http://www.ais.org/~jrh/acn/

The Amateur

Computerist

Summer 2022 Toward 25 Years of the Netizen Book Volume 35 No. 1

Table of Contents

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Page 1

Interview with Staff Member Michael Hauben 1. . . Page 2

Interview with Staff Member Michael Hauben 2. . . Page 6

Netizens Book Review by Boldur Barbat . . . . . . . . Page 9

Netizens Then and Now. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 11

Netizenship Today: An Interview . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 15

Netizens Celebrate a Decade of Activism . . . . . . Page 19

Welcome to the 21

Century . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 20

First Netizen Celebration Day . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 21

My Thinking on Netizens . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 21

Greetings on the 15

Anniversary of Netizens . . Page 22

Netizens and Communication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 26

Internet A New Communication Paradigm. . . . . . Page 32

Introduction

The year 2022 marks the 25

Anniversary of the

May 1, 1997 publication of the print edition of Net-

izens: On the History and Impact of Usenet and the

Internet by Michael Hauben and Ronda Hauben. This

issue is part of the celebration of that Anniversary. The

articles begin with an interview with Michael Hauben

in 1991. The interview situates him as a product of the

computer hobbyist movement that helped develop and

spread the personal computer in the 1980s. Once he

had a modem in 1985, Michael participated in many

local BBSs (Bulletin Board Systems). He was part of

this early grassroots online world. He says in the

interview, “modeming was a connection to the outside

world to other people … with the possibility of intel-

lectual discussions.” In the late 1980s. Michael experi-

enced the BBSs as the “ultimate vehicle of Free

Speech, uncensored speech.” But Michael also experi-

enced the problems caused by commercialization.

The second article is a review of the book by

Boldur Barbat. The reviewer first sees the book as in-

troducing the word netizen as a reflection of a

non-geographically based social membership. He then

takes us through the book section by section pointing

out that the book recognizes the possibility of more

democracy. Barbat writes that reading the book, you

will find “a very rich authentication, a host of peoples

with a lot of ideas, comments, proposals and – some-

times – displeasure, rising their voices; you will dis-

cover rather the atmosphere of a ‘multimodal chat’

than that of a conference with invited papers … the

book is net-centered because it is human-centered, or,

pure and simple, human.”

Next follows two articles written in 2003,

“Netizens Then and Now” and “Netizenship Today:

An Interview” which look at netizen developments in

the more than five years since the print edition of the

book appeared. Criticism of privatization was noted as

was netizen debates and activities for more democracy

in South Korea and the use of the internet in China by

netizens for “political communication.” Examples

were cited of netizen activity in India and Italy. Also

the question was raised what was the vision of Mi-

chael’s work and did it change with time and what

about the significant number of hooligans and socio-

paths, who have appeared online? Ronda answers these

questions by pointing to how problems were handled

in the early development of the net and the role of the

government in issuing an acceptable use policy. She

sees that netizens can use the Internet to function as a

laboratory of democracy to work out problems like

these.

The 10

Anniversary of the print edition was

celebrated in Manhattan on July 14, 2007. The next

two articles document that celebration. Claire George

writing in the Korean Herald saw that the concept of

netizen “has become an inspiration for people who

believe that the internet is a force for good.” That good

was seen in the example of OhmyNews citizen journal-

ism and of the role played by ‘netizen scientists’ in

exposing the fraud of a South Korean stem cell re-

searcher. In his speech at the celebration, Jay Hauben

said, “Ronda and Michael gathered in the book solid

Page 1

historical evidence and contemporary practice for their

thesis that something big was happening which would

take a mighty fight to defend but which could pro-

foundly change the media, politics, social life and even

economics.” He concluded, “Whenever I read some

chapter in Netizens, I always have the same sensation.

I want to participate more on the net. I still want to be

a netizen.”

On September 14, 2009, the Internet Society of

China sponsored the first in the world Netizen Celebra-

tion Day. The next article is the speech Ronda gave at

that event. She shared her understanding that, “the

Netizen was not all users, but users with a public

purpose … . The Net is international, so to be a netizen

is to be not only a citizen of one country but also a

citizen of the Net.” She congratulated the netizens

being honored and all netizens, adding her wish, “May

the tradition of the netizen, along with the develop-

ment of the Internet, grow and flourish.”

A luncheon was held on May 1, 2012 to celebrate

the 15

Anniversary of the print edition. Sixteen greet-

ings of this Anniversary were read. They came from

the U.S., Japan, China, France, Germany, Romania,

South Korea, and Cameroon. The final greeting was

anonymous, “Netizens around the world stand with

you now.” Among the speeches given was one by Xu

Liang, “My Thinking on Netizens.” He told of his

early disappointment with the internet but later realiza-

tion that the internet will “change the structure and

management of human society.” About the book, he

said it was visionary, “not just because it foresaw the

drastic social changes brought by the internet in early

1990s before I touched the internet, but what [is] more

important is that the book offers us a blueprint or a

way for our future society based on the internet, that is

the netizen.”

At that 15

Anniversary luncheon, Ronda spoke

about “Netizens and Communication: A New Para-

digm.” She said her speech was to honor the occasion

by looking back and looking forward toward trying to

assess the significance of the book and of Michael’s

discovery of the emergence of the netizen. She briefly

looked at what has happened in the interim of these 15

years toward trying to understand what new advance

this development makes possible. Ronda called atten-

tion to the work among others of Mark Poster who saw

in a globalized world the netizen would replace the

citizen “as a critical concept in the politics of democra-

tization.”

The issue closes with “The Internet: A New

Communication Paradigm.” This article features a

discussion carried out on Usenet in 1998. It is offered

as an example of the kind of online discussion that the

wide ranging reach of the Internet as a network of

networks makes possible. The discussion clarified a

fundamental question in the battle over the U.S.

government decision to privatize the central functions

of the Internet. The question was whether or not a

society can afford to have something as important and

central as the internet’s development working in

commercial conditions.

[Editor’s Note: This interview was conducted on August 11, 1991.

It has been edited. Ronda Hauben, William Rohler and Michael

Hauben were founding editors of the Amateur Computerist in

1987-1988. Below are Parts 1 and 2 which appeared in the Ama-

teur Computerist Vol. 4 No. 2-3, Spring 1992. and Vol. 4 No. 4,

Summer 1992 at:

http://www.ais.org/~jrh/acn/ACN4-2-3.pdf and

at: http://www.ais.org/~jrh/acn/ACN4-4.pdf]

Interview with Staff Member

Michael Hauben on the

Occasion of the Tenth

Anniversary of the Personal

Computer

Part 1

Ronda: Tomorrow is the 10

anniversary of the

introduction of the IBM personal computer on August

12, 1981. Also, one of our staff members, Michael

Hauben, is leaving Michigan to go to college in N.Y.

Therefore, it seemed an appropriate time to look back

on the past 10 years and to review how the introduc-

tion of the personal computer has affected our lives.

Michael is now 18. In 1981 he was 8 years old and al-

ready involved with computers. Michael is not only

one of the beneficiaries of the computer revolution.

The computer revolution was carried out, not so much

by companies like IBM, but more importantly, by

computer hobbyists like Michael Hauben. Thus in

honor of the computer hobbyists, who gave birth to

and developed the personal computer, we would like

to review some of your experiences, Michael, with the

computer.

William: How did you get started with com-

puters?

Michael: The first place I really saw computers

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was at an exhibit in Toronto over 10 years ago. There

was a robot that was like the 4-axes machine that auto

workers use. They also had a computer exhibit. I don’t

remember what kind of computer was on display but

they were just a bunch of computers running different

kinds of programs set up there at the Canadian Na-

tional Exhibit. That really peaked my interest some-

how.

When I was 8 (in 1981), I took a computer class

at Schoolcraft Community College, in what was called

the Kids College. It was part of what they called the

TAG (Talented and Gifted) Program. The teacher’s

name was Mrs. Brown. We learned on the Apple II+

computers. The first day of class, Mrs. Brown lifted

the top of the APPLE and said, “There, that’s all there

is to it, There’s nothing to be afraid of.” That was a

very good introduction to the computer because it

showed there was nothing to be afraid of. That we

could completely control it. I learned BASIC there. I

took several other classes in that program. I think I

took three. I didn’t take all the BASIC language

classes offered. But I took a test that they had for their

normal BASIC college level classes and I wound up

getting three college credits for the BASIC language

class. And I didn’t do so good because I ended up only

getting a B on the test. But the experience was interest-

ing and from then on whenever there was a computer

available I tried to use it.

After the trip to Toronto, I always wanted to buy

a computer. There was the Texas Instruments 99/4a

(TI 99/4a) and I don’t remember how much it cost, but

it was expensive. There was the Timex Sinclair 1000

(TS 1000) and that was much cheaper. My family and

I had seen Sinclair computers in England when we

visited. These computers could be hooked up to a

normal TV set. I saved up my money and bought a TS-

1000. Using it I more thoroughly learned BASIC. My

father and I programmed a lot in BASIC with only 2K

memory. We never seemed to run out of memory. We

just played around and tried to do lots of different

things, tried writing little games, graphics and we

dabbled a little in machine language, not a lot how-

ever. Whenever I had the chance, whether it was sum-

mer camp or in a computer store, I’d try to do some-

thing with the computer. I learned BASIC, I learned

LOGO on the TI-99/4a in camp, and I played around

with APPLES and with Commodore PETS. In my

elementary school, there was a terminal hooked in with

the mainframe of the Dearborn Schools. At that time

there were many programs on the mainframe. They

had BASIC. They had games like the OREGON

TRAIL, etc. I subscribed to two or three magazines for

the TS-1000. I bought books, did all the TRY THIS

type of small programs. Those were always fun be-

cause there would always be problems with the pro-

grams. There would always be ‘bugs.’ The books and

sample programs were exciting somehow. I haven’t

found many books similar for programming on the

IBM PCs today, books that I have found exciting for a

hobbyist. And this is sad.

Soon after I bought the TS-1000, it couldn’t have

been more than a couple of years, I was trying to

choose between the TS-2068 and the Commodore 64.

I think the Commodore was more expensive. The TS-

2068 had better color, and a more developed version of

BASIC. The Commodore 64 was better in that it had

a disk drive and the TS-1000 only had a tape drive you

could use. The Commodore also had a real keyboard,

while the Timex utilized raised chicklet keys. I bought

the TS-2068. Then I had my first real lesson in the

computer world. Three months after I bought the TS-

2068, Timex stopped selling and supporting it. Timex

made a deal with Commodore. There was an agree-

ment to sell the Sinclair in England and Europe and

Commodore in the United States. That was a shock

because I thought I made a better choice, but it turned

out the better deal is not always the best choice.

And my father and I did programming on that,

but not really as much as we did on the TS-1000. It

was a lot less, even though there was the added attrac-

tion of the color and the sound and the joystick port.

And so I still did things and I tried to pick up on things

whenever I could.

Christmas of 1984, we bought a Sanyo MBC-

550-2 which was a MS-DOS compatible, but not an

IBM compatible machine. The operating system was

IBM compatible, but the graphics were different, the

sound was different, and the BASIC was different. The

Sanyo was a better machine for graphics, I think 640

x 400 with 4 colors if not 16. And WordStar worked.

That’s why my family got it – as a wordprocessor. I

learned MS-DOS. I got more into the PC world. We

subscribed to a Sanyo magazine for a while. We went

to the Sanyo Users’ Group for a while. We occasion-

ally went to SEMCO (Southeast Michigan Computer

Organization), but somehow that was already oriented

toward business and they weren’t very interested in

helping us. Then in 1985, through INACOMP, my

mother won a Compaq Portable. It was one of the

earliest to come out that was fully IBM compatible. It

Page 3

was a luggable portable, and it weighed about 20

pounds, if not more. And that’s how I really got into

IBM. We had a choice between a modem and a hard

drive. We got a modem. It was a breakthrough. The

hard drive seemed important but the modem was more

important. We wound up getting a hard drive later on.

With the modem, it lets you connect to the outside

world. With your own little system you’d be like a

hermit, but in connecting with the rest of the world,

it’s other people’s opinions, different discussions about

computers, about current events, debates about what’s

going on in the world and just general BS also. And

you came into contact with people, you came into

contact with different files to use with your computer,

with what was going on with the computer scene and

so somehow it was like a replacement for a user group.

And depending upon the time, there was either a lot

going on or a little going on.

Ronda: What do you mean?

Michael: Well right now not many boards I know

have much debate on them. There are two that I am on.

Both of them have debates on-going. I’m sure there are

others, but I just haven’t had time to look. But for a

while I was on many of the boards and at one point

many of the boards were silly contests to see who

could post the most numerous messages.

Ronda: Do you have a sense what you were

looking for on the BBS’s? You used to spend a lot of

time on them.

Michael: Well at first I wasn’t on local BBS’s.

Originally, I was on CompuServe.

William: Free time?

Michael: Well, the first two hours were free. I

almost became a Beta Tester for InfoCom through

CompuServe. I sent in the application forms. I then

received a congratulations letter, but InfoCom never

sent me any games to test. The only response was a

Christmas card. That was a soured CompuServe mem-

ory. I found some local BBS numbers listed on Com-

puServe and from my father and some friends of his

from work. For a while I was mostly on Commodore

BBS’s and not many IBM boards. But then I started

calling the IBM boards. It was new for me when I

started. Modeming was a connection to the outside

world to other people with similar interests. It was

interesting – the debates about current events. Some-

how there was the possibility for intellectual discus-

sion which I couldn’t find elsewhere besides my par-

ents and a few friends like Floyd Hoke-Miller. But

among my friends at school or neighbors, there wasn’t

much of a possibility.

When we lived in East Dearborn, our next door

neighbor, Tom, had an Atari and a Commodore 64. He

shared an interest in computers with me. He was my

friend, even though there was a large age gap, because

we were both interested in computers. He let me come

over and try some things on his computer and I’d go

with him to computer stores.

William: Another thing about using modems, you

can’t tell the age of the person. It treats you more like

an equal.

Michael: There’s an anonymity. You don’t know

anything about the other users. So you are more will-

ing to accept them. There are still first impressions. If

you act like a real idiot, people won’t like you. But the

full element of first impressions is left out. And people

tend to rank you or be friends with you on how you act

online, what you speak about. It does help. You tend to

get to know the people and there isn’t as much block-

ing. And my first handle was Wizkid. I changed my

handle two or three years ago to Sentinel. And there

was one person who signed on and said it was great

knowing you. He was one of the people who knew me

as Wizkid. There was a “Remembering the OLD

Days” theme area on one of the BBS’s and someone

said, “remember that Wizkid.” And I said, “that was

me.” And he said he didn’t know that. When people

change their handles, it’s public but somehow people

don’t always realize it. When I changed my handle, I

decreased my activity. When I decreased my activity

it was because there were just silly messages that

didn’t mean anything, or they just seemed juvenile,

and I don’t know if that’s because the people calling

were younger or they were more juvenile. The way

people accept you is based on your maturity online and

your maturity showed through more than your age.

And there was one debate where someone said you are

just a kid. And I used to have the handle Wizkid. But

it didn’t matter what your age was, it was more how

mature you were. He was trying to say “Well you’re

just a kid, you can’t know anything.” But he was

wrong. So there is less age discrimination on the

boards.

Ronda: Why did you decrease the time you spent

on the boards?

Michael: I had to spend more time with school,

with friends, with my job. Whenever I used to come

home from school, I used to spend two or three hours,

but then my mom said, “We need the phone.” So I

didn’t spend my free time before homework on the

Page 4

modem. And then with work, I wasn’t even home on

certain days to use the modem.

Ronda: But it seemed you were also a little

disappointed. There were user parties, but it seemed

the computer world didn’t extend outside of the

modem.

Michael: It did to a certain extent, but it didn’t

include everyone. Like some people were friends be-

fore. There were modem parties where people from the

boards got together, whether it was a software swap or

a party.

Ronda: There weren’t many, were there?

Michael: Well, what happened was the main

person who had the parties was from a TAG board in

Taylor. He had his computer stolen after the second or

third party. So he stopped holding them. Then there

were multi-user boards. There was MNET which was

a multi-user. The general age of the users on MNet

was older than on the other single-user BBS’s. And it

was more serious. It was more a UNIX board. It was a

different bunch. It was not the home but the people in

school, in Ann Arbor. It seemed like the multi-user

boards made it easier to hold parties because users

could chat live one-on-one. And when AMUSERS (a

multi-user board) closed down, I didn’t get on other

multi-users that were like AMUSERS. Some people

already were friends but you didn’t end up doing much

so it was a little disappointing. Cause it didn’t seem

like there was any – it didn’t get anywhere – it was just

online so that was a little disconcerting. It was disap-

pointing because that was where I had found more

intellectual people but it didn’t go anywhere. And

things like CompuServe cost a lot of money. There’s

CompuServe, there’s Delphi, there’s Geni, there’s PC

Link, there’s Q-link, there’s a couple of services but

they all cost money, so that’s hard to deal with. And

then there are bigger boards that exist. But they all cost

money. There’s the WELL. That’s in California. You

also pay per hour like CompuServe. So it’s harder to

be on. It’s like MNet. It’s the same software as MNet.

And maybe I did find it disappointing. It used to be

there would be lots of new BBS’s popping up. But

they were interesting. And now there still are lots of

new BBS’s popping up. But they’re silly. So it’s gone

downhill a little bit. And also BBS’s are similar to the

CB or the Ham radio in that people voice their opin-

ions, or have discussions or chat or there used to be

DDial’s – all they were were multi-user, people chat-

ting, but they were 300 baud so they were super slow.

Some of those you had to acquire membership. But

they were linked up across the country. There were

things called LINKS that would connect you to other

DDials around the country. So that way you could talk

to people.

Somehow the thing about BBS’s was it was the

ultimate vehicle of Free Speech, uncensored speech.

For the most part things were not censored. What you

posted was left alone. It was like everyone’s Letter to

the Editor was allowed to be printed. There would be

letters debating other previous letters. Different Sys-

Ops had different rules and some would delete mes-

sages that contained profanity or were only personal

attacks or something. BBS’s are the greatest form of

free speech. The problem was you needed a modem

and a computer to get into it. So it’s not as free as it

might be, but compared to the newspapers, the news-

papers print what they choose, whereas on BBS’s

everything is printed, everything is published. It’s

more of a dynamic medium than a static medium

because depending on the board there’s different forms

of dealing with messages. For example, some boards

after the first 50 messages go by, the first message is

deleted, so it’s a dynamic thing. Unless somebody

prints out a copy or saves it to disk, it doesn’t stay

static. Like on MNet, things aren’t deleted. They are

deleted when the message sys-op of the area decides

no one is interested anymore. That’s more of a choice

method of deletion, than where it deletes messages or

the new one pops in, the old one pops out and it’s

deleted. And even depending on what happens, it’s still

an important medium.

There was, for example, just a debate about the

war against IRAQ on BBS’s. Usually you didn’t see

where there was dissent. Whereas on the computer, if

people wanted to, they could debate it and there was

debate about it. A free medium. It’s open access. Not

closed. It’s also a field where the hobbyist still exists.

There are people who develop ways of using the

modem, whether it’s different compression techniques

where you can send more and larger files quicker, or

whether it’s different file protocols that send them

faster over phone lines. Those are constantly develop-

ing. That is a hobbyist frontier now. Maybe there are

less people than when the computer started out. But it

still exists. It’s a frontier that’s not closed up yet. It’s

not definite yet. New things are continuing to come

out. For example, higher speed chips for the serial

ports in the computer so that the computer can talk to

the modem at a higher speed and everything.

