Future of the Internet: And How to Stop It - Softcover

Jonathan L. Zittrain

Softcover

ISBN 10: 014103159X ISBN 13: 9780141031590

Publisher: Penguin Books, 2009

Synopsis

In The Future of the Internet: And How to Stop It Jonathan Zittrain explores the dangers the internet faces if it fails to balance ever more tightly controlled technologies with the flow of innovation that has generated so 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 - the PCs, Windows and Macs of this world - allow third parties to build upon and share through them. The non-generative model is more restricted; appliances such as the xbox, iPod and tomtom might work well, but the only entity that can change the way they operate is the vendor.If we want the internet to survive we need to change. People must wake up to the risk or we could lose everything.

About this title

From the Author:

A conversation with Jonathan Zittrain

 

Q: You have a curious title to your book. Most people think the Internet is a good thing, so why try to stop it?

A: The Internet is a great thing and it's largely a historical accident that we have it at all. As late as the early 1990s, people in the know assumed that one of a handful of proprietary networks would be the network of the future. Those networks carefully groomed the content to be presented to people. The Internet came out of left field as an entity with no plan for content, no CEO not even a main menu. PCs are similarly surprisingly successful. Unlike "information appliances" such as smart typewriters and word processors, the programs on a PC can come from anywhere. This has vaulted the PC into the front lines of business environments, not just homes. Unfortunately that's not how the future is shaping up. Our own choices, made in fear, are causing the most valuable features of our modern technology to slip away.

 

Q: You warn that the Internet, and the computers that sit on the ends of it, will become more like appliances if we aren’t careful. What do you mean by that?

A: Devices like Apple's iPhone are incredibly sophisticated and flexible.  But they can be programmed only by their vendors. That's very, very limiting and yet consumers will ask for that because it makes for a more consistent experience, and because our generative PC and Internet technologies are less and less useful due to spam, spyware, viruses, and other exploitations of their openness. We need to combat these exploitations in ways that don't sacrifice fundamental openness.

 

Q: Is it possible to have it both ways: to have a secure Internet that remains open to the possibilities you describe in your book?

A: Yes, and the book goes into detail about how we might thread this needle. If we fail, we return to the old models of consumer technology that we had already (and rightly) forgotten thanks to the Internet's success.

About the Author:

Acclaimed cyber-law scholar, Professor Jonathan Zittrain 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. 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.

About this edition

• Publisher: Penguin Books
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 014103159X
• ISBN 13: 9780141031590
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 342