We'll explore how the Internet affects power, and how power affects the Internet. By "power" I mean something very general: institutional power such as governments and large corporations, and distributed power such as criminals and dissident groups. Topics will include:
- technologies of social control: surveillance, censorship, propaganda, and use control
- technologies of evading the same
- the social value of breaking the rules
- the metaphor of data as pollution, and the public good from data sharing versus the individual interest of data privacy: security data, health data, education data, behavioral data, etc.
- changing societal norms and how different power groups influence them
- anything else we find interesting.
This builds on much of my writing on NSA surveillance, as well as the talk I gave at TEDxCambridge in September, available here.
I also have a 3000-word essay on this, available here.
Prerequisite: Faculty permission is required for enrollment. Please send Bruce Schneier (schneier@schneier.com) your CV and a short statement of interest by December 1, 2013.
Cross-registrants are welcome to apply.
This reading group will meet on the following dates: 1/29, 2/19, 3/12, 3/26, 4/9, and 4/23.
Mr. Schneier is a fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society.