What We’re Reading

An Interesting Interview and Some Economic Nonsense

by on November 28, 2008 · 8 comments

Via Jeff Jonas, who oh-so-carefully assessed the treatment he received in Stephen Baker’s book The Numerati, I came across this NPR interview with Baker.

In the latter part of the interview, Baker discusses pretty accurately Jonas’ dissent from the passion for predictive data mining in the national security world. That dissent was given expression in the paper Jeff and I wrote, “Effective Counterterrorism and the Limited Role of Predictive Data Mining.”

The data intelligentsia are an interesting subject for a book, of course – it looks The Numerati may have a lot of similarities to Robert O’Harrow’s No Place to Hide – and the NPR interview is interesting. But what makes it notable is Baker’s economic literacy. Or, more accurately, his lack of economic literacy.

Now, I’m not an economist either, so I’ll stand for correction in the comments (actual economists preferred, not just people with strong opinions, please).

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Book Review: Blown to Bits by Abelson, Ledeen, & Lewis

by on November 18, 2008 · 20 comments

Blown to Bits coverI’ve just finished reading Blown to Bits: Your Life, Liberty, and Happiness After the Digital Explosion, by Hal Abelson, Ken Ledeen, and Harry Lewis, and it’s another title worth adding to your tech policy reading list. The authors survey a broad swath of tech policy territory — privacy, search, encryption, free speech, copyright, spectrum policy — and provide the reader with a wonderful history and technology primer on each topic.

I like the approach and tone they use throughout the book. It is certainly something more than “Internet Policy for Dummies.” It’s more like “Internet Policy for the Educated Layman”: a nice mix of background, policy, and advice. I think Ray Lodato’s Slashdot review gets it generally right in noting that, “Each chapter will alternatively interest you and leave you appalled (and perhaps a little frightened). You will be given the insight to protect yourself a little better, and it provides background for intelligent discussions about the legalities that impact our use of technology.”

Abelson, Ledeen, and Lewis aren’t really seeking to be polemical in this book by advancing a single thesis or worldview. To the extent the book’s chapters are guided by any central theme, it comes in the form of the “two basic morals about technology” they outline in Chapter 1:

The first is that information technology is inherently neither good nor bad — it can be used for good or ill, to free us or to shackle us. Second, new technology brings social change, and change comes with both risks and opportunities. All of us, and all of our public agencies and private institutions, have a say in whether technology will be used for good or ill and whether we will fall prey to its risks or prosper from the opportunities it creates. (p. 14)

Mostly, what they aim to show is that digital technology is reshaping society and, whether we like or it not, we better get used to it — and quick!  “The digital explosion is changing the world as much as printing once did — and some of the changes are catching us unaware, blowing to bits our assumptions about the way the world works… The explosion, and the social disruption that it will create, have barely begun.” (p 3)

In that sense, most chapters discuss how technology and technological change can be both a blessing and a curse, but the authors are generally more optimistic than pessimistic about the impact of the Net and digital technology on our society. What follows is a quick summary of some of the major issues covered in Blown to Bits.

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Of iPhone Flutes, Digital Generativity, and Bongs

by on November 14, 2008 · 9 comments

During my recent debate with Jonathan Zittrain about his book The Future of the Internet, I argued that there was just no way to bottle up digital generativity and that he had little to fear in terms of the future of the Net or digital devices being “sterile, tethered,” and closed. I noted that the iPhone — which Jonathan paints as the villain in his drama — is the perfect example of how people will make a device more generative even when the manufacturers didn’t originally plan for it or allow it. I went so far as to joke that there were countless ways to hack your iPhone now, so much so that I wouldn’t be surprised if one day soon our iPhones would be taking out the trash and mowing our lawns!

Well, I was engaging in a bit of hyperbole there, but I am consistently amazed by what people can make their digital devices do. Witness the fact that some enterprising soul has found a way to turn the iPhone into a flute! Better yet, they have trained a group to play “Stairway to Heaven” using that application!! It’s enough to make one wonder: How long before someone converts the iPhone into a bong?