(Continued below)

Page 5

[Editor’s Note: This concludes the interview begun in Vol. 4 No.

2-3. It is a slightly revised version of Part 2. What started primar-

ily as an interview, which is printed above as Part 1, developed

into more of a free form discussion about the present and future

of computers.]

Interview with Staff Member

Michael Hauben on the

Occasion of the Tenth

Anniversary of the

Personal Computer

Part 2

Ronda: Do you think there are any lessons from

what is going on?

Michael: Well, the Timex/ Sinclair Commodore

agreement was proof that the best choice is not always

for the best. The best product does not always end up

being marketed or sold. That seems true of many

things in this capitalist world. Sony’s Beta video sys-

tem was technologically superior to the current VHS

standard. I don’t know if there is a lesson to draw or

not. A similar problem is occurring with computer

magazines. In particular, I am thinking of: Popular

Computing, Family Computing, PC Computing, Crea-

tive Computing, and Compute. Most of the magazines

have changed their priorities from an emphasis on

hobbyist or home users to business. Popular Comput-

ing disappeared shortly after changing its name to

Business Computing. The same thing happened with

Family Computing after it changed its name and

emphasis to Home and Office Computing. Unfortu-

nately PC Computing is following the same path. PC

Computing started out as an alternative to other maga-

zines such as PC Magazine and PC for the home or

hobbyist crowd in the PC community. It had reviews

of games and broader articles, while being a smidgen

less technical and completely unconnected to a busi-

ness point of view. The subtitle is now “The magazine

for Business Computing Experts.” Readers have recog-

nized the change and written letters to the editor to

comment and complain. As for other examples, Cre-

ative Computing vanished and Compute compressed

down to one magazine from what was four. However,

Commodore 64s still sell, and that is a viable commu-

nity. I guess PCs are coming home from the office, but

that doesn’t mean they are only used for business at

home. A whole community seems to be left unserved

by this trend in computer magazines. True, computer

gaming magazines exist, but home computers are used

for much more than just playing games. One problem

is that PCs are not particularly getting cheaper. Any

decrease in price has more or less been incidental to

the increase in power. The 386s cost today what the

286 cost yesterday. But there are still no really afford-

able computers in the $100 to $200 range. This is sad,

because the computer is not as affordable as it should

be. Thus, personal computers are still not a normal part

of most households which was the real goal of the

personal computer revolution. While most homes have

been affected by the arrival of microprocessors in

many home appliances, the personal computer itself is

not yet a home appliance. The general recent trend of

computer development is aimed at business, as op-

posed to the people. Not for the majority, but for the

minority. It’s like what IBM did for the mainframe and

other mainframe manufacturers in the '50s, '60s and

'70s. The mainframe then was only affordable by the

biggest of the big companies or the large educational

institution. The difference today is that small business

can afford computers, but still only businesses. Com-

puters are marketed as for businesses and entrepre-

neurs, and not for the average person at home, or for

the majority of the people. The radical push of the

personal computer movement in the mid to late '70s

was to make the computer available to everyone, and

not just accessible to Fortune 500 companies. True,

these days computers are much more affordable than

20 years ago, but the general movement in the personal

computer world seems opposed to its roots.

Ronda: How so?

Michael: IBM exemplifies this movement with

the release of their PS/2 line. These computers have a

proprietary bus. IBM changed the name away from

personal computer to personal system 2 which is more

like the mainframe names. It made it less friendly in

that sense.

Ronda: Are you optimistic? Pessimistic? What

do you think will be the future with computers? With

you and computers?

Michael: Well by going away to school I’ll gain

more access to what’s called the Internet, the big net

that exists, the connection of computers across this

country and across the world. You gain more access

when you go into an educational community. I’m

Page 6

optimistic because of that. I’ll have to manage that as

part of my time. Businesses and education are involved

in that. It’s harder if you live at home to have access to

it. [Editor’s Note: Home access is more available now,

than it was a year ago when this interview was done.]

Somehow you need something powerful enough to

hook into. It’s not quite fully open. If you live near an

educational community you can gain access to it. I

have and you can. Our connection is MichNet. So that

will be broadening. That will be a connection with the

rest of the world computerwise, but it’s not quite just

the computer. So that’s encouraging.

Somehow they are working on building things

smaller and more minuscule but not quite pricewise.

The computers aren’t quite like the microwave [oven]

and the VCR. Home appliances started out expensive

but there are now so many different companies making

them that they have come down in price so they are

affordable. As I said before computer performance

increased but it doesn’t come down in price. Actually,

its going to be a stretch to buy a computer for myself,

but I wouldn’t have been able to buy one last year.

What used to be $2000 is now $1000 or coming closer

to $1000.

Ronda: Do you think there has been some kind of

revolution with the computers? Do you think there has

been a computer revolution?

Michael: Well, there is the personal computer. If

it was up to the big companies, there wouldn’t have

been one. As I said the corporate trend is reactionary.

Ronda: Do you think there’s been a computer

revolution, William?

William: What do you mean by a computer

revolution?

Ronda: That something fundamental has changed

because of the computer.

William: Fundamental?

Ronda: Or something substantial that you see at

work?

William: We’re using computers more. We’ve

got IBM 486 computers on the shop floor.

Michael: But what do you use them for?

William: For altering and transferring programs

to our CNC machining center. We got rid of the

Westinghouse computer in the computer room and you

can download more files into the 486 computer. It has

all our files already. It won’t hold us up when we are

running the machine.

Ronda: But the computer isn’t being used to run

a machine?

William: No it’s not to run a machine directly.

You have other computers for that.

Michael: So the computers are like terminals?

William: It’s like a database. But you can edit

and change the data if you need to.

Ronda: Are most people comfortable with them.

Or is it that if people don’t have home computers its

harder to use them?

William: Well they have menus instead of

working with DOS. It just takes a F[unction] key and

that is it. We finally got a manual for it. The editor is

difficult to work with. They’re still working on a new

editor … .

Ronda: Remember they were talking about the

workerless factory in the last seven or eight years. My

sense is that hasn’t come to pass.

William: Well, there are a lot less people work-

ing in my shop. They’re standardizing everything so

there’s less skill involved in putting dies together.

Ronda: But the computer hasn’t cut the people

out or caused problems?

William: No.

Ronda: So do you think there’s been some kind

of computer revolution in the last 10 or 15 years? That

something substantial has happened to change.

William: Society?

Michael: Well a lot of things have computer

chips in them now. All your household appliances

have them from the TV set on.

William: Cars have them.

Michael: Cars have them now so society has

been changed by the introduction of them. The main-

frame computer didn’t use processing chips. It took

buildings with floors to house those computers. But

now, the personal computer is the achievement of the

trend of miniaturization that came in the 1950s.

William: More like evolution, right. You got

chips in TV’s now. You got picture-in-picture, not

revolution, not a substantial change.

Michael: Well, there was the miniaturization

after WWII but it didn’t hit computers then. Comput-

ers were still the great big mainframes that used the

vacuum tubes. Then came the transistor, the micropro-

cessor, and the integrated circuit. But they weren’t

really utilized with the mainframes. Or if they were,

instead of a whole floor, it was a room. But it wasn’t

down to a single chip which now exists and which is

constantly getting smaller. They think they’re reaching

the bounds actually. Now people are speculating that

the silicon chip has reached its physical speed and size

Page 7

limits and a new material needs to be used, like chemi-

cal or biological materials instead of electronic. But I

feel if it had not been for the personal computer

revolution, there wouldn’t be such use of processing

chips and use of computing technology involved in so

many things in our daily lives.

Ronda: But I feel the substantial question is are

they being used to produce more with less labor? I

think they are being used more as consumer goods. But

it doesn’t sound like they’ve made a change, a funda-

mental change in the way things are produced. For

example, at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution

people worked in their homes. Then people were

brought into the factories to work together. There was

an increasing division of labor, and then machines

were introduced and people operated the machines.

Then machines were used to operate other machines.

It doesn’t seem as if the computer led to a similar

kind of change in industrial production. It doesn’t

seem that computers are widely used to produce

things. It seems the computer has been used for paper-

work but not for producing goods.

William: It takes longer to get a computer to do

something than it does a machine. They are probably

working on that stuff too.

Michael: But actually there’s something called

CAD/CAM or Computer Aided Design and Manufac-

turing. But then there’s something called CIM (Com-

puter-Integrated Manufacturing) which I did a study on

and it seemed like it was trying to steal the computer

and give it to management which was a top down

design and not a bottom up design. When I read about

it two years ago it seemed a flop. It was trying to steal

the computers from the people rather than using the

computers to help the manufacturing process. But I

don’t know what your experience has been with CIM.

Ronda: But there was also a big push to lower

wages and have people work a lot of overtime. And I

thought that got in the way of using the computer to

make things more efficient.

Ronda: Any final words?

Michael: Even though I have decided to go to

Columbia University in NYC instead of the University

of Michigan, I am optimistic. Columbia is less com-

puter-oriented than the University of Michigan, but

Columbia seems better connected to the educational

and academic computer networks. But Michigan for

me would have been a better computer school. Colum-

bia has more of its computer roots in the past while

Michigan has more in the future. There are a couple of

centers opening up and there is, at Columbia, the State

Center for Computing Research. But it’s not as obvi-

ous as Michigan how involved it is with computers. I

am sort of pessimistic, because with the age of the

computer industry, it seems to have receded. But it’s

probably just a cycle.

Ronda: No, it’s a fight. You have to figure out

how to take it up. The personal computer caught

people by surprise when it spread so quickly and so

substantially. People now have to evaluate what has

happened. I feel the lesson is you can’t trust the busi-

ness world of large corporations to develop computers

and computer technology. Big corporations can’t be

coddled by government, the press, etc. and encouraged

to freeze the development of technology or to go back-

wards to hand labor as they have done in many in-

stances. The machine is a machine for society. It was

a mistake to have trusted the corporate world to

develop it. Instead the corporate world must be regu-

lated and limited in its efforts to impede the develop-

ment of technology. That’s what anti-trust legislation

originally accomplished. The personal computer was

created while there was a U.S. government anti-trust

suit on against IBM which kept it from interfering with

the development of the personal computer. Once again

there is a need for something independent of the corp-

orate world, and there is a need for regulations and

limitations on the corporate world so that their narrow

self interest is prevented from interfering with social

and technological development.

Michael: You need a new Henry Ford for the

Computer world.

Ronda: No, you need another “Computers for the

People” movement.

Michael: No, again.

William: My niece is going to go to Michigan

State and she’s not going to get a computer. She’s

going to get a word processor. You have a screen, key-

board, and a printer all in one unit. That suits her.

Michael: But its not compatible with anything

other than another wordprocessor of the same type.

William: There are some that have a floppy disk.

Ronda: But it’s sad the computers aren’t cheap

with a cheaper printer too.

William: Well it’s a letter-quality printer, she’s

not going to be doing graphics.

Ronda: I thought John Kemeny once predicted

that there would be computers used in the schools for

wondrous things. But now he is disappointed that that

has not happened.

Page 8

William: One of the problems is software. There

aren’t enough software developers to write programs

people need. To get them involved.

Michael: Its not just software developers, its

ideas. People are not creating new ideas but merely

copying old ideas.

Ronda: But I thought that there was the discour-

agement, when people were told “People don’t need to

learn to program.” Michael learned to program and it

was a good thing he learned to program. Instead of

saying it’s a good thing to learn a little programming

it was said you don’t need programming. So it seems

that there has been a lot of pressure to keep people

away from utilizing computers and discouraging them

instead.

Michael: I left out that I know a little MS-DOS

batch language, a little C, and a little Forth. I did very

little in Assembler.

William: Are you going to take computer classes

in collage.

Michael: I don’t know if I’ll have time.

Ronda: To sum up, it seems it is as if this period

is like the period in France before the French Revolu-

tion. Then there was the basis to have capitalism, but

you had the feudal lords and the King holding society

back. You had a Monarchy. There was a need for the

French Revolution to get rid of the Monarchy and the

Aristocracy and the feudal social forms and laws that

they kept in place. They prevented the reforms that

were needed to develop large scale production in

France. The problem we have today seems similar. Big

companies are discouraging investment in new tech-

nology like computers because such investment will

lower their rate of profit. There is a need to get rid of

this fetter so that technology can be encouraged and

developed.

[Editor’s Note: The following review of the Netizens book appear-

ed in Studies in Informatics and Control Journal (SIC), December

1998, Volume 7 Number 4, (Bucharest). It is online at:

http://

www.columbia.edu/~hauben/Era_of_the_Netizen/resources

/Review_of_Netizens-BBarbat.txt.]

Book Review

Netizens: On the History and Impact

Of Usenet and the Internet

by Boldur Barbat

Michael Hauben and Ronda Hauben

IEEE Computer Society Press, Los Alamitos, CA

1997, XVI p. + 346 p.

ISBN 0-8186-7706-6

The book aims at presenting the development and

significance of the participatory global computer net-

work evolving into “an ambitious look at the social

aspects of computer networking. It examines the pre-

sent and the turbulent future, and especially it explores

the technical and social roots of the Net.” The reader-

ship aimed at is comprised not only of those who are

already Netizens but – maybe notably – of those who

strive towards getting this status, within the perspec-

tive of passing from the latter condition to the former.

So, before moving forward, let us see where such a

gratifying title comes from – according to Michael

Hauben: “My research demonstrated that there were

people active as members of the network, which the

words net citizen do not precisely represent. The word

citizen suggests a geographic or national definition of

social membership. The word Netizen reflects the non-

geographically based social membership. So I con-

tracted net.citizen to Netizen.” Anyhow, the book

makes it evident that the word – as well as its denota-

tion and ramifications – are here to stay.

The volume is divided into four Parts; each part

comprises between three and six Chapters ordinarily

consisting of articles written over a four-year period

(1993-1996) and set up to be read individually.

The first Part, “The Present: What Has Been

Created and How,” has four chapters providing an

introduction to the net world: the effect it has on peo-

ples lives (now, after the moment when the critical

mass of people and interests has been reached),

USENET (its evolution and goal as “poor mans

ARPANet”), the social forces behind its development,

and the description of the USENET (including the

conceivable antithetical features of structure anarchy

Page 9

and the system of rules known as “Netiquette”),

emphasizing the advantages of this new world as well

as the possibility of a “more democratic government.”

The second Part, “The Past: Where Has It All

Come From,” is the largest one, being composed of six

chapters, and starts with the “vision of interactive com-

puting and the future” originated by Licklider and

proceeds on describing the foundations of the cyber-

netic revolution, time sharing, man-computer symbio-

sis and their implications. Chapter 7 looks “behind the

Net,” introducing “the untold story of the ARPANet

and computer science” highlighting the new way of

viewing the computer: a communication device rather

than (only) an arithmetic one, whereas the next Chap-

ter is a comprehensive narrative of the birth and

development of the ARPANet. The last two Chapters

bring into focus the early history and impact of Unix,

and the roots of the “co-operative online culture,”

respectively. In one of its Appendices are two lists of

Newsgroups appearing in USENET in 1982.

The third Part, “And the Future?”, comprises five

Chapters. In Chapter 11, the National Telecommunica-

tions Information Administration virtual conference on

the future of the Net (held in November 1994) is

described as a very significant event, attempting to

create a prototype for a democratic decision-making

process. The next Chapter, with the inciting title

“Imminent Death of the Net Predicted!” – a phrase

often used in the past, by USENET pioneers, when

problems seemed insurmountable – explains the new

problems ensued by the envisaged changes in the

nature, ownership, and oversight of the Net, defending

the principles that place its development into the hands

of the public, educational, and scientific sectors of

society (i.e., considering the privatization harmful).

Chapter 13 investigates the effect of the Net on the

professional news media, under the metaphor of “Will

this kill that?”; its conclusion is rather optimistic: the

user masses becoming “netizen reporters” will force

the acknowledged news media – to avoid being in-

creasingly marginalized – to evolve a new role, chal-

lenging the premise that authoritative professional

reporters (almost always biased, consciously or not)

are the only possible ones. Chapter 14 scrutinizes the

effect of the Net upon the future of politics, forecasting

the “ascendancy of the Commons” by reason of the

new technologies presenting “the chance to overcome

the obstacles preventing the implementation of direct

democracy.” The last Chapter of this part, departing

from the changes on a world scale, explores the New

York City’s online community, showing a snapshot of

“nyc.general,” and concluding that, in spite of being

problems online, the advantages are “more important

and outweigh the disadvantages.”

The fourth Part, “Contributions Toward Develop-

ing a Theoretical Framework,” consists of three Chap-

ters. Two of them address characteristic areas: “The

Expanding Commonwealth of Learning” and “‘Arte’:

An Economic Perspective,” respectively. As regards

the first issue, “making a contribution is an integral

part of Netizen behavior” and “both the printing re-

volution and the Net revolution have been a catalyst

for increased intellectual activity.” With respect to the

second question, after accentuating the role of “Arte”

in the production of social wealth, the authors defend

Hume’s observation that “arte” leads to intellectual

ferment, and, in turn, this ferment “is the needed sup-

port for the development of technology.” The last

Chapter merges the consequences of the former ones

into a whole, synthesizing them in its title – perhaps

the banderol of the entire book: “The Computer as a

Democratizer,” one main idea being that the “step

toward universally available and affordable access”

and “uncensored accessible press” demonstrate that “it

is now possible to meet more of Mills requirements for

democracy.”

At the end, before the substantial and numerous

references, the Glossary of Acronyms is, particularly

for readers outside the American cultural milieu, an

invaluable asset.

Maybe, this condensed passing through the

content can give you an idea about this book, but it

could be inconclusive, because the mesmerizing force

is originated by – or, better, in – the multitude of quo-

tations from known, and mostly unknown, “co-au-

thors,” the conventional ones remaining in the back-

ground, as unpretentious editors, devoting themselves

to the chore of task-building. Consequently, “Neti-

zens” becomes rather an aggregate of articles, than an

orchestrated ensemble with its unbroken composition

and, in turn, the articles become a kind of syncretic and

chaotical, but very enthusiastic and, first of all, very

fertile opinion pool. Though, the whole might be seen

in the optimistic view of the Net, as well as the cyber-

space it embodies, as a “meritocratic” environment;

the book suggests us a micro-snapshot of such an

ambience. The feeling – intended or not – is that the

book has been written by Netizens for themselves, as

an entreaty, a summons to all readers – whatever and

where ever they are – to join them in the extraordinary

Page 10

world they live in. Thus, the book employs, at its much

smaller scale, the “large-scale customization” made

workable by the Internet it fights for. By the way, have

you seen many books with Foreword, Preface and

Introduction? Yes, the book is full of redundancy and

heterogeneity – just like the Net, just like life itself

(fortunately, some of the redundancies are quite

pleasant, covering most crucial historical moments of

the marvelous phenomenon they depict). Reading it,

you will find a very rich authentication, a host of

peoples with a lot of ideas, comments, proposals and

– sometimes – displeasure, rising their voices; you will

discover rather the atmosphere of a “multimodal chat”

than that of a conference with invited papers. So, if

you imagined that you could learn from this book

about network programming, forget it. Yes, the Inter-

net is in there, but as an actor – in all interpretations of

this polysemantic word – not as a computerized tomo-

graphy. Thus, paradoxically, the book is net-centered

because it is human-centered, or, pure and simple,

human.

