Review
0;Jonathan Zittrain does what no one has before2;he eloquently and subtly pinpoints the magic that makes Wikipedia, and the Internet as a whole, work. The best way to save the Internet is to turn off your laptop until you''ve read this book.1;2;Jimbo Wales, Founder, Wikipedia
-- Jimbo Wales
"This book is fundamental. It will define the debate about the future of the Internet, long after we haven''t stopped it. Absolutely required reading."-Lawrence Lessig, Professor, Stanford Law School, and author of Free Culture and The Future of Ideas
"The most compelling book ever written on why a transformative technology''s trajectory threatens to stifle that technology''s greatest promise for society. Zittrain offers convincing road maps for redeeming that promise."-Laurence H. Tribe, Carl M. Loeb University Professor and Professor of Constitutional Law, Harvard Law School -- Laurence H. Tribe
"This remarkably researched and highly entertaining book is a must-read for all who take the ubiquitous nature of the Internet in our everyday lives for granted. The future of the internet is NOT a positive one, unless we all work collaboratively to ensure its lasting success. Zittrain's analysis is first-class and should be widely heeded by leaders from all sectors of society."-Dr. Klaus Schwab, Executive Chairman and Founder of the World Economic Forum -- Dr. Klaus Schwab
0;The most compelling book ever written on why a transformative technology''s trajectory threatens to stifle that technology''s greatest promise for society. Zittrain offers convincing road maps for redeeming that promise.1;2;Laurence H. Tribe, Carl M. Loeb University Professor and Professor of Constitutional Law, Harvard Law School
-- Laurence H. Tribe
0;This book is fundamental. It will define the debate about the future of the Internet, long after we haven''t stopped it. Absolutely required reading.1;2;Lawrence Lessig, Professor, Stanford Law School, and author of "Free Culture" and "The Future of Ideas"
-- Lawrence Lessig
"Jonathan Zittrain does what no one has before--he eloquently and subtly pinpoints the magic that makes Wikipedia, and the Internet as a whole, work. The best way to save the Internet is to turn off your laptop until you''ve read this book."--Jimbo Wales, Founder, Wikipedia
0;A superb and alarming discussion, from one of the most astute and forward-looking analysts of the Internet. Zittrain explains how the glorious promise of the Internet might not be realized2;and points the way toward reducing the current risks. Absolutely essential reading."2;Cass Sunstein, Karl N. Llewellyn Distinguished Service Professor of Jurisprudence, The University of Chicago Law School, and co-author of "Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness"
-- Cass Sunstein
"A superb and alarming discussion, from one of the most astute and forward-looking analysts of the Internet. Zittrain explains how the glorious promise of the Internet might not be realized-and points the way toward reducing the current risks. Absolutely essential reading."-Cass Sunstein, Karl N. Llewellyn Distinguished Service Professor of Jurisprudence, The University of Chicago Law School, and co-author of Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness -- Cass Sunstein
"Jonathan Zittrain does what no one has before-he eloquently and subtly pinpoints the magic that makes Wikipedia, and the Internet as a whole, work. The best way to save the Internet is to turn off your laptop until you''ve read this book."-Jimbo Wales, Founder, Wikipedia
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 thingand 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 CEOnot 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 sophisticatedand flexible. But they can be programmed only by their vendors. That's very, very limitingand 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
Jonathan Zittrain is the George Bemis Professor of International Law at Harvard Law School and the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, Professor of Computer Science at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Director of the Harvard Law School Library, and Co-Founder of the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society. His research interests include battles for control of digital property and content, cryptography, electronic privacy, the roles of intermediaries within Internet architecture, human computing, and the useful and unobtrusive deployment of technology in education.
He performed the first large-scale tests of Internet filtering in China and Saudi Arabia, and as part of the OpenNet Initiative co-edited a series of studies of Internet filtering by national governments: Access Denied: The Practice and Policy of Global Internet Filtering; Access Controlled: The Shaping of Power, Rights, and Rule in Cyberspace; and Access Contested: Security, Identity, and Resistance in Asian Cyberspace.
He is a member of the Board of Directors of the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the Board of Advisors for Scientific American. He has served as a Trustee of the Internet Society, and as a Forum Fellow of the World Economic Forum, which named him a Young Global Leader, and as Distinguished Scholar-in-Residence at the Federal Communications Commission, where he previously chaired the Open Internet Advisory Committee.
