Hyper-power and private monopoly: the unholy marriage of (neo) corporatism and the imperial surveillance state

American hyper-power world dominance by public and private agencies has replaced British Empire hyper-power world domination in the period 1815-1914. Snowden’s revelations have given rise to several important papers examining the geographical and territorial limits on the Internet, comparing it to the imperial telegraph (Kurbalija 2013) and even to the Roman imperial road (Moglen 2013). This paper recalls earlier telegraphy research (Standage 1999, Hills 2007) and explains how the previous hyperpower (Marsden 2004, describing a global super-power without effective opposition, from the French hyperpuissance) was able to control communications in order to extend its extraterritorial application of domestic law. I explain that the telegraph ‘cables that girdled the Earth’ (Clarke 1958) were sunk into the sea in Cornwall, southwest England, and that today’s Internet fibre cables are in the same places – with the result that the greatest National Security Agency espionage-gathering operation is a joint US/UK operation from the small town of Bude, Cornwall. Add to that espionage the invention of encryption/decryption computing, devices from Babbage’s Difference Engine to Turing and Tommy Flower’s Colossus Marks I and II that broke both Enigma and Lorenz1. The recipe now exists for what the National Security Agency calls ‘Total Information Awareness’ and the Orwellian nightmare of totally efficient surveillance and ‘war is peace’ according to the Ministry of Truth2. But it existed before, and we should learn from the past

Bitcoin: the wrong implementation of the right idea at the right time

This paper is a study into some of the regulatory implications of cryptocurrencies using the CAMPO research framework (Context, Actors, Methods, Methods, Practice, Outcomes). We explain in CAMPO format why virtual currencies are of interest, how self-regulation has failed, and what useful lessons can be learned. We are hopeful that the full paper will produce useful and semi-permanent findings into the usefulness of virtual currencies in general, block chains as a means of mining currency, and the profundity of current ‘media darling’ currency Bitcoin as compared with the development of block chain generator Ethereum. While virtual currencies can play a role in creating better trading conditions in virtual communities, despite the risks of non-sovereign issuance and therefore only regulation by code (Brown/Marsden 2013), the methodology used poses significant challenges to researching this ‘community’, if BitCoin can even be said to have created a single community, as opposed to enabling an alternate method of exchange for potentially all virtual community transactions. First, BitCoin users have transparency of ownership but anonymity in many transactions, necessary for libertarians or outright criminals in such illicit markets as #SilkRoad. Studying community dynamics is therefore made much more difficult than even such pseudonymous or avatar based communities as Habbo Hotel, World of Warcraft or SecondLife. The ethical implications of studying such communities raise similar problems as those of Tor, Anonymous, Lulzsec and other anonymous hacker communities. Second, the journalistic accounts of BitCoin markets are subject to sensationalism, hype and inaccuracy, even more so than in the earlier hype cycle for SecondLife, exacerbated by the first issue of anonymity. Third, the virtual currency area is subject to slowly emerging regulation by financial authorities and police forces, which appears to be driving much of the early adopter community ‘underground’. Thus, the community in 2016 may not bear much resemblance to that in 2012. Fourth, there has been relatively little academic empirical study of the community, or indeed of virtual currencies in general, until relatively recently. Fifth, the dynamism of the virtual currency environment in the face of the deepening mistrust of the financial system after the 2008 crisis is such that any research conclusions must by their nature be provisional and transient. All these challenges, particularly the final three, also raise the motivation for research – an alternative financial system which is separated from the real-world sovereign and which can use code regulation with limited enforcement from offline policing, both returns the study to the libertarian self-regulated environment of early 1990s MUDs, and offers a tantalising prospect of a tool to evade the perils of ‘private profit, socialized risk’ which existing large financial institutions created in the 2008-12 disaster. The need for further research into virtual currencies based on blockchain mining, and for their usage by virtual communities, is thus pressing and should motivate researchers to solve the many problems in methodology for exploring such an environment

Prosumer law and network platform regulation: the long view towards creating OffData

