The world in the network the interop trade show, carl malamuds internet 1996 exposition, and the politics of internet commercialization

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The world in the network the interop trade show, carl malamuds internet 1996 exposition, and the politics of internet commercialization

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The World in the Network: The Interop Trade Show, Carl Malamud's Internet 1996 Exposition, and the Politics of Internet Commercialization MICHVE by MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOLGY Colleen E Kaman JUN 2015 B.A Anthropology Bates College, 1995 LIBRARIES SUBMITTED TO THE PROGRAM IN COMPARATIVE MEDIA STUDIES IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF SCIENCE IN COMPARATIVE MEDIA STUDIES AT THE MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY June 2010 2010 Colleen Elizabeth Kaman All rights reserved The author hereby grants to MIT permission to reproduce and to distribute publicly paper and electronic copies of this thesis document in whole or in part in any medium now known or hereafter crerad Sig nature of Author: Signature redactec I Progr in Comppative Media Studies 17 May 2010 Certified b y: Sia nature redacted William Charles Uricchio Professor of Comparative Media Studies Director, Comparative Media Studies Thesis Sufervisor ,-7 Accepted b y: Signature redacted H'ny'Jenkins III- Provost's Professor of Communication, Journalism, a Vd Cinematic Arts Department of Communication, University of Southern California Thesis Committee Member Accepted by: Signature redacted Nick Montfort Associate Professor of Digital Media Program in Writing and Humanistic Studies Thesis Committee Member MITLibraries 77 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02139 hftp://Iibraries.mit.edu/ask DISCLAIMER NOTICE Due to the condition of the original material, there are unavoidable flaws in this reproduction We have made every effort possible to provide you with the best copy available Thank you Slight cropping of page numbers at the bottom page margin Prologue One starting point of this study was a curiosity about the meteoric transformation of the Internet from an experimental research network into a global communications medium INTERNATIONAL CNNECTIVITY SIntsa.t EMU.1 Only(UUCP,Fid.N.t) N0Conntity Figure 1: "International Connectivity" in 1991 This map shows what countries had permanent links to electronic networks, including the Internet However, this map does not indicate the level or quality of that connectivity INTERNATIONAL CO NECTIVITY Blinet but not Internet EU.Niny (UUiCP, 1No Connwctivfty Fkd.N.* : rn Figure 2: "International Connectivity" in 1997 This map shows how dramatically permanent international links to the Internet had expanded in just six years Copyright 1991 and 1997 Lawrence H Landweber and the Internet Society Unlimited permission to copy or use is hereby granted subject to inclusion of this copyright notice The World in the Network: The Interop Trade Show, Carl Malamud's Internet 1996 Exposition, and the Politics of Internet Commercialization Abstract In the early 1990s, the Internet emerged as a commercially viable global communications medium This study considers the role that representatives of the military-industrial research world played in the physical expansion of the Internet It does so by examining the social practices and processes of the semi-annual "Interop" computer-networking trade show, and one affiliated "exposition." Beginning in 1987, and for nearly a decade, Interop operated as a forum that brought representatives from industry and the research and user communities into strategic alliance to tackle the practicalities of expanding the Internet's core networking protocols and assembling diverse networks into a global Internet The period examined culminates with the Internet 1996 World Exposition Through that event, technologist Carl Malamud drew on the rhetoric of turn-of-the-century world's fairs to demonstrate the value of faster networks but also argued for a conception of "the commons" that could ideally be served by the rapidly privatizing Internet In the absence of a comprehensive history of the commercial expansion of the Internet, analysis of these practices provides a pioneering analytic narrative of a crucial strand of this development This thesis moves between levels of analysis, specifically between the Interop network, the Internet 1996 Exposition event, and the perspective of Malamud himself By highlighting these hitherto neglected practices, this examination deepens our understanding of the forces that proved critical to the Internet's commercial success Thesis Supervisor: William Charles Uricchio Title: Professor of Comparative Media Studies Acknowledgments I'd like to extend my deepest thanks to the many individuals who helped me along the way CMS mentors William Uricchio, Henry Jenkins, and Nick Montfort provided intellectual guidance and encouragement that greatly influenced this project as well as many other endeavors I am grateful to Glorianna Davenport, Lucy Suchman, Michael Fischer, Fred Turner, and Stefan Helmreich, who helped along the way, and to Lisa Williams, whose sketches helped me understand protocol layers and whose stories kept my spirits high I would like to extend my thanks to numerous interviewees who generously gave of their time to