Innovation Reading Circle
> Innovation Agenda
> Overview
The Innovation Reading Circle aims to help develop theory around innovation through rich, high-level and well-informed public discussion around key and related texts and discourses... [Read on in Objectives]
> Event
16: The Dangers of openness
> Titles
The Future of the Internet and How To Stop It by Jonathan Zittrain (Allen Lane, 2008) [352pp] [Order from Amazon.co.uk] [Book site]
In The Future of the Internet: And How to Stop It Jonathan Zittrain explores the dangers society faces if it fails to balance the ever tighter control of technologies with the flow of innovation that has built what he believes has been the foundation for much progress in the field of technology. Zittrain argues that today’s technological market is dominated by two contrasting business models: the generative and the non-generative. The generative models – characterised by the personal computer architecture, Windows and MacOS – allow third parties to build upon and share through them. The non-generative model is more restricted; appliances such as the Xbox, iPhone and TomTom might work well, but the vendor is the only entity that can change the way they operate – and their central control enables surveillance and the creates the potential for services to be shut down. Zittrain argues that the unwitting help of its users the very nature of the Internet – its ‘generativity’ – is at risk, but believes that salvation lies in the hands of its millions of users collaborating to establish a culture of ‘netizens’.
Professor Jonathan Zittrain is a ‘cyber-law scholar’. He holds the Chair in Internet Governance and Regulation at Oxford University and is also the Jack N. & Lillian R. Berkman Visiting Professor for Entrepreneurial Legal Studies at Harvard Law School’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society. His recent research includes the study of Internet filtering by national governments, the role of intermediaries as points of control in internet architecture, and the taxation of internet commerce. [Read on on the book Weblog... Read on on his Berkman Center staff page and his Oxford Internet Institute staff page...]
Related titles
The Future of Ideas by Lawrence Lessig (Random House USA, 2003)
The Regulation of Cyberspace: Control in the Online Environment by Andrew Murray (Routledge Cavendish, 2006)
> Took place
17 July 2008
> At
One Alfred Place, London WC1E 7EB
Map on One Alfred Place site
> Notices
We are grateful to One Alfred Place for hosting this event.
Rishi Dastidar, who gave the introduction, has posted his introduction and reflections on the book on his Being Beta Weblog.
Points for discussion
Some of the questions discussed include:
- Is generativity a key model for future innovation?
- Does Zittrain over-state the dangers of ‘closed’ platforms in general, and the threat to the future of the Internet in particular?
- How restricted is innovation within ‘closed’ platforms such as the iPhone?
- To what extent are the problems the author describes ones that can be addressed within the context of behaviour on the network?
Background reading, listening and viewing
Special report: Are we losing the virus wars? Jonathan Zittrain, Prospect, June 2008, Issue 147. “Our open technologies are now routinely subverted. One common type of ‘malware’ compromises PCs to create ‘botnets’ – networks of infected machines open to future instructions by the malware’s creator.”
Making the case for chaos, Becky Hogge, New Statesman, 19 June 2008. When the cyberlaw expert Jonathan Zittrain published his paper ‘The Generative Internet’ in the Harvard Law Review in 2006, he unknowingly borrowed [Naom] Chomsky’s terminology.”
Jonathan Zittrain on why the internet is on a knife edge, Nick Heath, silicon.com, 30 June 2008
Are gadgets killing the internet? Oliver Burkeman, Guardian, May 1, 2008. ‘Tethered appliances’ are stifling the innovation that led to the rise of the world wide web, argues academic and author Jonathan Zittrain.
Stark warning for internet's future, Darren Waters, BBC News, 24 April 2008
FTC wants to hit the spyware guys where it hurts, The Register, 13th June 2008. On the StopBadware initiative.
April 24, 2008: Book launch: The Future of the Internet: And How to Stop It (RSA, London) [video]
Talk at the Web 2.0 Expo SF 2008, 25/05/2008
10/22/2008: Talk at the Stanford Center for Internet and Society: The Future of the Internet – And How to Stop It
Victim of its own success, Today, BBC Radio 4, 17 June 2008. Related interview Is the internet facing meltdown? [audio].
Interview on Pods and Blogs, BBC Radio Five Live, 28 May 08
List of related material on the Oxford Internet Institute press page. List of Jonathan Zittrain’s Presentations (no links included). Other shared bookmarks for Innovation Reading Circle 16 may be added. Search del.icio.us for "zittrain".
Reviews
Review by Tom Standage, The Sunday Times, April 27, 2008
The problem with the net: it’s you, reader, review by Julian Dibbell, Telegraph, 24/05/2008
Net libertarianism, review by Carlin Romano, The Times Literary Supplement, May 21, 2008
Interviews
Jonathan Zittrain on The Colbert Report, Comedy Central, Jun 17 2008
If you have queries about the event please email Nico Macdonald