Speaking of network neutrality, one of the related ideas is safe haven for intermediaries. This was first introduced in US leglislation by the Clinton administration in the so-alled Digital Millennium Copyright Act in 1996. It said that service providers should not be held responsible for illegal of infringing activity on their networks. It also said that they must include functioning procedures for take-down in case of illegal or infringing activity happens, but the second part has sort of gotten lost on the way. The idea was to strike a balance between the legitimate interests of the technology companies and the content providers. A decade and a half later, we know all too well how limited the judicial institutions’ powers are compared to the digital networks. Great idea in theory, useless in reality.

The specific section was called 230 and is hailed by writer Derek Khanna in a business story in The Atlantic as the cornerstone of the modern internet. And sure, great for tech businesses to not have to follow any rules, no surprise they make more money. But at the same time, Section 230 is the source of too many of the societal problems related to online. Where do you go if you are a victim of identity theft? Hacking? Grooming? IP infringement? Libel? Bullying or hate speech? And what about illegal pharmaceuticals or narcotics, child pornography, weapons or other things that society has a legitimate interest in trying to limit? In order to enforce any of these things, the solution is through an intermediary who knows the identity of the wrong-doer. But thanks to the safe haven regime, in almost all of these cases the answer will be “very touching story, not my problem”. When these concepts were developed, no one could foresee the extent of how the internet has touched every part of life and society. It makes no sense to have detailed regulation on an experiment which involves some computer enthusiasts. It makes all the sense in the world to have detailed regulation in a complex society. Some would call it rule of law. Or civilisation.

The veil was lifted at last today for the world to see actual policy suggestions from the European Commission on the so-called Connected Continent, a.k.a. Digital Single Market. The main topics of debate leading up to this have of course been roaming and net neutrality. Netopia dislikes roaming as much as the next subscriber and would love pan-European flat rate plans (or global for that matter), but that’s not the most interesting part. Also, the way the package is introduced is one fine example of the idea that the cables themselves will bring economic growth (what about the content? Local marketing? Exclusivity vs. accessibility?), but that’s not the most interesting part. No, the most interesting part is about net neutrality, because that’s where infrastructure issues turn into questions of money, power, democracy, competition, rule of law, and, yes, freedom. It sure sounds good—neutrality. Who wouldn’t want net neutrality? Except, what is it? Here’s what the regulation communication says:

[…] the obligation on providers to provide unhindered connection to all content, applications, or services being accessed by end-users—also referred to as Net Neutrality—while regulating the use of traffic management measures by operators in respect of general internet access. At the same time, the legal framework for specialised services with enhanced quality is clarified.

The concept that all data packets are equal is core to the internet protocol concept. It is what made the internet great. But that’s more than two decades ago, and much has happened since; these days a lot of data packets are more equal than others. Carriers prioritise, discriminate, filter, block, and shape data traffic for all sorts of reasons: network integrity, user safety—sure—but in many cases to increase revenue and decrease cost. Subscribers can buy better access and higher priority. Hosting clients can also pay for priority and bandwidth. Great for business, but it’s nothing like network neutrality. And telcos discriminate against competing services, such as voice-over-IP (Skype, Viber, Tango), decreasing quality so it doesn’t beat old-school telephone service (you know, the kind where you pay for calls). Legally, network neutrality is an American concept with the purpose of promoting competition in telecom services by providing access to infrastructure. The European equivalent used to be must-carry provisions (which rely on government institutions to decide what price is fair for third-party traffic). Are you confused yet? Well, so am I, and so is the Commission, it seems. Because while the first part of the quote seems to say that equal access to telecom infrastructure is important, the last sentence talks about “specialised services with enhanced quality,” so it seems not all data packets are equal after all. Just that the inequality should be transparent. Fair enough, but that’s nothing like network neutrality.

So net neutrality isn’t net neutrality, after all. But even if it were, would we want it? Not really, because what is the core meaning of it? Is it not just another way of saying that the internet should be kept “open” and “free”? Which is just another way of saying that democratic institutions should have no authority online. The consequence is not anarchy, but rather a technocratic oligopoly where those few companies who control the technology make the rules. That is the complete opposite of Netopia’s vision of a sustainable digital environment where society and democratic institutions are the guardians of openness, freedom, and human rights. So who would want that net neutrality anyway? And with the exception that some services get better quality? That can only be described as the worst of both worlds.