speak to me about their experiences as well as the technical aspects of their work in person, by phone, and over email These include Karl Auerbach, David Brandin, David Clark, Dave Crocker, Tom Keating, Ole Jacobsen, Dan Lynch, Tom Keating, Carl Malamud, Howard Rheingold, Andy Lippman, Marty Lucas, and Marshall Rose Without their patience and assistance, this work would never have been possible A special thanks goes to my entire family, who have always supported my various interests and never failed to offer words of encouragement I am particularly grateful to Bridget and Anthony Barron who so generously offered their home for my numerous trips to the San Francisco Bay area Finally, thanks to Abdulrazzaq al-Saiedi, who kept me company and listened to me ramble on about my thesis at all hours of the day and night List of Figures Prologue Figure 1: "International Connectivity" in 1991 Figure 2: "International Connectivity" in 1997 Chapter One Figure 3: Advertisement for the October 1, 1982 Launch of EPCOT Theme Park Figure 4: The AT&T Network Operations Center scene, Spaceship Earth, 1984 Figure 5: AT&T's International Fiber Optic Cables, circa 1998 Chapter Three Figure 6: Screenshot, Construction of Interop Show Network, date unknown Figure 7: Diagram of the INTEROP90 Show Network Configuration Chapter Four Figure 8: Screenshot, Internet 1996 Expo website Is Contents Prologue Abstract Acknowledgments List of Figures Introduction: The Commercial Sphere as a Site of Social Change Chapter One: As our Thirst for Knowledge Grew, the World Began to Shrink: Spaceship Earth as a Networked Utopia 20 Chapter Two: Internet Explorers and Digital Worlds 36 Chapter Three: I Know it Works, I Saw it at Interop 49 Chapter Four: In Truth, All the World Was There: The Internet 1996 Expo 63 Chapter Five: Conclusion 79 Appendix A: List of Interviewees 89 References 90 Introduction: The Commercial Sphere as a Site of Social Change In 1994, Kevin Kelly information technology pundit and founding executive editor of Wired, and co-founder of the online community the WELL' argued in "Out of Control" that the marketplace in the emerging networked society was the site of social change The text, which was organized in a format similar to the Whole Earth Catalog, outlined deep interconnections between the biological, the technological, and the social (Turner 2006, 200) Describing living systems in computer science terms, Kelly suggested that organisms advanced by "hacking," or working-around, challenges that, over time, naturally led to ubiquity and complexity Likewise, Kelly asserted that technology itself had evolved such that computer networks had transformed the corporation into a living organism, "distributed, decentralized, collaborative, and adaptive." Such a process, Kelly believed, signaled the emergence of a global information system that naturally guided an economy within which men and machines would be effortlessly integrated In other words, Kelly downplayed the physical aspects of the global economy, including the computer-networking hardware and production lines as well as the physical labor and relationships embedded in these objects As Fred Turner has demonstrated, Kelly's argument synthesized influences that had first formed around the Whole Earth network The emerging society he depicted integrated 1960s-era countercultural ideals with corporate interests and the collaborative practices and rhetoric of interconnectedness associated with the military-industrial research world (Turner 2006, 199-206) According to Kelly, the emerging post-industrial economy was a powerful demonstration of the deep integration of computers and computer networks in society, revealing "a common soul between the organic communities and their manufactured counterparts of robots, corporations, economies, and computer circuits" (Kelly 1994, 3) The world itself had become an information system, and with it, new forms, such as the bee swarm (and with it, the "hive mind") and complex adaptive systems, emerged to replace the hierarchical logic of the previous era For corporate executives trying to understand the technological and economic changes they faced, Kelly encouraged them to "obey the logic of the net" if they hoped to succeed in the emerging economy, a The WELL, or Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link, was founded in 1985 by Stewart Brand and Larry Brilliant Many of the WELL's core members were previously associated with Brand's Whole Earth Catalog, and like the catalog, quickly became a highly influential computer conferencing system and virtual community system in which the intangibles of the network would supersede the world of physical objects" (1998, 160) This countercultural worldview depended heavily on the cybernetic theories of information management that drew connections between system social theories and objects and systems; yet in the process of translation, the counterculture downplayed and even obscured the physical aspects of the technologies built in the Cold War-era research labs Still, the physicality of computer networks represents a critical aspect of the Internet and continues to be a site of conflict Those conflicts range from "Denial of Service" attacks, to edicts of national and international courts limiting the reach of information online and the control mechanisms of corporate providers and national governments, to