Factions in a Digital Age

-- By AndreiVoinigescu

Table of Contents

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Introduction

In The Federalist No. 10, James Madison warned of the threat posed by factions to civil rights and the public good. While Madison understood the need to keep factions from usurping the power of the state, the march of technology has made it evident that misuse of the state's coercive power is not the only threat to individual rights. Just as the American Constitution seeks to limit the power of factions within the political process by incorporating principles of federalism, separation of powers and bicameralism into the architecture of the state, so too must we now look to the architecture of the internet as a means of diffusing the power technology grants to factions. We can--and should--phase in a new network where ownership and control over the switches is maximally dispersed.

How Technological Change Threatens Civil Rights and Self Governance

Lawrence Lessig has identified four mechanisms though which human behavior is controlled: laws, social norms, market forces, and physical architecture. Physical architecture is a far more powerful means of regulation than law: physical architecture creates self-enforcing ex-anti constraints, while law can only threaten ex-post punishment and requires a complex bureaucracy to enforce. Laws against drunk driving are less effective then breathalysers hooked to the ignition switch.

For activities conducted over networks, the code than controls the switches defines the physical architecture of the network. It prescribes what can and cannot be done on the network, which communications can get through, which are to be modified (and how), and which are simply not to be forwarded on. Modify the code on enough switches to block certain websites, and you get China's Golden Shield Project. Write code to identify subversive or unflattering text in transit, and Twitter posts by political dissidents and whistle-blowers become toothless endorsements of the regime.

Our ability to modify the physical architecture of the real world is still, fortunately, rather limited. But in a networked world, code is easy to modify. The owner of the switch has almost unlimited control over what is and isn't possible on the network. And, in the Internet as it exists now, ownership of the switches is concentrated among a relatively small number of Internet Service Providers (ISPs), most of whom are commercial entities. This creates an environment where a single ISP (or a few acting in concert) can regulate human behavior much more completely than the most determined police states of the Cold War era ever could. Comcast's unilateral decision to throttle BitTorrent traffic across its network is a pale hint of what we can expect to see as switching hardware develops to allow real-time deep packet inspection of all network traffic and the owners of the switches become increasingly savvy about the power they control.

Network Architecture as a Check on the Power of Code

End to end encryption of networked communications and government regulation offer only partial solutions to the dangerous concentration of power in the hands of the switch owners. Encryption does not disguise the parties to a communication or their pattern of interaction. Regulating the switch owners, meanwhile, only transfers control of the switches to political incumbents who would undoubtedly be tempted to employ it to consolidate their own power. And regulation is reactive, not preemptive; some switch owners will be willing to risk the consequences of the law if the immediate rewards are large enough.

To stop factions from abusing the unprecedented regulatory power of code in ways, we need a network where ownership and control of the switches is dispersed as widely as possible. In such a network, the power of code can only be employed through substantial populist consensus.

Building a Commonly-Owned Internet

The current Internet architecture is very hierarchical. The communication between many end-point devices is routed through a much smaller number of centralized switches. This architecture is largely a relic of wired links and limited computational power. Other, flatter network architectures are now possible which would eliminate the distinction between end-points and switches.

In a wireless mesh network, devices (computers, cell-phones, smart appliances, networked cars, etc.) can act as both end-points and switches. Devices within range of each other communicate directly, while those further apart take advantage of the forwarding capacities of the devices in the middle. No third party is need to construct, own and maintain centralized network infrastructure; the cost is spread out among the individual device owners. The technology required is cheap, and getting cheaper--it has been incorporated in sub-$200 laptops meant to be deployed in areas with limited Internet infrastructure.

A wireless mesh network disperses control over the switches and the code that they run. So long as networked devices remain untethered, each owner can program his device to regulate in a fashion he finds ethical, or install third-party firmware embodying acceptable regulation. The power of each device owner is minor, however, because alternative paths between any two nodes in the network almost always exist. Two parties communicating in a mesh network can chose a path that avoids untrusted switches. Thus, effective code-based regulation on the network only arises only if there is substantial--probably supermajoritarian--consensus among all network users.

The electromagnetic spectrum required to implement a robust wireless mesh network is becoming available. By February 17, 2009, all television stations in the United States must complete the mandatory transition from analog to digital broadcasting. Because digital transmissions are much less sensitive to to interference, there is no longer any need for large bands of 'white space'--unused electromagnetic frequencies--between digital TV channels. The FCC has already indicated its intention to leave the white space frequencies in the public domain to be used by new consumer wireless devices. As television broadcasting gives way to webcasting, more and more spectrum will be freed from its traditional use.

Conclusion

Detailing all the salutary (and problematic) effects of distributed ownership and control over Internet switches is beyond the scope of this paper. But an internet structured to give every user an ownership stake is now technologically feasible. It is an option we should consider if we are serious about preventing factions from unilaterally determining the public good and the scope of our rights.

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