| Abstract: | The technology of the Internet is not static. Although its ‘end-to-end’architecture has made this ‘connection-less’ communicationssystem readily ‘extensible’, and highly encouragingto innovation both in hardware and software applications, thereare strong pressures for engineering changes. Some of theseare wanted to support novel transport services (e.g. voice telephony,real-time video); others would address drawbacks that appearedwith the opening of the Internet to public and commercial traffic—e.g.the difficulties of blocking delivery of offensive content,suppressing malicious actions (e.g. ‘denial of service’attacks), pricing bandwidth usage to reduce congestion. Theexpected gains from making improvements in the core of the networkshould be weighed against the loss of the social and economicbenefits that derive from the end-to-end architectural design.Even where technological ‘fixes’ can be placed atthe networks' edges, the option remains to search for alternative,institutional mechanisms of governing conduct in cyberspace. |
