCP facilitates communication
. data is broken into packets
. 1st part of each packet has address of where the message should go
. packets sent to destination by routers
. packets may take completely different routes
. once they arrive @ destination, they are re-assembled based on sequence #’s in each packet.
. Internet comprised of many large network service providers
. routers do much of the work on the net
. packet arrives, router looks @ IP address, checks routing table,
. if table contains network in the IP address then
Message is sent to that network
Else
Message is sent to default route (next router in the backbone)
- Internet’s characteristics
1. Openness
. consider and list all the types of things that can be done on the Internet
- email, mp3, blogs, movie/video, cameras
- What is next?
- Openness is a strength allowing users to become producers of technology
2. Asynchronous
. no need for coordination like with the old fashioned telephone network, to complete a call, someone
has to answer
3. Many to many format of communication
. Users can communicate w/ many other users
4. Distributed – no center to the Internet
. messages can take many routes to its destination
- Because it is decentralized, packet based, author says it gives users more control over the flow of
information
. More difficult to censor information
. consider security and law enforcement tracking the supposed “bad guys.”
5. Scalable –
. not directly affected by new computers being added or deleted
. talk about network speed in the past vs. how it is now
. Internet is a flexible, open, architecture
. independent of sw and hw and can accommodate new advancements in technology
. What about the use of the power grid?
. The Internet of today will not be the Internet of tomorrow b/c of flexibility
The World Wide Web p 33
. Internet really took off with development of the WWW
. A collection of multimedia documents, linked via html code
. What was the Internet before WWW?
. gopher (created spr 1991)
. underneath gopher you had telnet
. underneath gopher you also had ftp
. gopher was designed for distributing, searching, and retrieving documents over the Internet
. imposed a stronger hierarchy than web
. gopher had a text menu interface, suited for terminals (as opposed to pc’s)
. by late 90’s quit expanding
. in 93, UMinn announced it would charge licensing fees to use its implementation of the Gopher
Server
. gopher functionality incorporated in early web browsers like mosaic (a web browser for earlier
protocols like ftp, usenet, and gopher)
. www user friendliness made gopher less appealing
. gopher is still alive, a gnu product
. HTML – hyper text markup language (early 90’s)
. HTTP – hypertext transfer protocol
. a request/response standard typical of client-server computing
. web browsers are the clients; an application running on the computer hosting site acts as the server
. http is an application layer protocol for distributed, collaborative, hypermedia information systems
. it is not constrained to use TCP/IP but that is the most popular
. TCP/IP is the common name for the Internet Protocol Suite, a set of communications protocols
for the Internet
.TCP/IP is name from 2 of the most important protocols in it
. The Internet Protocol Suite, can be viewed as a set of layers
. Each layer solves a set of problems involving the transmission of data and provides a well defined
service to the layers above (upper level protocols) based on the use of the lower layers
. Upper layers are closer to users and deal w/ more abstract data
. The TCP/IP model consists of 4 layers
Lowest: Link layer – methods, protocols only operate on a hosts link
Internet layer – methods, protocols, and specs to transport datagrams/packets from host to
destination
Transport layer – methods, protocols to encapsulate application data blocks into data units
(data grams) for transmission
Application layer – methods, protocols falling into the realm of process to process
communication
. Websites 1st existed @ major universities, now seemingly everywhere
. According to the Internet Systems Consortium there were
213 active domains in 1981
1,961 in 1985
24,874 in 1987
376,000 in 1991
109,574,429 in 2001
681,064,561 in July 2009
. with so much information, how do we find what we are looking for?
Search engines
. Sometimes they are not effective
. Generally the web is an incredible information source
. Author uses the term, web has brought the democratization of information
. An information democracy provides broad access to corporate information, as opposed to an
information monarchy where only senior mgmt has access to information and information
communism where all get the same information but its not really that useful and they have to wait a
long time to get it.
. These are predictions of a next generation web that is more intelligent
. humans and machines understand
. web as a platform and as services
. intelligent data mining and predictive services
. web connected to computers, homes, appliances, mobile, and wearable devices.
Electronic Commerce p 35
e- commerce as it is now, was a dream 20 and 30 years ago
- the idea of ordering groceries online brought laughter 20 or 30 years ago but now it happens!
