Code

By Lawrence Lessig

Subjects: Internet, Social aspects of Cyberspace, Elektroniska motorvägar, Law and legislation, Science fiction, Fiction, war & military, Liberté d'information, Electronic books, Computers and civilization, Regulierung, Droit, Electronic commerce, Poetry (poetic works by one author), South carolina, fiction, Freedom of information, Autoroutes électroniques, Bullying, fiction, Courage, fiction, Informationsfreiheit, Fiction, visionary & metaphysical, Adventure and adventurers, fiction, Computer networks, Friendship, fiction, Science, Fiction, historical, general, Social aspects of Information superhighway, Ordinateurs et civilisation, Fiction, suspense, Wit and humor, Open access-publicering, Fathers and daughters, fiction, Fiction, mystery & detective, general, Information superhighway, World history, Right of privacy, Ordinateurs, Crime, fiction, Right of Privacy, Juridische aspecten, New York Times reviewed, Computers, Children's fiction, Cyberspace, Fiction, humorous, Self-actualization (psychology), Curiosities and wonders, Droit à la vie privée, Fiction, thrillers, general, Single-parent families, fiction, Regulering, Electronic Commerce, Conduct of life, Fiction, science fiction, general, Fiction, romance, historical, general, Gay men, fiction, Cyberespace, Social aspects, Fiction, thrillers, suspense, Self-help techniques, Fiction, psychological, Aspect social, Intangible property, Islands, fiction, Commerce électronique, Fiction, horror

Description: Although the book is named Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace, Lessig uses this theme sparingly. It is a fairly simple concept: since cyberspace is entirely human-made, there are no natural laws to determine its architecture. While we tend to assume that what is in cyberspace is a given, in fact everything there is a construction based on decisions made by people. What we can and can't do there is governed by the underlying code of all of the programs that make up the Internet, which both permit and restrict. So while the libertarians among us rail against the idea of government, our freedoms in cyberspace are being determined by an invisible structure that is every bit as restricting as any laws that can come out of a legislature, legitimate or not. Even more important, this invisible code has been written by people we did not elect and who have no formal obligations to us, such as the members of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) or the more recently-developed Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). It follows that what we will be able to do in the future will be determined by code that will be written tomorrow, and we should be thinking about who will determine what this code will be. [from http://kcoyle.net/lessig.html]