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

by Jonathan Zittrain

book data

79 ratings, 3.61 average rating, 30 reviews (more data...)

rating	frequency	%
5		18%
4		37%
3		30%
2		10%
1		2%

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published

April 14th 2008 by Yale University Press

binding

Hardcover, 352 pages

isbn

0300124872 (isbn13: 9780300124873)

description

North Korean radios that are altered to receive only the official stations. Cars that listen in on their owners’ conversations. Digital video recorder...more

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Berkman Center for Internet & Society recommended reading

9 books | 5 voters

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04/08/09

Elaine Nelson rated it:

bookshelves: history, politics, read-again, sociology, technology

Read in April, 2009

I want to read this again (probably online), to reabsorb some of the lessons and get a sense of whether I have any part to play in the landscape as it moves forward. (ugh, mixed metaphor roundup!) This is the other book that I read after seeing its author at SXSWi '09, and in this case, his presentation was on the same topic of the book. So there was a lot that felt familiar, but with more depth and nuance.

"Generativity" is the central metaphor of the book: what allows for ...more

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01/22/09

Jeffrey rated it:

Read in November, 2008

A very good book on what should be preserved about the Internet ("generativity") and how things might go wrong if "appliancization" such as that associated with the iPhone and other "tethered" devices goes too far. I was not completely happy with what the author said about net neutrality, and that he was not sufficiently critical of the strategy of building broadband by letting the phone/cable duopoly pay for it by selling us broadband-based entertainment. But the...more

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08/18/08

Andrew is currently reading it

bookshelves: currently-reading

recommended to Andrew by: NPR
recommends it for: gadget geeks, twentysomethings, Standard Poodles (damn insightful, they are)

I'm still ankle-deep in this book, and have been for some time. The first 1/3 of the book is a great history of how we got to where we are with this wonderful world of the internet. some of the most amazing things instituted when the interwebs (tx, W) got started up were all the protocols, agreements, and structures that never got commercialized, privatized, or bushwhacked by opportunistic boobs. now, in this age of the XBox, iPhone, and Tivo, we are seeing an attempt to railroad the "f...more I'm still ankle-deep in this book, and have been for some time. The first 1/3 of the book is a great history of how we got to where we are with this wonderful world of the internet. some of the most amazing things instituted when the interwebs (tx, W) got started up were all the protocols, agreements, and structures that never got commercialized, privatized, or bushwhacked by opportunistic boobs. now, in this age of the XBox, iPhone, and Tivo, we are seeing an attempt to railroad the "free to all" collaborative mindset and creative freedom inherent in the early internet days into some sort of sterile (but yet oh-so dirty) corporatization, all in the name of profiteering and such.

Ok, so maybe that's a bit unfair. but damn it, the reason we have the luxury of wasting time on such applications as streaming Netflix, YouTube, Facebook, and hotornot.com is because the fundamental heavy lifting was largely done with a spirit of collaboration and pure "what will happen next?" idealism.

Zittrain makes fantastic points about the dangers of straying too far down either road (anarchy vs. Orwellian iron-fistedness), and it really makes one stop and ponder just HOW we are going to move forward in an intelligent way given the seeming dichotomy we're facing.

If you care at all about the fact that Apple has complete control over what you're allowed to do with your cell phone apps, this is highly recommended reason.

If you're still surfing dialup and utilizing AOL startup discs from the mail, then this book will help kick you into the 21st century. it's a mad, mad world, and we as consumers of all this technogadgetry ultimately have the power to determine what succeeds and what fails...

...but we have to be INFORMED consumers!

Forget about keeping up with the Joneses...the Joneses are probably pirating your wireless connection as we speak and re-routing official foreign government communiques in between attempts to crack the encryption on your online bank accounts...

(less)

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07/02/08

Michael rated it:

bookshelves: all, deadtree, history, law, non-fiction, tech

Read in July, 2008

recommended to Michael by: Berkman Center, gift from Mike

I read the first 100 pages of this book as an ebook (free download: http://futureoftheinternet.org/download), then was gifted a dead-tree copy. I learned that I will prefer dead trees to ebooks unless a tablet PC or other device changes my mind as I suspect it will.

