Protect net neutrality, Lessig tells geeks
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Technologists must involve themselves in policy making or risk losing a free Internet.
This was the warning provided by Creative Commons founder Lawrence Lessig, talking last night at an Internet Society of South Africa meeting in Cape Town.
Guarding against disaster
Lessig, who is best known as the originator of the alternative Creative Commons licensing schema, predicted that the Internet would suffer a 9/11-type disaster in the future which will change the way the Internet functions.
"This probably won't have anything to do with Al Qaeda," he said. But it will be enough for governments to clamp down on the freedom of the Internet, he said. "They will say the Internet experiment didn't work," and put Internet restrictions and controls in place.
Lessig likened this to the enforcement of the Patriot Act in the US just weeks after the September 11 New York bombings. "The Patriot Act transformed civil liberties overnight."
Lessig said a neutral network was crucial and that this should be protected, particularly by technologists who usually shy away from being involved in policy issues.
"Technologists must be involved in governance."
"Technologists must be involved in governance. You have a role to play. If you don't take this opportunity the network will be changed by ignorant actors who have no sense of the value of the network that you helped build."
Net neutrality is important to ensuring innovation he said.
Lessig likened net neutrality to the electricity grid and the roads network where a simple set of agreed protocols was needed and what happened on top of that was not controlled. "The electricity network doesn't need to know what type of television set you have when you plug it in he said," he said, by way of example.
Lessig pointed to the rise in spam and viral infections on the Internet as precursors to a possible Internet-based disaster. He said that it was important for technologists to work to ensure that these types of activity do not overwhelm the Internet.
Regulation is needed
Lessig said that ensuring the netrality of the network was vitally important. He said the initial mistake that people made was to see net neutrality as an "either regulation or no regulaion world".
He said that "a thin layer of regulation is needed to ensure innovation."