Latest News: Posts Tagged ‘splinternet’

“Experts say Russia’s war on Ukraine is accelerating the ‘splinternet’” — Scott Malcomson’s SPLINTERNET featured in Fortune

Monday, April 4th, 2022

Read the full feature here.

“Russia’s Invasion Strengthens the ‘Splinternet’”— SPLINTERNET author Scott Malcomson writes for Observer

Monday, March 14th, 2022

“Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has brought the fragmentation of the world-wide web—which I described in my 2016 book Splinternet—back to public consideration, from South Africa to global media (here and here). It’s oddly fitting, because If I had to pick one moment when the splinternet began, it would be when current-Russian-resident Edward Snowden’s stolen information began to reach the public in June 2013. In a general sense, Snowden’s revelations were not surprising, in that one had known that Silicon Valley and U.S. security agencies had always had close if discreet relations.”

Read the full interview here.

“The End of the World Wide Web?” — SPLINTERNET author Scott Malcolmson interviewed on the Agenda

Monday, October 12th, 2020

“The Internet has proved remarkably resistant to state governance. Its use can certainly be shaped by expensive government initiatives such as China’s Great Firewall or the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).”—Scott Malcomson, author of SPLINTERNET, writes in Foreign Affairs

Friday, November 15th, 2019

The Real Fight for the Future of 5G

With 5G it is possible to do enormous amounts of computing at very high speeds and without having to connect the input device—a cell phone, say, or a self-driving car—to a wire of any kind. But those high speeds are possible only if the rest of the system (signal towers, base stations, distributed servers, and the megascale centers that house the data and do a great deal of computing themselves) is physically near enough to these input devices. Having your phone, car, or pacemaker in constant contact with vast computational power in the so-called cloud sounds amazingly untethered and extraterritorial. Yet in its physicality and focus on location, the emerging system is more grounded than the Internet ever was.

Read the full piece here.

Why Silicon Valley Shouldn’t Work With the Pentagon – SCOTT MALCOMSON author of SPLINTERNET in The New York Times

Tuesday, April 24th, 2018

Is Silicon Valley going to war? In 2013, Amazon beat IBM for a contract to host the United States intelligence community’s data cloud. Microsoft now markets Azure Government Secret, its cloud-computing service designed specifically for federal and local governments, to the Defense Department and intelligence agencies. And last year, Google signed a contract with the Pentagon for Project Maven, a pilot program to accelerate the military’s use of artificial intelligence.

Read the full article here.

“Nationalism is something more and more countries have in common.” SCOTT MALCOMSON in HUFFINGTON POST

Wednesday, January 25th, 2017

“This past weekend, there was an effort to give birth to what might be called a Nationalist International. In Koblenz, Germany, leaders of the main nationalist parties of Holland, Germany, France and Italy, among others, joined together in public for the first time, celebrating the victories of Brexit and President Donald Trump and vowing to build on them.

“2016 was the year the Anglo-Saxon world woke up,” said Marine Le Pen, head of France’s right-wing National Front party and a leading candidate for the French presidency this coming spring. “2017, I am certain of it, will be the year of the awakening of the peoples of continental Europe. It’s no longer a question of if, but when.” Geert Wilders, who is likely to become Holland’s next prime minister after March elections, put it this way: “Yesterday a new America, today Koblenz, tomorrow a new Europe. We are at the dawn of a Patriotic Spring.”

Nationalism is something more and more countries have in common. The day before Le Pen and Wilders’s remarks in Koblenz, Trump said in his inaugural speech, “At the bedrock of our politics will be a total allegiance to the United States of America and through our loyalty to our country, we will rediscover our loyalty to each other.” He urged each American to “open your heart to patriotism.” Later this week, Trump will have his first meeting as president with a fellow head of state: Theresa May, prime minister of Britain, who is herself at the head of a movement based on the assertion of national sovereignty, in her case against the European Union.

It’s not immediately obvious how nationalist movements — motivated by slogans like Trump’s “America First” — might unite in solidarity. The Koblenz meeting was the first of its kind precisely because Europe’s nationalist parties and groups have not found it easy to get along. Many in Germany’s far-right party, the Alternative für Deutschland, which was the host and convener in Koblenz, opposed the meeting and, in particular, the large role for Le Pen, whose party they see as overly socialist. Le Pen strove to square this circle, emphasizing the claim that the European Union and the euro “deny diversity.” “I love France because it is France,” she said. “I love Germany because it is Germany.” This drew great applause from the audience.”

