Designs on cyberspace

IT is a truism that the Internet is developing at a speed that many just do not recognise. It is of course particularly true of people of what I may tactfully refer to as my generation. There is, inevitably, a similar lack of understanding of many of the implications of such rapid development.

It was timely, therefore, that a few days ago the Cambridge Review Of International Affairs, the student-run journal of the University's Centre of International Studies, and the Internet Political Economy Forum (whose members are from Cambridge, Harvard, the National University of Singapore, Stanford and the University of Washington) organised a high-powered conference in Cambridge on the Internet and Power. A year ago I wrote about the first conference of this kind, at which the theme was the governance of the Internet itself. This year the focus was on the role of governments (and international corporations) and the sub- title - a revolution in international relations - was no hyperbole.

Professor Lawrence Lessig, Berkman Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, set the pattern for the day's event in his keynote speech by challenging the traditional assumptions about sovereignty. Governments think about regulation to bring about or stop sets of behaviours, through law, he reminded us. With cyberspace, he added, it was not law, norms, the market place or regulation that defined behaviour, but architecture: the design of cyberspace and the Internet. The initial design of the Net had protected free speech across State borders, privacy of users, the free flow of content and individuals from local State regulation. The biggest feature of the past five years, he suggested, was the changing of the original design; the architecture (the Net technologies) which made it easier to identify customers and content would also make it easier for governments to track people. Regulation would be possible, and with regulation the character of the Net would change - away from liberty. This was happening, he suggested, under commercial pressure from network owners.

Business's need for structures and constraints was asserted by another speaker, Graham Sadd, Chief Executive Officer of Infobank. As the conference continued, a dialogue developed between those with an apocalyptic vision of increasing governmental control, and those who believed that governments did not have the ability to control what is happening given the speed at which it is happening.

The jury, as they say, is still out, but those of us who are constantly wary of the corrupting effect of political power (to paraphrase Lord Acton) were left with some disturbing questions in our minds. They were high-lighted by another speaker, Dr. Simon Moores, a broadcaster and columnist on e-Commerce and Internet issues, and chairman of The Research Group which operates and administers a number of professional Information Technology user groups. Discussing forthcoming British government legislation on encryption which, chillingly, will change the burden of proof away from "innocence until proved guilty", Moores noted that the state's legitimate interest in the control of crime could easily spill over into the control of individuals.

For a layman such as I am, one abiding message from the conference was that the dramatically rapid changes which are the identifying feature of information technology present huge opportunities, many of which simply cannot currently be predicted. Another equally significant message, however, was that the pressures, on institutions and individuals, implicit in these developments are also huge. As one speaker put it, "the issues far exceed the capacity of governments to understand them and react".

By a coincidence as timely as the conference, I went on from it that evening to another meeting, of the support group for chaplaincy to people at work in the Cambridge area. One of the major themes was the increasing pressure on employees which has accompanied the rapid growth in the area of firms reflecting the burgeoning and highly sophisticated knowledge economy. The response of the chaplains, our speaker, the Regius Professor of Divinity at Cambridge reminded us, must be equally sophisticated.

The Internet and Power conference, which was a remarkable occasion, and a tribute to the able group of students, from many parts of the world, attached to the Centre of International Studies, demonstrated the inextricable links, in our global economy, between the state and the corporate world, governments and business. The chaplaincy meeting was a useful reminder (and one

that had indeed also come from speakers at the conference) that information technology has not replaced, or reduced the importance of, people.

BILL KIRKMAN

The writer is a Fellow of Wolfson College, Cambridge. E-mail him at wpk1000@hermes.cam.ac.uk

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