If you read it again – it is in no way a chore – and

all seems all right, nothing is amazing or frightening,

then you are prepared for full Netizenship (of course,

you need a computer, too!). Moreover, from the word-

ing as well as from some rare photographs, you may

scent the flavor of old battles (with legendary heroes

like Wiener, Shannon, McCarthy, Licklider, Thomp-

son, Ritchie …), fought for forwarding not only the

Net, but the Computer Science itself. Such a flavor

acts in the age of Netizens as a catalyst for the Infor-

mation Technology. Thus, the book can be seen – and

used – as a kind of second-degree catalyst: the written

catalyst for the living one … .

[Editor’s Note: This article appeared in the Amateur Computerist

Vol. 11 No. 2 in May 2003. The whole Vol. 11 No. 2. issue has

the title “Netizens: Then & Now.” It can be seen at:

http://www

.ais.org/~jrh/acn/ACn11-2.pdf. The article below was to mark the

Anniversary of Michael Hauben’s July 6, 1993 posts, “Com-

mon Sense: The Net and Netizens” in three parts which are online

at:

https://www.ais.org/~hauben/Michael_Hauben/Collected_Wor

ks/Posts/1993_Common_Sense_USENET_Posts/.]

Netizens Then and Now

by Ronda Hauben

Introduction

This year, 2003, marks the 10 year anniversary of

the introduction online of Michael Hauben’s article

“The Net and the Netizen.” In honor of this anniver-

sary it seems appropriate to look at how this concept

has inspired, described or promoted netizenship around

the world in the intervening years.

Search engines turn up almost 100,000 instances

of the use of Netizens. Individual searches combining

different countries and “netizens” such as “Netizens

India” or “Netizens Korea,” turn up a large number of

hits in each individual country. I want to consider but

a few of the examples I found.

Examples

1) A paper written by Jane Long and Matthew Allen

titled “Hacking the Undernet” (The Australian Journal

of Communication, vol. 28 (3) 2001, pp. 37-54) de-

scribes the process of privatization of the Internet as

one of invading it. They examine the concept of an

online community. They recognize that the networking

architecture, which sets a foundation for the global

commons is often hidden from most researchers who

focus only on the online conversation. Long and Allen

object to this limiting and characterize it as a “narrow-

ing” of the meaning and character of the concept of

community. They write:

The narrowing of meaning and association

of the term ‘community’ was also influ-

enced by a concurrent thread in Internet

research concerning USENET newsgroups.

As with initial forays into IRC research,

earlier ground-breaking research (princi-

pally by Hauben & Hauben, 1997) into

USENET had identified the totality of

newsgroup users as a form of community,

‘a world town meeting’ or ‘the Wonderful

World of USENET News.’ The Haubens

Page 11

also, however, emphasized the technical

architectures through which the overall

USENET system was maintained.

Long and Allen point to other notions of commu-

nity that narrow the concept to those on a single news-

group, or those who use the Internet to support rela-

tionships among people which already exist. In this

context they critique the notion of the Internet as a

frontier with settlers. They write:

Many problems have been identified with

the individualist, libertarian, and coloniz-

ing ideologies inherent in the frontier myth

(Barbrook & Cameron, 1995; see also

Werry, 1999). An additional concern, not

normally considered, is that describing

cyberspace as a frontier ‘presumes’ the ex-

istence of the space into which community

developers and settlers, such as Howard

Rheingold, John Perry Barlow, Esther

Dyson, George Gilder, and the multitude of

anonymous others, were to move. How-

ever, these self-styled settlers were pre-

ceded by another community, or set of

interlinked communities, comprising the

engineers and scientists, hackers and cod-

ers, system administrators (‘sysadmins’)

and operators who – effectively – created

the virtual terrain later labeled ‘the fron-

tier’. Some who utilize the frontier mythol-

ogy regard these creators as the ‘natives’ to

be colonized or even driven off the frontier

(Werry, 1999), but within the metaphor,

that still leaves open (or, rather, hidden) the

identity of those who created the cyber-

frontier in the first place.

2) An article in a South Korean newspaper (Digital

Chosun Ilbo – English Edition) on March 3, 2003 doc-

umented how the Internet was making it possible for

people to act as netizens. The Korean president made

a decision to support the U.S. war effort in Iraq. The

newspaper article reports that this decision “has stirred

up a flurry of disputes among the segments of society.”

The article then describes the role of the Internet

in this dispute:

Much of the dispute is playing out on the

Internet, where tempers flared after Presi-

dent Roh’s televised address on Thursday.

A netizen with the ID of ‘small practice’

wrote on the website Jinbonuri that ‘Presi-

dent Roh violated the constitution by de-

ciding to dispatch our troops to Iraq.’ He

created a petition, to which 150 people

quickly added their names.

The article continued quoting from another website:

The Cheong Wa Dae website was swarm-

ing with thousands of posts and e-mails

criticizing the president’s decision. One

netizen said that the president had betrayed

his people … . But other voices supported

Roh. A netizen with the ID ‘people’ wrote

that ‘The war is abhorrent, but as an ally of

the U.S., we must not forget that 30,000

American soldiers are in Korea to secure

our nation.’

The article in a very small way documented

online discussion among Internet users in South Korea

to discuss whether a policy of their government was in

the interests of the South Korean people.

The article only gave a few of the posts. The

posts themselves, however, are an important process

that shows that governments are not the same as the

people of a country. Though the Internet now makes it

possible for governments to hear the views of their

citizens on important policy questions, most govern-

ments do not recognize the importance of these voices.

In general, they don’t try to hear from the people of the

country before undertaking actions that they claim are

in the best interests of their citizens.

The Internet and netizens are changing this

terrain, however. It is now possible for governments to

support the creation of online processes where they can

hear from their citizens and from netizens around the

world about the national and international response to

their plans. That is a more dynamic process than de-

pending on the voices of a few to determine the de-

cisions that will affect the many.

3) Another article explored the importance of the

concept of netizen for the people of China. The paper

by Jack Linchuan Qiu, about the Internet and its role in

China, describes democratic vision for the role of the

Netizen in Chinese society. In his article, “Virtual

Censorship in China: Keeping the Gate Between

Cyberspaces” (International Journal of Communica-

tion Law and Policy, issue 4, Winter 1999/2000), Qiu

writes:

The Internet, as the means of online politi-

cal communication (OPC), is not only a

stimulant of cross-border interactions but

also a tranquilizer of academic debates ….

Some hold that advanced technology tends

Page 12

to democratization, while others contend it

leads to demoralization … . Today’s new

medium is the Internet. It sets the academic

agenda with its interactivity, global acces-

sibility, infinite channel capacity and other

pro-democracy properties. It engulfs the

critics of technology, whose voice nearly

disappears … . (p. 1)

Qiu recognizes that the Internet is a platform for

many different activities. He defines netizens, how-

ever, as those who utilize the Internet for online

political communication. He writes:

Politics and ideological content is usually

outnumbered by discussions about technol-

ogy, economy, entertainment, sports and

other topics. In this sense, only a small

portion of China’s 4 million Internet users

can be called “netizens,” defined as those

who engage in OPC. (pp. 9-10)

Qiu observes that there are netizens from within

and outside of China who interact. He writes:

A special group of netizens is the external

users, who enter China’s virtual territory

from the outside, playing a key role in

linking China’s cyberspace with the global

computer network. Most of them surf do-

mestic websites and exchange information

with others as ordinary users. (p. 10)

Among these users he reports that “some directly

oppose the rule of the Chinese authorities distributing

e-mails with overt anti-ccp content.”

The Chinese government websites, Qiu reports,

are not influential. One reason he proposes is that they

“lack interactivity.” He writes:

The websites are designed to facilitate one-

way indoctrination instead of OPC inter-

actions. Seldom do they reflect nonofficial

opinions except when they are hacked. (p.

10)

Discussing the advantages of technical back-

ground for Chinese users who want to engage in online

political communication, Qiu writes, “Technical de-

tours bypassing regulatory obstacles are also possible

in the case of the user who has more computer liter-

acy.” (p. 18) And he reports that most Chinese netizens

use pseudonyms to protect themselves from penalties

for expressing their views. (p. 16)

His article raises the question of whether the

Chinese netizens will prevail in their challenge to

virtual censorship in China. “It remains uncertain,”

Qiu writes, “whether virtual censorship in China will

become more menacing or they will collapse someday

leaving online political communication free at last

among the Chinese netizens.” (p. 20) The URL for the

journal’s website is http://www.ijclp.org/.

4) Looking for a definition of netizens, the online

Miriam Webster dictionary defines a netizen as “an

active participant in the online community of the

Internet.”

5) The Tech Target, “What Is” website, goes further

offering two similar meanings for “netizen.”

1. A citizen who uses the Internet as a way

of participating in political society (for

example, exchanging views, providing in-

formation, and voting).

2. An Internet user who is trying to contrib-

ute to the Internet’s use and growth. As a

powerful communications medium, the

Internet seems to offer great possibilities

for social change. It also creates a new

culture and its own special issues, such as

who shall have access to it. The implication

is that the Internet’s users, who use and

know most about it, have a responsibility to

ensure that is used constructively while

also fostering free speech and open access.

(http://whatis.techtarget.com/definition

/0,,sid9_gci212636,00.html)

6) Chris Mueller, a graduate student, at the University

of Berne, in a thesis on “Electronic Networks and

Democracy” (draft October 2002) describes how the

online process of users contributing to the net is

necessary for the net to be a democratic commons. He

concludes that this process needs the hard work of

people online.

Those who do some of this hard work, are the

online users that Michael called the netizens.

7) “Netizens Unite,” proclaims the title of the editorial

in the Times of India on Tuesday, March 4, 2003. The

editorial appeared in the online edition and also in the

print edition on page 14. The editors of this major

newspaper in India write:

America’s threatened war against Iraq has

divided the world. First between the few

friendly governments that support its uni-

lateral action and the many that don’t. And

second between officialdom on the one

hand and the people on the other. This later

division is particularly significant because

it has pitted democratically elected govern-

Page 13

ments that back Washington against the

overwhelming anti-war sentiment of their

own people. But none of this has made the

slightest difference to president Bush and

his team of hawks.

The editorial documents that there was a basis for

a peaceful process to achieve the end that the earlier

UN resolution had advocated (whether or not that was

a legitimate end, was not a question raised however).

Then the editorial asks, “But what can all those

around the world who oppose this mindless militarism

do other than feel powerless?”

This is a question essential to Michael’s vision

for the concept of the netizen. What are the means for

common people to have power over the issues that

affect their lives, including issues like whether one’s

government makes war on another country?

The editorial then proposes a tentative way to

look at this problem. The editors write:

We believe that one easily accessible way

for world citizens to protest against this

war is literally a mouse click away. As in-

habitants of an increasingly globalized and

borderless world, they should use the ulti-

mate instrument of supra-nationalism – the

Internet – to register their opposition and

say no to the war: Netizens of the world

unite, you’ve nothing to lose but your

chains of chauvinism. (To voice your

views log on to http://no-war.indiatimes

.com [no longer available]).

The significance of the editorial is that it pro-

posed that people peacefully discuss their concerns and

views. That such activity might indeed be a weapon in

the fight.

The editorial and then the online discussion by

the Times of India are not alone in seeing in the con-

cept of Netizen as a way to be responsible “inhabitants

of an increasingly globalized and borderless world”

which the Internet has made possible.

8) It is not only researchers and writers online who

have explored and contributed to the development of

the concept of Netizen. There is also interest in the

vision of the netizen in the online art community. For

example, in December of 2002 there appeared on the

Net an announcement of an art exhibit and competition

in Rome, Italy. The exhibit was curated by Valentina

Tanni, who writes (our translation):

Netizens is a neologism. It is born from the

union of two English words, net and citi-

zens and is used commonly to define the

navigators of the web. The expression,

destined to a great future, was coined in the

book by Michael and Ronda Hauben, au-

thors of an important book about the social

and psychological impact of the Net and of

Net communication. [Actually it is Michael

who is responsible for identifying and dev-

eloping the concept of netizen.]

Tanni continues:

It is not enough to be connected to the

Internet to be a Netizen. In order to enter

and to become part of this new, diffused

society, it is necessary to pay attention to

it, to understand it and to try to improve it,

just as one must do to be part of communi-

ties offline. (Catalogue of the exhibit “Net-

izens: cittadini della rete,” Sala 1, Rome,

Italy, December 2002, p. 14.)

9) Another writer commenting on the concept of

Netizen, shortly after the concept spread around the

Internet, John Svedjedal, in his paper, writes:

The Net provides new opportunities for

discussions, meetings, and the exchange of

ideas. As Michael Hauben … (has) recent-

ly remarked, the Internet provides an ‘ex-

pansion of what it means to be a social

animal’ – the democratic, helpful human

being Michael Hauben has labeled the

Netizen … . (Chapter 3, “Busy Being Born

or Busy Dying?” http://www.diva-portal.org

/smash/get/diva2:105809/FULLTEXT01.pdf)

Conclusion

These are but a few of the ways that the concept

of netizen is being understood and utilized online in

the years since Michael first recognized that there was

something besides the technology of the Net that was

important. Among the Internet’s users something new

was developing, something new was being born. This

new phenomena is what Michael recognized and he

called those who were part of this new phenomena

“netizens.” Whether the word had ever been used pre-

viously, is not significant. What is significant is that

there was a transformation occurring. Among the users

online, something new had been discovered. This was

that they were able to be part of a new society, and to

play an important role in the birth and development of

this new society. This isn’t something idealistic or off

in the future. And it isn’t something detached from the

Page 14

offline world and society. The netizen is at the inter-

section between the old and the new, between the

offline society and the online community. The actions

that people described in 1992-1993 when Michael

posted his questions about the impact of the Net on

people, gave him an understanding of this new devel-

opment. This understanding was captured in a new

concept, netizen, made up of the concepts of citizen

and net. And this concept, the new concept of the

netizen has gone on to set a foundation for a more

active role for citizens and people online, for a way

that the Internet and its users can influence the old

world, the old institutions, so that the new world of a

new millennium can come into being. We are not there

yet. Neither is the concept of netizen a concept of

“utopianism” as some have suggested. Rather there is

a living practice, an experience, and a consciousness

developing which is one of the promises for a better

world in the future.

[Editor’s Note: The following interview was conducted in 2003

more than five years after the print publication of the book

Netizens: On the History and Impact of Usenet and the Internet.

It is in the Amateur Computerist Vol. 11 No. 2 online at:

http://

www.ais.org/~jrh/acn/ACn11-2.pdf. The questions were by

Daniela A Baszkiewicz-Scott who had been a journalist in Eastern

Europe for many years. Ronda Hauben is a co-author of the book

and a founding editor of this newsletter.]

Netizenship Today:

An Interview

Questions by: Daniela A Baszkiewicz-Scott

Responses by: Ronda Hauben

Question #1: Five years ago, you and Michael pub-

lished Netizens, a study of the history and prospects of

communication on the Internet, specifically through

the most common and popular medium of USENET.

The book added a new coinage to the English language

and implied a particular vision of where the net could

carry us. What was that vision then, and has your sense

of it changed at all over the past decade, and if so,

how?

Answer #1: While Netizens was indeed published in

a hard copy version in 1997, it was first put online

almost 10 years ago, in 1994. In 1992/1993, Michael

did his research and posted the summary in his article

“The Net and the Netizen.” So actually Michael’s

work discovering net.citizens and then formulating the

concept of netizen, is 10 years ago this year.

What Michael’s research taught him, was that

there were people online who functioned as citizens of

the Internet and USENET. These were people who par-

ticipated in making the Internet something valuable to

people around the world. Among those who recog-

nized the importance of the Internet as a new commu-

nication medium, there was the special concern to

make low cost or free access available to all people

who wanted to be online. These were some of the

characteristics that Michael recognized of users who

were acting as “netizens,” or as citizens of a broader

entity than a national geographic entity. Michael’s

vision of the potential of the Internet, and the vision of

a number of the users who wrote him, was of an online

medium that would make it possible for people to be

able to participate in the decisions that affected their

lives. Michael wrote about this in his article “What the

Net means to me” (See ACN Vol. 11 No. 1.

http://ww

w.ais.org/~jrh/acn/text/acn11-1.articles/acn11-1.a

13.txt.)

What has happened in these 10 years?

There are others who are “netizens” in the finest

tradition. They are continuing to uphold this vision and

to help it to become a reality.

The Internet is going through difficult times in

terms of its promise as a participatory global commu-

nication system available to all who want access. The

conception of the netizen, however, is very much alive

and is helpful in supporting those who continue to

work toward this goal. Searching online in a search

engine under netizens turns up almost 100,000 entries.

Michael noted that the netizen was someone who acted

as a citizen of the Internet. He also observed that there

was another usage that developed after he popularized

the term. This second usage refers to any net user as a

netizen. There are dictionaries that recognize this

distinction, for example, the Oxford English Dictio-

nary. It defines a netizen as a participant in the online

community. Other sources like the Glossary of Internet

Terms describes a netizen as: “Derived from the term

citizen, referring to a citizen of the Internet, or some-

one who uses networked resources. The term connotes

civic responsibility and participation.” (http://www

.matisse.net/files/glossary.html#N)

Still others like the Polish researcher Leszek

Jesieñ examine the essence of the citizen as the ability

to participate in the processes of governance. The neti-

Page 15

zen provides Jesieñ a model to be investigated. (See

for example “The 1996 IGC: European Citizenship Re-

considered.” “Instituets fur den Donauraum und

Mitteleuropa,” March 1997, p. 2.)

Michael spoke about the importance of everyone

being able to be online, as part of the vision of the

netizen. Also, he noted the need for people to have the

time in their lives to be able to participate in the affairs

of the Internet’s development. How this can happen,

only the future will tell. A possible model exists in the

U.S. This is the process set up for citizens to have time

in their lives to serve on juries. When citizens are

called for jury duty, they are paid by their employer or

given some reimbursement by government for the day.

This is a model to consider when looking at what will

be needed for netizens to be able to participate actively

in the Internet’s development.

In these past 10 years, the concept of netizen has

been embraced by many people around the world. In

our book Netizens: On the History and Impact of Use-

net and the Internet Michael wrote several chapters

looking at various developments. One chapter is

chapter 13, about the press, another is chapter 14 about

the U.S. government policy advisory online conference

held in 1994. In his article on the development of the

press, Michael noted that the netizen as a citizen re-

porter will greatly enrich the news that is available to

the public. (See “The Effect of the Net on the Pro-

fessional News Media: The USENET News Collective

and Man-Computer News Symbiosis.”)

While Michael documents instances of this in his

chapter on the press, there continue to be many other

instances. More recently, for example, on February 8,

2003, the New York Times “News of the Week in Re-

view” section printed a transcript of an online discus-

sion of people monitoring the reentry of the Columbia

shuttle back into the earth’s atmosphere. They docu-

ment their observations of its breakup as it entered the

earth’s atmosphere.

What progress has these 10 years brought for the

Internet as a participatory communication medium?

Many people around the world try to utilize the Inter-

net to influence their governments on a wide range of

issues from local housing concerns to broader efforts

to prevent or stop war. The concept and vision of the

netizen is developing broadly and widely, though it is

not always visible. There are, however, rare times, like

the February 15, 2003 anti-war demonstrations around

the world, which were possible because they could be

coordinated and supported by citizens utilizing the

Internet. Citizens could work together to communicate

with each other and their government to oppose a war

being waged against the people of Iraq.

The vision that Michael documented was of the

Internet as a platform for democracy, or as a laboratory

for democracy. The Internet provides the medium

needed, and the netizens are the researchers who

explore how this medium can be helpful. I was invited

to a seminar in Finland in December 1999. This sem-

inar was part of a European Union sponsored confer-

ence exploring the ability of citizens to influence the

decisions made by their governments. There was gen-

eral dismay at the conference about the inability of

most citizens to have an impact on government deci-

sions. The seminar I participated in explored whether

the Internet could make such participation possible. A

journalism researcher from Finland told of the frustra-

tions of Finnish citizens in trying to get their local

government representatives to listen to their views.