For me, Zittrain is, for the most part, preaching to the choir. With electrical engineering and computer science education and years of reading slashdot/digg/reddit, for the most part I know my geek history and the score...more I read the first 100 pages of this book as an ebook (free download: http://futureoftheinternet.org/download), then was gifted a dead-tree copy. I learned that I will prefer dead trees to ebooks unless a tablet PC or other device changes my mind as I suspect it will.

For me, Zittrain is, for the most part, preaching to the choir. With electrical engineering and computer science education and years of reading slashdot/digg/reddit, for the most part I know my geek history and the score on most of the legal issues pertaining to the internet. Still, Zittrain told some gems that I didn't know about, and most of his analyses are poignant and clearer or more fully thought-out than my own. I'd estimate a quarter to a third of the book was new to me.

Some have criticized his analysis as being black and white, but how else do you communicate to someone the nature of a spectrum but by describing each comprising end and the defining variable?

I would recommend this book to everyone I know if only because it is impossible for me to effectively summarize these 250 pages into a few minutes if I can even hold the floor that long in a conversation. On top of that, the amount of information consolidated in this book is incredible--after the text of 250 pages comes 80 pages of references to the full stories, about a quarter of the book's length.

To Zittrain's credit, he does not attempt a sci-fi vision of the future, though he considers potentials that are possible from the current situation. The title of the book may be misleading for that reason and that the book deals more with the past and present than the future. I think everyone should know at least the base histories provided herein and agree with Zittrain that historical knowledge is key to avoiding mistakes as we move into the future.

One of the most intriguing ideas in the book is "verkeersbordvrij", Dutch for free of traffic signs, and how the philosophy plays out online. Experiments in several European towns have shown "dramatic improvements" in vehicular safety when nearly all traffic signs are removed. In an unsafe environment, drivers can no longer pay little mind to their actions assuming other drivers will follow rules.(less)

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06/24/08

Davis rated it:

Read in January, 2009

Very interesting and very scary ideas/theories in this book. The first part discusses the state of the Internet today, painting a landscape filled with virus and malware infected PCs working in unison as botnets to carry out denial-of-service attacks or acting as virtual email servers flooding the net with millions of spam. All the while, the anti-virus software companies secretly throw their hands up in frustration and hopelessness.

As the book progresses, it tries to predict the co...more

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06/18/08

Ben Babcock rated it:

bookshelves: 2008-read, non-fiction, own, technology, via-colbert

Has a copy to sell/swap — Read in July, 2008

recommended to Ben by: The Colbert Report

This was a very fascinating book. Some of the technical language may be new to a reader who is not already knowledgeable on computers and networking. Beyond the vocabulary, however, the book is accessible to newcomers to the field. Zittrain writes with an open invitation to discuss, talking with the reader rather than lecturing the reader. He admits that he does not have all the answers to the rather large problems the Internet faces. On the other hand, unlike many alarmists, he at least tri...more This was a very fascinating book. Some of the technical language may be new to a reader who is not already knowledgeable on computers and networking. Beyond the vocabulary, however, the book is accessible to newcomers to the field. Zittrain writes with an open invitation to discuss, talking with the reader rather than lecturing the reader. He admits that he does not have all the answers to the rather large problems the Internet faces. On the other hand, unlike many alarmists, he at least tries to propose some sort of positive solution instead of simply throwing up his hands to say, "We're doomed."

Zittrain managed to pinpoint some concepts with which I was already familiar but for which I didn't have particular words. The major one is, of course, generativity. The other one was the procrastination principle--I operate on this, although I never named it such, and it's a pretty good name. So the book was worth reading for that alone. His perspectives on generativity, the procrastination principle, the Internet's development and future, etc., are interesting. He presents a concise history of the Internet's development. I found the historical anecdotes entertaining and informative, such as the one about how a Cap'n Crunch cereal whistle could be used to get free phone calls. These anecdotes provide insight into how the Internet came to be and how it works today.

The book makes me think too, and that's always good. I'd already been considering how "appliances" like the iPhone were affecting the Internet and our own freedom, so Zittrain provided a concurrent dialogue that helped me form my own opinions.

His conclusion is essentially a call-to-arms; his theme something similar to "Why Can't We Be Friends?" He proposes that through better education and the embrace of social, as well as technological, means of fighting spam, viruses, and malware, we can improve the Internet without entering a period of security lockdowns that kill the generativity he values so much. The cynical part of me isn't very hopeful. It's too much to ask of the average person to attempt to understand this nebulous thing we call "the PC." And any attempt to make the system simpler has the risk of killing generativity. We seem to be at an impasse!

