Jonathan L. Zittrain

Law and technology The end of the generative internet

Exploring the expectations and implications for version 2.0 of the Nets new gated communities.

Internet filtering in China

We collected data on the methods, scope, and depth of selective barriers to Internet usage through networks in China. Tests conducted from May through November 2002 indicated at least four distinct and independently operable Internet filtering methods - Web server IP address, DNS server IP address, keyword, and DNS redirection with a quantifiable leap in filtering sophistication beginning in September 2002.

Evaluating the Costs and Benefits of Taxing Internet Commerce

Current tax law makes it difficult to enforce sales taxes on most Internet commerce and has generated considerable policy debate. In this paper we analyze the costs and benefits of enforcing such taxes including revenue losses, competition with retail, externalities, distribution, and compliance costs. The results suggest that the costs of not enforcing taxes are somewhat modest and will remain so for several years. At the same time, compliance costs and the benefits of nurturing the Internet diminish over time. When tax costs and benefits take this form, a moratorium provides a natural compromise.

Ubiquitous human computing

Ubiquitous computing means network connectivity everywhere, linking devices and systems as small as a drawing pin and as large as a worldwide product distribution chain. What could happen when people are so readily networked? This paper explores issues arising from two possible emerging models of ubiquitous human computing: fungible networked brainpower and collective personal vital sign monitoring.

The science of fake news

Addressing fake news requires a multidisciplinary effort The rise of fake news highlights the erosion of long-standing institutional bulwarks against misinformation in the internet age. Concern over the problem is global. However, much remains unknown regarding the vulnerabilities of individuals, institutions, and society to manipulations by malicious actors. A new system of safeguards is needed. Below, we discuss extant social and computer science research regarding belief in fake news and the mechanisms by which it spreads. Fake news has a long history, but we focus on unanswered scientific questions raised by the proliferation of its most recent, politically oriented incarnation. Beyond selected references in the text, suggested further reading can be found in the supplementary materials.

Better Data for a Better Internet

Debates about Internet policy lack, or ignore, good data upon which to make policy decisions. When people took to the streets across the UK in the summer of 2011, the Prime Minister suggested restricting access to digital and social media in order to limit their use in organizing. The resulting debate complemented speculation on the effects of social media in the Arab Spring and the widespread critique of President Mubaraks decision to shut off the Internet and mobile phone systems completely in Egypt (see the photo).

Reflections on Internet Culture

In these edited remarks originally given at ROFLCon in May 2012, Jonathan Zittrain muses on the nature of memes and their relationships to their creators as well as to broader culture and to politics. The distributed environment of the internet allows memes to morph and become distanced from their original intentions. As meme culture becomes more and more assimilated into popular culture, subcultures like those of Reddit or 4chan have begun to re-conceptualize their own role from just meme propagators to cultural producers. Memes can gain commercial appeal, much to the chagrin of their creators. More strangely, memes can gain political traction and affiliation, like American conservative commentator Bill O’Reilly’s ‘You can‘t explain that’ or Anonymous’ ‘Low Orbit Ion Cannon’. Can meme culture survive becoming not just the property of geeks and nerds, but part of the commercial and political world?

Will the Web Break

What is the Web? What makes it work? And is it dying? This paper is drawn from a talk delivered by Prof. Zittrain to the Royal Society Discussion Meeting ‘Web science: a new frontier’ in September 2010. It covers key questions about the way the Web works, and how an understanding of its past can help those theorizing about the future. The original Web allowed users to display and send information from their individual computers, and organized the resources of the Internet with uniform resource locators. In the 20 years since then, the Web has evolved. These new challenges require a return to the spirit of the early Web, exploiting the power of the Web’s users and its distributed nature to overcome the commercial and geopolitical forces at play. The future of the Web rests in projects that preserve its spirit, and in the Web science that helps make them possible.

The End of Crypto

This talk will reflect on the core purposes of cryptology, and the extent to which those purposes are served --- and servable --- in todays digital environment.

“Netwar”: The unwelcome militarization of the Internet has arrived

ABSTRACT The architecture and offerings of the Internet developed without much steering by governments, much less operations by militaries. That made talk of “cyberwar” exaggerated, except in very limited instances. Today that is no longer true: States and their militaries see the value not only of controlling networks for surveillance or to deny access to adversaries, but also of subtle propaganda campaigns launched through a small number of wildly popular worldwide platforms such as Facebook and Twitter. This form of hybrid conflict – launched by states without state insignia, on privately built and publicly used services – offers a genuine challenge to those who steward the network and the private companies whose platforms are targeted. While interventions by one state may be tempered by defense by another state, there remain novel problems to solve when what users see and learn online is framed as organic and user-generated but in fact it is not.