I posted the other day about Sweden’s digital surveillance exports to the Syrian regime two years ago. Today MEP Marietje Schaake (ALDE) gave a plenary speech on a very similar topic – closing the regulatory gap on digital arms trade. In her words: “We cannot talk about cybersecurity in Europe while being digital arms traders”

There is a myth that the internet in itself has the power to bring freedom of speech and democracy, but the truth is that it is also a powerful tool for mass surveillance. Democracies to lead by example and not use digital technologies to monitor their citizens. And democracies should by no means sell this technology to authoritarian regimes. Regular arms trade is full of limitations and approval processes to make sure weapons don’t end up in the wrong hands. Digital arms should be no exception

As the world holds its breath waiting for the global community’s reaction to the developments in Syria, Netopia asks if there is a digital angle to the story. In the early days of Syrian protests in the wake of the Arab Spring, Swedish foreign minister Carl Bildt vetoed an EU embargo on sales of surveillance technology to the Syrian regime. The reason was Sweden’s #1 tech company Ericsson – which accounts for a significant proportion of the Stockholm stock market value – had dealings with the Al-Assad government. When confronted with the allegations that this technology was used to monitor and arrest dissidents (such as locating mobile phone subscribers in a protest, for example), foreign ministry spokespersons replied it is “dual use technology” and “better we sell it than someone else”. It is worth bearing this in mind the next time somebody claims that digital technology spreads freedom and democracy. (See also Mariam Kirollos’s column on the myth of the social media revolution in Egypt.)

In the wake of Barack Obama’s visit to my native Sweden this week, the news broke that Swedish defence signal intelligence agency FRA collaborated with the NSA (and supposedly as a part of PRISM) to monitor traffic in the Baltic Sea underwater cables—code-name “Sardine” (of course it would have a code-name; these are secret agents after all). No wonder Sweden’s PM Reinfeldt was so hesitant to bring up PRISM during the visit (instead Danish PM Helle Thorning-Schmidt raised the issue over dinner, where the Nordic heads of state took part). FRA’s internet surveillance was controversial when it was first introduced in Sweden in 2008 and, as a result, put on a short leash: court approval is required for all monitoring. This is in stark contrast to PRISM, which according to the media reports seems to have had a much larger scope—to the extent that Obama suggested tighter rules may be necessary at the press conference in Stockholm. The question remains, though: the wars of tomorrow will be online to a large extent, and defence agencies need to adjust. But no state would ever give the military carte blanche license to achieve its objectives; rather, its responsibility and chain-of-command are strictly regulated and always under democratic control (the opposite is a military state, with the current situation in Egypt being a nightmare example). The same should apply to cyberdefense: transparent rules with strong limitations. That actually sounds like a good recipe for most things relating to the online society. The takeaway from other areas is crystal clear: just because tech makes something possible does not mean it should be done.

What do Julian Assange, Peter Sunde and Kim Dotcom have in common? Sure, they are famous tech activists slash criminals (depending on where you stand). Assange is a crook according to US security agencies (and wanted for sex crimes in Sweden, but that probably has nothing to do with the internet). Peter Sunde used to be the face and voice of The Pirate Bay, and judging from the documentary TPB AFK he was the force behind the move from hacker prank to pseudo-political movement. And Kim Dotcom obviously an uber-pirate, having made a fortune from massive-scale IP-infringement on his Megaupload service. But it’s not the hacktivism that makes this trio special, what sets them apart is their… wait for it… political ambition! That’s right, Assange is running for senate in Australia, Sunde is a top name for the Finnish Pirate Party EU parliament bill and the other day, Dotcom announced he’s starting a new political party in New Zealand. This is a surprising trend, the story was always that technology beats democracy, what with the national borders and all. Are these ambitions in traditional politics a sign that public institutions may be where the real power is after all?

