CRCS Privacy and Security Lunch Seminar

Date: Wednesday, February 4, 2009
Time: 12:00pm-1:30 pm
Place: Maxwell Dworkin 119

Speaker: Alissa Cooper

Title: From a Series of Tubes to the BarackBerry: Net Neutrality as an Illustration of Talking Technology in Washington

Abstract: Over the last several years, a number of policy issues have been debated under the heading of “net neutrality,” and these battles show no signs of slowing as the new President and Congress get settled in Washington. At the heart of the net neutrality question is whether the Internet will continue to thrive as an open platform for innovation and free expression and what policies, if any, are necessary to ensure that it will. In some ways, the net neutrality events of the last few years provide the perfect narrative to illustrate why technical knowledge is so fundamental to policymaking in the digital age.

In this talk I will trace through the recent history of net neutrality in Washington, including the 2006 legislative battle, the federal agency proceedings, the Comcast/BitTorrent action and the Internet standards work that it spurred, and recent developments initiated by the new administration. I will use these events to demonstrate how knowledge (or lack thereof) of the Internet’s technical operations has shaped the policy debate, and to point out where technical research could make beneficial contributions going forward.