lagging broadband infrastructures that cause "information traffic jams" and fragment network connectivity The scope and increasing severity of these conflicts surrounding the physical network have led Harvard Law School professor Jonathan Zittrain (2008) to predict that the Internet is increasingly likely to become a "closed" technology as aspects of the technological system that encourage experimentation and exchange are replaced by consumer "appliances" that offer little in the way of participation What is it about the physical aspects of computer networks that have bedeviled idealistic visions of the networked society? External forces, such as commercial influences or national interests, are not simply corrupting an exceptional technology and the ideal society it promised, as many countercultural figures supposed Part of the answer lies with the nature of the technology itself When the Internet and then the World Wide Web3 first LICRA v Yahoo (2000) was the first successful international challenge to the Internet community's argument that the Internet represents an exceptional technology that should be governed by different means than by national laws, as are traditional communications technologies The case examined whether it was illegal for a Yahoo! online auction site to sell Nazi artifacts in France The World Wide Web, sometimes confused with the Internet by people who first encountered them both at the same time (in the mid-1990s or later), was a system for making information widely available that was conceived and pioneered by Tim Berners-Lee, a British citizen working at the CERN research institute in Switzerland It consisted of 1) "web sites" (electronically accessible "places") for storing text and images with a protocol for assigning each one a name (formed of standard alphabetic and typewriter keyboard characters)-termed a URL (for Universal Resource Locator); 2) "hypertext," text with certain words appearing on-screen as underlined or differently colored and serving as "links" that when "clicked on" with a computer mouse, bring to the screen an associated web site; and 3) a programming language, originally HTML ("hypertext mark-up language"), for giving each web site a standard, widely interpretable format for its information By providing a network of physically connected computers on which web sites can reside, to be accessed at any time, the Internet served as the communication infrastructure for the World Wide Web Conversely, the World Wide Web, by offering ever richer information content, undergirded and A emerged into public view in the mid-1990s, enthusiasm for networked exchange and distributed communities all but obscured the tangle of cables and "cyberspace-warping wires" (Stephenson 1996) as well as the significance of networked computing's history Yet, the Internet had a history It is a distributed computer network created by linking together previously existing smaller computer networks, of which the best known was the ARPAnet (the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) network for rapid communication among Department of Defense-linked researchers) In other words, it has its roots in the militaryresearch culture that emerged in the wake of World War II and the Cold War The network was developed to be independent of centralized control, flexible, and readily adaptable, such that the technology could withstand nuclear attack At its core, the Internet operates according to a suite of protocols known as TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol) that specifies how to structure, transmit, and receive information between dissimilar networks These protocols allowed for the ubiquitous connectivity upon which the modern Internet is based Another physical aspect of distributed network technologies is their tangible infrastructure Since this technology often bootstraps onto existing telecommunications wires and cables, the computer network becomes a point of conflict within existing infrastructures, laws, and norms In the early 1990s, for example, large-scale commercial providers (like America Online, CompuServe, and Prodigy)5 fought the organizational logic of the Internet that allowed for peer-to-peer transmission of data packets regardless of source or terminus In contrast, they envisioned closed communities that offered easy-tomotivated the improvement of the capabilities of the Internet far beyond its original function of relaying messages Each one, an enthusiast might say, sustained and nourished the other, in a symbiotic co-evolution powered by human sociability and curiosity TCP/IP had been developed as an experimental, U.S military-funded solution to the technical problem of connecting dissimilar "packet-switched" networks and earlier radio relay technologies By strict definition, TCP/IP is only two protocols - TCP (Transmission Control Protocol) and IP (Internet Protocol) - each performing a distinct function However, the term "TCP/IP" is commonly used to describe an entire family of protocols known as the TCP/IP protocol suite For example, it specifies protocols for performing tasks such as file transfer (FTP or File Transfer Protocol), electronic mail (SMTP or Simple Mail Transport Protocol), and remote access to a computer (telnet) The TCP/IP protocols are standards for formatting, addressing, fragmenting, delivering, reassembling and checking transmitted