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The Future of the Internet -- and How to Stop It

news.com — Call his theme the AOL-ization of technology. Instead of personal computers being able to run any program from any source without approval from a third party, which many of us became used to in the 1980s and 1990s, Zittrain fears we're entering a world where centralized approval becomes necessary.

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  • 11Heather, on 11/30/2007, -3/+23"Can you imagine if Microsoft said that for every application that runs on Windows, we get a copy of the source code?" Zittrain asked. Google and Facebook can turn your application "into a brick at any time." True, have never been comfortable with the power FB and Digg have over their communities either. What to do?
    • fkr3, on 11/30/2007, -3/+10What power does digg have over us? The power to be an occasionally entertaining source of funny links?

      Anyone who builds their app on someone else's platform is going to make themselves dependant and at risk. Doesn't matter whether it's a website, Windows, Mac OS, a Linux kernal or even Firefox. It's old news and we all got used to it a long time ago.
      • 11Heather, on 11/30/2007, -5/+5"What power does digg have over us?" My dear naive friend :-)))
        Digg manually bury articles without justification, and don't reply when asked why.
        Digg ban accounts unjudiciously, and don't respond with their community (i.e. that's us) object and ask for that person to be reinstated.
        Digg now distort their reporting of stories that are buried - so we now have a distorted (i.e. they're lying) view of which of our posts were buried and which were not.
        That's just 3, this list goes on, and on, and...
        • gmiley, on 11/30/2007, -1/+5It's a conspiracy! Kevin is out to rule the world, one buried story at a time! /rolleyes
        • missingnoh4x, on 11/30/2007, -1/+4Digg doesn't bury articles. You and I do. As for bans, it's to be expected of a site with such a high user:admin ratio. Maybe some stray too clse to breaking the ToS without actually doing so, but come close enough and they might not bother looking to carefully.
          There's no attempt to silence any agenda. Take off the tinfoil hat.
    • daridave, on 11/30/2007, -2/+18Facebook isn't the future. Facebook is a ridiculously exaggerated fad that will eventually die out. I like it, I'm not being a hater, but I can't see it be where it is a few years from now. For many people around me, it's already lost its magic. Anyway on topic, I would actually love it if some f'ing Facebook apps did get bricked, lol, because... man oh man... it's getting annoying at world-record speed.
      • BlueTunicLink, on 11/30/2007, -0/+3I joined Facebook because the layout was nice and clean, very opposite of 'that other social networking site', but yeah, these apps are getting ridiculous.
      • krinthekuz, on 09/16/2008, -0/+1FTA: Facebook.com's copyright policy for developers that says if the application permits file-sharing, they must "register an agent for notices of copyright infringements with the U.S. Copyright Office."

        that's a requirement under the DMCA section 512 (safe harbors). excuse facebook for protecting themselves and their coders to the fullest extent of the law. and if you want to code in facebook's walled garden, that's fine. if you don't want to, you can pick from 7432843278 other social networks. facebook is just 1 site. net neutrality is about the gatekeepers of the entire internet giving you crap conditions, and you simply don't have a choice because broadband infrastructure in the US is embarrassing.
    • SlvrEagle23, on 11/30/2007, -0/+5You think Google and Facebook have the power to turn your application into a brick? If you're running that app on a Windows Server machine, you've probably seen it bricked by Microsoft a few times every week.

      As for the "copy of the source code" thing, that sounds like it's coming from someone who hasn't worked with PHP before. A big part of PHP applications is that they are inherently, by and large, open-source. Sure, Zend would let you compile them but nobody does that. If C++ or .NET applications worked the same way PHP does, I wouldn't be so off-put by the idea of showing them my source code at all.
    • JettaMan, on 11/30/2007, -0/+1As long as we can prevent government regulation, the Internet will be okay. Right now the politicians and bureaucrats are looking for ways to control it.
    • MacSuxWindozSux, on 11/30/2007, -2/+1AOL isn't making any money. AOL Time Warner is one of the biggest mistakes in the history of corporate mergers, and that isn't an opinion.
      So AOL like practices, which seem candy-ass, and great on paper, aren't going to sell.