She proposed that it was important for citizens to

document their efforts to influence their representa-

tives before they could expect to succeed. Her research

was part of a process of exploring the barriers for

citizens to achieve this goal. To have such research

ongoing and presented at a conference was an impor-

tant advance. Also a government official at the seminar

responded that after representatives are elected they

feel it is appropriate to act according to their own

judgement. They are not required to listen to their

constituents.

The EU Conference was held on December 2,

1999, just days after the protests in Seattle (in Novem-

ber 1999) in opposition to the World Trade Organiza-

tion (WTO). Some of those attending the European

Union (EU) conference in Finland had come from

Seattle. They were excited by the breathe and diversity

of those protesting in Seattle.

Michael’s research, done over 10 years ago this

year, has set a basis for continuing research on the

impact of the Internet, not only on its own develop-

ment, but also on the development of the larger soci-

ety.

It will be good to see this research continued and

enriched.

Question #2: Certainly, one of the things that has

changed has been the makeup of the populace of the

Internet. Alongside the old elites and normal, peaceful

people, a vaster public of less clear ideals and commit-

ments, even including a significant number of hooli-

Page 16

gans and sociopaths, has appeared. With such a public,

can one still dream of a magical civil society for which

the net will be the “carrier” of democracy?

Answer #2: This is an interesting question as it as-

sumes that all those who participated in the early

development of the Internet were “elites.” This is not

accurate. From the early development of the Internet

and USENET there were people who explored how to

support collaborative activities and communication

versus those who wanted the Internet and USENET to

serve their narrower purposes. Also, contrary to all the

myths of the Internet developing apart from govern-

ment and government regulation, the Internet was

nourished by the early forms of government regulation

that functioned to protect it. The Internet was born as

a government project under the leadership of the

Information Processing Techniques Office (IPTO), an

office within government. Through much of its 30 year

development, there was an Acceptable Use Policy

(AUP) that specified that the use of the system should

be one with public purposes and forbid self serving

purposes. Similarly, USENET had a mechanism for

system administrators to hold users responsible for

following certain standards of behavior. Those users

who violated these standards were limited or deprived

of access to USENET.

The current period is not the first time that there

are users who abuse the Internet and other users.

Governments like that of the U.S., however, have

ceased to provide citizens and netizens with protection

from those who are abusive.

There are counter efforts ongoing as well, how-

ever. How this will develop, time will show. But there

is much to learn from the early development of the

Internet and the role played by government and online

administrators to encourage constructive activity by

users.

Question #3: There would seem to be other potential

challenges to direct democracy and human rights

today, but there is one of particular relevance to the net

and to Europe, which has been a subject of particular

interest to you in your recent study of the internet,

namely, that of language barriers. These barriers

appear capable of dividing united and still uniting

Europe into a society of e-aristocrats and e-outcasts,

since, through no fault of their own, some peoples

were long cut off from the language which is now

emerging as the universal e-language: English. Can an

individual learning English as a new language, or for

whom English is a “distant second” language have the

opportunity of truly free expression, at the same time

as the European Union becomes a single society with

a common bureaucracy, officialdom, and system of

government which will need to be controlled by its

citizens?

Answer #3: This question has two parts.

The first refers to the development of English as

a standard language online. There are, indeed, many

people around the world who use the Internet, but who

don’t speak or write English. English is clearly not a

common language at present, though it is used some-

times to try to make communication possible among

those with different languages.

A common language allows people from differ-

ent countries to communicate. However, this is a bur-

den on those who don’t know this language.

Rather than a common language, there are trans-

lation programs online. One can put text into these

programs and learn some of what is being said in dif-

ferent languages. While these programs are still prim-

itive they are being used by people to communicate

with others who speak different languages. Also there

are certain words that have developed as part of the

Internet’s development, like the word netizen, which

are being adopted as a common vocabulary in coun-

tries around the world.

These are merely beginning steps toward trying

to make communication possible among people who

have different native languages. On USENET and the

Internet, there are posts, mailing lists, websites, and

USENET newsgroups in many languages. This makes

it possible for people to participate in the languages

that are their own first languages, the languages they

are most comfortable in.

The Internet is not only helping to spread the

means for people to communicate with those who

speak other languages, but it is also beginning to create

some common terms used online. Most importantly,

however, it is spreading the desire for and the possibil-

ity of communication among people who speak many

different languages.

The problem of making communication possible

among people who speak different languages is a very

real problem. It will take the efforts of many people to

solve it. The Internet and netizens are contributing to

the effort to explore and solve this challenge.

The second part of the question is about how

Page 17

citizens will be able to control governing institutions

like the European Union. This is a broader question

which I will respond to as part of the promise of e-

democracy which you ask about in question 5.

Question #4: Another significant brake on e-dem-

ocracy would appear to be the uneven system treat-

ment of freedom of expression in different countries.

In the United States and, more recently, Great Britain,

a set of civil liberties are in force, in which a particular

emphasis is placed on freedom of speech. However, in

many countries of Western Europe and Central Europe

(now seeking membership in a united Europe) a person

can go to jail for opinions about a politician expressed

on the net, since harming the “good name” of the

politician is punished by the criminal code. In Poland,

for example, “slandering” a politician is addressed not

by the civil courts, but by the prosecutor paid by the

taxpayers. In this way, free exercise electronic media

can be treated as an instrument of crime. What are

your thoughts about this problem?

Answer #4: Will the internet and netizens be able to

help netizens in Poland fight these restrictions? This is

a question to be explored. This is needed for the

further development of the Internet in general, and in

Poland, in particular.

Both the origins of the Internet and its continued

development require the ability to freely discuss

diverse views via a grassroots connection of people.

Michael documented this in chapter 2, and 7 of Net-

izens. The U.S. government was trying to outlaw the

freedom to express one’s views on the Internet when

the U.S. Congress passed the Communications De-

cency Act, (CDA) in 1995-1996. There was much

protest online and offline against the law. This pres-

sure was helpful in setting a basis for the decision of

the U.S. Supreme Court when they voted that the CDA

was unconstitutional in the Summer of 1996.

Those online, whether in the countries of East

and Central Europe, or in the countries around the

world, value the Internet and the ability to explore

diverse viewpoints online.

It is a serious problem that in Poland a person

can be tried for their criticism of a politician. I would

hope a way could be found to have an online campaign

against such laws as they not only harm people in the

present, but they will make it more difficult in the

future to develop both the technology and the social

environment for the technology and the people to

flourish.

Perhaps the ability to publicize such problems via

the Internet will make it possible to change such laws,

like the experience of the online community in over-

turning the CDA.

Question #5: Do you expect the United States, as a

country which, at least, has the right of the citizen to

free expression included in its constitution, to move

more quickly toward e-democracy than other parts of

the world as a result of technological progress, or do

you see barriers blocking a movement toward e-dem-

ocracy here as well? To put it differently, what con-

ditions must be realized for society to move toward the

model of e-democracy that has been sketched out at

various international gatherings recently devoted to

this subject?

Answer #5: There are a variety of e-democracy

models, from putting government administrative func-

tions and services on the Internet to cheapen the cost of

government, to encouraging citizens to discuss prob-

lems from a broad diversity of viewpoints in order to

find the means to solve them. Examples of the latter

are included in the chapters in Netizens on the online

processes to involve citizens in policy discussions.

(See Chapters 11 and 14)

The 1999 European Union conference in Finland

raised the question of how citizens could have more

say in the decisions of their governments. The re-

searchers and other participants in one seminar de-

scried how citizens in many countries around the world

faced this problem. The U.S. is no exception. Despite

the constitutional right to protest government activity

in the U.S., the city and federal government refused to

allow a march in New York City on February 15, 2003

to protest war against Iraq. Also the police prevented

massive numbers of people trying to attend the legally

sanctioned rally from being able to get to the rally.

What conditions are needed to make e-democ-

racy a reality? People need low cost or free access to

the Internet. They need enough leisure time or paid

work time to participate in forums on public questions.

For example, in the U.S. citizens are paid by their

employers to participate in jury activity. A similar

process is needed for citizens to have the time and

income to be able to participate more broadly in public

affairs.

Another condition is the need to have this partici-

pation affect the decisions made by government offic-

Page 18

ials. If there is no sign that citizens’ efforts have any

effect, then it appears fruitless to make the effort.

In a paper, “The 1996 IGC: European Citizenship

Reconsidered” published in March 1997, Leszek

Jesieñ explored the views of a number of political

theorists to determine what is essential for citizenship.

His conclusion is that the ability of citizens to partici-

pate is critical. Comparing the development of netizen-

ship on the Internet and citizenship, Jesieñ writes

(Jesieñ, 15): “Almost in front of us, and almost unno-

ticed the new kind of citizenship is evolving … . But

using the Internet today is a sign of belonging to the

elite, to those who exchange ideas, who participate in

something important, in a common cause. There is no

question of governance there, nor the question of

representation, but there is a full, ultimate and direct

participation … . At the time the European Union

struggles to shape the European citizenship with much

effort and little success, the other citizenship – Neti-

zenship – emerges. The IGC negotiators and European

political leaders should perhaps look at this phenome-

non with sympathy and attention.”

The ability of netizens to participate in the

activities of the Internet is a fruitful model for the

future of citizenship around the world. The “netizen”

online is the networking citizen who accepts the ob-

ligation to contribute to the Internet’s development and

to the direction of its future growth. The Internet

functions as a laboratory of democracy. It has done this

best, however, when there have been prohibitions

against the abuse of online processes, like the Accept-

able Use Policy (AUP) that helped to support construc-

tive activity online from 1985-1995. There is a contin-

uing need to learn how to support and protect the

online user and the netizen, to make it possible to

realize the potential for e-democracy that the Internet

provides.

[Editor’s Note: This article appeared in the English language

newspaper, The Korean Herald, on July 18, 2007. It describes a

celebration four days earlier on July 14 which was ten years after

a similar celebration on July 14, 1997 welcoming the publication

of a book by Michael and Ronda Hauben.]

Netizens Celebrate

a Decade of Activism

Michael Hauben’s Legacy Lives On,

Ten Years after the Release

of the Book ‘Netizen’

by Claire George

On a sunny afternoon last weekend in Manhattan

a group of well-wishers met to celebrate the 10

anni-

versary of the print edition of Netizens: On the History

and Impact of Usenet and the Internet by the late

Michael Hauben and his mother and co-author, Ronda

Hauben.

“Netizens,” which first appeared online in

January, 1994 was one of the earliest books to examine

the development of the internet as a social network. In

it, Michael Hauben expressed his hope for the inter-

net’s use as an aid to global human cooperation.

At Saturday’s gathering Michael’s father, Jay,

told listeners: “The lesson for me is to learn from

Michael to have confidence in the wonders the net can

produce. Whenever I read some chapter in ‘Netizens,’

I always have the same sensation. I want to participate

more on the net. I still want to be a netizen.”

Michael Hauben invented the term netizen by

combining the words citizen and internet. He defined

citizens of the net as people who, “understand the

value of collective work and the communal aspects of

public communications. These are the people who

discuss and debate topics in a constructive manner,

who e-mail answers to people and provide help to

new-comers, who maintain public information reposi-

tories. They are not people who exploit the web for

their own personal gain.”

The new word spread across the world and is

now in common use in English, Korean, Japanese,

Italian and other languages. Michael Hauben died in

June, 2001 at the age of 28 from injuries sustained in

a car accident in 1999. But his legacy lives on in an

idea that has become an inspiration for people who

believe that the internet is a force for good.

Speaking to The Korea Herald from her home in

New York, Ronda Hauben expressed her “delight” in

the achievements of Korean netizens. She says that

Page 19

Koreans should be proud of the role played by “netizen

scientists” in the affair of the stem cell researcher

Hwang Woo-suk and cites Korea’s contribution to the

development of citizen journalism as being of particu-

lar importance.

“There are conservative forces in the U.S. trying

to create another attack on the United Nations like the

scandal they created around supposed corruption in the

U.N. in the ‘oil for food program.’ I haven’t seen this

challenged in the U.S. press, but it was challenged by

netizens in Korea,” she said.

“There are many similar examples,” Hauben con-

tinued, “I can only read English accounts of what is

happening, but even so when I look I see valuable

examples of netizen activity.”

In her own life as a netizen journalist and fea-

tured writer for OhMyNews International, Ronda

Hauben covers the U.N. and U.N. related develop-

ments. She believes that U.N. Secretary-General Ban

Ki-moon needs press coverage like that provided by

progressive netizens in order to operate effectively.

”If only the conservative press such as the Wall

Street Journal and Fox News and so on, didn’t focus

so much on supposed scandals that aren’t scandals,

then he would not be trapped into responding to things

that are being made into issues but aren’t the real

issues,” she said.

[Editor’s Note: The following was read on May 1, 2007 at a small

gathering to mark the 10

Anniversary of the book, Netizens: On

the History and Impact of Usenet and the Internet, written by

Michael Hauben and Ronda Hauben in the early 1990s and

published in 1997. A version of that book is online at:

http://www

.columbia.edu/~rh120/]

Welcome to the 21

Century

and to the Wonderful

World of the Net

by Jay Hauben

Ten years ago on July 14, 2007, 40 people

gathered in a bookstore near Columbia University in

NYC to help launch the hard cover edition of the book,

Netizens: On the History and Impact of Usenet and the

Internet. They came to a book reading party with the

authors, Michael and Ronda and a representative of the

IEEE Computer Society Press, the publisher.

The amazing thing they heard and to which some

there objected was how solid was the democratic foun-

dation of the newly emerging Internet and how perva-

sive might be the changes facilitated by the Net.

Michael had written of his vision of a 21

Century

where each netizen could be an active global citizen

thanks to the connectivity the net makes possible. He

saw that a large part of the necessary infrastructure

was in place and a more democratic world is becoming

possible. He read from his chapter “Exploring NYC’s

online Community: A Snapshot of NYC.general.” The

reading stimulated a vigorous and contentious discus-

sion with some welcoming the Internet and others

disbelieving that the net would be a positive force for

greater democracy.

Now we are here today ten years later. Perhaps

the discussion can continue as we look again at the

concept of and the book Netizens. Ronda and Michael

gathered in the book solid historical evidence and

contemporary practice for their thesis that something

big was happening which would take a mighty fight to

defend but which could profoundly change the media,

politics, social life and even economics. Big things

have happened: e-mail, World Wide Web, citizen jour-

nalism, Google searches and blogging to name a few.

But except for e-mail and citizen journalism these

were only the lessor part of what Michael foresaw. He

was envisioning more profound human to human

communication and intense discussions like those on

USENET. I wonder when more of Michael’s vision

will come.

My guess is that it might not be necessary to wait

a few generations for more new big changes. Maybe

they are beginning to happen and we don’t see them.

The cartoon at the beginning of Netizens shows what

we are looking for might be so big we might not be

looking in the right way to see it.

There is in the U.S. an election next year, 2008.

In the last election the big surprise was Howard Dean

and 400,000 Deaniacs. What might the surprise be next

year? Also, Ronda has worked to see an Ohmynews in

the U.S. Might that ever happen?

I think the lesson for me is to learn from Michael

to have confidence in the wonders the net can produce

despite the hard fight they will take. Whenever I read

some chapter in Netizens, I always have the same

sensation. I want to participate more on the net. I still

want to be a netizen.

Welcome to the 21

Century and to the wonder-

Page 20

ful world of the net.

[Editor’s Note: The following speech was presented in front of the

CCTV communications tower in Beijing on September 14, 2009

as part of the first national Netizens Celebration Day sponsored by

the Internet Society of China.*]

First Netizen Celebration Day

Held in Beijing, China

Honoring the Netizen

by Ronda Hauben

I would like to thank the Internet Society of

China for inviting me to offer brief remarks today. I

want also to congratulate the honored guests for their

role in helping to make possible the development of

the Internet and the emergence of the Netizens.

It is wonderful that China is holding this netizen

day, the first ever to be held anywhere in the world.

Often there have been events celebrating the origin and

development of the Internet but only rarely has there

been recognition offered for the netizen, for those

online users who have taken on to contribute to the

development and spread of the Net and to making

possible the better world that more communication

among people will make possible.

The concept of netizen comes from the research

and writing of Michael Hauben while he was a college

student in the early 1990s. Michael was interested not

only in how the Internet would develop and spread, but

also in the impact it would have on society.

In 1992 he sent out a set of questions across the

computer networks asking users about their exper-

iences online. He was surprised to find that not only

were many of those who responded to his questions

interested in what the Net made possible for them, but

also they were interested in spreading the Net and in

exploring how it would make a better world possible.

Network users with this social perspective, or this

public interest focus Michael called Netizens. Thus the

Netizen was not all users, but users with a public

purpose.

Another aspect is that the Net is international, so

that netizenship isn’t a geographically limited concept.

To be a netizen is to be not only a citizen of one coun-

try but also a citizen of the Net. These users are citi-

zens who were empowered by the Net, or netizens.

Based on his research, Michael wrote the article “The

Net and Netizens: The Impact the Net has on People’s

Lives.” The article and the concept of the Netizen

spread around the world via the Internet.

Michael and I included his influential article as

part of a book titled Netizens which we put online on

January 12, 1994. Today’s celebration of Netizen Day

in China is for me also a fitting celebration of the 15

anniversary of putting the first edition of the book

“Netizens” online.

Though today is the first national netizen day, I

have recently seen on the Internet a call for a World

Netizen Day. So the importance of establishing a

netizen day begun by the Internet Society of China is

a proud beginning of what I hope will become a new

tradition, recognizing the importance of the contribu-

tions made by Netizens to the continuing spread and

development of the Internet.

Congratulations not only to those who have been

honored here today, but to all netizens in China and to

netizens around the world. May the tradition of the

netizen, along with the development of the Internet,

grow and flourish.

* For a Youku video of part of the speech with the translation into

Chinese see:

http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMTE5MTY3OTuy

.html. There were a number of online accounts in Chinese of the

September 14 event. Here is one URL:

http://tech.qq.com/zt/2009

/wangminjie09/#top/.

[Editor’s Note: The following speech was presented on May 1,

2012 at a luncheon in NYC at a celebration of the 15th Anniver-

sary of the print publication of Netizens.]

My Thinking on Netizens

by Xu Liang

In 1999, when I went to college, it was the first

time for me to touch the internet. I still remember

clearly the experience that day. I carefully got access

into a website and browsed some news. Later I regis-

tered an e-mail address and sent my first e-mail.

Afterwards I learned to chat online. The first time is

always very fresh and exciting. But after, the excite-

ment diminished, I thought that the internet did not

change our lives as much as what was described by

others. I still remember I told to my roommate of my

Page 21

disappointment. He was an amateur with the computer

thinking that the internet could not do any more than e-

mail and browsing news. I admitted that the internet

did make our lives much more convenient and more

fast than before, but it just substitutes for the role of

newspapers, radios, and televisions. These inventions

did not change the historical trail, neither did the

internet. This was my opinion at that time.

In recent years, with the popularization of the

internet, the internet was more and more necessary in

our lives. I roughly spend a quarter of a day in internet.