Get the full story here.

“Nationalism is something more and more countries have in common.” SCOTT MALCOMSON in The Huffington Post

Tuesday, January 24th, 2017

Nationalism is something more and more countries have in common. The day before Le Pen and Wilders’s remarks in Koblenz, Trump said in his inaugural speech, “At the bedrock of our politics will be a total allegiance to the United States of America and through our loyalty to our country, we will rediscover our loyalty to each other.” He urged each American to “open your heart to patriotism.” Later this week, Trump will have his first meeting as president with a fellow head of state: Theresa May, prime minister of Britain, who is herself at the head of a movement based on the assertion of national sovereignty, in her case against the European Union.

Get the full story here.

“Ever creative, the counter-culture finds workarounds'”: SPLINTERNET in Times Literary Supplement

Thursday, December 1st, 2016

“Yet, ever creative, the counter-culture finds workarounds. Hackers and the privacy-minded “jailbreak” their devices, removing software restrictions imposed by manufacturers, or use VPNs (virtual private networks), which enable users to bypass official, commercial channels and share data more securely. For Irene S. Wu, a senior analyst at the US Federal Communications Commission, commerce has been an enabler, not a handicap, for the internet and the connective technologies that preceded it, at least as far back as the telegraph in the nineteenth century.”

Read the full article here.

“The chances are growing that come January the new president will awake to face a Europe where nationalism and anti-Americanism are becoming mainstream”: Scott Malcomson on Huffington Post

Thursday, October 27th, 2016

Read the full article here.

“For Silicon Valley, it is a disadvantage to be seen as a tool of the US government.” SCOTT MALCOMSON in The Financial Times

Tuesday, September 6th, 2016

“The programmes [Snowden] exposed showed that the US government was spying and it was using American companies whether they knew it or not and whether they liked it or not. For Silicon Valley, it is a disadvantage to be seen as a tool of the US government.”

To read more, visit Financial Times.

“Will the Public Internet Survive?” SCOTT MALCOMSON in The Nation

Tuesday, August 16th, 2016

“Malcomson’s “Splinternet,” a cyber-realm disintegrating along geopolitical fault lines, isn’t a rupture of the World Wide Web, but rather a pointed reminder of the inescapability of this global condition.”

To read more, visit The Nation.

Scott Malcomson’s SPLINTERNET made the shortlist for getAbstract’s International Book Award 2016

Tuesday, August 2nd, 2016

From 10,000 books in consideration, Scott Malcomson’s Splinternet, has made the shortlist for getAbstract’s International Book Award 2016, conferred in October at the Frankfurt Book Fair.

“getAbstract recommends his compelling overview and fascinating anecdotes to students, entrepreneurs, investors and policy makers who will benefit from this overlooked story’s rich information on where the Internet came from and cautionary notes about where it’s going.”

To read more, visit getAbstract

“The Internet as Art and Politics” SCOTT MALCOLMSON with Virginia Heffernan

Tuesday, July 19th, 2016

“Scott Malcolmson in conversation with Virginia Heffernan”

To hear more, visit Virginia Heffernan

“Did the Cold War even end?” SCOTT MALCOMSON for The Huffington Post

Friday, May 6th, 2016

At the Moscow meeting last week, Lu Wei, the head of the Chinese delegation and the Communist Party’s Internet security chief, said, “Now our countries are faced with an aggressive media propaganda. Therefore, we should pay serious attention to verification and filtering incoming information.”

To read more, visit The Huffington Post.

“If Washington continues to abandon its commitment to the open Internet, the dreams of digital innovators around the world will be crushed.” SCOTT MALCOMSON reviewed in The Wall Street Journal

Monday, April 18th, 2016

“Mr. Obama once famously declared that government, not entrepreneurs, had built the Internet. That wasn’t true, but his actions have proved a different point: If Washington continues to abandon its commitment to the open Internet, the dreams of digital innovators around the world will be crushed.”

To hear more, visit The Wall St Journal.