      Think about it, if its a bad deal you aren't going to buy, and if you aren't chances other people aren't. And that's just the way it is.
    • mcduckov, on 11/30/2007, -0/+1You could always turn to Usenet. You can go on Usenet and create your own free/open group as easily as selecting some dormant alt group. Then tell people where it is. if you pick the right group then not only can you post in 100% anonymity and as an added bonus Google will save your posts forever and ever.
  • mikepoint3, on 11/30/2007, -12/+63F
  • KillSudo, on 11/30/2007, -13/+64U
  • superkendall, on 11/30/2007, -4/+45The FUD here is thick an mighty. You always have an out, it's called Linux - and we are starting to see real commercial oriented hardware ship with Linux, like the Asus small laptop or the OLPC.

    Beyond that, we have DRM collapsing in the music industry at large as Universal and other large companies start to use non-DRM protected content. The iPhone (the example given) will have an SDK early next year, and you have the Google Android project to try and open up other devices.

    On the doucment front whole governments are discarding Microsofts documentation standard and starting to adopt more open document formats.

    There will always be some closed proprietary stuff. But as closed technologies have advanced open technologies advance hand in hand, so I do not think we are heading toward a future that needs to be "stopped", just nudged towards openness at every opportunity.
    • N987SA, on 11/30/2007, -0/+3I've been using Linux since the mid 90s, and I am very concerned about any kind of legislation or legal precedence which might cripple the freedom of software producers and users. I have to say that the article seemed a bit nebulous, however.
      "You can call Zittrain's theme the AOL-ization of technology. Instead of personal computers being able to run any program from any source without approval from a third party--which many of us were used to in the 1980s and 1990s--Zittrain fears we're entering a world where centralized approval becomes necessary." Suppose your ISP insisted that you only connect using Windoze or Mac, and those providers wanted to keep tabs on every program you run on their OS. Paranoid or not, Big Brother IS out to get you!
      • superkendall, on 11/30/2007, -0/+1Yes but how likely is it REALLY that an ISP would ever say that? In fact some used to try (with things like Windows specific ISP installation discs) but mostly that is gone.

        That is yet another example of how the trend is as it should be, forward.

    • MacSuxWindozSux, on 11/30/2007, -0/+1Any sort of decline of ideals, or death of democracy in the United states, won't directly translate internationally to the other 8 world powers.
      Linux, Unix, Macintosh are here to stay. People dont like what is being sugested in the article. Therefore it will have no hope of being the standard.

      Remember they want our money, and we only buy what we like. They want to be paid, so its path of least resistance. They give us what we want.

      Let the big companies "***** up". They test the waters and then they wise up. DRM is a good example.
      • init100, on 11/30/2007, -0/+2"They test the waters and then they wise up. DRM is a good example."