E-commerce
1) eliminates constraints of time and space, providing great convenience to customers, shop when you
want, if you have no car, purchases can be delivered
2) can reduce overhead and transaction costs
. one Amazon store is much less expensive to operate than a chain of physical stores
. The more digital the product, the lower the cost structure
. Consider monster.com – even better than Amazon, no physical product to warehouse
. The smaller the service req’s and the lower the logistic req’s the more scalable the company is and
the easier it can grow w/o additional costs
3) ability to customize sales and advertising to each individual consumer
- Breaking down e-business
. some companies are digital infrastructure providers IBM, Cisco, AT&T, Microsoft in that they
provide servers & physical networks that allow e-commerce to happen
. another category are businesses in the Internet Distribution Channel, focused distributors and portals
. For focused distributors there are 4 digital business models
Business to Consumer (B2C), Amazon
Business to Business (B2B), (procurement, inventory mgmt, sales service, etc)
Consumer to Business (C2B), Priceline, customers name their price
Consumer to Consumer (C2C), eBay
. Aside from distributors there are portals
- horizontal portals like Yahoo and Netscape (name some new ones!) are gateways to the Web,
they provide an initial point
- vertical portals like Quicken.com provide deep content in one area
. Some concerns with electronic commerce
. fraud, identify theft
. Where will the web go?
. From the days of academics and technology buffs
. to the more pragmatic and profit oriented
Social Problems and Social Costs p 38
Social costs: generated by those actions of business firms that have harmful effects on others
Ex) erosion of privacy
. This section discusses some of the frictions we’ve discussed on the Internet
. erosion of privacy
. various forms of outlandish speech – perverted, hateful, spam, etc.
. illegal copying of music and video files
. social costs represent failures of the market system or market imperfections
. erosion of privacy can be due to Internet transactions
. sale of personally identifiable data
. cost imposed on the individual whose data is sold
. this cost is ignored by the seller
. Spam – cost to distribute spam is minimal; the real costs are shifted to the ISPs and those who receive
the messages
. So, what should be done about these issues plaguing cyberspace: the next section goes into some
possibilities
The Invisible Hand p 39
. When dealing with a problem, like SPAM, is there need for Gov’t intervention, policies, and law, or
can the invisible hand of the marketplace solve the problem
. frequently the impersonal forces of the market can do a better job than govt regulators or other vested
interests
. often govt’s regulatory agencies do not understand the agencies they are trying to regulate
In class we discussed policy vacuums where technology moves faster than laws, policies, and
guidelines, they cannot keep up.
. There can also be problems when the regulators and those being regulated develop and alliance, these
are not good for the public
. What about the problem of privacy erosion in cyberspace?
. Will market pressures force vendors to respect privacy rights at a sufficient level for consumers?
. Will market based solutions work?
. Often the marketplace has been inadequate to resolve these types of social problems
. the market is reactive and the invisible hand will threaten liberty and openness
. So, one view is that the marketplace is an important constraint on behavior but it should not take
priority over other regulatory forces such as law, norms, code.
Regulating the Net: The Visible Hand: p 40
What are 2 ways we can regulate cyberspace?
1) market
2) policy constraints, law by Govt
. We have discussed problems in regulating the Internet, they are revisited in this section again, make
sure you are familiar with them
. 3 are listed in this section, be familiar with them
1) distributed architecture & packet switching technology
2) Internet’s content is digital information, a digital file can be difficult to contain
3) Govt’s that try to control or regulate face jurisdictional issues
. most laws are based on territorial application
. Local sovereignties do attempt to regulate the net
. France’s efforts to keep Yahoo from allowing Nazi memorabilia to be sold on its auction sites even
if the server is in the U.S. ( a case study at the end of the chapter)
. Govt’s might also regulate e-commerce by specifying certain privacy or data protection standards
. All sovereignties have to make decisions regarding the scope of Internet regulations
. should they develop regulations to protect the infrastructure or focus on content controls?
. Once decided, do they need to develop new laws or are current laws adequate.
. Read the underlined section on pg. 41, (next to last paragraph regarding copyright laws) are their
similarities to the Law of the Horse?
. Some countries are more aggressive on Internet regulations, textbook mentions China.