“A great piece of contemporary history” Netopia reviews SPLINTERNET

Friday, April 8th, 2016

Scott Malcomson’s recent book Splinternet. How Geopolitics and Commerce are Fragmenting the World Wide Web is a great piece of contemporary history. Its aim is nothing less than to tell the story of the Internet – giving credit both to technology and politics, eccentric individuals and the anarchic cyberspace counter-culture of the 1980s.

To read the rest of the review, visit Netopia.

Was the nationalization of the web inevitable? SCOTT MALCOMSON explains on The Guardian

Monday, April 4th, 2016

In some cases, internet sovereignty can mean a state protecting its citizens’ privacy against international corporate surveillance or infiltration by another state. In other cases, it can mean the state ensuring that it can invade the privacy of its citizens whenever and however it likes. The choices made depend on the state, but that of course is the point: it’s the state that decides. Was this inevitable? Perhaps.

To read the rest of the article, visit The Guardian.

“An excellent account of much of the historical origins of the World Wide Web and the disparate forces involved in its creation” SPLINTERNET reviewed in boundary2

Friday, April 1st, 2016

The implicit premise of this valuable book is that “we study the past to understand the present; we understand the present to guide the future.” In that light, the book makes a valuable contribution by offering a sound and detailed historical survey of aspects of the Internet which are not well-known nor easily accessible outside the realms of dedicated internet research. However, as explained below, the author has not covered some important aspects of the past and thus the work is incomplete as a guide to the future. This should not be taken as criticism, but as a call for the author, or other scholars, to complete the work.

To read the rest of the review, visit boundary2.

The Economist praises SPLINTERNET as “an illuminating survey of the past and future of the internet”

Wednesday, March 23rd, 2016

As Scott Malcomson writes in “Splinternet”, an illuminating survey of the past and future of the internet, [the internet] was developed “by the US military to serve US military purposes”. In fact, nearly every technology that makes smartphones so delightful started life as a tool of war. The Washington naval treaty, signed soon after the first world war to limit the size of warships, was silent on the matter of weaponry; that provided the impetus to develop machines capable of the complex mathematical calculations required to aim and fire guns accurately. The attack on Pearl Harbour spurred what would become the first computer with an operating system. The computer screen came from the need for radar-tracking screens.

To read the rest of the review, visit The Economist.

Inc. editor interviews SCOTT MALCOMSON about SPLINTERNET

Tuesday, March 1st, 2016

To watch the interview, visit Inc..

Charlie Rose interviews SCOTT MALCOMSON

Tuesday, February 2nd, 2016

One of the big secrets of Silicon Valley in the ’70s and ’80s was that it combined so much money, so much power, so much idealism, so much technical creativity, and a complete ignorance of its own will to power.

To watch the full interview, visit Bloomberg.

On WNYC’s “The Takeaway,” SCOTT MALCOMSON warns about the coming of the SPLINTERNET

Tuesday, January 5th, 2016

I think that as governments increase their dependence on the Internet and networked computers for the projections of force, then they will begin to seek or they are already seeking ways to attack each other’s computers.

[..]

My greatest worry is that as these very nervous militaries of major countries who depend on this technology for major military functions now—such as directing aircraft, directing fire—that their dependence will create a kind of insecurity that will reach a point where they want to strike others’ machines, thinking that they’re only hitting machines, but that this could then trigger a conflict that would involve human bodies as well.

To listen to the full interview, visit WNYC.

“The Internet is edging closer to the Splinternet.” SCOTT MALCOMSON explains why the days of the universal Internet are numbered

Tuesday, December 22nd, 2015

The Internet is edging closer to the Splinternet. The leading Republican candidate for U.S. president, Donald Trump, has referred to “closing” the Internet in areas where the U.S. has enemies, while China’s president, Xi Jinping, reasserted, at the second World Internet Conference (WIC) in China last week, that each state has a sovereign right to control what its citizens can and can’t do in cyberspace. The control by a state of “its” Internet has long been advocated by Russia’s government, while the European Union, following an October decision by the European Court of Justice, has released a General Data Protection Regulation that will determine how non-EU companies can market to or monitor EU individuals. That four such distinct political cultures could, for a mix of political, ethical, commercial and security reasons, all reach the same conclusion — that the map of the political world should become the map of cyberspace — suggests that the days of a universal Internet are numbered.

To read the rest of the article, visit The Huffington Post.

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