[Uttered to JZ in my best stoner voice…] “Seriously, dude, generativity is alive and well. Now chill, and pass the iBong.”

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Rosenbaum-Jarvis spat over future of journalism

by on November 13, 2008 · 17 comments

This catfight between Ron Rosenbaum of Slate and Jeff Jarvis of Buzz Machine about the future of journalism in the Internet Age is quite a heated affair. But what I found most interesting about it is that it reflects one element of the Net “optimist — pessimist” divide that I have been writing about here recently. Specifically, it touches on the divide over whether the Internet and digital technologies are reshaping the media marketplace and the field of journalism for better or for worse.

Rosenbaum is playing the pessimist role here and asking some sharp questions about the advice being dished out by “Web futurists” and “new-media gurus” as it relates the reversing the decline of the journalism profession. Rosenbaum says that the problem with Jarvis is that:

he’s become increasingly heartless about the reporters, writers, and other “content providers” who have been put out on the street by the changes in the industry. Not only does he blame the victims, he denies them the right to consider themselves victims. They deserve their miserable fate — and if they don’t know it, he’ll tell them why at great length. Sometimes it sounds as if he’s virtually dancing on their graves.

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Tim Lee on Net Neut: “The Durable Internet”

by on November 12, 2008 · 13 comments

Tim Lee’s long anticipated Cato Institute Policy Analysis has been released today.

The Durable Internet: Preserving Network Neutrality without Regulation is a must-read for people on both sides of the debate over network neutrality regulation.

What I like best about this paper is how Tim avoids joining one “team” or another. He evenly gives each side its due – each side is right about some things, after all – and calls out the specific instances where he thinks each is wrong.

Tim makes the case for treating the “end-to-end principle” as an important part of the Internet’s fundamental design. Tim disagrees with the people who argue for a network with “smarter” innards and believes that neutrality advocates seek the best engineering for the network. But they are wrong to believe that the network is fragile or susceptible to control. The Internet’s end-to-end architecture is durable, despite examples where it is not an absolute.

Tim has history lessons for those who believe that regulatory control of network management will have salutary effects. Time and time again, regulatory agencies have fallen into service of the industries they regulate.

“In 1970,” Tim tells us, “a report released by a Ralph Nader group described the [Interstate Commerce Commission] as ‘primarily a forum at which transportation interests divide up the national transportation market.'” Such is the likely fate of the Internet were management of it given to regulators at the FCC and their lobbyist friends at Verizon, AT&T, Comcast, and so on.

This paper has something for everyone, and will be a reference work as the network neutrality discussion continues. Highly recommended: The Durable Internet: Preserving Network Neutrality without Regulation.

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The Pragmatic (Internet) Optimist’s Creed

by on November 11, 2008 · 616 comments

A few months ago, I penned a mega book review about the growing divide between “Internet optimists and pessimists.” I noted that the Internet optimists — people like Chris Anderson, Clay Shirky, Yochai Benkler, Kevin Kelly, and others — believe that the Internet is generally improving our culture, economy, and society for the better. They believe the Net has empowered and liberated the masses, sparked unparalleled human creativity and communication, provided greater personalization and customization of media content, and created greater diversity of thought and a more deliberative democracy. By contrast, the Internet pessimists — including Nick Carr, Andrew Keen, Lee Siegel, and others — argue that the Internet is destroying popular culture and professional media, calling “truth” and “authority” into question by over-glamorizing amateurism and user-generated content, and that increased personalization is damaging deliberative democracy by leading to homogenization, close-mindedness, and an online echo-chamber. Needless to say, it’s a very heated debate!

I am currently working on a greatly expanded version of my “Net optimists vs. pessimists” essay for a magazine in which I will draw out more of these distinctions and weigh the arguments made by those in both camps. I plan on concluding that article by arguing that the optimists generally have the better of the argument, but that the pessimists make some fair points about the downsides of the Net’s radically disintermediating role on culture and economy.

