http://www.wired.com/techbiz/people/magazine/16-12/ff_kaminsky
"Secret Geek A-Team Hacks Back, Defends Internet"
by Joshua Davis
November 24, 2008
Wired
The article discusses one programmer's discovery of an exploit of the basic machinery of the internet that would have allowed him, if he had opted to, to basically steal everybody's money and data and everything. As it happens, he didn't. Instead, he took it to a few other geeks, and together they figured out how to repair the problem.
What is interesting about this is that nobody involved has any official authority, legitimacy, or power. They're all private individuals. And they're running the internet. What I mean is, the internet is a really big thing these days - consider the amount of communication done across it, the amount of information and research done, the number of purchases made, online communities, etc. And nobody is running the damn place. It's a loose collective of total nerds who, for some reason, are all okay with cooperating in order to make sure it all works. In a way, what was done in by the people in the article was the passage of a new law, to repair a flaw in the extant legal system of the internet.
That is, I think the government of the internet - if we want to call it a government - is an interesting topic for political science. How exactly is this place working? Why does its "government" look completely different from all others?
(a previous post about ThePirateBay also demonstrates how little control traditional institutions have over the internet: http://endlessrecombination.blogspot.com/2008/12/pirate-bay.html).
1 comment:
In thinking about Aristotle I wonder if this group can count as a political community. If they can - in conjunction or not with the other people who use the internet - that's really interesting.
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