So the future will arrive, and we will hopefully be better informed, if not wiser.(less)

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05/02/08

V rated it:

bookshelves: nonfiction

Read in June, 2008

The key idea in The Future of the Internet--And How to Stop It is what Jonathan Zittrain calls "generativity." Essentially, Zittrain posits that the feature that makes the internet successful is that it easily allows anyone to build new products, features, and communities on top of an open infrastructure.

The problem with "generativity" is that it also allows (and encourages) the creation of negative products and features: malware, spam, identity theft, piracy, etc...more

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02/13/09

Surfing Moose rated it:

Read in February, 2009

The book didn't grab me and found it a slog to get through. Even though I looked forward to reading it, I was disappointed. The funny thing is Zittrain had a lot of good ideas but somehow it didn't do it for me. I'll give it a reread in the near future.

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01/30/09

Jason rated it:

Read in January, 2009

Full of fascinating information about the recent history of, well, information. I had a difficult time accepting the thesis, however, that the Internet is poised for a command-and-control lockdown.

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06/06/09

Jim rated it:

Learned a lot about the internet from this book. I could be wrong but Zittrain seems a bit too optimistic about the ability of the on-line community to overcome the bad and predatory elements in cyberworld.

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01/20/09

Nick rated it:

Read in January, 2009

It was ok, but I guess I'd heard the main theme online, and didn't get much extra out of the book. Of course, Google is making me stupid, so I had a hard time fully concentrating on this book.

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12/21/08

David Wake rated it:

Really compelling insights and observations about how the internet is likely to change in the next 10 years. Alternatively frightening and encouraging.

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12/22/08

Courtney added it

bookshelves: borrowed, nonfiction

This wasn't exactly what I thought it would be. I only read a couple of chapters and was disappointed when it mostly talked about the back-end structure of the network that runs the Internet. I'm sure it's a great read, but it wasn't holding my interest.

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07/01/09

Cary rated it:

Read in July, 2008

He promotes ideas of open technology standards and generative systems which I like.

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09/11/08

Jessica added it

Read in January, 2009

Fairly interesting premise - that the generative nature of the internet that is more or less responsible for its rise in popularity will eventually transform it into a non-generative system as people shy away from the security risks of generativity...if that makes any sense...unless it is stopped! (Which is what he is talking about in the title...I got confused and thought the "and how to stop it" referred to the internet itself, rather than the future). Zittrain, however, is really re...more

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07/27/08

Desiree rated it:

Read in August, 2008

Finally finished this one! Usually I LOVE books about the net, but this has to be the worst one I read, so far. Although Cliff Stoll's book is probably a close second, at least he was able to hold my attention.

If you HAVE to read this one for a college class, good luck to ya! Otherwise, it's best left alone. The first 100 or so pages seemed to go on and on about "generativity", saying the same thing over and over and over.... Aaarrgghhh!

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07/02/08

Mia rated it:

bookshelves: nonfiction, read-2008

Read in July, 2008

An astute examination of the tug of war between openness and privacy, control and creativity. A fine successor to the enthusiastic naivity of the Internet Utopianism of the 1990s; which, although no less idealistic at its heart, understands the repercussions and potentially less rosy outcomes.

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08/28/08

Dave rated it:

bookshelves: do-not-own, to-read

I read the first part of this book in e-book format, but really need to pick up a copy in paper. Zittrain's ideas about the direction of the internet and connected technology are very interesting and equally frightening. I look forward to reading this one and updating this review with more info.

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06/15/08

Kit added it

bookshelves: sushi

I read SOME of this, bud didn't finish it -- just because it got lost under a stack of books and I forgot about it until [forehead smack] it was about a week overdue at the library.

Got me thinking about open-sourcing and other issues, definitely looks like worthwhile reading. Someday!

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06/27/08

Preston Finley rated it:

I enjoyed most of the book. His historical analysis of how the generativity of the Internet evolved is engaging. His analysis of the issues that may "stop" the Internet are reasonable and well stated. However, I thought that the last 50 pages were out of place and unnecessary.

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