Eugene, an associate technical editor for Dr. Dobb's Journal, can be contacted at eekim@ddj.com.
This past May, Harvard University's Conference on the Internet and Society asked: "What does the Internet mean for society, government, commerce, and other institutions? How will the way we live, work, profit, learn, govern, and communicate change?" More than 1000 people converged on the Harvard campus to hear industry leaders, political pundits, and academics provide answers.
Not surprisingly, several speakers bemoaned the difficulty of answering such questions. Still, a variety of major names--from Sun CEO Scott McNealy and policymaker Diana Dougan, to IP co-creator Vinton Cerf and the EFF's lead council Mike Godwin--provided witty and often insightful commentary on the issues. Even Microsoft CEO and Harvard dropout Bill Gates showed up. It was his first return to the campus in almost 20 years.
The conference was one of the first events of such size and scope to address the role of the Internet in today's and tomorrow's society. While several sessions were technical in nature (much to the chagrin of the many business people who, armed with cellular phones and pagers, were technological marvels in their own right), the agenda largely focused on the "society" part of the conference, covering topics such as business, public policy, and education.
While six keynotes, three panels, and twenty five sessions are too much to summarize here, there were some common themes, including
While the keynote speeches provided some drama and laughs, most, unfortunately, espoused company propaganda, rather than insightful thinking and original perspectives. Apple's Larry Tesler, for instance, kicked off the conference with a disappointing 40-minute advertisement on how Apple plans to make the Internet easy to use. (In his defense, Tesler probably did not have the time to properly prepare a speech, as he was a last-minute replacement for originally scheduled Netscape CEO Jim Clark.)
While other speeches were more relevant to the topic, McNealy, Gates, and DEC's Enrico Pesatori followed Tesler's example of corporate self-promotion. Gates even showed a ten-minute video featuring spoofs of the IBM foreign-language and AT&T "You Will!" commercials, O.J. Simpson, and an infomercial with cameos from Microsoft cofounder Paul Allen and Gates himself ("Anyone can get into the Internet business. If I can do it, you can too!"), all badly integrated into a reggae music video.
Despite these annoying distractions, the self promotions did provide a glimpse into these companies' Internet strategies, which will certainly have an effect on both the Internet and society in the future. Pesatori focused on DEC's AltaVista, an Internet search engine available over the World Wide Web. A widely used Internet tool (Pesatori claims more than 12 million hits a day), what separates AltaVista from other Internet search engines are its size and speed. While the high-powered DEC Alpha machines which house the AltaVista site are largely responsible for its success, the search engine software itself is innovative, and Pesatori stated that DEC would attempt to license its technology to other companies. True to Pesatori's word, Yahoo announced in June that it would feature Alta Vista as an additional resource.
Gates and McNealy cracked jokes about their respective Harvard experiences, trading good-natured barbs in their respective keynotes. McNealy gleefully noted that he almost attracted a full audience and said he'd "be bummed" if Gates drew a full house the next morning. Gates got the better, drawing a standing-room-only crowd and having his speech rebroadcast several times, including on C-SPAN. Still, the highest drama of the conference occurred during Gates's speech, when a bomb threat was phoned in. Other than an unusually high number of cellular phone calls from worried business people immediately following Gates's speech, the prank was quickly forgotten.
The pervasive theme of McNealy's speech was the motto, "The network is the computer." He began by promoting Sun's Java language and describing how the portable Java paradigm fundamentally changed the way we use computers. McNealy then addressed a recurring nightmare among user-support people: No two computers are configured alike. From McNealy's perspective, the problem is that there is a lot more power on desktops than people actually need. Leading up to a promotion of his "network computer," McNealy introduced the notion of "zero administration clients" like the telephone. The adoption of such clients would mean an increase in usage of the Internet, just as most people today are comfortable using the telephone. As expected, Gates was not as enthused about the network computer, describing it as "something less."
Even casual followers of the computer industry are aware of the debate between personal and network computers, and neither Gates nor McNealy offered any new or convincing arguments one way or the other. More interesting, however, were the things the two agreed on. McNealy, for instance, began his speech with some radically libertarian comments, saying that "the worst thing that could happen right now is government intervention." He called expectations for universal access "crazy," noting that over half of the people on the planet die without ever making a phone call.