        On music, yes, but on e.g. HD movies, there is no trend towards removing DRM. Rather the opposite in fact.
    • mcduckov, on 11/30/2007, -0/+1Is anyone forced to use facebook or google? Until people are forced to do something (ala FISA) then I'm not likely to get all that worked up over it . If people CHOOSE to use FB and G then you can dance to the tune that gets you through the door...otherwise just walk past the door. I'm even less likely to get worked up when there are millions of doors to choose from and building your own is almost as easy as just wishing it to be so.
  • jeffmurphy, on 11/30/2007, -15/+2C
  • Evildudetx, on 11/30/2007, -2/+16Yeah, sorry, they already tried this. Its call trusted platform module. It has been around for years and NO ONE USES IT. Just another worry wart trying to spread massive amounts of FUD.
  • OhSn4p, on 11/30/2007, -9/+4boring. too many letters, not enough amusing images :D
  • internetworld7, on 11/30/2007, -21/+1The only way to really solve this problem and all problems on the internet is for everyone to dumb their PC's in the trash and ruuuuunnnnn to the nearest Apple store and switch to a Mac. All problems solved. ^--^
    • xobecide, on 11/30/2007, -1/+10..can I burn you instead? It'll be an alternative fuel source.
    • bejayel, on 11/30/2007, -0/+8Did you miss the part where apple is potentially part of the problem?
    • Tivor, on 11/30/2007, -0/+4I'm a Mac guy, and even I don't think everybody using Macs is the answer. Variety is good. Competition is good. As much as I love Apple, I will not trust any one company to be the be-all end-all answer to all our computing needs.
    • missingnoh4x, on 11/30/2007, -0/+3Thanks to Apple's commitment to user freedom, open source, and... Oh, wait, all their software is proprietary and the hardware they manufacture tends to be locked down and jailed so you can't run what you want.
  • metric7, on 11/30/2007, -18/+5C
  • DarkDx, on 11/30/2007, -16/+2C
  • Feety, on 11/30/2007, -14/+4N
    • bejayel, on 11/30/2007, -2/+13Ok, i admit it. I have no idea what the hell we're trying to spell here.
      • arbulus, on 11/30/2007, -2/+1I though it was FUD at at first, but now I'm not so sure. It could be amusing if it keeps going, however, to see what comes out of it.
  • akeating, on 11/30/2007, -3/+3That was a weird article; I had some problems understanding what he's trying to say. How does the tapping OnStar relate to crippling iPhones? Am I the only one who thought this article wasn't as well-written as it could have been?
    • bejayel, on 11/30/2007, -0/+2i thought it got the authors point across. I dont agree with most of it, but it still wasnt confusing or anything.
  • Jokermx, on 11/30/2007, -0/+3This has been said countless times before, and I have yet to see it happen. Now, I'm not saying it will not happen, in fact, it CAN happen, but as long as the people are against it, it can be pushed (or stopped for some time).
    • Sroek, on 11/30/2007, -0/+7It'll gradually work its way through under the people's noses until nothing can be done about it.
      • superkendall, on 11/30/2007, -0/+2Only if you have your nose turned up instead of on the grindstone.
  • Quicksilver4648, on 11/30/2007, -12/+3K
  • RaiderWolf, on 11/30/2007, -1/+2These Internet control freaks never learn do they?
  • drakkie, on 11/30/2007, -7/+4STFU
  • bloogey, on 11/30/2007, -2/+210 years ago I imagined today being like this. Good god it's not yet. :)
  • jamesmudgett, on 11/30/2007, -1/+3i thought i was supposed to flip the page to read the real arguments.
  • buddamus, on 11/30/2007, -0/+8The internet is self aware now, nothing can stop it
  • Branchex, on 11/30/2007, -1/+10I hate it how programs like Maya have connect to the internet to start, talk about a waste of bandwidth. What if I wanna use them on my notebook where the internet is unavailable?
    • manageMyRights, on 11/30/2007, -0/+3most of these can be modified to make them run anyways, by either faking the authentication or just bypassing it. Unless the program needs to connect constantly to get the data you want (see World or Warcraft) then its hackable.
  • hulez, on 11/30/2007, -1/+1what is this iphone lockdown i keep hearing about, it makes no sense to me!
    i presume it just means that the phone is locked permanantly and all the software is completely corrupted like installing a virus so it can never be used again, am i right?
    • arbulus, on 11/30/2007, -0/+1There's a big red warning on the screen saying the phone has been disabled and you can't do anything at all with it. Your phone is now permanently and forever inoperable.
  • modusop, on 11/30/2007, -0/+8I remember a few years ago everyone was screaming about Palladium with Microsoft, and they eventually scaled it back. Now I love Apple stuff as much as the next guy, but how come no one is screaming about much stronger protections being planned for mobile OS X development? We've been desensitized to the loss of software freedom by our large-business overlords...
    • superkendall, on 11/30/2007, -0/+3That's because the iPhone is just one platform, and between J2ME or Android there are other options for mobile development. Also you don't hear people complaining about how limited the iPhone SDk is, because we have no idea what will be included when the real SDK arrives! Why not wait and see what is there before getting worked up in a lather, and in the meantime there are already de-facto SDK that you can use with it today.
    • Subvexer, on 11/30/2007, -1/+2Maybe because people have a hard time admitting that paying twice as much for something that works half as well was a mistake.
  • steelmaverick, on 11/30/2007, -8/+2K
  • jlhoben, on 11/30/2007, -3/+3Even Digg censors.
  • captaindigger, on 11/30/2007, -0/+3"Can you imagine if Microsoft said that for every application that runs on Windows, we get a copy of the source code?"
    Then I shall run mine on the internet with an Apache server with Ajax, HTML and CSS. Then use Firefox and Linux to see it.
    So long MS.
    • modusop, on 11/30/2007, -0/+4This is what Apple is trying to steer devs toward with their iphone development process - the limitations of this system strongarmed them into allowing native app support...give it another generation or 2 and this will be reality.
  • kindrobot, on 11/30/2007, -0/+4The restriction is usually on the hardware. The internet itself, in some circles, will always just route around such things as if it were damage. The guy still has a point though. But let's all put our fingers in our ears and our thumbs on our iPhones and pretend this problem doesn't exist.
  • WiseWeasel, on 11/30/2007, -0/+7We'll just have to start a new internet, with blackjack and hookers. On second thought, forget about the net and the blackjack...
    Decentralized open-source wireless network links FTW!
  • kleverness, on 11/30/2007, -0/+10D