information Any computer network, even a physically isolated one having no connection to the Internet can use TCP/IP protocols However, many consider the public Internet synonymous with these protocols because it is a global TCP/IP network The Internet is, among other things, an enormous TCP/IP network For a period account of Prodigy, see Howard Rheingold's chapter, "Disinformocracy" in The Virtual Community: Homesteadingon the ElectronicFrontier(2000), available online at http://www.rheingold.com/vc/book/ they could substantially reduce the physical challenges of global networked computing, leaving only "the cultural barriers that have always hindered cooperation." Stephenson's closing comment is revealing because he forecasts that people, not technologies, will tend to "fail"-through resistance or error, thereby limiting the promise of universal connectivity Infrastructures are generally invisible, functioning seamlessly within society until they break down This moment of "willful disconnectivity" 99 becomes powerful because it offers an account of networks at the periphery (a zone that is decidedly less inviting than the interface of personal computers) that exposes the "modernizing" logics of networks It also exposes the allure and the implications of distributed, networked forms of management, an assumption that Stephenson was less willing to interrogate Networked computing has indeed functioned as a technology that is not only democratizing, empowering individuals by allowing them greater market privileges, but also one that, despite the centralized and hierarchical structures of previous systems, operates according to its own managerial structures Infrastructures are similarly visible when they are under construction, as they were in Silicon Valley in the 1980s and 1990s These networks, conceptually and physically halfformed, revealed the visions of the engineers themselves, which have been the focus of this study As evidenced by their willingness to "disconnect" users from the Internet for various infractions, these engineers understood that the global information technology system they were constructing required widespread adherence to be effective In this way, the halfformed nature of these networks also directly confronts how the technology - an invention first developed to address the U.S military's need to promote a flexible, heterogeneous system able to string together a diverse range of command and control systems (Abbate 1999, 144) - was "normalized" in order to become a commercially viable communications medium These infrastructures, or at least traces of their presence, are discernible across Disney's simulated landscapes of the emergence of the networked age This study began with Spaceship Earth because, unlike the visions of networked computing extolled through the Whole Earth or Interop networks, the instrumentality of the exhibit's narrative is never in question In particular, the theme park has always 99 Galloway (2004) has defined "disconnectivity" in technical terms, which might include a Denial of Service (DoS) attack (that either involves overwhelming the targeted machine with external communications requests, rendering the device unable to respond to legitimate traffic, or responding too slowly to be effectively available), or an instance when an Internet Service Provider (ISP) controls or cuts off a user because of a time limit 80 explicitly marketed the notion of progress itself, integrating artifacts and iconic moments into "coherent ensembles" from which visitors could glimpse a future that is at once computational and corporate (Nye 1994, 205) Although Epcot was directly inspired by the corporate futurism of the 1939 New York World's Fair, the Disney theme park envisioned the proper role of corporate forces as one infused with cybernetic rhetoric that viewed human beings (and their histories) and technological systems as interconnected This tone has shifted and softened over the years; now, the exhibit extols the myth of the "guy tinkering in the garage," downplaying the Internet's origin as an experimental, U.S military-funded solution to the tactical problem of connecting dissimilar networks in a polarized Cold-War era Yet the interconnectedness of systems theory infuses the entire corporate exhibit, suggesting that networks are built upon powerful but nonpublic marketdriven decisions and military-subsidized research and development For this reason Spaceship Earth functioned as an ideal site from which to begin an exploration of the military-industrial research world's role in the physical construction of networks and networking hardware that led to the commercial success of the Internet in the 1990s Aspects of this question have been approached by a number of scholars Fred Turner, for example, suggests that cybernetic discourse and the collaborative, interdisciplinary work styles of the military-industrial research world intertwined with the American counterculture to help fuel what would become a widespread utopian vision that computer networks would usher in an ideal society By the 1990s, descendants of this research world - organizations like the Stanford Research Institute (SRI), the MIT Media Lab, and the Santa Fe Institute - became "models of a collaborative world in which technologies were rendering information systems visible, material production processes irrelevant, and