Who Is the Big, Bad Wolf?
Almost from its beginning the Internet’s promoters have alternately embraced this communications Hydra as the People’s victory over the System, and then fretted about it as the ultimate weapon of the System against the People. Awareness of technology’s varying potentials is healthy, so far as it turns our attention toward the choices through which we realize one potential or the other. Unfortunately, however, this shift of attention has not yet occurred. On the one hand, the source of liberation has largely been looked for in the technology itself, rather than in the deepened wisdom of its users. Microprocessors, distributed intelligence, packet switching, and publicly available encryption technology typically figure strongly in this view. On the other hand, the Net’s oppressive powers are usually attributed to manipulations by “them” — anonymous power brokers, whether in huge commercial enterprises, the shadowy military-industrial complex, or the regulatory agencies. On either view,