What is more important, we witness the power of the

internet and social media in some big things, like the

major railway crash in China, Arabic Spring, the

Occupy Wall Street movement and so on. I gradually

realize that I underestimated the impact of the internet

before. I am not sure if the internet will change the

trail of human history, but I am sure that the internet

does change the structure and management of human

society. Why? First, the internet gives us another

spacious space. In the cyber space, the demarcation of

nations, classes, parties, groups and professions

becomes vague. Identities and status of people are not

set by the society. Second, the internet gives us another

source of power. This power is not less than the

invention of the atomic bomb. But the internet is

different from the atomic bomb. The latter can be

monopolized by a few people. The former should be

shared by everyone. Actually, the bigger the power is,

the fewer people have the atomic weapons, while the

bigger the power is, the more people share the internet.

Each internet user is both a source and a holder of the

power. With great power comes great responsibility. In

tradition, a few elites manage the society and make

decisions. Now everyone can participate in the man-

agement and influence the decision-making process.

Let me go back to Michael and Ronda’s book,

Netizens. I have to admit the book is very visionary. It

was not just because it foresaw the drastic social

changes brought by the internet in early 1990s before

I touched the internet, but what more important is that

the book offers us a blueprint or a way for our future

society based on the internet, that is the netizen.

What is the netizen? According to the Haubens’

introduction to me, the netizen does not equate to the

internet user. Only those internet users who abide by a

set of moral norms and do good things are netizens.

They imagine that the netizens would be the main-

stream in the cyber society and it would give birth to

a good and equal society in reality which would break

away from the traditional minority-ruling-majority

model. Marx and many Communists once tried to

construct such a perfect society. They failed in prac-

tice. The internet and netizen probably provide a

technological tool and a different way to realize the

dream. This is our best wish.

However, we also should know it is a long way

to the theory applying to the practice. The formation of

the civil society in a real world tells us we cannot

expect a netizen society would form very soon. Like

the civil society is based on the rule of law, the netizen

also should be based on a set of norms. But the forma-

tion of norms must be a free, open and voluntary

process. Any government and organization should not

make out such norms in the name of netizens, or the

netizen society would repeat the tradition model.

[Editor’s Note: The following are greetings received by May 1,

2012 and read at the celebration of the 15

Anniversary of the

print edition of Netizens: On the History and Impact of Usenet

and the Internet by Michael Hauben and Ronda Hauben released

on May 1, 1997.]

Greetings on the

Anniversary of the

Print Edition of Netizens

1) From San Francisco, California

Dear Jay and Ronda:

I clearly remember the time when you both

shared with Larry and me the concept of Netizens and

the scope of the Netizen book. I was intrigued because

it was so different, and Larry was immediately capti-

vated by what he called the ‘universality of the con-

cept.’

The three of you actually started a movement that

has circled the globe! Think about that. So few of us

ever make a contribution of that magnitude. As is often

recorded over time, the originators don’t always get

the credit for the best of ideas … although personal

credit was not ever high on your agenda. You have the

knowledge that your ideas indeed have caught hold

and are being replicated in many ways across the

world, improving communication in society and chal-

lenging old parameters.

I congratulate you on your achievement!

With respect and love, Margaret.

Page 22

2) From a Japanese Network activist who accompanied

Michael in 1995 when Michael was invited to Japan

Dear Jay,

Thank you for your kind invitation.

I am doing fine, was asked to give a talk in India

a few weeks ago on “Netizen” at the Internet Gover-

nance related conference and mentioned about Michael

and the Book, remembering you all.

I have cced this to Prof. Kumon and also Ms.

Chika Sekine who met Michael at the Hypernet con-

ference back in '95, I believe, when we invited

Michael.

Will try to send some words.

Best, Izumi

Later Izumi sent this greeting: “Netizen” is really

a special term for us, in the mid '90s when we found

the Internet, I felt “this is it.” The term Netizen very

much symbolizes what we have been looking for – an

active, free-spirited being, no specialist, crossing the

border of cultures, states and minds on the planet. We

owe a lot to people who coined this term and nurtured

the concept. Thank you,

3) From the Chairperson of the Internet Society of

China

Dear Jay,

Netizens in China are happy to catch the opportu-

nity of Internet age to participate and improve them-

selves from the participation. It’s a great historical

process for the Chinese Nation!

This is what I’d write in honor of the 15 anniver-

sary of the book “Netizen.”

Wish you and Ronda have a nice gathering with

friends.

Qiheng

4) From an Internet research scholar in France

Dear Jay, Dear Ronda,

Thank you for your message! I was very happy

to read about the luncheon you’re organizing to cele-

brate the 15

anniversary of the publication of Neti-

zens, and if I had been in New York, it would have

been a pleasure to participate. So here’s my small

contribution to the event:

Sixteen years ago, I started working toward a

Ph.D. on the political uses of the Internet at University

Paris 7. At the time, in France, few people were con-

nected to the Net outside universities, and I felt the

need to explain the origins of the network. But where

was I to find the books? Remember 1996: no Amazon,

no Google, and buying a book overseas meant a

lengthy mail-order process, often taking over a month.

So you can imagine my joy when I discovered

Netizens, available online on the University of Colum-

bia’s server, and for free, too! It was truly amazing to

me, and the very fact of finding it got me thinking

about the gift economy of the internet. Netizens is a

landmark study from which I learned and quoted at

length. Its worldwide readership testifies to its impor-

tance in the field of Internet studies.

[I think I first came across Netizens as a posting

in one of the USENET newsgroups I was following at

the time (uspolitics, if I remember correctly). I was so

happy to have found it that I printed out entire chapters

:-)]

Happy celebration, and all the best from Vivian

5) From Berlin, Germany

From me too, of course … the book was a real

milestone … we all also remember Michael fondly, of

course … .

Ron

6) From Bloomfield Hills, Michigan

Dear Ronda and Jay,

We thank you for your invitation to the luncheon,

and are sorry that geography prevents us from being

there. Don’t forget to put a blurb in your local papers

about the anniversary to get a little publicity. The

Netizen book was assigned to Tom in an Information

Technology class at the University of Michigan. The

professor believed that the internet would be a univer-

sal vehicle of trading ideas, and of course she was

right.

Congratulations that your book is still as relevant

as it was 15 years ago. We are certain that this cere-

mony is greeted as enthusiastically as the original

event.

Best wishes, Tom and Olga

7) From Oita, Beppu Bay Japan

(15

Anniversary of the hardcover book Netizens

Celebration)

Page 23

My dear old memory of Michael Hauben

In 1995 April, I heard that Mr. Michael Hauben,

the inventor of the word “Netizens,” was scheduled to

visit Oita, a small local city in southwest part of Japan.

I was very excited and decided to welcome him. A

boyish-looking young man who has just grown up to

an adult appeared through the conference room door

and said hello. It was Mr. Michael Hauben from the

USA.

First, I had sent him a welcome message through

the E-mail saying please come to Oita Japan. Michael

kindly checked the Internet in advance to learn where

I was and what I was interested in. He prepared “A

little New York Cookbook” and presented it to me. I

was really delighted to see the lovely, tiny book filled

with beautiful illustrations of cookies and other simple

foods. I picked up some of them and actually cooked

them in home. I took the pictures of the dishes and

posted to the Internet. Michel was delighted as well.

http://www.coara.or.jp/~mieko/cheese.htm

New York is my long-cherished city. In 1998, I

sent him a message to visit NYC and finally could

meet not only him but also his parents in the city. I

carried his book Netizens Japanese version with me

and asked him to put the author’s message on it. I also

visited his apartment and exchanged greetings. This

was a great memory in my life.

I don’t like to use the subjunctive mood if he

were alive, but he had passed away too early, too

young. I wish him to watch the developing Internet

world and network citizens much and much more. If he

were here, he would have invented another new con-

cept of Netizens.

I highly value the memory of Michael Hauben

and pay my respects to Michael’s parents Jay and

Ronda who strongly promote the Netizenship all

around the world. I and my husband Ken are very

proud of being the everlasting friends of Michael

Hauben who is now smiling and silently watching us

from Heaven. Yes, Michael lives forever in our hearts.

Mieko

8) From Shanghai, China and for this year, NYC

Netizens change the world, especially China.

Thanks to the internet, we can make our voice heard

now. That’s what I want to say.

Hanting

9) From Beijing, China

It is an important celebration for the 15

anniver-

sary of the book: Netizens: On the History and Impact

of the Usenet and the Internet. I am very glad to give

a greeting.

Netizens is a power of people. It is our unprece-

dented option to impact the style of society, more

importantly, to create the ideal world existing in all the

peoples’ hearts around the world. Everyone who uses

the internet to make our world better, especially the

pioneer who discovered the Netizen’s story, turned the

Netizen from a rhetoric word to a new media, new life

and new power. I want to give my honor and respect

for them, I know Michael is one of them. I want to

thank him, and I also will do my best to continue this

job without salary, only with my conscience and

responsibility.

Yunlong

10) From a Senior IT Professor, Lucian Blaga Univer-

sity, Sibiu, Romania

Dears Ronda and Jay,

I am very happy that this seminal and beloved

book is now a “surprisingly mature teenager” and I

greet from all my heart the initiative to pay tribute to

the book itself and to its authors. Moreover, I think

that the message is as important as it was from the very

beginning, I am proud to be a virtual participant now

at the Anniversary as well as an enthusiast reader 14

years ago (when I translated the key concept of

Netizen), and I look forward to similar influential

messages.

All the best, Boldur

11) From a Professor in Political Science, Waseda

University, Japan

Congratulation of the 15 years of your book on

“Netizens.”

The word “Netizen “ became popular now in

Asia. My “Global Netizen College” in Japanese had

about 1.5 million accesses:

http://netizen.html.xdomain.jp/exchange.html

http://netizen.html.xdomain.jp/Home.html

and there are over 2.5 million websites which use the

Japanese word “Netizen” by Google search.

In South Korea, Netizen is one of the most

popular words for their communication, like “netizen-

ship,” “netizen vote” or even “netizen revolution.”

Page 24

In China, the biggest internet country in the

world, made the new word “Netizens” in Chinese Wik-

ipedia, as Ms. Ronda Hauben reported in detail in

“China in the Era of the Netizen.” http://zh.wikipedia

.org/wiki/ (This page links to the netbook and to

Michael’s netbook page.) http://blogs.taz.de/netizen

blog/2010/02/14/china_in_the_era_of_the_netizen/.

Thus, we might be proud of our tasks as a pio-

neer of the “Rights of Netizens”

http://www.columbia.edu/~rh120/netizen-rights.txt.

I hope your further activity for the freedom of

expression and your good health.

Yours, Tetsuro

12) From Berlin Germany

Dear Jay and Ronda,

Wendy and I congratulate you to the 15

anniver-

sary of _Netizens_.

The tools used by netizens have evolved enor-

mously over the course of time. Electronic communi-

cation has developed from bulletin boards through

mail lists and USENET, on through Web-based forums

and text messaging, and now on to Facebook and

Twitter. Some of the older modes of communication

are still in use; others have, by and large, fallen by the

wayside. And it remains to be seen how the commer-

cial aspects of the newer forms will play out, as well as

how attempts by governments around the world to

regulate and control Internet communications will

affect our usage of electronic media.

Certainly these tools have been used to advance

political goals (both admirable and, sometimes, less

admirable), and I am sure others will want to say more

about this topic.

From my perspective, electronic communications

have also been an essential tool allowing me to com-

municate with others who share my involvement in a

programming language called Max/MSP. This is a

system relatively few people are aware of outside of

the fields of computer music and digital audio produc-

tion. Indeed, it was originally known primarily only in

a handful of universities and research centers studying

acoustics and electronic music. The power of Internet

communication is that it has allowed people, spread

extremely sparsely around the world, to form an

intensely supportive community. We have shared

knowledge, helped each other solve problems, spread

news of exciting projects and even professional work

opportunities. And this vital community has continu-

ally provided a platform for more people to become

engaged, from new users of Max/MSP struggling with

their first projects through to highly experienced users

and the original developers of this software tool. And,

as this community has grown, so we are now seeing

Max/MSP being used to shape sound in radio and

television broadcasts, theaters, even by commercial

sound design for leading international enterprises. The

chances are that something you recently heard – be it

the ‘snap’ of some digital camera, sound effects on a

television program or on stage, or a hit record on the

radio – was shaped with Max/MSP. I was recently

involved in a project to develop ways of allowing

children with special needs, particularly extreme

physical disabilities, to actively participate in music

making. This would not have been possible without the

software tool

Max/MSP, but it would also not have been pos-

sible without the dissemination of knowledge about

this software facilitated by netizenship.

Wendy and I wish Jay and Ronda continued

success in their work with actively encouraging neti-

zens to form new activities. We sincerely hope that

more and more of these will be forces for betterment –

socially, scientifically, artistically, and politically –

around the world.

With all best regards, Peter and Wendy

13) From the Secretary General of the People’s Soli-

darity for Participatory Democracy Seoul, South Korea

Dear Ronda and Jay,

Congratulation on the 15

anniversary of the

release of “Netizen.” Nowadays, Netizens in the world

are playing a crucial role for changing the world.

Communication online with internet has been helping

participatory democracy to develop.

Thank your family for excellent researches

and activities in promoting participatory democracy.

Best regards, Taeho

14) From Yaoundé, Cameroon (West Africa) 2009

Dear Ronda,

I am happy to be in contact with an author I did

appreciate and lengthily quoted in an important paper.

As an anthropologist, I could only use a limited aspect

of your research. I do hope I will learn more from you

as far as connecting people around the world is con-

cerned. In the MOST program, the concern is the

Page 25

linkage between research and public policy, i.e.,

scientific results and decision making. Netizenship is

another scale of linkage among the people around the

world. Netizenship is therefore a key point to raise and

to work on, precisely as the world is going as liberal as

global. I must however tell you how inspiring your

book was to me for that specific point.

Lets us keep in contact. And please, extend my

regards to your close friends or collaborators.

Best wishes, Charly

15) From Piscataway, New Jersey

The most striking thing to me about Netizens is

that it seemed to predict how the internet could be

used. When the book was written, the internet was not

part of the mainstream in the way it is now. There were

online communities, and it seems that there was a

togetherness and an openness online, which helped

inspire Michael’s ideas. But maybe those communities

were more limited at the time, simply because there

were not as many internet users. Their impact was

harder to see in the world. Recently, we have been

seeing the internet used as a tool by movements like

the revolutionaries in Egypt and the Occupy movement

here.

With the internet’s widespread use there comes

conflicts. There have been debates over net neutrality,

and in general, it seems to be more and more commer-

cialized. But also with such wide use, and because it

still does have an openness, it can be a very effective

tool for democratic movements.

Mitchell

16) Anonymous:

“Netizens around the world stand with you now”

[Editor’s Note: The following is a slightly edited version of a talk

presented on May 1, 2012 at a luncheon celebration in honor of

the 15

Anniversary of the publication of the print edition of the

book Netizens]

Netizens and Communication

A New Paradigm

by Ronda Hauben

I. – Looking Back

On May 1, 1997, the print Edition of Netizens: on

the History and Impact of Usenet and the Internet was

published in English. Later that year, in October, a

Japanese translation of the book was published. In

2012, we are celebrating the occasion of the 15

Anniversary of this event.

In honor of this occasion I want to both look

back and look forward toward trying to assess the

significance of the book and of Michael Hauben’s

discovery of the emergence of the netizen. I want to

briefly look at what has happened in the interim of

these 15 years toward trying to understand what new

advance this development makes possible.

By the early 1990s, Michael recognized that the

Internet was a significant new development and that it

would have an impact on our world. He was curious

about what that impact would be and what could help

it to have a beneficial impact.

The book was compiled from a series of articles

written by Michael and by me which were posted on

the Net as they were written and which sometimes led

to substantial comments and discussion.

The most important article in the book was

clearly Michael’s article, “The Net and Netizens: the

Impact the Net Has on People’s Lives.”

Michael opened the article with the prophetic

words, which appeared online first in 1993: “Welcome

to the 21

Century. You are a Netizen (a Net Citizen)

and you exist as a citizen of the world thanks to the

global connectivity that the Net makes possible. You

consider everyone as your compatriot. You physically

live in one country but you are in contact with much of

the world via the global computer network. Virtually,

you live next door to every other single Netizen in the

world. Geographical separation is replaced by exis-

tence in the same virtual space.” [Netizens, Chapter 1,

p. 3]

Michael goes on to explain that what he is

predicting is not yet the reality. In fact many people

Page 26

around the world were just becoming connected to the

Internet during the period in which these words were

written and posted on various different networks that

existed at the time.

But fifteen years after the publication of the print

edition of Netizens, this description is very much the

reality for our time and for many it is hard to remem-

ber or understand the world without the Net.

Similarly, in his articles that are collected in the

Netizens book, Michael looked at the pioneering vision

that gave birth to the Internet. He looked at the role of

computer science in the building of the ARPANet

network, at the potential impact that the Net and

netizens would have on politics, on journalism, and on

the revolution in ideas that the Net and netizens would

bring about, comparing this to the advance brought

about by the printing press. The last chapter of the

book is an article Michael wrote early on about the

need for a watchdog function over government in order

to make democracy possible.

By the time the book was published in a print

edition, it had been freely available online for three

years. This was a period when the U.S. government

was determined to change the nature of the Net from

the public and scientific infrastructure that had been

built with public and educational funds around the

world to a commercially driven entity. While there

were people online at the time promoting the privatiza-

tion and commercialization of the Internet, the concept

of netizen was embraced by others, by many who

supported the public and collaborative nature of the

Internet and who wanted this to grow and flourish.

The article “The Net and Netizens” grew out of

a research project that Michael had done for a class at

Columbia University in Computer Ethics. Michael was

interested in the impact of the Net and so he formu-

lated several questions and sent them out online. This

was a pioneering project at the time and the results he

received back helped to establish the fact that the Net

was having an important impact on a number of peo-

ple’s lives.

Michael put together the results of his research in

the article “The Net and Netizens” and posted it online.

This helped the concept of netizen to spread and to be

embraced around the world. The netizen, it is impor-

tant to clarify, was not intended to describe every net

user. Rather netizen was the word to describe those on

the Net who took up to support the public and collabo-

rative nature of the Net and to help it to grow and

flourish. Netizens at the time often had the hope that

their efforts online would be helpful toward creating a

better world.

Describing this experience in a speech he gave in

Japan and which subsequently became the Preface to

the Netizens book, Michael explained: “In conducting

research five years ago online to determine people’s

uses of the global computer communications network,

I became aware that there was a new social institution,

an electronic commons, developing. It was exciting to

explore this new social institution. Others online

shared this excitement. I discovered from those who

wrote me that the people I was writing about were

citizens of the Net or Netizens.” [Netizens, Preface, p.

ix]

Michael’s work which is included in the book

and the subsequent work he did recognized the ad-

vance made possible by the Internet and the emergence

of the Netizen.

The book is not only about what is wrong with

the old politics, or media, but more importantly, the

implications for the emergence of new developments,

of a new politics, of a new form of citizenship, and of

what Michael called the “poor man’s version of the

mass media.” He focused on what was new or emerg-

ing and recognized the promise for the future repre-

sented by what was only at the time in an early stage of

development.

For example, Michael recognized that the collab-

orative contributions for a new media would far exceed

what the old media had achieved. “As people continue

to connect to USENET and other discussion forums,

the collective population will contribute back to the

human community this new form of news,” he wrote.

[Netizens, Chapter 13, p. 233]

In order to consider the impact of Michael’s

work and of the publication of the book, both in its

online form and in the print edition, I want to look at

some of the implications of what has been written

since about netizens.

II. – Mark Poster on the Implications of the

Concept of Netizen

One interesting example is in a book on the

impact of the Internet and globalization by Mark

Poster, a media theorist. The book, Information Please,

was published in 2006. While Poster doesn’t make any

explicit reference to the book Netizens he finds the

concept he has seen used online to be an important

one. He offers some theoretical discussion on the use

Page 27

of the “netizen” concept.