bureaucracy obsolete" (Turner 2006, 178) These models, and the relationships they supported, helped blend countercultural and cybernetic rhetoric and practice in ways that helped corporate executives model and manage their work in the postindustrial networked economy Yet this analysis offers less insight into the physical construction of networks The role of the military-industrial world in the commercialization of the Internet has also been addressed on the technical side Some analyses have focused on the groups tasked with overseeing the standard-setting and architectural design processes - the Internet Activities Board (IAB) and the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) Yet these 81 organizations were less suited to respond to the practicalities of implementing these standards, particularly at scale As Janet Abbate suggests, "perhaps the key to the Internet's later commercial success was that the project internalized the competitive forces of the market by bringing representatives of diverse interest groups together and allowing them to argue through design issues" (1999, 144), a collaborative tactic formed in the military-industrial research labs The present study contributes to this existing body of research by suggesting that the Interop trade show network, as a series of forums where former ARPAnet researchers partnered with commercial interests, functioned as one of the systems that Abbate describes The present study has focused on the network of individuals and activities around the Interop trade show, suggesting that, unlike other mechanisms of standardization, the show network not only offered a manner of ensuring partnerships among a set of diverse and often competing interests, but also offered a mechanism for testing standards in a technically complicated and commercially competitive environment This suggests that Interop functioned in tandem with the established RFC documentation process (and the organizational logics comprised),1 00 addressing the practicalities of implementing these standards across domains Such strategies ensured that the Internet's core organizational logics would be adaptable enough to transform into a private commercialized infrastructure and survive the resulting fragmentation of authority The figures most closely associated with Interop were actively involved in securing the Internet's future and explicitly integrating the Internet into the emerging global economy For most of the network engineers affiliated with Interop, this expansion was driven by an attention to interoperability, a goal that envisioned interconnecting machines that were, at least ideally, interchangeable, openly sharing and processing information This imperative drove toward "open systems" that, according to Chris Kelty, amounted to "openness through privatization," a formulation that equated the marketplace with the free exchange of knowledge and fought against the proprietary solutions that threatened monopoly control by corporations over products In particular, then, Interop was driven by the practical need to ensure that the flexible TCP/IP standards, first built to satisfy military conditions, thrived in the global 100 In his work on protocols, Alexander Galloway has referred to these logics as the "governmentality" of information systems (2004, xviii) 82 open market, and thus become the de facto standard for global networked computing To accommodate the NSFNET, which oversaw control of the Internet in the early 1990s and banned commercial activity on the network, as well as leverage the widespread support that Internet protocols and practices had in the computer science community at large, Interop organized the expansion of the Internet through universities around the world By doing so, they avoided engaging with national governments, and the attendant flood of difficulties, including competing protocol standards that already had the support of many governments as well as competing claims of ownership from nationalized telecom industries By contrast, Carl Malamud, focused on connectivity (and openness) as a means to an end, more interested in what faster networks could mean for increased services and new communities His attitude was perhaps most clearly articulated by his Marshall McLuhaninspired mantra, "the medium is not the message" - a technological vision, but one that focused on the delivery of the content and not the physical networks themselves to deliver on the promises of an ideal society Although Malamud was deeply immersed in Interop's goal to transform the Internet into a vehicle of global enterprise, he also tended to advocate for an articulation of the commons, expressing ambivalence about what a wholly commercial turn would mean for more civic-minded activities on the Internet These efforts revealed a crucial difference between Malamud and many Interop engineers with deep ties to the military-industrial research world Individuals like conference founder Dan Lynch as well as Vint Cerf and David Clark belonged to a close-knit group of former ARPAnet researchers working to retain substantial authority over the Internet, most explicitly as representatives of the IAB In contrast, Malamud was not only a generation younger than these Internet pioneers, but he came from a different "user community" that shared more in common with early commercial publishers like Tim O'Reilly of