. Section concludes w/ brief discussion to harmonize laws pertaining to Internet WIPO Copyright
Treaty (how copyright laws are applied to digital works)
A Bottom up Approach: The Sovereignty of Code p 42
b/c of strong encryption pgms the state has a more difficult time conducting surveillance on
confidential electronic communications
. filtering pgms give user ability to limit or format info they receive
. anonymity on the net also makes it more difficult to hold individuals accountable
. The bottom up approach is not a cure all but may help to regulate conduct and address other problems
. bottom up constraints also avoid costly gov’t infrastructure that accompanies govt’ regulatory policies
(why? / how?)
. note thought that some technical solutions implemented via bottom up constraints can be more
restrictive than those of the state
. book presents a filtering pgm as an example that blocks more than all might want blocked
. can allow those in position of authority to impose their standards on others
. Civil Libertarians noticed these can restrict free flow of information more effectively than
government imposed censorship.
Read last paragraph of section on top of page 44 and discuss in class.
Internet Governance p 44
. there may be a disagreement over how the Internet should be regulated
. there is no debate that there is need for some type of governance and technical coordination
. there is a need for governing bodies to handle ordinary and routine technical matters
Ex) technical standards and mgmt of domain names and IP addresses
. Clarification: when author says governance, here, he means these matters as opposed to regulating the
net
. 2 main policy groups provide governance
. WWW consortium – Intl standards setting body
. Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), develops technical standards like communications protocols
. DNS (Domain Name System) also needs coordination
- maps names of organizations 2 actual numeric IP addresses
- DNS is a hierarchical system divided into separate domains
- Ex) www.armstrong.edu
- DNS server first locates the server for edu which is the top level domain (TLD)
- It then finds server for Armstrong, the 2nd level domain
- Until the web page is found and sent to the client
. This is now administered by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN)
and Intl, non-profit organization
. ICANN determines policies for Domain Name Distribution
- Verisign distributes the names as one of the official registrars
- ICANN also has final say for selecting firms that qualify as registrars
. There were 6 original TLD’s (according to text), the ICANN site lists 8
.com, .net, .edu, .gov, .mil, .org, (.arpa and .int are the other two listed on the ICANN site)
. Why do we have them? To impose order on the net
. In the last few years, new ones have been added .biz, .pro and the ICANN site lists more
. There have been two previous application rounds for new gTLDs (generic top level domains)
In 2000, .aero, .biz, .coop, .info, .museum, .name, and .pro
In 2004 .asia, .cat, .jobs, .mobi, .tel, .travel
. There are around 250 two letter country code TLDs (called ccTLDs)
2008 ended with a total base of 177 million domain name registrations across all of the top-level
domains
(the ICANN web site was discussed in class)
Why were the other gTLDs created? Overusage of the .com and .org domains
Cybersquatting – registering, trafficking in, or using a domain name w/ bad-faith intent to profit from
the goodwill of a trademark belonging to someone else
. In Oct 1999, ICANN established the Uniform Dispute Resolution Policy to adjudicate cybersquatting
and domain name disputes and protecting trademarks
. ICANN is governed by a board of 18 members, 9 elected at-large membership
. Critics complain that it is an Intl body dominated by Americans.
Internet Regulation and Ethics p 46
1) Regarding the state, it is powerful, it will seek to recover its lost dominance
. The state could mandate regulability by exercising its control over code
. What were Lessig’s 4 influences? Cultural norms, market, laws, and code/architecture
2) We don’t know now which regulatory practices will prevail
. we will have a mixture of bottom- up and top-down
. how expansive will gov’t regulation go?
. if it is to expand it will have two hurdles
. how to apply its territorially based laws to a global entity
. contending w/ code that has empowered the individual
. Code is a powerful regulator for individual or state b/c of its malleability and obscurity
. It has a flexible ability to regulate or shape behavior gradually and inconspicuously
. it does not always constrain or influence behavior openly & directly
. This contrasts w/ law – the process of crafting law is very public and has significant public
scrutiny (well usually)
So, ethics becomes important – author does not advocate for top down or bottom up but in
whatever approach becomes dominant their must be careful attention to basic human values of
autonomy, privacy, and security
. What is primary and most important is the preservation in cyberspace of human goods and moral
values that are basic to the realization of human flourishing
The next chapter will discuss what constitutes responsible approaches to cyberspace regulation
Look at the Yahoo Case Study at the end of chapter 2 and also hand out a recent article about a
similar matter between Italy and Google.