[MUSIC]
In the 1990s, when I got into this field,
there was this branch of utopianism that
was associated with Internet technology.
And the hope and
the dream was that the Internet was
going to be this marvelous revolutionary
where everyone would be able to talk to
everyone else whenever they wanted to.
That the world information would be
universally available and accessible.
That anyone could say anything at any
time, sort of breaking down the barriers
erected by journalism and
the expense of the printing press.
And all of that stuff.
The saying then that really
encapsulated the way that this
utopian libertarianism came
about was just the idea that
the Internet interprets censorship
as damaged and rout around it.
That there was something that was just
inherent in the Internet protocols.
And this was an idea that really
attracted me to Internet law and
Internet policy back in the 90s.
And I think what's ended up happening
is that we've realized that this
utopian dream is not necessarily true.
And in fact, there's this dark
distopian corollary to it,
which is that everything that's being
transported across the Internet,
all of this very sensitive personal
information made the Internet not
just a great place for free speech.
But also an unbelievably
successful surveillance tool.
Just cataclysmically successful.
And that's becoming even more true with
the Internet of Things, connected devices.
They're taking basically our offline
reality, Our physical health, where we go,
those sort of things, when we're home.
And they're making those previously
inaccessible bits of information also
accessible and collectible, too.
So the Internet could be, could have been,
this really magical wonderful thing.
But it also could be this
really terrifying tool for
totalitarianism as well.
And I think that where we are today
is really at that tipping point.
Where we're trying to decide is the
Internet going to live up to its promise?
Or is the Internet going to
basically throw us headlong into
this very bad dystopian
authoritarian situation.
Governments increasingly want two things.
One is access to information
about their citizens and others.
And the other is control over
what people can do online.
And these goals aren't
necessarily nefarious.
But we also have very serious
policy problems that impinge upon
people's freedom of thought and
freedom of speech.
So, governments play a variety
of complicated roles in this.
And there's this international aspect
to it that makes it really complicated.
Meanwhile, companies are the engines.
They're the engines for the creativity
that produces these platforms that
people love and enjoy using.
Increasingly, these decision that were
governmental or public policy decisions,
like what speech is okay,
what information can be collected,
what do we do for people who
are transgressing community norm,
are now being made by private companies.
What it really means is that our
offline behavior will be as tracked and
as accessible as our online
behavior is unless we take
steps to protect that data and secure it.
The fantasy that somebody is listening
to me through my TV couldn't happen 10,
20 years ago, but
with smart TVs it absolutely can happen.
We really need to think much more
seriously about privacy and security.
The Internet could look just like TV.
Where there are a couple of centralized
companies that decide what you can see,
and there's programming.
And the programming is basically
schooled pretty much more or
less to the lowest common denominator.
If Facebook for
example is successful in that,
you'll never go anywhere other
than Facebook for anything,
which means Facebook has ultimate
power over what it is that people see.
The Internet that we're willing to
tolerate and that we want here in
the United States doesn't look like
the Internet they want in Europe.
And that doesn't look like the Internet
that China wants or Russia wants.
Our choice, in some ways, on the Internet
is between that lowest common denominator
and a balkanization, where each country or
regions have different Internets.
20 years from now, we could have
lost entirely this promise of
the Internet as a great
marketplace of ideas.
And I don't think we even really beginning
to understand what those dangers are and
how we would avoid them in a topsy-turvy
world where all the information is
on one side and almost no
information is on the other side.
That's a real danger right now.
On the surveillance side,
from the government,
that basically our lives
will be laid bare.
That's the most terrifying
thing I can think of.
And that's why I really have devoted my
life to trying to create more privacy laws
and to encourage more security technology
that would take back some of our lives.
And make them less easily collectible and
less transparent to governments.
There's really an opportunity here to use
technology to roll the clock back and
take back some of that information and
re-secure it.
To make the modern world look
more like the world did 20 or
even 10 years ago, where nobody
knew where I went, what I read,
who I spoke with or those sorts of things.
Because that just wasn't being tracked,
unlike today.
And I think some of that
awareness comes from academia.
Some of that awareness comes from
the civil liberties community,
which has been paying attention to
these issues for a very long time.
And I think in someways
that's the most optimistic,
realistic view [LAUGH] at this
pointy in time in terms of content.
On the privacy and security side,
if things keep going the way they are,
then basically everything we do will
be transparent to corporation and
to governments.
[MUSIC]