While Gates's view was more tempered, he too expressed the view that the private sector will provide many of the solutions to current Internet problems. Problems that industry could not solve, said Gates, included privacy, universal access (or the "haves versus have-nots"), security, and censorship. Gates said the biggest problems with the Internet are that it is too slow, doesn't have enough bandwidth, and costs too much.
Diana Dougan and Intel's Steven McGeady broke the company-promotion chain, providing unique information and perspectives. As was common among most speakers, McGeady emphasized the importance of what we do with the technology, rather than the technology itself. Citing the Protestant Reformation as an example, McGeady remarked that while the Gutenberg press was a necessary element of the first information revolution, it was not the cause. Martin Luther was responsible for this revolution by using the technology to create desirable content (in this case, a German translation of the Bible). In addition, McGeady stressed the Internet's role as a community builder, and stated the importance of content providers and the government in encouraging citizens to use the Internet as such.
Dougan's speech leaned strongly toward infrastructure and the global nature of the Internet. This is not surprising, considering that she chairs both the Center for Information, Infrastructure, and Economic Development, and the Center for Strategic and International Studies. She was understandably cautious about the antigovernment talk of her peers, noting that people mistakenly assume that the Internet will solve all its own problems. Dougan also identified a culture on the Internet that was evolving from an open and cooperative population to a dollar-driven one, creating the need for some form of Internet regulation.
Dougan also emphasized the need for both industry and government involvement, although she assigned different roles to each. She cited several international examples of the importance of the free market for the increased use of technology and the Internet. For example, when Peru first introduced a cellular network, Dougan said, its government expected only the rich would use it. Cab drivers were an unexpected group of customers, who initially bought the phones as a replacement for their poor radio-communications systems. Eventually, several cab drivers started parking their cars and renting out their phones, acting as makeshift pay phones for the Peruvian populace, a creative business venture Dougan attributed to the free market. While enthusiastic about industry's role in shaping tomorrow's Internet, Dougan warned that private industry needs to make sure it regulates itself.
As for the government's role, Dougan, like other speakers, suggested a primarily educational and cultural role: "There is a responsibility to create a computer ethic in the next generation." Dougan went on to suggest that the next generation of users need to respect electronic information in the same way that they would refuse to burn a book or open someone else's mail. Additionally, the government can aid the privatization movement, as it did with the 1996 Telecommunications Bill that deregulated the industry, a move that Dougan claimed will save a trillion dollars from now until the year 2010.
For the past 30 years, according to Dougan, we have had the technology to achieve many of the "innovations" (interactive TV, for instance) that we promote today. The problem has not been a lack of technology, but of infrastructure. While some of this technology is ancient (the Internet is, after all, over 25 years old), we can undoubtedly expect to see improvements. Some of these new and improved technologies were discussed in the technology track sessions.
In general, the technology sessions were informative, and the participants were able to provide solid answers to many of the questions (unlike the more society-oriented sessions). A session entitled "Next Generation Internet," featuring Vinton Cerf and Scott Bradner (chair of the IETF task force for creating the new standard) discussed the new IPng (or IPv6) protocol. Still, the discussion regarding the protocol was not much more than a description of the protocol and some of the reasoning behind it. (For more information, see William Stallings' book reviews of Scott Bradner and Allison Mankin's IPng: Internet Protocol Next Generation, and Christina Huitema's IPv6: The New Internet Protocol, Dr. Dobb's Journal, July 1996.)
Particularly interesting was a presentation by Ron Skelton, project manager of the Electric Power Research Institute. Why is the electric company interested in IP? Skelton explained that the electric company had a huge fiscal incentive to network its meters. A billing system based on a server that queried every meter directly could save an estimated $1.33 billion dollars annually, according to Skelton. Such a system has several transport protocol requirements, one of which is an expanded address space, something IPng provides. (For additional information on electrical utilities' interest in the Internet, see Jonathan Erickson's "Editorial," Dr. Dobb's Journal, December 1995.)
