A review of Lawrence Lessig's "Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace"

by Stephan Bayer

Lawrence Lessig's "Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace" was written at a time when the internet was the coolest fad. We can all probably remember the 90s as a decade when the internet really took off, and access became widespread. The beauty of the internet, according to Lessig, is that it was designed with efficiency in mind. The problem, however, is that the internet's architecture was not designed for government control. In his book, Lessig, takes the reader through the rapid evolution of the internet and explains its shortcomings. He stresses the architecture of the internet, and how it has evolved to the point where government control comes into question. Should it be governed, though? The internet is an escape for millions of users around the world to share their ideas freely. Lessig sees the internet as a virtual community, appealing to the human desire of togetherness and collective action. The only way that regulation of the internet can occur is through the evolution of the "code" itself.

Lessig provides four scenarios in which the internet can be viewed as an architecture where behaviors can't be regulated. One scenario that Lessig mentions is that of an online gambling web site. (Lessig 13) Suppose a person in North Carolina sets up an internet server where "virtual" gambling takes place. Being that gambling is illegal in North Carolina, the government quickly shuts this web site down. Lessig's solution is that the site can be moved to another state where gambling isn't illegal, thereby making it accessible by anyone around the world again, despite the laws in that geographic area where the site is accessed. Monitoring what people are doing on the net would be invasion of privacy and a violation of our right to privacy. (In America at least)

The example given above is one of many that Lessig uses to stress how the internet's virtual reality is not designed to be governed by anyone. Another interesting scenario that is more security related is the possibility of a worm that sniffs it's way through any computer it can get to, but only searching for one thing, say a confidential CIA document . This worm is designed to do "good" instead of bad. The argument Lessig provides is that it can be viewed as good or bad. If it only looks for one file but looks for nothing else, is it unconstitutional? It's like giving a general warrant out and letting law enforcement search everyone's houses. The counter argument, though, is that if it the person doesn't know that the worm is there and that the worm only searches for that one file, that it isn't really hurting anyone.

Lessig does a really good job at comparing and contrasting two examples of a certain architecture. He does this because he argues that behaviors can't be controlled by anyone, but architectures can. For example, he mentions the case of Harvard's intranet and the University of Berkeley's network. Harvard's network was set up similarly set up to that of our network here at UNC. No computer can get on the network unless the person is affiliated with the university. The hardware addresses of each machine is registered to that person and is thereby granted access. By doing it this way, any suspicious activity can be monitored and pinpointed to the exact user. Berkeley's architecture was free for all where there was no element of control at all. With the onslaught of so many legal cases for illegal downloads, it seems that the "code" has evolved to the point where everyone is registered and everything is traceable.

Other examples Lessig provides include how the government tried to make cryptography illegal except for only one form that had a "back door" for the government. This idea didn't really pan out, and this can make regulation much more difficult in the future. He also mentions how the government aided in technology for the duplication of digital media. Before CD-R's were available, the argument was that a perfect copy couldn't be made so it didn't matter. With the invention of DAT technology, the government assisted in making it so the device could record only one perfect copy, and each copy thereafter was inferior in quality.

Lessig's thesis is that where the government can't control everything directly, the market can. Originally, "the Internet was built for research, not commerce. Its protocols were open and unsecured; it was not designed to hide. Data transmitted over this net could easily be intercepted or stolen; confidential data could not easily be protected." (Lessig 39) The role of E-commerce and the internet as a virtual market has changed the structure of the internet, where security and encryption are important in the structure of the "code". In addition to market influence of the internet, Lessig argues that the Architecture, Law, and Norms regulate behaviors on the internet. (Lessig 88). He mentions early uses of IRC channels for sharing information and the evolving trend of online forums. Norms have evolved because where a conversation in a chat room are temporary, forum threads remain permanent. So, rules are put in to place and they have to be controlled by a site moderator. Through this example we see that regulation is strictly evolution of the net.

In my opinion, most of the reading seemed like general knowledge to me. A lot of it is history. What sparked my interest were the scenarios he provided about how the architecture of the net will evolve to an architecture of control. I am biased towards the history references in the book though, because I have lived through the evolution of the net. It's not like I just started using the net today, and have to see how it has changed in the past decade. It is interesting to see, though, how I have really become turned off by the lack of community on the net today. I used to be on the IRC channels reading about all kinds of issues, and even used bulletin boards and news groups, and now it seems I just don't have the attention span to read through forum threads with all that scrolling involved. The book, in this sense, gave me the opportunity of self-reflection of my role on the internet and how my interaction has changed. This book is a perfect complement to this course because it provides an analysis of security, policies, history, and law of cyberspace. It was written in 1999 so it is a little outdated, but is still relatively current because most of the technologies he mentions that came out at that time are still in full-fledge use today. I think this book would have been structured much better by offering case studies where the law has interfered with the internet and combining those with his proposed scenarios. For those internet geeks out there such as myself, it may be a little boring at parts, but nonetheless, Lessig gives any reader a better understanding of the evolution of the internet's architecture, and makes the reader see how important anonymity the net has given us so far, and that we really don't want that freedom taken away. It is up to all the "code" writers of the world to maintain the net as an efficient and uncontrolled source of information where ideas are published freely, by anyone. No government can control the net because it isn't constrained by geographic boundaries. In this day of globalization, control of speech would make the world larger again, where national identities are more important than individual.

Bibliography

Lessig, Lawrence. Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace. New York: Basic Books, 1999.

last updated: Monday, October 25, 2004 ; 16:02

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