Building a Better Internet
In the summer of 2016, dozens of computer scientists gathered at a former church in San Francisco. For a long time, they had all been worrying about the same thing: the future of the Internet. Some of those present were dissatisfied with an online world where websites could go down, and the info...
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| Format: | Thesis |
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Massachusetts Institute of Technology
2022
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| Online Access: | https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/143202 |
| _version_ | 1811070632339701760 |
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| author | Humayun, Zain |
| author2 | De Chant, Tim |
| author_facet | De Chant, Tim Humayun, Zain |
| author_sort | Humayun, Zain |
| collection | MIT |
| description | In the summer of 2016, dozens of computer scientists gathered at a former church in San Francisco. For a long time, they had all been worrying about the same thing: the future of the Internet.
Some of those present were dissatisfied with an online world where websites could go down, and the information on them lost forever; others were alarmed by an Internet dominated by a few powerful tech companies, running opaque algorithms and surveilling millions of people. Some believed that the Internet’s nuts and bolts presented easy targets to hackers and enemy states, while others were more concerned about countries censoring the Internet within their own borders.
Those issues seemed to be unrelated, but each reflected a part of the Internet where control was growing concentrated in the hands of a few companies, governments, or infrastructural services: an overarching trend that computer scientists refer to as centralization.
The meeting in California was a call to arms for those trying to organize a countermovement: a mission to save the Internet, to build a better one, and to realize many of its early, unfulfilled promises. In the five years since, has the movement to decentralize the Internet come any closer to success? |
| first_indexed | 2024-09-23T08:39:08Z |
| format | Thesis |
| id | mit-1721.1/143202 |
| institution | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| last_indexed | 2024-09-23T08:39:08Z |
| publishDate | 2022 |
| publisher | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | mit-1721.1/1432022022-08-09T20:19:40Z Building a Better Internet Humayun, Zain De Chant, Tim Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Graduate Program in Science Writing In the summer of 2016, dozens of computer scientists gathered at a former church in San Francisco. For a long time, they had all been worrying about the same thing: the future of the Internet. Some of those present were dissatisfied with an online world where websites could go down, and the information on them lost forever; others were alarmed by an Internet dominated by a few powerful tech companies, running opaque algorithms and surveilling millions of people. Some believed that the Internet’s nuts and bolts presented easy targets to hackers and enemy states, while others were more concerned about countries censoring the Internet within their own borders. Those issues seemed to be unrelated, but each reflected a part of the Internet where control was growing concentrated in the hands of a few companies, governments, or infrastructural services: an overarching trend that computer scientists refer to as centralization. The meeting in California was a call to arms for those trying to organize a countermovement: a mission to save the Internet, to build a better one, and to realize many of its early, unfulfilled promises. In the five years since, has the movement to decentralize the Internet come any closer to success? S.M. 2022-06-15T13:03:12Z 2022-06-15T13:03:12Z 2022-02 2021-11-22T14:50:13.045Z Thesis https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/143202 In Copyright - Educational Use Permitted Copyright retained by author(s) https://rightsstatements.org/page/InC-EDU/1.0/ application/pdf Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| spellingShingle | Humayun, Zain Building a Better Internet |
| title | Building a Better Internet |
| title_full | Building a Better Internet |
| title_fullStr | Building a Better Internet |
| title_full_unstemmed | Building a Better Internet |
| title_short | Building a Better Internet |
| title_sort | building a better internet |
| url | https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/143202 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT humayunzain buildingabetterinternet |