Referring to the concept of citizen, Poster is

interested in the relationship of the citizen to govern-

ment, and in the empowering of the citizen to be able

to affect the actions of his or her government. He

considers the “Declaration of the Rights of the Man

and the Citizen” a monument from the French Revolu-

tion of 1789. He explains that the idea of the Rights of

Man was one effort to empower people to deal with

governments. But this was not adequate and the con-

cept of the rights of the citizen, he proposes, was an

important addition.

“Human rights and citizenship,” he writes, “are

tied together and reinforce each other in the battle

against the ruling classes.” [Information Please, p. 68]

He proposes that “these rights are ensured by their

inscription in constitutions that found governments and

they persist in their association with those govern-

ments as the ground of political authority.”[Ibid., p.

68]

But with the coming of what he calls the age of

globalization, Poster wonders if the concept ‘citizen’

can continue to signify democracy. He wonders if the

concept is up to the task.

“The conditions of globalization and networked

media,” he writes, present a new situation “in which

the human is recast and along with it the citizen.”

[Ibid., p. 70] “The deepening of globalization pro-

cesses strips the citizen of power,” he writes. “As eco-

nomic processes become globalized, the nation-state

loses its ability to protect its population. The citizen

thereby loses her ability to elect leaders who effec-

tively pursue her interests.” [Ibid., p. 71]

In this situation, “the figure of the citizen is

placed in a defensive position.” [Ibid.] There is a need,

however, to find instead of a defensive position, an

offensive one.

Also he is interested in the media and its role in

this new paradigm. “We need to examine the role of

the media in globalizing practices that construct new

subjects,” Poster writes. “We need especially to ex-

amine those media that cross national boundaries and

to inquire if they form or may form the basis for a new

set of political relations.” [Ibid., p. 77]

In this context, for the new media, “the important

questions, rather are these,” he proposes: “Can the new

media promote the construction of new political forms

not tied to historical, territorial powers? What are the

characteristics of new media that promote new politi-

cal relations and new political subjects? How can these

be furthered or enhanced by political action?” [Ibid., p.

78]

“In contrast to the citizen of the nation,” he

notices that the name often given to the political

subject constituted on the Net is “netizen.” While

Poster makes it seem that the consciousness among

some online of themselves as “netizens” just appeared

online spontaneously, this is not accurate.

Before Michael’s work, netizen as a concept was

rarely if ever referred to. The paper “The Net and

Netizens” introduced and developed the concept of

“netizen.” This paper was widely circulated online.

Gradually the use of the concept of netizen became

increasingly common. Michael’s work was a process

of doing research online, summarizing the research,

analyzing it and then putting the research back online,

and of people embracing it. This was the process by

which the foundation for the concept of “netizen” was

established.

Considering this background, the observations

that Poster makes of how the concept of “netizen” is

used online represents a recognition of the significant

role for the netizen in the future development of the

body politic. “The netizen,” Poster writes, “might be

the formative figure in a new kind of political relation,

one that shares allegiance to the nation with allegiance

to the Net and to the planetary political spaces it

inaugurates.” [Ibid., p. 78]

This new phenomena, Poster concludes, “will

likely change the relation of forces around the globe.

In such an eventuality, the figure of the netizen might

serve as a critical concept in the politics of democrati-

zation.” [Ibid., p. 83]

III. – The Era of the Netizen

While Poster characterizes our period as the age

of globalization, I want to offer a different view. I want

to propose that we are in an era demarcated by the

creation of the Internet and the emergence of the neti-

zen. A more accurate characterization of this period is

as the “Era of the Netizen.”

The years since the publication of the book

Netizens have been marked by many interesting devel-

opments that have been made possible by the growth

and development of the Internet and the spread of

netizens around the world. I don’t have the time to go

into these today but I will refer to a few examples to

give a flavor of the kind of developments I am refer-

ring to.

An article by Vinay Kamat in the Reader’s

Page 28

Opinion section of the Times of India referred to

something I had written. Quoting my article, the Times

of India article said, “Not only is the Internet a labora-

tory for democracy, but the scale of participation and

contribution is unprecedented. Online discussion

makes it possible for netizens to become active indi-

viduals and group actors in social and public affairs.

The Internet makes it possible for netizens to speak out

independently of institutions or officials.” [See “We

are looking at the 5

Estate,” by Vinay Kamat, Read-

er’s Opinion, Times of India, December 16, 2011, p. 2.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/opinion/edit-

page/We-are-looking-at-the-fifth-estate/opinions/111

33662.cms The quote is taken from, “The Rise of Net-

izen Democracy: A Case Study of Netizens’ Impact on

Democracy in South Korea,” by Ronda Hauben, online

at: http://www.columbia.edu/~rh120/other/misc/korea

n-democracy.txt]

Kamat points to the growing number of netizens

in China and India and the large proportion of the

population in South Korea who are connected to the

Internet. “Will it evolve into a fifth estate?” the article

asks, contrasting netizens’ discussion online with the

power of the 4

estate, i.e., the mainstream media.

“Will social and political discussion in social

media grow into deliberation?” asks Kamat. “Will

opinions expressed be merely ‘rabble rousing’ or will

they be ‘reflective’ instead of ‘impulsive’?”

One must recognize, the article explains, the new

situation online and the fact that it is important to

understand the nature of this new media and not

merely look at it through the lens of the old media.

What is the nature of this new media and how does it

differ from the old? This is an important area for

further research and discussion.

IV. – Looking for a Model

While I was in South Korea in 2008, a friend

asked if there is a model for democracy that could be

helpful for South Korea – like in some country perhaps

in Scandinavia. Thinking about the question I realized

it was more complex than it seemed on the surface.

I realized that one cannot take a model from the

period before the Internet, from before the emergence

of the netizen. It is instead necessary that models for a

more democratic society or nation in our times be

models that include netizen participation in the society.

Both South Korea and China are places where the role

of netizens is important in building more democratic

structures for the society. South Korea appears to be

the most advanced in grassroots efforts to create

examples of netizen forms for a more participatory

decision making process.

But China is also a place

where there are significant developments because of

the Internet and netizens.

In China there have been a large number of

issues that netizens have taken up online which have

then had an impact on the mainstream media and

where the online discussion has helped to bring about

a change in government policy.

In looking for other models to learn from, how-

ever, I also realized that there is another relevant area

of development. This is the actual process of building

the Net, a prototype which is helpful to consider when

seeking to understand the nature and particularity of

the evolving new models for development and partici-

pation represented in the Era of the Netizen.

V. – Nerves of Government

In his article comparing the impact of the Net

with the important impact the printing press had on

society, Michael wrote: “The Net has opened a channel

for talking to the whole world to an even wider set of

people than did printed books.” [Netizens, Chapter 16,

p. 299]

I want to focus a bit on the significance of this

characteristic, on the notion that the Net has opened a

communication channel available to a wide set of

people.

In his study of the Net and netizens, Michael

recognized that something new was emerging. In

trying to understand what impact the Net was having

and would have on society, he also kept in mind that

the technical processes of building the Net were

important.

In order to have a conceptual framework to

understand what these technical processes are, I rec-

ommend the book by Karl Deutsch titled, The Nerves

of Government.

In the preface to his book, Deutsch writes: “This

book suggests that it might be preferable to look upon

government somewhat less as a problem of power and

somewhat more as a problem of steering; and it tries to

show that steering is decisively a matter of communica-

tion.” [Nerves of Government, p. xxvii]

I want to propose that to look at the question of

government not as a problem of power, or of democ-

racy, but as one of steering, of communication, would

be a fundamental paradigm shift.

What is the difference?

Page 29

Power has to do with force, with the ability to

exert force on something so as to affect its direction

and action. Democracy has to do with the participation

and effect of people on the decisions made for society.

Steering and communication, however, are related to

the process of the transmission of a signal through a

channel. The communication process is one related to

whether a signal is transmitted in a manner that distorts

the signal or whether it is possible to transmit the

signal accurately. The communication process and the

steering that it makes possible through feedback

mechanisms are an underlying framework to consider

in seeking to understand what Deutsch calls the

“Nerves of Government.”

According to Deutsch, a nation can be looked at

as a self steering communication system of a certain

kind and the messages that are used to steer it are

transmitted by certain channels.

I want to propose that some of the important

challenges of our times relate to the need for exposure

of the distortions of the information being spread. For

example, the misrepresentations by the mainstream

media about what is happening in Libya and Syria.

The creation and dissemination of channels of commu-

nication that make possible “the essential two way

flow of information” are essential for the functioning

of an autonomous learning organization, which is the

form Deutsch proposes for a well functioning system.

To look at this phenomenon in a more practical

way, I want to offer some considerations raised in a

speech given to honor a Philippine librarian. The

speech was given by Zosio Lee. Lee refers to the kind

of information that is transmitted as essential to the

well being of a society. In considering the impact of

netizens and the form of information that is being

transmitted, Lee asks the question, “How do we detect

if we are being manipulated or deceived?” [“Truthful-

ness and the Information Revolution” JPL 31 (2011),

p. 105]

The importance of this question, he explains, is

that, “We would not have survived for so long if all the

information we needed to make valid judgments were

all false or unreliable.” [Ibid.] Also, he proposes that

“information has to be processed and discussed for it

to acquire full meaning and significance.” [Ibid., p.

106]

“When information is free, available and truthful,

we are better able to make appropriate judgments,

including whether existing governments fulfill their

mandate to govern for the benefit of the people,” Lee

writes. [Ibid., p. 108]

In his article “The Computer as a Democratizer”

Michael similarly explores the need for accurate

information about how government is functioning. He

writes,“Without information being available to them,

the people may elect candidates as bad as or worse

than the incumbents. Therefore there is a need to

prevent government from censoring the information

available to people.” [Netizens, Chapter 18, p. 316]

Michael adds that, “The public needs accurate

information as to how their representatives are fulfill-

ing their role. Once these representatives have abused

their power, the principles established by Paine and

Mill require that the public have the ability to replace

the abusers.” [Ibid., p. 317]

Channels of accurate communication are critical

in order to share the information needed to determine

the nature of one’s government.

While in general I have focused on the implica-

tions of the concept of Netizen that have emerged in

the decade and a half since the publication of the print

edition of the book, it is also important to realize that

not everyone is friendly to the concept of Netizen. An

article in the online newsfeed section of Time maga-

zine proposed that the word netizen should be banished

from the media.

Katy Steinmetz, who does an online column for

Time claimed, “The word has been around for almost

three decades [sic – it was less than two decades], but

the likes of the Los Angeles Times were using it as

recently as last month. Perhaps it’s time to give it a

rest … .”

In the same article, she proposed to banish

“occupy” and “#[hashtag].” [See “Poll: What Words

Should Be Banished in 2012? NewsFeed Time.com,”

Time magazine, January 11, 2012. http://newsfeed.ti

me.com/2012/01/18/Wednesday-words-readers-cho

ice-for-banished-word-of-2012-and-more/]

The following week she acknowledges that there

is very little sentiment to ban the word netizen.

VI. – Conclusion

In conclusion, I want to point to an article in a

blog at the Foreign Policy Association website which

has the title: “Institutions And New World ‘Netizens’:

Act 1”

The author, Oliver Barrett, reminds his readers of

a quote from Mohandas Gandhi: “First They Ignore

You – Then They Ridicule You – Then They Fight

You – Then You Win.”

Page 30

Barrett asks, “Will technology fundamentally

change the relationship between the nation state and

citizens?” He asks if net-connected citizens are “a

threat or opportunity for government?”

In response to this question, he writes, “But I am

not convinced that government officials, even in indus-

trialized countries, are cognizant of how technological

innovations like social media have forever robbed

them of their positions as trusted sources of timely and

legitimate information … . I dare say that netizens

have started to short-circuit the politico-corporate

communications wiring, raising the political and social

justice consciousness of the hyper-connected citizen in

a way that might not be in the interest of the governing

classes.”

“How will governments respond to this situa-

tion?” he asks.

“I look forward to witnessing how Act 2 of

Revolution 2.0 will unfold,” he concludes.

Barrett focuses on the opinions of those in gov-

ernment. Instead, I propose that the important chal-

lenge is for netizens. Netizens need to understand the

conceptual nature of the information and communica-

tion changes represented by the Era of the Netizen so

they will be able to successfully meet the new chal-

lenges these represent for our society.

Notes

1. In South Korea there are many interesting examples of new

organizational forms or events created by netizens. For example

NOSAMO combined the model of an online fan club and offline

gathering of supporters who worked to get Roh Moo-hyun elected

as President in South Korea in 2002. Also, OhmyNews, an online

newspaper, helped to make the election of Roh Moo-hyun pos-

soible in 2002.

Science mailing lists and discussion networks contributed

to by netizens helped to expose the fraudulent scientific work of

la leading South Korean scientist.

In 2008 there were 106 days of candlelight demonstrations

contributed to by people online and off to protest the South Ko-

rean government’s adoption of a weakened set of regulations

about the import of poorly inspected U.S. beef into South Korea.

The debate on June 10-11 over the form the demonstration should

take involved both online and offline discussion and demonstrated

the generative nature of serious communication. See for example,

Ronda Hauben, “On Grassroots Journalism and Participatory De-

mocracy.”

http://www.columbia.edu/~rh120/other/netizens_draft.pdf.

2. Some examples include the anti-CNN website that was set up

to counter the inaccurate press reports in the western media about

the 2008 riot in Tibet, the murder case of a Chinese waitress who

killed a Communist Party official in self defense, the case of the

Chongqing Nail House and the online discussion about the issues

involved. See for example, Ronda Hauben, “China in the Era of

the Netizen.”

http://blogs.taz.de/netizenblog/2010/02/14/china_in

_the_era _of_the_netizen/.

3. See for example “Libya, the UN and Netizen Journalism,” The

Amateur Computerist, Vol. 21, No. 1, Winter 2012.

http://www.ais.org/~jrh/acn/ACn21-1.pdf.

Jay Hauben, “On the 15

Anniversary of Netizens: Netizens Ex-

pose Distortions and Fabrications”:

http://www.columbia.edu/~ha

uben/Book_Anniversary/presentation_2.doc.

4. As Michael Hauben explains, “Thomas Paine, in The Rights of

Man, describes a fundamental principle of democracy. Paine

writes, ‘that the right of altering the government was a national

right, and not a right of the government’.” (Netizens, Chapter 18,

p. 316)

5. Katy Steinmetz, “Wednesdays Words: Readers’ Choice for

Banned Words of 2012 and More,” Time Newsfeed, January 18,

2012.

http://newsfeed.time.com/2012/01/18/wednesday-words-rea

ders-choice-for-banished-word-of-2012-and-more/.

6. “Will the officials that govern the modern nation state engage

their respective societies in meaningful ways, or will they con-

tinue to hide their heads in the sand? From what I’ve learned from

history and the very erudite Mohandas Gandhi – I think I know

the answer.” Oliver Barrett

http://foreignpolicyblogs.com/2012

/01/12/institutions-and-new-world-netizens-act-1/ (4/25/2012).

7. See for example: Ronda Hauben, “The Internet Model of Socio-

Economic Development and the Emergence of the Netizen.”

http://blogs.taz.de/netizenblog/2010/11/02/the_internet

_ mo d e l _ o f _ s o c io - e c o n o mi c _ d e ve l o p m e n t _ a n d _ t h e

_emergence_of _the_netizen/ and Ronda Hauben, “In Cheonan

Dispute UN Security Council Acts in Accord with UN Charter”

http://blogs.taz.de/netizenblog/2010/09/05/in_cheonan

_dispute_un_security_council_discovers_un_charter/.

Bibliography

Barrett, Oliver. “Introduction to the New World ‘Netizens’ Act I”

Foreign Policy Blog. April 25, 2012. http://foreignpolicy

blogs.com/2012/01/12/institutions-and-new-world-

netizens-act-1/.

Deutsch, Karl. Nerves of Government. The Free Press. New York.

1966.

Hauben, Michael and Ronda Hauben. Netizens: On the History

and Impact of Usenet and the Internet. IEEE Computer

Society Press. Los Alamitos. 1997. Online edition:

http://

www.columbia.edu/~rh120.

Hauben, Ronda. “The Rise of Netizen Democracy : A case study

of netizens' impact on democracy in South Korea.”

http://www.columbia.edu/~rh120/other/misc/korean-

democracy.txt.

Komat, Vinay. “We’re Looking at the Fifth Estate.” Reader’s

Opinion. Times of India. December 16, 2011. P. 2.

http://

timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/opinion/edit-page/We-

are-looking-at-the-fifth-estate/opinions/11133662.cms.

Lee, Zosimo E. “Truthfulness and the Information Revolution.”

Journal of Philippean Librarianship (JPL 31). P. 101.

http://journals.upd.edu.ph/index.php/jpl/article/viewFile/

2779/2597.

Poster, Mark. Information Please. Duke University Press. Dur-

ham. 2006.

Steinmetz, Katy. “POLL: What Word Should Be Banished in

Page 31

2012?” Time Newsfeed. January 11, 2012. http://newsfeed

.time.com/2012/01/11/poll-what-word-should-be-banished-

in-2012/.

Steinmetz, Katy. “Wednesdays Words: Readers’ Choice for Ban-

ned Words of 2012 and More.” Time Newsfeed. January

18. 2012.

http://newsfeed.time.com/2012/01/18/Wednes

day-words-readers-choice-for-banished-word-of-2012-and-

more/.

[Editor’s Note: The following is a slightly edited version of a

paper submitted on January 23, 1999 to the “Workshop on Mem-

bership Issues for ICANN” sponsored by the Berkman Center for

Internet & Society at Harvard Law School. It can be seen online

at: https://cyber.harvard.edu/rcs/hauben.html and at: http://www

.ais.org/~ronda/new.papers/internet.txt.]

The Internet: A New

Communication Paradigm

by Ronda Hauben

“… the systems being build must remain flexible and

open-ended throughout the process of development,

which is evolutionary.”

J.C.R. Licklider and Robert Taylor

The Computer as a Communication Device

“Computers need a language of their own to communi-

cate with each other and with their users.”

Robert Kahn Proceedings of IEEE

Special Issue on Packet Communication Networks

“Experience has shown the importance of making the

response time short and the conversation free and

easy.”

J.C.R. Licklider and Robert Taylor

The Computer as a Communication Device

I. – Can the Human-Computer Partnership

Improve Communication

“In a few years, men will be able to communicate

more effectively through a machine than face to face,”

write J.C.R. Licklider and Robert Taylor in their 1968

article, “The Computer as a Communication Device.”

In a memo written several years earlier, Licklider

raises a related question: How do you state the funda-

mental problem concerning communication? “At the

extreme,” he writes, “the problem is essentially the one

discussed by science fiction writers: how do you get

communication started among totally uncorrelated

sapient beings?”

In the same memo, Licklider also poses the

question: If you are gathering together different groups

of people using different computers and different

programming languages, isn’t it necessary to find the

primary question that has to be asked? All the different

computer systems have to either agree to speak the

same language, or at least agree to some convention

for asking this fundamental question: “What language

do you speak?”

Licklider was writing in the 1960s during the

earliest days of the efforts to link together computers

to facilitate resource sharing. The questions he raises

are questions about the fundamental nature of commu-

nication. Has the development of computer networking

in the past 30 years shed any light on the fundamental

nature of communication? This is the question that this

paper will endeavor to answer.