Platform regulation has become the cause celebre of technology regulation: a call to regulate the intermediaries who provide platforms for networked digital services. These include the GAFA giants: Google, Amazon, Facebook, and Apple. Many policy entrepreneurs are peddling solutions as the policy cycle turns, in a classic Kingdon case of “solutions chasing a problem.” Yet networks are not new, and their platforms have been regulated for hundreds of years, generally unsuccessfully. In this article, I take the long view, focusing on the railways/telegraphy regulation of the 1840s in England and the ‘fake news’ problems of 2011 to date. I offer some historical examples that may be highly relevant to ‘prosumer’ digital capitalism 180 years later. Prosumers (a term coined by Toffler) are active users who are sharing and producing content, rather than passively consuming it, notably ‘hacking’ content using techniques famously described as “rip, mix, burn.” Any Internet user who has posted content, from Facebook to Twitter to blog posts to podcasts, has become a prosumer—though there are very broad categories, ranging from the occasional tweeter to the fully developed hacker. Over two billion people now use Google to search for content; Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp to share news, gossip, and photos; YouTube to watch and upload videos; and Twitter, Snapchat, and other sites to say just about anything. We are all becoming ‘prosumers’ sharing intimate details of our personal lives. But this ‘prosumer environment’ is currently either grossly unregulated—leaving users’ data and content at the mercy of the multinational companies who host it and sometimes claim to own it—or is subject to knee-jerk over-regulation, as with the current ‘fake news’ law (“Netzwerkdurchsetzungsgesetz”) in Germany. The prosumer environment is a new regulatory policy cycle in network regulation

How law and computer science can work together to improve the information society

In this column, I explore the various means by which lawyers can be helped by computer scientists to stop the (inevitable) collateral damage to innovation when the unstoppable force of legislation hits the irresistible innovation of the Internet. I will explore some current controversies (fake news, Net neutrality, platform regulation) from an international perspective. The conclusion is familiar: lawyers and computer scientists need each other to prevent a disastrous retrenchment toward splintered national-regional intranets. To avoid that, we need to be intellectually pragmatic in pursuing what may be a mutually disagreeable aim: minimal legislative reform to achieve co-regulation using the most independent expert advice. The alternatives are to allow libertarian advocates to so enrage politicians that severe over-regulation results

Europe can Learn from US How Not to do Net Neutrality

niversity of Sussex’s Chris Marsden looks at the possible European repercussions of the recent court decision on net neutrality in the US. He argues that while there may be more support in Europe for net neutrality, signals are still mixed

Internet Governance Series: The Road from Bali to Rio… to Dystopia?

The UN’s Internet Governance Forum ended on 25 October. Following on from his initial report from the event, University of Sussex’s Chris Marsden‘s reflects on the Forum and sounds a note of cautious optimism for the prospects of Internet governance reform