O'Reilly and Associates and other technical groups These distinctions would become even more apparent as the most substantial challenges of routing information between computer networks were solved-and the Internet moved into a new phase of standardization and expansion In other words, spectacles like the Internet Expo focused on technical aspects of networks, and on the need for greater connectivity, in order to allow the affordances of built networks to flourish Perhaps the greatest point of departure in this regard was Malamud's Internet 1996 Exposition Employing many of the same strategies and figures involved with Interop, Malamud produced an event that not only successfully demonstrated the viability of faster networks, but also explicitly highlighted the role of governments and other state actors that, until this point, had largely been excluded from Interop-style network expansions To further appeal to them, he even touted the potential consumer appeal of a massive spectacle that traded on the nostalgia and excitement of a world's fair These tactics, more than any of his other provocations, likely annoyed the Internet leadership They studiously worked to define the Internet for its technical attributes, not for its communities; and had fought even more powerfully to work outside of the regulatory and political boundaries of international law and of national governments and commercial enterprises Malamud, in contrast, invited these parties to the table Next Steps This study has approached the Internet's commercial transition from the particular perspectives of a relatively small group of network engineers, most with direct ties to ARPAnet, who were physically based in Silicon Valley and involved with the Interop trade show It has suggested that Interop played a critical role in the implementation of the RFCs, the technical standards that define the core operations of the Internet, and as such should be considered alongside this well-researched technical standards-setting effort Beyond the particular contributions of the network engineers affiliated with Interop, a much broader story remains to be told about the trade show network This next stage of research might be generally conceived in two ways First, more research needs to be conducted on the role of additional technical publications and conferences in the commercialization of the Internet in the 1980s and 1990s Of greatest interest is O'Reilly Media, which organized technical publications and conferences, helping make technical aspects of the Internet accessible for a wider audience For example, O'Reilly Media was not only actively involved in publishing programming handbooks that continue to be the definitive works in this field, but also published one of the first guides to the Internet, Ed Krol's Whole Internet User's Guide and Catalog (1992) and launched the first commercial website, Global Network Navigator(1993) Although it is clear that organizations such as O'Reilly Media were influenced by the Whole Earth network and its steady stream of publications, they don't seem to have overlapped significantly Another arena beyond the scope of the current research would more deeply examine Interop's role in response to explicit efforts to build global infrastructures amenable to U.S national and corporate interests at a time when global economic and technological forces sweeping the industrialized world were the source of considerable anxiety over the United States' ability to retain global technological and economic leadership In the mid-1980s, for example, Japan was perceived as a particular threat because it had launched a joint government-industry-university research effort focused on high technology, namely, artificial intelligence, parallel processing, and microprocessing technologies Of particular interest are the mechanisms by which the Internet expanded on a global level, namely the relationship between Silicon Valley and the various nodes of the emerging Internet, such as the major trading nations of Japan and the Netherlands (where, incidentally, the Internet 1996 Expo was far more popular than in the U.S.) as well as locales "outside" the industrialized world In other words, this research would benefit from a multi-sited history that better reflects the complexities of assembling a network infrastructure In addition, further analysis might more substantially understand Interop's role within the Silicon Valley culture of forums, partnerships, and demonstrations 10 as well as within the larger economic and social reorganizations underway in the early 1990s This would include archival and primary research that could include individuals who contributed in critical ways to Interop's history, such as David Brandin and Douglas Engelbart, both affiliated with the military-industrial research firm SRI It might also include gathering research from the Defense Communications Agency (now known as the Defense Information Systems Agency, or DISA) as well as from Defense National Intelligence, organizations that were involved in facilitating the success of the Interop trade show overseas, and finally corporate figures from firms such as AT&T, MCI, IBM, Cisco, and Sun Microsystems Such research would deepen our understanding of the impact of trade shows like Interop, which likely shepherded military-industrial concerns into the global field while integrating networked