Assignment 4: Policy and technology

For your final assignment you should write an essay (2,000-3,000 words) on:

Policy and technology: can we save the internet?

The Internet started as a cooperative endeavour based on mutual trust between organisation with common goals. The open publication and flow of information that the Internet supports has been credited with many improvements, for example in education, healthcare, social inclusion, democratic accountability, and business efficiency.
However, the open nature of the internet has also provided new opportunities for criminals, bigots, repressive governments and unscrupulous corporations, to steal, bully, control and exploit. Your first essay for this course discussed some of these issues.

Your essay for this assignment should address some of the technical and regulatory measures that may be used, for good or ill, by governments, corporations and individuals — to impose and evade controls, to launch and defend against attacks. How could and should governments control the internet? Who should have the power to control what you can post and what you can see? How can such powers be exercised, for good and ill? Can they be effective without destroying the freedoms that have, arguably, stimulated global creativity and innovation so successfully?

You must include a list of sources (not included in the word count). You should quote only sparingly, and identify and attribute any direct quotations.

Links to some relevant recent articles will be posted on this blog.

Bill Gates' article (please leave some comments) at
http://nb.mit.edu/f/1799
provides some useful historical perspective – what has changed since the turn of the century?

You may also find the following links helpful for current new and views:

http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_neutrality

http://www.savetheinternet.com/faq

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_privacy

www.facebook.com/savetheinternet

You must include a list of sources (not included in the word count). You should quote only sparingly, and identify and attribute any direct quotations.
The hand-in deadline for this assignment is 4pm on 25th November.
You should submit your report via TurnItIn. See email of 21st September for signup details. Once you have registered, you can sign in at the following url:
https://submit.ac.uk/
The deadline for your submission for this final assignment is 1600 UTC on Friday 25th October November. Unless you have good reason for not meeting this deadline, and we have in advance of the deadline agreed an extension, late work will not be marked.