So, this got me thinking that I needed to come up with some sort of a label for my middle-of-the-road position as well as a statement of my personal beliefs. As far as labels go, I guess I would call myself a “pragmatic optimist” since I generally side with the optimists in most of these debates, but not without some occasional reservations. Specifically, I don’t always subscribe to the Pollyanna-ish, rose-colored view of the world that some optimists seem to adopt. But the outright Chicken Little-like Ludditism of some Internet pessimists is even more over-the-top at times. Anyway, what follows is my “Pragmatic (Internet) Optimist’s Creed” which better explains my views. (Again, read my old essay first for some context about the relevant battle lines in this intellectual war).

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“The Age of Entanglement”

by on November 11, 2008 · 4 comments

My friend Louisa Gilder’s brand new book The Age of Entanglement: When Quantum Physics Was Reborn arrived in the mail from Amazon today.

Matt Ridley, author of Genome, says:

Louisa Gilder disentangles the story of entanglement with such narrative panache, such poetic verve, and such metaphysical precision that for a moment I almost thought I understood quantum mechanics.

The cover art alone is spectacular. Can’t wait to crack it open tonight.

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Book Review: Solove’s Understanding Privacy

by on November 8, 2008 · 24 comments

Solove Understanding Privacy book coverWith the publication of Understanding Privacy (Harvard University Press 2008), George Washington University Law School professor Daniel J. Solove has firmly established himself as one of America’s leading intellectuals in the field of information policy and cyberlaw.  Solove had already made himself a force to be reckoned with in this field with the publication of important books like The Future of Reputation: Gossip, Rumor, and Privacy on the Internet (Yale University Press 2007), The Digital Person: Technology and Privacy in the Information Age (NYU Press 2004) and his treatise on Information Privacy Law with Paul M. Schwartz of the Berkeley School of Law (Aspen Publishing, 2d ed. 2006).  But with Understanding Privacy, Solove has now elevated himself to that rarefied air of “people worth watching” in the cyberlaw field; an intellectual — like Lawrence Lessig or Jonathan Zittrain — whose every publication becomes something of an event in the field to which all eyes turn upon release.

Like those other intellectuals, however, my respect for their stature should not be confused with agreement with their positions.  In fact, my disagreements with Lessig and Zittrain are frequently on display here and, we have been critical of Solove here in the past as well. [Here’s Jim Harper’s review of Solove’s last book, with which I am in wholehearted agreement.]  In a similar vein, although I greatly appreciate what Prof. Solove attempts to accomplish in Understanding Privacy — and I am sure it will change the way we conceptualize and debate privacy policy in the future — I found his approach and conclusions highly problematic.

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video of my debate with Jonathan Zittrain at New America Foundation

by on November 6, 2008 · 10 comments

This afternoon at the New America Foundation, Jonathan Zittrain and I engaged in a spirited debate about his provocative new book, The Future of the Internet and How to Stop It. As always, Jonathan gave an us an interesting and highly entertaining show, and it was a great honor for me to be given the opportunity to provide some feedback about his book. I’ve been quite critical of the thesis that Jonathan sets forth in his book, and I have discussed my reservations in a lengthy book review and a series of follow-up essays here and elsewhere. (Part 1, 2, 3, 4, 5).

Jonathan opens with about 45 minutes of remarks and I come into the conversation around the 49 mark of the video. Michael Calabrese of NAF also has some comments about Jonathan’s book after I speak and then there is some interaction with the audience.

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One to Watch – Tonight and Evermore

by on November 4, 2008 · 6 comments

Julian Sanchez will be liveblogging the election returns tonight – poor soul – for a new infotainment outlet: Ars Technica’s Law & Disorder blog (or journal, if you prefer). The inaugural post lays out what it’s about.

He’s as smart and informed as they come, Julian is, so you’d be well-served to keep one eye on Law & Disorder.

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