THE "CLEAN SLATE" PROJECT: WHO SHOULD REFEREE THE INTERNET?

The Internet has been around for approximately four decades, but a team of Stanford University experts says it’s broken. That team is now in the midst of taking a “pull out all the stops� approach to developing a new prototype.

The project is called the “Clean Slate Design for the Internet.� It’s supposed to answer two questions: how to design a new global communications infrastructure from the ground up; and what the Internet will look like in 15 years.

The Internet, of course, has proven to be one of the most successful examples to date of a joint enterprise among academia, government and industry, with each making substantial contributions in research, development and investment. However, there’s a growing concern that today’s information technology infrastructure will not be able to support the increasing demand that new and innovative products and services will require.

    u    u    u

Developers and consumers are driving the supply and demand for wireless innovations that are enormously content-driven. These future wireless systems will provide the public with everything from on-demand information regarding smog indices in particular areas of cities to on-demand wireless mobile access to personal music libraries.

Thus, a growing number of experts believe that it’s time to rethink the Internet’s underlying architecture and implement a new model that will not only meet the needs of a growing demand for capacity, but will also provide greater security against the vulnerabilities that exist in the current Internet infrastructure.

Because a new Internet is fast becoming a practical necessity, its prospective architecture and protocols have far-reaching and profound implications for virtually every government, every business, indeed every organization and person in the world. It is precisely because of these substantial considerations that it matters so greatly who sits at the table that designs and builds the latest version of the World Wide Web.

    u    u    u

Currently, the Clean Slate team at Stanford is partnering in this project with a few major commercial enterprises in order to benefit from their resources and expertise. However, revamping the Internet from scratch should not be left to just a handful of academicians and big corporations.

The Internet is a global fixture in modern-day civilization. It has economic, political, social, cultural, scientific and even moral influence throughout the world. Yet for the most part, the Stamford project lacks international collaborators representing most of these interests.

For example, governments throughout the world are the aggregators of enormous quantities of information that are useful and valuable to people everywhere. Providing citizens with relatively inexpensive and convenient access to that information will make it easier for them to obtain services they may need.

It therefore would be of great mutual benefit if all governments were to apply and follow generally accepted rules and protocols for the disclosure and confidentiality of their public records. Such rules and protocols should be a part of any clean-slate prototype.

By bringing together a broad array of people from a variety of places and weaving their practical knowledge and technical expertise with the best hardware and software available, the Clean Slate Project could assist immeasurably in bringing government closer to its citizenry.

    u    u    u

Nonetheless, because the Stamford project team lacks international experts in a number of relevant disciplines, including government information and transparency, appropriate architecture, rules, protocols and even etiquette may not be built into its design for the new Internet. Perhaps more important, the Stamford team may be unable to meaningfully resolve who will referee the new Internet’s use or police its misuse.

If the new Internet is to accurately reflect the values of the world community, its design must take into account and support international norms of fundamental human rights. So any clean-slate project should include not only government representatives, but representatives from civil society as well.

There are other critical stakeholders beyond the academic and commercial, whose interests need to be considered in order to build a genuinely new system. Under-inclusion in the process runs the substantial risk that whoever funds the project will own the outcome, thus enabling monopolistic control. Whether such control is exercised by government or by commercial entities, the potential for abuse — be it of human rights or greater economic predation — is infinitely enhanced.

For example, a significant threat of any clean slate improvement is that the Internet will be used to collect vast amounts of information about citizens. In this regard, law enforcement officials are bound to make their needs for surveillance known.

Our information-driven society will put an ever-increasing demand on access to data. People who have access will not only be able to better control their own personal destinies, they will better control what happens in their individual communities and the greater world in which they live, work and interact with others.

    u    u    u

The developers of a new Internet that will deliver such data must address the myriad — and oftentimes conflicting — public interest and policy issues that we now know such a network implicates. If the new Internet is to stand as an effective and lasting communications system, its development and implementation must include a broad-based group representing the key constituencies so critical to reaching a solution that truly meets the economic, political, social, cultural, scientific and moral needs of all the people it will serve.

Gregory F. Daniels is commission counsel and legislative and administrative manager of the Connecticut Freedom of Information Ccommission. Eric V. Turner is managing director and associate general counsel of the Connecticut Freedom of Information Commission.

Latest News

South Kent School’s unofficial March reunion

Elmarko Jackson was named a 2023 McDonald’s All American in his senior year at South Kent School. He helped lead the Cardinals to a New England Prep School Athletic Conference (NEPSAC) AAA title victory and was recruited to play at the University of Kansas. This March he will play point guard for the Jayhawks when they enter the tournament as a No. 4 seed against (13) Samford University.

Riley Klein

SOUTH KENT — March Madness will feature seven former South Kent Cardinals who now play on Division 1 NCAA teams.

The top-tier high school basketball program will be well represented with graduates from each of the past three years heading to “The Big Dance.”

Keep ReadingShow less
Hotchkiss grads dancing with Yale

Nick Townsend helped Yale win the Ivy League.

Screenshot from ESPN+ Broadcast

LAKEVILLE — Yale University advanced to the NCAA men’s basketball tournament after a buzzer-beater win over Brown University in the Ivy League championship game Sunday, March 17.

On Yale’s roster this year are two graduates of The Hotchkiss School: Nick Townsend, class of ‘22, and Jack Molloy, class of ‘21. Townsend wears No. 42 and Molloy wears No. 33.

Keep ReadingShow less
Handbells of St. Andrew’s to ring out Easter morning

Anne Everett and Bonnie Rosborough wait their turn to sound notes as bell ringers practicing to take part in the Easter morning service at St. Andrew’s Church.

Kathryn Boughton

KENT—There will be a joyful noise in St. Andrew’s Church Easter morning when a set of handbells donated to the church some 40 years ago are used for the first time by a choir currently rehearsing with music director Susan Guse.

Guse said that the church got the valuable three-octave set when Harlem Valley Psychiatric Center closed in the late 1980s and the bells were donated to the church. “The center used the bells for music therapy for younger patients. Our priest then was chaplain there and when the center closed, he brought the bells here,” she explained.

Keep ReadingShow less
Picasso’s American debut was a financial flop
Picasso’s American debut was a financial flop
Penguin Random House

‘Picasso’s War” by Foreign Affairs senior editor Hugh Eakin, who has written about the art world for publications like The New York Review of Books, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker and The New York Times, is not about Pablo Picasso’s time in Nazi-occupied Paris and being harassed by the Gestapo, nor about his 1937 oil painting “Guernica,” in response to the aerial bombing of civilians in the Basque town during the Spanish Civil War.

Instead, the Penguin Random House book’s subtitle makes a clearer statement of intent: “How Modern Art Came To America.” This war was not between military forces but a cultural war combating America’s distaste for the emerging modernism that had flourished in Europe in the early decades of the 20th century.

Keep ReadingShow less