    (It was FUD, you morons!)
  • TantrooM, on 11/30/2007, -0/+6I have investgated into this myself, as a Computer Science major in a Web Developer class we discussed Web 2.0, and the next step: Web 3.0.
    This was discribed to me as the fact where entire applications would be run from an online database, like Word Processors, Power Point type applications and the such. The teacher said to an extent, it could get to a point where computers wouldn't need extensive Hard Drives to store information, because things would be used and saved online, your projects being saved to a distant server to be loaded later.

    This is a problem, the internet was developed as a decentralized network so that if something bad happened to a server (a nuke hit it was the original concern) then the whole network wouldn't collapse. But as with all decentralized systems, there is a trend to recentralize, which historically has always lead to disaster through corruption. It's be like sharing a computer with your mother, you would no longer have any privacy, today what is on your hard drive is your business unless you committed a crime. Without the privacy of that hard drive, suddenly some company somewhere has all your documents, and all your information.

    If that were to be taken out by human or natural measure, or hacked into from a phisher, you'd be looking at a disaster that could parallel some of the worst tragedies of history.

    My guess is that 'Web 3.0' may start making the transition but it will never extend to where people will give up a hard drive, or some incident will occur early enough where people might realize it is a bad idea. The internet ain't broke, don't fix it.
    • SniperGX1, on 11/30/2007, -1/+2The idea of "cloud computing" isn't a new one. It was how it used to be. Big IBM mainframe and thin clients all around. We are just getting to the point where we can take advantage of both the cloud and local computing. This article seems like FUD because they assume that when you adopt something you must go all the way and make it primary. Realistically we will take the best parts of all technology.
  • Ryosen, on 11/30/2007, -1/+2It's amazing the kind of things people will say just to get you to buy their book
  • kmadigan, on 11/30/2007, -0/+7Zittrain?

    I hope that guy didn't have acne in high school.
  • SatansSpatula, on 11/30/2007, -1/+5"the online ecosystem"? Get back to the blogosphere, you douchebag.
  • Insomnya3AM, on 11/30/2007, -1/+7Where the hell is the "..How to stop it" part?
    • kindrobot, on 11/30/2007, -0/+1You have to buy lunch for 150 dollars to hear that part.
    • MacSuxWindozSux, on 11/30/2007, -1/+1The point is to be afraid. It's like the Bush plan, but for technology.
    • init100, on 11/30/2007, -1/+1It's probably in the book with the same name.
  • lastdalek, on 11/30/2007, -0/+6The more companies restrict the end user, the better. It will hasten their downfall.

    Linux user #457971
  • saltmiser, on 11/30/2007, -0/+2buried because it's just a bunch of paranoia
  • wispygalaxy, on 11/30/2007, -0/+1This page looks a lot like alphabet soup... :/
  • Ellipsys, on 11/30/2007, -0/+5I have to admit, as an iPhone owner I can see this happening. I love the hardware ( small, sleek, powerful) but I hate the restrictive software. I want to be able to use any program I want to transfer my music and files to my iPhone, not just iTunes, which doesn't allow iPhone connections on 64-bit Vista (or any version of Linux). As much as I love my iPhone hardware I don't know why some companies are obsessed with total control - my using of iTunes doesn't mean I'll buy a Mac, it certainly doesn't give Apple any more money as I never purchase music from iTMS, so what's the point of pissing off your user base? Sell more phones, and allow users to use any music management software they want. In this day and age, I'm always pissed to see proprietary software become a necessity when something simple such as showing up as a USB HDD or MassStorageDevice could, easily and cheaply, completely remove the need for it.
  • demonsnake69, on 11/30/2007, -0/+5I hope Internetz gets destroyed because Drano isn't enough to clean these tubez.
  • ryan83189, on 11/30/2007, -2/+0You mean we survived y2k and i can set my clock to the correct year again! (takes tin foil off head). /sarcasm
  • bijna, on 12/01/2007, -0/+1I didn't read any suggestions in the article about how to stop it..
  • jim7out, on 05/12/2008, -0/+1I don;t really understand this article
    http://anatomynotes.info
  • Irishjack, on 05/13/2008, -0/+1http://digg.com/tech_news/The_Future_of_the_Intern ...
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