II. – Different Networks – Diverse Views –

Broad Ranging Discussion

A discussion carried out on USENET in several

newsgroups before Thanksgiving of 1998, is a helpful

example of the new kind of online discussion that the

wide ranging reach of the Internet as a network of net-

works makes possible. A number of people from the

U.S. and Europe participated in the discussion. An

examination of this discussion I hope will shed light on

two questions: [1] How the Internet impacts human to

human communication? and [2] How can the commu-

nication made possible by the Internet help with par-

ticular problems that arise in the continued develop-

ment of the Internet?

The discussion began on November 18, 1998

with a comment that I made in a thread on several

newsgroups about “Realizing the promise of comput-

ers.” I responded to a post by John Adams who had

been reading Bell Labs publications from the mid

1960s and was struck by the “failure of current busi-

ness information systems to realize many of the en-

visioned goals.”

My response supported Adams’ statement that

we haven’t met the goals of the 1960s: “And we have

lost Bell Labs as well.”

In response, came a post from Dennis Ritchie,

the co-inventor of Unix, created in 1969 at Bell Labs.

Ritchie posted:

Ronda Hauben wrote:

> And we have lost Bell Labs as well.

Page 32

(Pinches oneself). No, still alive.

Dennis

A few other commentators supported what

Ritchie had said.

Then another person responded to those who

supported Ritchie’s view that Bell Labs still existed.

Arthur T. Murray/Mentifex wrote:

No, Dave Farber isn’t worried; Esther

Dyson isn’t worried.

The drunks on the barstools are not wor-

ried, nor are the computer complacent who

poke fun at Ronda Hauben’s minor gaffes.

But a hundred and some nations around the

world who are about to get disenfranchised

from the once free Internet must be a little

worried by now, judging from the recent

telecommunications meeting at which they

tried to resist the U.S. govt. privatization.

Oh, excuse me (Arthur T. Murray/Menti-

fex), I used a Ronda-ism in the form of

“govt.” for government! In her noble fight

on behalf of “liberte’ egalite’ fraternite’”

and all those other trifles which probably

nauseate you and move you to deride her,

Ronda Hauben mangles the English lan-

guage and lets you have your fun.

But Ronda Hauben is not a gutless, spine-

less, complacent wimp.

Dennis Ritchie responded that he had just heard

Nobel prize winners from Lucent giving talks there.

Another poster wrote, “Do you know that Dennis

Ritchie invented C, don’t you? Oh good.”

A subsequent post complained that Arthur

Murray was flaming and remarked that Ronda Hauben

should choose her allies more carefully.

One of the responses was “I am quite impressed

with Mr. Ritchie’s accomplishments, but science

doesn’t accept arguments of authority for good rea-

son.”

The person continued:

Everybody makes mistakes sometimes.

Einstein arguably did with the Cosmologi-

cal Constant, Pauling did with both vitamin

C as well as publishing a proposed struc-

ture for DNA which met all available X-

ray crystallographic requirements but

wasn’t an acid.

In my view, Ritchie is being absurdly com-

placent, even arrogant in proposing that all

is well because he is comfortable.

Nobel prizes are like ‘Man of the Year.’

They are awarded anyway and the fact that

a bunch of Lucent employees may have

won them if anything indicates that there

isn’t as much competition as there should

be. … Lucent doesn’t have anywhere near

the funding or commitment that its prede-

cessors had in the 1950s and 1960s, and to

claim otherwise is absurd. The very fact

that it was spun off should serve as evi-

dence of that.

The fact is that basic, fundamental research

in America is in the doldrums, and the

ignorant, opportunistic attitudes of most

top managers (such as Bill Gates) will keep

it there for the foreseeable future unless

people bring pressure to change those

attitudes.

Several other posts continued the discussion, and

Ritchie explained the current situation at Lucent, end-

ing his post:

I won’t dispute a general argument that the

‘average’ research here is somewhat less

fundamental than in the past nor that the

emphasis has shifted somewhat away from

physics and toward software, but the popu-

lation count and the budget have been

remarkably stable.

The discussion moved on to the subject of how

“fundamental research in America is in the doldrums.”

Another post asked:

*ahem* However, where the lack of re-

search fits in with the decision to privatize

the Internet naming authority in the U.S. is

a different issue entirely. As I understand

it, the issue is whether or not you can af-

ford to have something as important and

central as that working in commercial

conditions.

In response to the question of what to do about

the lack of basic research in the U.S., another poster

commented, “And where should the people’s pressure

be directed? Toward influencing senior, executive

management in private industry or toward espousal of

more government funding?”

Continuing the discussion of the value of basic

research, a post explained:

Nearly all research funding is now coupled

tightly to patents and short term profits,

while visionary products without immedi-

Page 33

ate applicability go begging. The inherent

value of understanding and human knowl-

edge is less and less appreciated. We have

all but forgotten Franklin’s reply to a ques-

tion about the utility of some new inven-

tion: “What good is a newborn baby?”

The discussion then turned to whether or not

Microsoft spent money on basic research. And whether

a company could afford to spend money on basic

research if they didn’t get any gain as a result. In

response, Tom Harrington wrote:

Let me adapt a quote from Benjamin

Franklin that John Adams quoted else-

where in this thread: Why do we bother

paying for elementary school? Think about

it. There’s no payoff for literally years after

the money is spent. And a good chunk of it

is likely wasted on children who will grow

up never to contribute to society anyway.

And those who do grow up and help to

improve the world do so in unpredictable

ways; there’s no way of knowing what pro-

blems will be solved, or by who, when

you’re looking at the elementary school

level. So, we could classify elementary

school spending as going toward unpredict-

able, distant goals, and being spent in some

unknown percentage on children who will

never help anyway. Yet we continue to

spend money educating small children.

When you understand why we spend

money on elementary schools, you may

begin to understand why spending money

on fundamental research is a good idea.

Another poster replied “Very well said!”

Another responded to the comment that a com-

pany didn’t benefit from basic research by noting that

“Plus, repeated studies have shown an average X35

fold return in ‘worthless’ research.”

Another explained that Microsoft’s “research”

was “on par with ‘buying patents’ not to implement,

but to prevent implementation.” Another added that

“Massive economic development tends to help every-

one in cases like that. I would bet the benefits over

time to AT&T from the development of the transistor

far outweigh the research costs. So what if Intel gets

some too.”

The thread went on to consider the short term

outlook of a business plan, and other connected issues.

Another post noted that since AT&T was regulated

during the period when the transistor was invented, “it

was sort of like doing it with tax dollars.” Still another

poster had in his signature “Behind every successful

organization stands one person who knows the secret

of how to keep the managers away from anything truly

important.”

The people posting were from several countries

including Canada, Austria, Britain, the U.S., Norway,

and Australia. They included people from different

backgrounds and positions, including a government

site, university sites, corporate sites, etc. I have re-

ferred to this discussion because it shows the broad

ranging set of views that the Internet makes possible as

all these people can communicate as part of one

Internet. And it shows the open forum that USENET

provides for such a discussion.

The discussion through its broad ranging set of

posts clarified a fundamental question in the battle

over the U.S. government decision to privatize the

central functions of the Internet. That question was

identified as “As I understand it, the issue is whether

or not you can afford to have something as important

and central as that working in commercial conditions.”

And the conclusion of those who were part of the

discussion was that commercial conditions are very

shortsighted and thus not able to provide for the long

term technological development that benefits a society

in the same way as providing elementary schooling for

all its citizens benefits the society. Furthermore, the

question was raised that when someone understands

why elementary schooling for all its citizens is an

important public policy provision, they will then

understand the need for providing for basic research

funding.

In this context, the issue of whether one can trust

something as important as control over the Internet to

something that is functioning under commercial con-

ditions and business plans is answered in the negative.

The interconnection of networks from around the

world welcomes diverse viewpoints by removing the

constraints on communication. People from many

different networks can communicate with each other

and contribute. In this discussion, there were people

from at least six different countries, and multiple net-

works within a few of the countries represented. The

Internet provides the environment and varied view-

points that not only help to frame the real question in

a problem like the battle over the U.S. privatization of

essential functions of the Internet, but which also

provides the means to examine the issues so as to

Page 34

determine a conclusion or to come to a decision about

what will be in the best interests of the Internet.

How has such an environment been created?

What are the elements of the Internet that contributed

to making this environment possible?

III. – How has the Internet developed?

From the time of the publication of Licklider and

Taylor’s article in 1968, to the present time, there have

been significant changes in the nature and potential of

packet switching networks. These changes make pos-

sible a new kind of cooperative communication among

individuals and groups of individuals. This is a com-

munication process which involves users and their

computers. It is also facilitated by the internetwork

system that those online are part of. However, this

internetwork system is not transparent. It is essentially

hidden from the view of the user. Thus it is harder to

understand how it helps to make communication

possible. However, reviewing the history of the devel-

opment of the Internet can provide an understanding of

how the Internet helps to make an important new form

of communication possible.

First, I will review a bit of the history of how the

Internet has developed from the events that followed

the publication of the paper by Licklider and Taylor in

1968. Then I will explore how the unique characteris-

tics of the Internet make possible a new communica-

tion paradigm. This paradigm, it can be argued, is cru-

cial for solving the modern problems of scaling the

Internet and managing its essential functions. Second-

arily, understanding this paradigm can help govern-

ment with the decisions that need to be made in pro-

blems like the management of the central functions of

the Internet.

On December 23, 1968, a Cambridge based engi-

neering firm, Bolt Beranek and Newman, Inc. (BBN)

was notified that it was to be awarded the contract to

build the Interface Message Processor (IMP) minicom-

puter subnetwork that would provide the packet

switching backbone for a prototype packet switching

network. The public funding for this research was

provided through the Information Processing Technol-

ogies Office (IPTO) of the Advanced Research Pro-

jects Agency (ARPA) of the U.S. Department of

Defense. This packet switching network came to be

known as the ARPANet. Those working at BBN as

part of the ARPANet systems team included Frank

Heart, Severo Ornstein, Robert Kahn, Will Crowther,

Dave Walden, Bill Barker, Jim Geisman, Martin

Thrope, Truett Trach and Bernie Cosell. They worked

to design, plan, build, install, operate and test the IMP

subnetwork. Time-sharing host computers at selected

university or computer research contractor sites were

to connect to it and thereby to be able to communicate

with each other.

Along with the need for the programmers (many

of whom were graduate students) to connect the time-

sharing systems at their sites to the IMP subnetwork,

was the need for the hosts sites to develop a means of

communication among the different hosts. This re-

quired that the programmers create a convention that

they agreed upon and that they would be able to add to

the operating systems of the computers at their sites.

Such a convention for interconnecting is called a com-

munications protocol. With support from Larry Rob-

erts who directed the ARPANet project at ARPA

during this early period and others working with

ARPA or BBN, the programmers created the Network

Control Protocol, also known as NCP. They met

together at different sites, as the network in these early

days did not yet provide the means for the communica-

tion to occur online. These programmers from the

diverse early sites called themselves the Network

Working Group (NWG). The protocol they created

was developed through a process of open discussion,

where contributions were encouraged from all. As part

of this process, they produced written notes document-

ing their activity. They called these notes Requests for

Comment or RFC’s. During the earliest period of the

activity of the NWG, RFC’s were circulated by mail.

However, once it was possible to circulate them and

even maintain them online, the functioning network

itself helped to create an open process to conduct the

discussion. One of the earliest RFC’s, RFC 3, dated

April 1969, explains this open process for discussion

and problem solving that grew up with the ARPANet.

RFC 3 was by Steve Crocker who was from the UCLA

ARPANet site. Crocker writes:

Documentation of the NWG’s effort is

through notes such as this. Notes may be

produced at any site by anybody and in-

cluded in this series … . The content of a

NWG note may be any thought, sugges-

tion, etc., related to the HOST software or

other aspect of the network. Notes are

encouraged to be timely rather than pol-

ished. Philosophical positions without

examples or other specifics, specific sug-

gestions or implementations techniques

Page 35

without introductory or background expli-

cation, and explicit questions without any

attempted answers are all acceptable. The

minimum length for a NWG note is one

sentence.

These standards (or lack of them) are stated

explicitly for two reasons. First, there is a

tendency to view a written statement as

‘ipso facto’ authoritative, and we hope to

promote the exchange and discussion of

considerably less than authoritative ideas.

Second, there is a natural hesitancy to pub-

lish something unpolished and we hope to

ease this inhibition.

This kind of open set of notes helped to create a

process of exploring a problem and welcoming contri-

butions toward solving it.

The ARPANet network successfully demon-

strated the benefits of using packet switching to trans-

port messages among incompatible computers and

incompatible operating systems. In the introduction to

the special issue he edited of the “Proceedings of the

IEEE,” “On Packet Communication Networks,”

Robert Kahn writes:

Packet switching is a particular form of

digital telecommunications that is well

suited to the unique nature of computer-

based communications … . Computer traf-

fic occurs sporadically; it is often described

as being ‘bursty,’ of low duty cycle, since

the intervals between short segments of

transmitted data are relatively long. A

packet-communication network designed

to be quite efficient in transmitting bursty

traffic, can provide other functions that are

critical for computer communications, such

as error-free delivery, and code and speed

conversion to facilitate communication be-

tween otherwise incompatible terminals ….

In summary, packet-switched networks are

extensions of the very nature of computers

and computing, offering the same precise

effective means of transporting information

that computers offer in the processing of

information.

Kahn, working with Severo Ornstein, and others

at BBN, wrote the “Initial Design for Interface Mes-

sage Processors for the ARPA Computer Network,” as

the proposal that BBN submitted to ARPA. Kahn also

prepared BBN Report 1822, “Specifications for the

Interconnection of a Host and an IMP.” He partici-

pated in some of the Network Working Group meet-

ings, and was on the distribution list of the earliest

RFCs. Another important contribution Kahn made to

these early developments was the demonstration he

and Al Vezza of MIT organized showing the utility of

packet switching networks. This was held at the Inter-

national Computer Communication Conference in

October, 1972 in Washington, D. C. Leonard Klein-

rock, another of the important networking pioneers,

describes that demonstration:

DARPA installed an IMP in a hotel in

Washington, D.C. and ran in some lines.

Everybody was encouraged to create some

demonstration packages, and we did as

well. That caused lots of good things to

happen in the ARPA network. It generated

lots of new uses of the ARPA network just

for that demo. One of the things that was

demonstrated there was a distributed air

traffic control system. The idea was there

would be a bunch of computers in the

network that would be simulating air traffic

control operation in their physical region.

For example, MIT would be doing Boston,

and some Washington machines would do

Washington and so on in different regions.

Kleinrock describes other uses of the network

that were demonstrated at that event:

I remember one of the demos was really

interesting. In this demo, you could sit

down in Washington at a teletype, log on to

a machine at BBN, pull up some source

code, ship it over to a machine at UCLA

across the country, compile and execute,

and bring back the results to be printed on

the teletype right next to you in Washing-

ton.

He remembers the important impact that the demon-

stration had:

“But the point is it was a great demo.

People were pulled out of the hallway, handed a

handbook, and told, ‘Sit down, we’ll help you use the

ARPANet,’ and they could … . The main purpose was

to prove networking.”

Kahn left BBN in November 1972, just after the

successful demonstration, and went to work at

DARPA. There he took over the satellite packet net-

work project that Larry Roberts had started and began

a packet radio network project.

Kahn wanted to find a way to create a ground

Page 36

based packet radio network and he realized that it

would have to have access to resources that would

make it of interest to use. He also planned to create a

satellite packet network, which would also need to be

able to access resources to make it worth using. If

these could be connected to the ARPANet, they would

be able to access the growing number of interesting

resources available on the ARPANet. Thinking

through the problems represented by these different

kinds of packet networks, and particularly recognizing

the differences between the assumptions of the

ARPANet packet network and the requirements of a

packet radio network, he realized that there was a need

for a more general protocol than the one being used on

the ARPANet. The new protocol would have to

accommodate different kinds of networks rather than

accepting the particular assumptions that guided the

creation of the ARPANet protocol.

In spring of 1973, Kahn invited one of the

members of the NWG, Vint Cerf, to work with him on

the creation of a new protocol to make possible the

interconnection of networks.

“Around this time,” Vint Cerf notes, “Bob started

saying, ‘Look, my problem is how can I get a com-

puter that’s on a satellite net and a computer on a radio

net and a computer on the ARPANet to communicate

uniformly with each other without realizing what’s

going on in between?’”

Recognizing that a computer that would serve as

a gateway to the diverse networks would solve their

problem, Cerf explains: “We knew we couldn’t change

any of the packet nets themselves … . They did what-

ever they did because they were optimized for that

environment.”

“Our thought,” he continues, “was that, clearly,

each gateway had to know how to talk to each network

that it was connected to … . Say you’re connecting the

packet-radio net with the ARPANet. The gateway

machine has software in it that makes it look like a

host to the ARPANet IMPs. But it also looks like a

host on the packet-radio-networks.”

Since all the networks had different characteris-

tics, how could messages be transported across them

despite these differences?

Other important issues like the problem of how

reliability of the transmission of messages would be

established had to be determined. These issues were

also being considered by others who were part of the

International Network Working Group that had formed

at the ICCC72 meeting in Washington, in October

1972. Work was being done on these related questions

by others in the group, like Louis Pouzin in France

who was developing a packet switching network called

Cyclades.

By September 1973, Kahn and Cerf had worked

out the design for the new protocol that solved the

problems they had identified. They presented it to the

International Network Working Group (INWG ) which

was meeting in Brighton, England at the University of

Sussex. In November 1973, Kahn and Cerf wrote the

paper, “A Protocol for Packet Network Intercommuni-

cation,” and submitted it for publication. The paper

was published in the IEEE Transactions on Communi-

cations in the May 1974 issue.

The paper describes the principles for the new

protocol and presents its essential aspects. Cerf and

Kahn write:

“A typical packet switching network

includes a transportation mechanism for delivering

data between computers or between computers and

terminals. To make data meaningful, computers and

terminals share a common protocol (i.e., a set of

agreed upon conventions). However these protocols

have addressed only the problem of communication on

the same network.”

The paper describes the new set of issues that had

to be considered when creating a protocol that would

make it possible to have communication across diverse

packet switching networks. “Even though many dif-

ferent and complex problems must be solved in the

design of an individual packet network,” Cerf and

Kahn write, “these problems are manifestly com-

pounded when dissimilar networks are intercon-

nected.”

“Issues arise,” they continue, “which have no

direct counterpart in an individual network and which

strongly influence the way in which internetwork

communication can take place.”

They introduce the

concept “internetwork” and they recognize the difficul-

ties that have to be resolved to accomplish not only

connection between two networks, but an internetwork

communication that would allow any and all diverse

packet switching networks to be connected and to

provide the ability to have computers and users com-

municate with each other.

Their seminal paper outlines a number of ways

that packet switching networks may differ, and consid-

ers alternative ways to interface the diverse networks.

Most importantly, the authors propose that the

preferable solution will be to develop a common

protocol that can be used in the different networks that

Page 37

agree to communicate.

They minimize the role that

will be played by the gateway computer which will

provide the interface between two different networks.

Recognizing that they will be providing a means for

networks “under different ownership to interconnect,”

they emphasize that “the interconnection must pre-

serve intact the internal operation of each individual

network.”

The link that will connect two different networks,

they call a black box or a gateway. “We give a special

name to this interface that performs these functions

and call it a gateway,” they explain. They assign to the

gateway the function of properly routing data.

They call their new protocol Transport Control

Protocol (TCP). With the architecture and protocol

design described in their paper, they solve the design

and other related problems of building an Internet of

different packet switching networks.