information technologies into the global economy Sun Microsystems organized a "Connectathon," in 1986 (http://www.connectathon.ora/), that appears to have resembled the INTEROPnet Given Sun's enormous influence on Silicon Valley in this era, their events might well have been one of the inspirations for the trade show's functional network For more on Silicon Valley and Sun Microsystems in the early 1990s, see Saxenian, AnnaLee 1994 Regional advantage: Culture and competition in Silicon Valley and Route 128 Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press 101 Interwoven through the avenues of research outlined above might be an effort to examine the technical development of current networking technologies, (re)considering their relationship to the range of experimental technologies, such as the multicasting (and the MBONE) that was designed (at least in part) to address perceived bandwidth and connectivity issues Recall that numerous scholars have stated that technologies are shaped by the strategies of social groups in power who then tend to create "technologies [that] mirror our societies" (Bijker and Law 1992, 3), reproducing the assumptions and preferences of the engineers who crafted them This avenue of research around technological change could also reveal the complex relationship between the adoption of networked information technologies (so-called "technology transfer") and the growing complexity of how we might understand agency and the relationship between technical design and proximity to power in an age that puts forth the potential of each individual over the capacities of a social or cultural group Yet, as much as further studies might interrogate the degree to which the tools of networked information technologies (driven by the cybernetic logics of protocols) and their companion market-oriented reforms 02 infuse contemporary development strategies, these political and economic practices might be examined far closer to home It is easy to note the continuing role that figures such as Dan Lynch and Vint Cerf, as well as many descendants of the military-industrial research world, continue to have on the Internet today Yet it is perhaps more compelling to consider how the "mobilizing visions" that spawned Lynch's "interoperability" trade show, and the imperative to expand the organizational logics of Internet protocols worldwide through market-oriented partnerships as well as through the policies of deregulation and the democratic free market, continue to critically inform the concerns expressed by figures like Carl Malamud In fact, lest this study appear to be merely an historical account of the relationship between mobilizing utopias and the managerial demands of commercialization, Carl Malamud's own career suggests that much of the same operational logic that drove Internet commercialization in the early 1990s - the work of reconstituting society to conform to the logics of network protocols - has not simply been a chapter in the history of the early Internet but rather a utopian effort that is constantly underway In 2009, Malamud In her research on efforts in Peru to both modernize the government and prepare citizens for the global, information-based economy, Anita Chan (2008) has employed the term "neoliberal networks" to describe the integration of the regulatory logic of protocols in global capital 102 843 discussed how he and a small group of dedicated open-government activists "liberated" the U.S federal courts' record database from the privately-managed paywalls,1 making it what he believed it should be - free and widely accessible - by publishing millions of pages of the cases on the Internet Malamud also shared his principles of open data-that includes data that is widely accessible, "machine processable," and available in a primary and non-proprietary format (Malamud 2007).104 These changes, Malamud suggested, were leading to the next "wave" of governance We are now witnessing a third wave of change-an Internet wave-where the underpinnings and machinery of government are used not only by bureaucrats and civil servants, but by the people (2009, 18) This transformation, Malamud has suggested, results in "government as platform" (O'Reilly, 2009), a term that conceives of government systems as the basis for private enterprise as well as for the traditional tasks of governance Malamud has further argued that, in this view, the traditional tools of government become critical elements of the architecture of the network itself Government information-patents, corporate filings, agriculture research, maps, weather, medical research-is the raw material of innovation, creating a wealth of business opportunities that drive our economy forward Government information is a form of infrastructure, no less important to our modern life than our roads, electrical grid, or water systems (2009, 21-22)105 By proposing new expectations about the accessibility of government data, a subject that has preoccupied him for nearly his entire career, Malamud promotes new channels of connectivity between citizens and the state while at the same time advocating for the "reformation" of traditional government structures to conform to the managerial logics of protocols More precisely, for Malamud the "mobilizing visions" that so engaged his imagination in the 1990s continue to critically inform his work today Governance