In defence of corporate responsibility

"Das Konzept der Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) ist mit zwei ernstzunehmenden Kritiken konfrontiert, die aus zwei entgegengesetzten Richtungen des politischen Spektrums erhoben werden. Beide gehen vom eigentlichen Kern des Unternehmenszwecks und der Frage aus, für was Unternehmungen, insbesondere Großunternehmungen, verantwortlich sein sollten. Joel Bakan repräsentiert die politische Linke. In seinem Buch und dem darauf basierenden Dokumentarfilm 'The Corporation' macht er geltend, es handle sich bei CSR um ein Scheinkonzept, welches sich Unternehmungen zunutze machen, um ihre schlechten Taten zu verbergen und strengere gesetzliche Regulierungen abzuwenden. Von der politischen Rechten argumentiert 'The Economist' im Stile Milton Friedmans und Adam Smiths gegen die Ressourcenverschwendung in Form von CSR. CSR lenke Unternehmungen von ihrem eigentlichen Zweck, nämlich der Güterproduktion und der Gewinnerzielung, ab. Beide Kritiken verfehlen letztlich ihr Ziel. Dennoch sind sie intellektuell fundiert und stellen als solche eine Gefahr dar, vieles was wir heute als wichtig erachten, zu unterlaufen. Die Kritiken verlangen deshalb nach einer kritischen Auseinandersetzung. Beide Kritiken überschätzen die Rolle, welche Regierungen bezüglich der Regulierung von Unternehmensaktivitäten spielen können. Entsprechend unterschätzen sie das Potential von NGOs, einen positiven Beitrag zur Gestaltung des unternehmerischen Umfelds leisten zu können. In diesem Text wird dargelegt, dass 'Corporate Responsibility' (CR, nicht CSR) nicht begründeterweise als Hindernis für die effektive Entwicklung eines funktionierenden Regulierungsrahmens für den Markt betrachtet werden kann. Im Gegenteil, es ist ein entscheidender Teil der einzigen realistischen Alternative die uns in dieser Hinsicht verbleibt und könnte als solche zur zentralen Stütze für die Entwicklung in diese Richtung werden." (Autorenreferat)"Two serious criticisms of CSR have emerged from separate ends of the political spectrum. They are levelled at the heart of the purpose of business and what companies, particularly large companies are responsible for. From the Left, Joel Bakan, in his book and subsequent film, The Corporation, alleges that CSR is a smokescreen, enabling companies to hide their bad practices and strengthen their ability to resist regulation by government. From the Right, The Economist, building on arguments that hark back to Milton Friedman and even Adam Smith, has argued that CSR is a waste of resources, distracting companies from their core roles of producing goods and services, and making profits. These criticisms are misguided but they have intellectual foundations; as such they risk undermining much that is important and require rebuttal. Both overplay the role that governments can and will play in regulating how companies behave, and underestimate the positive contribution that NGOs can make in shaping the social environment in which businesses operate. This paper argues that corporate responsibility (CR not CSR) cannot justifiably be seen as a hindrance to the effective evolution of a proper market governance system. On the contrary it is a crucial part of the only realistic game in town and could become the key building block in such an evolution." (author's abstract

Not Neutrality but ‘Open Internet’ à l’Européenne

On 27 October, the European Parliament approved a new regulation which will abolish roaming charges across the EU. However, in the same regulation, there was also discussion of the more technical question of net neutrality, a thorny issue which centres on the principle of equal treatment for all web traffic. In this piece, Chris Marsden, Professor of Internet and Media Law at the University of Sussex, and Luca Belli, Researcher at the Center for Technology and Society, explain the important impact of the new Regulation on web users across the EU, and ask what challenges we may face in the future as a result

Changing stroke mortality trends in middle-aged people: an age-period-cohort analysis of routine mortality data in persons aged 40 to 69 in England

Background: In the UK, overall stroke mortality has declined. A similar trend has been seen in coronary heart disease, although recent reports suggest this decline might be levelling off in middle-aged adults. Aim: To investigate recent trends in stroke mortality among those aged 40–69 years in England. Methods: The authors used routine annual aggregated stroke death and population data for England for the years 1979–2005 to investigate time trends in gender-specific mortalities for adults aged 40 to 69 years. The authors applied log-linear modelling to isolate effects attributable to age, linear ‘drift’ over time, time period and birth cohort. Results; Between 1979 and 2005, age-standardised stroke mortality aged 40 to 69 years dropped from 93 to 30 per 100 000 in men and from 62 to 18 per 100 000 in women. Mortality was higher in older age groups, but the difference between the older and younger age groups appears to have decreased over time for both sexes. Modelling of the data suggests an average annual reduction in stroke deaths of 4.0% in men and 4.3% in women, although this decrease has been particularly marked in the last few years. However, we also observed a relative rate increase in mortality among those born since the mid-1940s compared with earlier cohorts; this appears to have been sustained in men, which explains the levelling off in the rate of mortality decline observed in recent years in the younger middle-aged. Conclusions: If observed trends in middle-aged adults continue, overall stroke mortalities may start to increase again