Netopia contributor Paul Frigyes reviews an influential book today: “Big Data,” by Viktor Mayer-Schönberger and Kenneth Cukier. Read it, because big data is a huge topic in tech, business, and policy. I had the opportunity to listen to a speech by Mayer-Schönberger a few years ago, not on big data, but on his previous topic on the importance of teaching machines to forget. He wrote the book “Delete: The Virtue of Forgetting in the Digital Age,” where he argues that the ability to forget is key to society and human nature—as we change over time as persons, we move on from previous views and opinions. However, if machines forget everything, this development is much harder. Think of when you Google someone’s name and the autocomplete function brings up previous searches. Sometimes they contain bad things these people did many years ago (maybe even served time in prison over)—they may have paid their debt to society, but their wrongdoings are brought back in every search. Plus you may learn something you had rather not known about. If I interpret Mayer-Schönberger’s previous work correctly, such autocomplete algorithms should not be based on the popularity of search terms but rather on time; older information should be considered of lesser importance. By the way, I recall Mayer-Schönberger as an excellent speaker; he did this trick where he pretended to be really shy and then jumped into one of the most energetic speeches I’ve ever seen. Cool.

In a way, Big Data is the opposite of Delete. The message is that collecting all information (“n=all”) allows a paradigm shift in how we understand the world. Not having to rely on guesses anymore, because now we can crunch all the actual data. Just to add to Frigyes’s discussion, I too found the book thought-provoking, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that a lot of these issues could be understood in different terms. When you have a hammer, everything looks like nails—and big data is a really good hammer. A recurring phenomenon in digitalisation is democratisation, enabling the user: anyone with a video camera can make a movie that potentially can reach a global audience (or so they say). Big data looks like the opposite of this, a tool for the already dominant online giants. Having finished the book, I have an unanswered question: US-centric big market logic aside, what would a European take on big data look like?

Not that Netopia believes the conspiracy theories that Microsoft put Elop in Nokia to bring down the share price before the acquisition, but it’s funny how tech business news seems to always inspire some very creative minds. And sometimes they are right, before Snowden who would have thought that Silicon Valley – the beacon of free speech and open networks – leaked information to US security agencies? Netopia’s take on today’s news is however another altogether: Microsoft used to be the bad guy back in the 90’s. The EU punished them for competition crime in  web browsers and there were all sorts of jokes* flying around about how bad their products were. These days, Microsoft may still be one of the dominant tech companies but we have found new ones to fear. Because how scary is a 90%+ market share on productivity software really, when a search company that lives by the phrase “don’t be evil” monitors our every move on their free services and distributes that information to advertisers and government? And how intimidating is the dominant operating system on the PC, when the market is moving to smart phones and tablets where the hardware, content and retail is controlled by one very influential fruit brand? If you want to use a smart phone, you as a consumer can choose between Android, a system that aims to collect all the information in the world, and the IOS which is a closed platform completely in the hands of the hardware maker.  Or you can go for the Windows Phone, which for sure has fewer apps but from an outside perspective looks like the only friendly option.  Too bad Bill Gates, you used to be our IT-capitalist villain of choice, but now we have bigger fish to fry.

*) My favourite: A chopper pilot gets lost in a thunderstorm but finds a high rise office building. He flies up to it and writes a sign saying “Where am I?”. The people in the office busily write the answer: “You are in a helicopter”. The pilot understands it must be the Microsoft HQ as the answer is formally correct but completely useless and so can find his way back home.

Some app developers call the iPhone “The Jesus Phone.”. Yes, it may be sort of an exaggeration, but when the iPhone launched five years ago, it solved many issues that mobile software had struggled with for decades: an integrated payment system, a point of sales, a user-friendly interface, good hardware specifications, and rapid consumer adoption. But most importantly, it did away with fragmentation. With the iPhone, every device was the same. Previously, there were hundreds of different handsets, all with different hardware, screen resolution, firmware versions, keypad setups, etc.—in fact, thousands of different permutations existed at the same time, each demanding a separate (and properly tested!) version of the software developers. In an instant, developers turned their backs on other devices and focused on the iPhone; shortly, thousands of apps appeared, and now there are more than a million. Now fragmentation is bringing the old days back; there are already several different versions of the iPhone, and the same apps also run on other iOS devices like the iPad and iPad Mini. These days, app developers have to make and test for different screens, different cameras, and different hardware. Still not in the hundreds, but increasingly complex. Now, looking outside the Appleverse, the main competitor Android has a completely different strategy. Instead of making its own hardware, Google (which owns Android) lets third-party companies like HTC, Samsung, Sony, and many others make handsets for its operating system. While this opens a huge market, it multiplies fragmentation and puts strain on developers. Wired Magazine calls this the “Matrix of Pain.”. That too is sort of an exaggeration. But it is clear that fragmentation is again an increasing problem for mobile software. And it is ironic, to say the least, that the multitude of software content works best in a hardware monoculture.