and the control of the production and distribution of knowledge, as it relates to the Internet, have changed considerably in the intervening decades Malamud's attention has turned away from the construction of "big networks." Instead, his focus has turned toward the far more 103 This database is known as PACER, the government-run Public Access to Court Electronic Records It is only accessible for a charge, is not searchable, and not user-friendly for the general public 104 In 2007, Carl Malamud and Tim O'Reilly of O'Reilly Media held an invitation-only "Open Government Working Group" to generate principles for open government data The principles are available here: http://resource.org/8 principles.html 105 Here, Malamud cites Alfred Chandler's Strategy and Structure (1962) as the defining work on "the intertwined nature of government, infrastructure, and industry." 87 intimate project of incorporating the logics of networks into individuals themselves He seeks to cultivate individuals who possess the capacity to self-govern, distributing the responsibilities once assumed by modern states to citizens themselves In this way, Malamud is an example of the enduring impact of the Interop trade show and the politics of Internet commercialization on individuals 88 Appendix A: List of Interviewees Auerbach, Karl (former ARPAnet engineer and key member of the Interop trade show INTEROPnet team 2009 Interview with author in San Jose, California, June 30 Brandin, David K (former vice president and director of SRI International and vice president of programs at Interop) 2009 Phone interview with author, July 28 Clark, David (senior research scientist at MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory as well as chief protocol architect from 1981-1989 and chair of IAB) 2009 Phone interview with author, June 25 Crocker, David (former ARPAnet engineer who contributed to the development of internetworking capabilities in the research and commercial sectors) 2009 Interview with the author in Palo Alto, CA, June 25 and June 29 Davenport, Glorianna (founding member of the MIT Media Lab and former director of the Interactive Cinema group) 2009 Interview with the author in Cambridge, Massachusetts, March-April Jacobsen, Ole (editor and publisher of The Internet Protocol Journal and long-time editor and publisher of Interop Company's ConneXions-The Interoperability Report) 2009 Interview with the author in San Francisco, July Lucas, Marty (directed audio and web production for the Internet 1996 Expo) 2009 Phone interview with author, July Lynch, Daniel (former computing manager at SRI, long-time member of the IAB [198319931, and founder of Interop Company) 2009 Interview with author, June 24 Malamud, Carl (former document resource author, founder of the Internet Multicasting Service and Public.Resource.Org) 2009 Interview with the author, May 13 Rheingold, Howard (member of the Whole Earth network as well as author of Virtual Community: Homesteading on the Electronic Frontier and former executive editor of HotWired, one of the first commercial content web sites) 2009 Interview with the author, June 23 Rose, Marshall (network protocol and software engineer who contributed to the development of network management and distributed systems management and founded Dover Beach Consulting) 2009 Phone interview with author, June 27 89 References The Charles Babbage Institute, housed at the Center for the History of Information Technology at the University of Minnesota, hosts copies of Interop's monthly "ConneXions - The InteroperabilityReport" publications To access their online archives, see http://www.cbi.umn.edu/ The Computer History Museum, in Mountain View, California, holds a partial record of published materialsand other documents related to Interop Additional Interop documents were accessed from the Computer History Museum's archival collection The sources designated as RFC (Request for Comments) are technical documents that define technical standards or network procedures They can be found online at www.rfc-editor.org Conversations about the technical history of the Internet can be found at the USC-Information Sciences Institute's Postel Center [www.postel.org] Abbate, Janet 1999 Inventing the Internet Cambridge, MA: MIT Press Agre, Phil 1998 Yesterday's Tomorrow Times LiterarySupplement, July 3, 3-4 Almquist, Phil 1989 The INTEROP 88 Network-behind the scenes ConneXions - The InteroperabilityReport 3(2): www.cbi.umn.edu/hostedpublications/Connexions/ ConneXionsO3 1989/ConneXions3-02 Feb1989.pdf Bijker, Wiebe E 1997 Introduction to Of bicycles, bakelites, and bulbs: toward a theory of sociotechnicalchange, 1-19 Cambridge, MA: MIT Press - 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At Interop We join the Interop5 in the early 1990s, at the height of the trade show''s influence The semi-annual event had become one of the most respected and popular trade events in the industry.5... infrastructures, and of the Internet, emphasize the innovations of Internet practices and processes Since, in most cases, the individuals I interviewed are still actively working in the information... one of the most widely read business manuals of the 1990s, the executive editor of Wired magazine, Kevin Kelly, celebrated a new order in which "the world of the soft -the world of intangibles, of

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