Download - Future of the Internet – And how to stop it.

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networks because they will find themselves shunned by other ISPs if they permit
excessive anonymous spam—a system similar to the MAPS and Google/
StopBadware regimes discussed in the previous chapter. This opportunity for
greater direct liability reduces the pressure on those processing incoming
e-mail—both the designated recipients and their ISPs—to resort to spam filtration
heuristics that may unintentionally block legitimate e-mail. 82
The same principle can apply to individuals’ uses of the Internet that are said
to harm legally protected interests. Music industry lawsuits against individual
file sharers may be bad policy if the underlying substantive law demarcating the
protected interest is itself ill-advised—and there are many reasons to think that
it is—but from the point of view of generativity, such lawsuits inflict little
damage on the network and PCs themselves. The Internet’s future may be
brighter if technology permits easier identification of Internet users combined
with legal processes, and perhaps technical limitations, to ensure that such
identification occurs only when good cause exists. The mechanisms to make it
less than impossible to find copyright infringers and defamers ought not to
make it trivial for authoritarian states to single out subversives.
As the discussion of FON explained, a growing number of Internet users are
acquiring wireless routers that default to sharing their connection with anyone
nearby who has a PC configured with a wireless antenna. Consumers may not
intend to open their networks, but doing so creates generative benefits for those
nearby without their own Internet access. 83 Usage by others does not typically
impede the original consumer’s enjoyment of broadband, but should outsiders
use that connection, say, to send viruses or to pirate copyrighted files, the original
consumer could be blamed when the Internet connection is traced. 84 Current
legal doctrine typically precludes such blame—nearly all secondary liability
schemes require some form of knowledge or benefit before imposing
responsibilities 85 —but a sea change in the ability of lawbreakers to act untraceably
by using others’ wi-fi could plausibly result in an adjustment to doctrine.
As such examples arise and become well known, consumers will seek to cut
off others’ access to their surplus network resources, and the manufacturers of
wireless routers might change the default to closed. If, however, genuine individual
identity can be affirmed in appropriate circumstances, wi-fi sharing need
not be impeded: each user will be held responsible for his or her own actions
and no more. Indeed, the FON system of sharing wireless access among members
of the “FON club” maintains users’ accounts for the purpose of identity
tracing in limited circumstances—and to prevent additional pressure on regu-