In discussing cable-modem access to the Internet, Time Warner's Mario Vecchi claimed that this high-speed access will be deployed in several metropolitan areas this year. He said that Time Warner is looking at a per-month charge rather than a per-packet charge and that it wants to encourage permanent sessions. At "The Wireless Internet" session, Kendra VanderMeulen of AT&T Wireless Services, examined another upcoming access option: wireless networking via CDPD. While wireless networking, available now in many metropolitan areas, presents some challenges (such as limited and costly bandwidth), VanderMeulen insisted that it has a place in some of today's markets. She cited businesses that need high-value information and instant access from anywhere as an example.
Other technology sessions included Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM), security and encryption, and the World Wide Web.
While these technological improvements are certain to come, their influence on a society already overdosed on the Internet is unknown. While the technology sessions provided answers for tomorrow, the society-oriented tracks raised questions about today. These tracks tended to identify problems rather than offer solutions.
For example, one of the most-discussed topics was universal access. There were several different definitions of what universal access meant. Richard Civille, executive director of the Center for Civic Networking and coauthor of the article "Civic Networking with Geographic Information Systems" (Dr. Dobb's Sourcebook, Winter 1994), drew a distinction between access and usage. Jock Gill, former director of special projects at the White House, agreed with Civille's distinction, further emphasizing the need for creating and distributing interesting content instantaneously. Civille, Gill, John Barth of America Online, and Prudence Adler of the Association of Research Libraries agreed that universal access did not imply universal free access but rather the ability to obtain access at a nominal cost. When moderator Nolan Bowie of Harvard's Kennedy School of Government asked how one is to achieve universal access, none of the participants provided a straightforward answer, although Adler emphasized technology in libraries and schools as a necessary focus if universal access is to be achieved.
While many agreed that education is important as a means to increase usage of the Internet, the Internet's role in education is more murky. Even though Gates praised the Internet's influence on several different aspects of society, he called its impact on education "modest." Harvard president Neil Rudenstine focused a special address on the impact he felt the Internet was having on education. Rudenstine drew an interesting analogy between books and the Internet, noting that before books became institutionalized into the educational system, many had warned of the negative effects of spending too much time reading.
The arguments for the importance of the Internet on education are fairly convincing, but as usual, when firm questions are asked, only shaky answers are provided. At a session discussing the Internet and education, Linda Roberts of the Office of Educational Technology estimated that $50 billion dollars was necessary to put the proper infrastructure in place in schools, and $10 billion dollars every year would be required to maintain it. When asked where this money will come from, Roberts called the financing "complex."
Despite the diversity and the cumulative knowledge of the participants, some fundamental questions were left unanswered. Hype or not, the Internet has clearly influenced society. Commenting on the Tennessee police officer who awoke from a seven-year coma with "no concept of the Internet," David Plotnikoff of the San Jose Mercury News recently remarked, "The implicit message was loud and clear. If you haven't heard of the Internet, you've been logged on at snooze.com for one helluva long time, buddy." (San Jose Mercury News, July 7, 1996.)
Perhaps a good question to ask is what about the Internet was important enough for Harvard University to sponsor a conference of such scale? Harvard is no stranger to sponsoring significant campus events and speakers; however, this conference was unique in that it involved major cooperation among all of the university's schools.
Rudenstine has been a strong advocate for such cooperation, and his high visibility demonstrated his considerable support for the event. The possibilities apparent in using each of Harvard's schools' considerable connections to draw leading minds to discuss difficult and important issues must have stirred the adrenaline in many Harvard professors. The results speak for themselves. With some of Harvard's leading professors organizing the event--including conference chair Professor H.T. Kung, the inventor of ATM--Harvard managed to attract top industry leaders early.
The fact that Gates spoke was noteworthy; he hadn't visited the college campus since he dropped out almost 20 years ago. Campus lore claims that Gates had sworn never to set foot on the campus again. His presence gave the conference instant credibility, and some initially reluctant speakers and participants accepted their invitations upon learning that Gates would speak.
In his keynote address, Rudenstine asked the question: What makes the Internet different from other technologies that have failed to affect the basic way we educate people? Gates posed a similar question as a point of fact. Those who brought about the personal-computing revolution were frustrated by the lack of societal recognition of the significance of their work. The Internet phenomenon has been the reverse; there has been almost too much recognition. Why is this, and how will this affect us?
These and other unanswered questions aren't going away anytime soon. However, while the conference did not necessarily provide many answers, it increased awareness and communication in several areas. As Gates remarked, while the solutions may be years away, it's good to see some discussion right now.