The significance of their achievement is that they

created a means for communication across diverse and

different packet switching networks. They, thereby,

increased the number of different computers and

different operating systems and most importantly of

different people who could communicate. Thus they

identified the principle which would make possible

communication across the boundaries of different

packet switching networks. This principle was to

provide for the autonomy of the networks that joined

together.

The important aspect of TCP was to remove

constraints to communication among diverse and

different networks, and it has succeeded in a funda-

mental and important way.

Kahn and Cerf with the help of a number of

others, went on to develop the implementations for

TCP for a packet radio network, a packet satellite

network and to connect them all up with the ARPA-

Net, demonstrating that they worked.

The networks

were hooked up in 1975 and worked. Kahn says that he

cannot remember the exact day nor whether the packet

radio network or packet satellite network was first

hooked up to the ARPANet. “It should be like V-Day,”

he notes, but recalls, “When I was doing this, no one

else cared. It wasn’t viewed as that big a deal.” A

demonstration of the tri-network occurred on Novem-

ber 2, 1977, connecting up a moving van with a packet

radio terminal sending packets into the ARPANet’s

land lines and then via satellite to Norway and to

University College in London. The packets returned

via the Atlantic packet satellite network to West

Virginia, then to the ARPANet and then to Machine C

at UCLA’s Information Sciences Institute (ISI). Cerf

explains that “The packets took a 150,000-km round

trip to go 650 km down the coast from San Francisco

to Los Angeles,” Cerf recalled. “We didn’t lose a

bit.”

Then on January 1, 1983, there was a cutover

from the earlier ARPANet protocol NCP to TCP/IP on

the ARPANet.

And by Fall 1983, the ARPANet was

split into two different networks connected by TCP/IP,

into MILNET, an operational network for use by the

Department of Defense, and into the ARPANet, a

research and scientifically oriented network that was

functioning in an open environment. This was an

operational Internet, each different networks in their

own right, and yet also interconnected.

I have provided this brief account of the earliest

development of the Internet protocol TCP because it is

the development and implementation of TCP (now

called TCP/IP) which, as Dave Clark, another Internet

pioneer noted, is the glue connecting diverse networks

and diverse technologies; I would add, that it is also

the glue connecting diverse computers, diverse operat-

ing systems, diverse programs, and diverse people into

a functioning and unprecedented human-computer

communications system that spans the globe.

This is

the Internet which makes possible the diversity of

people from a diversity of networks who contribute to

the broad ranging discussion that occurs in USENET

newsgroups and on Internet mailing lists. And it is the

principle of recognizing and providing for the auton-

omy of networks and subsequently the autonomy of

peoples that makes a new form of communication

possible among the people on the Internet.

IV. – The Challenge of Internetting

In a mere 30 years we have come a long way

from the important discussion of communication and

decision-making made possible by human-computer

time-sharing systems in the 1968 article by Licklider

and Taylor. And it has taken an army of people, along

with their generals, to design, develop, implement, and

then test and spread the concepts and implementation

of internetting. This is, in an important way, a process

of removing the constraints to communication between

diverse and different networks and, therefore, between

diverse and different people from around the world.

Robert Kahn explains that his view of the net is almost

equivalent to the ether for speech, i.e., that it shouldn’t

put any constraints (so that) one could do with the

Page 38

Internet, in essence, what one could do with voice.

The Internet, however, is far more powerful.

This leads to the question how to protect and

preserve the Internet. The promise of the Internet is

that it makes it possible for people to participate in

interactive online communities where one can learn

fundamental lessons about human to human communi-

cation in the process of communicating online. More

importantly, the Internet can point the way toward

solving the problems that are encountered as it contin-

ues to evolve and scale.

In their 1968 article, Licklider and Taylor write

that they are deliberately putting their emphasis on

people and on how people communicate and how they

have observed that computer and time-sharing systems

make possible human to human communication. They

point out that they are not interested in just passing

information from person to person via a computer.

They don’t consider that communication, but merely

the passive transport of data. For them, communication

has to do with the creative process by which something

new and nontrivial emerges from the exchange of

ideas.

“We believe,” they write, “that communicators

have to do something non trivial with the information

they send and receive.”

The importance of their premise is that it pro-

vides a yardstick by which to measure whether indeed

the human-computer internetworking system that has

grown and developed over the past thirty years is

making it possible for a more effective form of human

communication to occur.

Licklider and Taylor next examine how the

process of two people communicating takes place.

They propose that people have different models and it

is only when they are willing to allow the dialogue to

enable them to reexamine their models is communica-

tion actually taking place.

My study of online communication, and my

experience online and in meeting people in person

from online, however, leads me to propose that there

is a different paradigm for identifying if communica-

tion has taken place. My research has included a

number of different forms of early online communica-

tion.

Also I have discussed problems or concerns

online or in person with people I have met online.

What I’ve found is that it is through the free wheeling

and rambling discussion that the online medium makes

possible, that one can more thoughtfully consider

diverse views. The Internet helps to remove the con-

straints to communication, to make it possible to

explore what the underlying dispute or agreement is,

and then to determine the new view that will resolve

the issue in contention.

I am proposing that the broad ranging discussion

made possible by the Internet provides an environment

where such considerations can occur. This is possible

between two people as in email. Also other formats

such as USENET newsgroups or Internet mailing lists

can provide an environment where people with a

common interest, from a diverse collection of net-

works around the world, can participate in a discus-

sion. This helps to generate the diversity of the variety

of viewpoints that one has to consider to analyze a

question or problem. In this process the wide ranging

discussion made possible by the Internet is not limited

to two communicators, but can include a large and

almost unlimited number.

Licklider and Taylor’s article not only proposes

how two individuals or groups of individuals commu-

nicate, but it also raises the issue of how communica-

tion affects government and government decision

making. They explain that modern day governments

are often confronted with a large amount of data to

study and analyze. They propose that the modeling

process they have outlined as how communication

functions, is too expensive a task for governments to

undertake and thus government decisions are often

made prematurely. They describe how governments

often make policy decisions, without adequate study of

important data:

“It is frightening to realize how early

and drastically one does simplify, how prematurely

one does conclude, even when the stakes are high and

when the transmission facilities and information

resources are extraordinary.”

They then propose that in the future the opposite

may also be true. They predict: “But someday govern-

ments may not be able not to afford it.”

They explain that not only is a communication

process a cooperative modeling effort in a mutual

environment, there is also an aspect of necessary

communication with or about an uncooperative oppo-

nent.

They write:

“As nearly as we can judge from

reports of recent international crises, out of the hun-

dreds of alternatives that confronted the decision

makers at each decision point or ply in the “game,” on

the average only a few, and never more than a few

dozen could be considered, and only a few branches of

the game could be explored deeper than two or three

such plies before action had to be taken. Each side was

Page 39

busy trying to model what the other side might be up

to – but modeling takes time, and the pressure of

events forces simplifications even when it is danger-

ous.”

Again the study I have done of the kinds of broad

ranging discussion that the Internet makes possible

leads me to propose that the problem is not modeling

toward decision-making. Rather that it is to find a way

to have the sufficiently broad ranging and often what

seems like irrelevant discussion that will make possi-

ble a broadening of the question that is being dis-

cussed, so that it becomes possible to clearly identify

the problem and then to determine the principles for

the decision.

V. – Two Examples of the Old Communi-

cation Paradigms and the New Competing

An example of an important government decision

that was made based on too limited communication

and discussion of the implications will perhaps help to

clarify how the old and new paradigms differ.

In the early 1990s, a decision was made by the

U.S. government to privatize the NSF backbone to the

U.S. section of the Internet. The decision, according to

the multiple authors of “A Brief History of the

Internet” was made in a series of NSF-initiated confer-

ences at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government on

“The Commercialization and Privatization of the

Internet” – and on the “com-priv” mailing list on the

net itself.

However, once the question was framed in

this way, the decision was already made and both the

discussion at the Kennedy School and on the com-priv

list was restricted to how to carry out the privatization.

Thus it provided no helpful perspective to either make

or evaluate the decision. The problem with this process

is that there is no welcoming of diverse views on the

basic problem and no discussion allowed with those

who disagree.

In contrast to the narrowly focused discussion on

the com-priv mailing list and at the Kennedy School

meetings, the National Telecommunications Informa-

tion Administration (NTIA) sponsored an online dis-

cussion on the broader issues of how to affect the

public policy goal of universal service, access for all

and similar topics.

This online conference which was

accessible via the Internet as a mailing list, and as

newsgroups available on the Cleveland Freenet and

other such community networks, led participants to

identify the question of whether or not the privatiza-

tion would facilitate access to the Internet for all to at

least email, USENET newsgroups, and a text based

browser. Out of the debate came the concern that it

was incumbent on the U.S. government to determine

that issue before carrying out an action that could deter

ubiquitous access for a long period of time or which

could cost a much greater amount of public funding

than if the government ownership of the NSF back-

bone was retained to facilitate a less expensive way to

provide this important public policy goal.

The NTIA online discussion did not have any

obvious effect on the U.S. government decision to

carry out the privatization. This was carried out by

April 30, 1995. However, the result that those at the

NTIA online conference predicted, that privatization

put off achieving the goal of universal access for all to

the Internet, has come to pass. Three years later only a

small percentage of the households in the U.S. and

mainly high income households, had access to the

Internet, despite the fact that almost 50% of U.S.

households had computers. And there have been esti-

mates that it will cost billions of dollars to connect up

certain public sector sections of the population to the

Internet, without even considering whether this will

further deter universal service and access for all goals

that are crucial public policy objectives

Also those

with access to the Internet are plagued by a slew of

unwanted junk mail and junk posts on USENET news-

groups that is some of the byproduct of the privatiza-

tion. This presents further obstacles to connection for

purposes of communicating via the Internet. And this

was one of the harmful effects of privatization pre-

dicted by those at the NTIA online conference.

A similar situation occurred again in 1998. The

U.S. government claimed that the longer term manage-

ment of certain essential functions of the Internet is a

problem that has to be solved. In a closed process,

without the broad ranging kinds of discussion that the

Internet makes possible, the U.S. government decided

to create a private corporation to whom it would give

important and invaluable public assets. These assets

effectively give control over the Internet to whoever

controls this private corporate entity.

The U.S. Executive Branch has been encounter-

ing opposition to its Internet privatization plan from

some sectors of the Internet community. It has re-

ceived very little support for its plan except from a

very small sector and from some corporate entities in

the U.S. and a few other organizations in the U.S. and

abroad including the Internet Society. The U.S. Con-

Page 40

gress has held hearings on the privatization process.

The Chairman of the House Commerce Committee

sent a letter to the Chairman of the U.S. Department of

Commerce and to the policy advisor to the President of

the United States asking for a number of documents

toward beginning an investigation into the process.

November, 1998, the National Telecommunication

Information Administration (NTIA) signed a Memo-

randum of Understanding with the private sector

corporation they created, ICANN (Internet Corporation

for Assigned Names and Numbers) providing for a

process to design and test a proposal for the new

organization. However, most of the activities of the

new organization were carried out in a secret way

where the decisions being made only reflect a very

narrow consideration of options.

Though the NTIA invited public comments on

several issues in this process, they have structured the

questions and the process for commenting in a way

that severely limited the range of discussion. For ex-

ample, the discussion invited in March of 1998 about

the Green paper plan for carrying out the privatization

of key Internet functions limited the focus of the

discussion and thus also of the range of opinions

gathered.

A mailing list called IFWP (International Forum

on the White Paper) was set up to discuss how to carry

out the privatization, much like the com-priv mailing

list that helped to carry out the privatization of the

NSF backbone to the Internet in the early 1990s. This

mailing list, like the former one, encouraged discus-

sion and support for the privatization, and in this way

limits the range of discussion that is needed to deter-

mine how to even identify the problems that need to be

solved.

Also the USENET discussion described in part II

of this paper shows how the broad ranging kind of dis-

cussion that the Internet makes possible can clarify the

essential question in a public policy issue.

VI. – The Challenge for Internetting and

the Informational Public Utility

By solving the problem of how to make it possi-

ble for dissimilar networks to communicate, the

Internet pioneers have removed the constraints to

communication that the Internet makes possible in a

way that is both significant and surprising. They have

created a new ability to communicate for those who

gain online access to the Internet and USENET. Such

a communications advance was accomplished in part

by identifying the requirement that had to be met,

which was to not interfere with the autonomy of the

different networks and yet to make it possible for all

those who wanted to connect to be part of the Internet.

The design of the protocol TCP by Robert Kahn and

Vint Cerf and the work they did to implement it, along

with the contributions of many others from around the

world, is a very important and stupendous achieve-

ment. But the obligation to safeguard the autonomy of

the networks that make up the Internet continues. The

creation by the U.S. government of ICANN and its

proposed role as a decision maker to set policy for the

networks that make up the Internet is a very serious

departure from the fundamental principle that makes

the Internet possible.

The cooperative forms that have grown up as part

of the development of the Internet, like the RFC pro-

cess or the Internet Engineering Task Force and its

cooperative procedures, make it possible to protect the

autonomy of the diverse networks of the Internet.

Therefore, the same kind of cooperative online

processes that have evolved to support the autonomy

of the participating networks of the Internet, are still

needed to continue the growth and development of the

Internet today. Since the Internet makes a new form of

communication possible, this communication can help

to clarify the problems when they develop. Similarly,

the Internet can be helpful in the search for the solu-

tions. What is needed for problems like the one the

U.S. government has supposedly created ICANN to

solve, is to create or utilize forms that facilitate com-

munication. However, instead of the recognition that

this task is to improve communication between differ-

ent networks and different people, a structure is being

created to block communication and to mandate

decisions. Instead of ICANN providing for the needed

communication that will make it possible to solve

problems, a private corporate structure is being created

to constrain communication between the networks and

people on the Internet so as to be able to impose

decisions that have been created by unknown individu-

als and unknown processes and which are in the inter-

ests of a very small set of people.

However, there is a need to determine how to

remove the constraints to communication between

those administering the essential functions of the

Internet, and the people from the diverse communities

and diverse networks who are part of the Internet

community. How this is to be done needs to be studied

Page 41

and determined, but it involves study both of those

administering the essential functions of the Internet

and of the people and networks that make up the

Internet community today. To create a better interface

between these two entities, one must identify what the

problem is and formulate it in the way that networking

pioneers were able to clarify the problem of intercon-

necting diverse networks to create the Internet. Also

there is a need to examine whether to create a USE-

NET newsgroup or newsgroup hierarchy and to

determine how it might be helpful to carry out the

functions that are needed in assigning names and

numbers for the Internet. In general and where possi-

ble, decisions should be made at a grassroots level by

an open process involving those administering the

technical function in discussion with the Internet

community. This can only function if there is a struc-

ture that is open to all who want to participate from the

myriad of networks in the Internet community and

which can hear from others with concerns or problems

about the decisions that are to be made or have been

made. An online forum on USENET, where those

administering the functions participate would help

make it possible to bring up any problems, get help

clarifying them, and have the discussion analyze the

problems that have to be solved. However, for this to

function, there must be a way to protect the process

from those who are trying to gain commercial advan-

tage from the decisions, at the expense of what is in the

best interests of the whole Internet community.

Recognizing the social problems that would arise

and need to be solved when the network of networks

they were planning would be built, farsighted com-

puter pioneers like J.C.R. Licklider and H. Sackman

proposed the need to study and give proper attention to

public policy issues for the developing computer

utility.

At a conference on the Informational Public

Utility, held in Chicago, in 1970, Harold Sackman, ex-

plained why the concept of a public utility was an

appropriate concept for administering the network of

networks that they foresaw would develop. He ex-

plains:

The concept of public utilities is as old as

urban civilization. Recall the great irriga-

tion works of Egypt and Mesopotamia, and

the renowned highways and aqueducts of

the Roman Empire. The concept of public

utilities as we know them today emerged

with the advent of the industrial revolution

and western democracy. Many vital ser-

vices were at first privately owned, such as

transportation, communication, water sup-

ply, sanitation, power and light. The pres-

sure of growing urbanization created great-

er needs for adequate utilities. Widespread

abuses were uncovered under the protec-

tive umbrella of unrestricted monopolies

for private owners, with cutthroat competi-

tion among such owners to obtain exclu-

sive monopolies. At about 1840, a con-

certed revolt occurred at local governmen-

tal levels against the prevailing laissez faire

doctrine in England and America. After

many fits and starts, the modern concept of

the public utility emerged – as a public

service typically (but not always) managed

by private enterprise under a franchise, and

under explicit public regulation by duly

constituted governmental authority.

Sackman goes on to describe the way that sound

regulation needs to be developed, which is through a

process of exploring what will be functional by setting

up a prototype and examining how it meets the re-

quired needs. He proposed having some finite process

of exploring whether a regulation would be helpful or

would need to be revised to meet the problems that

were encountered during the test case using it.

Sackman noted that there wasn’t at the time the neces-

sary experience in developing such regulations, but he

proposes the process needed to determine such regula-

tions:

These considerations converge into a single,

fundamental recommendation – the need for coopera-

tive, experimental computer utility prototypes to

formulate the problems, develop the techniques, and

gain the experience necessary for intelligent regulation

and growth of this new social force.”

Sackman raises the question whether the public

interest had to be considered – “not merely the interest

of the computer industry, nor that of the communica-

tions carriers, nor that of governmental agencies, but

the interest of all the people?”

“It might be argued,” he continues, “that dedica-

tion of computer utilities to free and enlightened

knowledge in the public domain could lead to a wiser

and more enlightened citizenry, and to a higher stan-

dard of living for all through the release of latent

effective intelligence. It might further be argued that

such universalization of information services might

lead to greater individual fulfillment in a more humane

Page 42

world.”

He proposes the need for creative approaches to

the problem that encourages the active participation of

the citizenry in determining the solutions to the prob-

lems that the information utility will create.

What he proposes is similar to the theme of

others who spoke at this 1970 computer conference.

J.C.R. Licklider gave the keynote at the conference.

His talk raised the question of what the future impact

would be of the kind of network of networks that

would soon be a reality. Licklider predicted: “The

computer and information utility of the future may be

a ‘network of networks.’”

He also explains that this kind of network will

make it possible for computers to talk with one an-

other, and for people to talk with computers, and

through the computers and networks, for people to talk

with each other.

At the conference, Sackman warned how it

would be disastrous to leave the determination of

decisions about the developing network of networks to

the concern for commercial objectives. “If immediate

profits,” he wrote, “are the supreme end of all social

planning because no other serious contenders arise,

then the information utility could end up as the most

barren wasteland of them all.”

Clarifying the nature of the information utility,

Licklider explained:

An information utility is certainly a meld

of computation and communication. I think

it is made up of three parts computation

and one part communication. The computa-

tion parts are processing, storage, and

interaction between man and machine. The

communication part, of course, is transmis-

sion of information. Perhaps we should

recognize a forth ingredient, the informa-

tion itself.

Whether we agree or disagree with Licklider’s

component parts or his categories, or about which is

more appropriately considered computation or commu-

nication, Licklider’s conceptualization of the informa-

tion utility as the computer communications system of

the future, and hence of the Internet today, is quite

helpful.

The 1970 AFIPS conference with the numerous

talks about the importance of enlightened government

social policy to be developed to determine how the

information utility will be administered, is an impor-

tant document. It shows the concern and foresight of

computer pioneers like Licklider and Sackman. They

stressed the need for the understanding of how impor-

tant a responsibility it is for the computer science

community and for citizens to work for good social

policy to direct the development and administration of

a network of networks. They recognized that there was

a contest and that the outcome of the contest would

either lead to a great leap forward for mankind or to a

leap backwards, depending on whether the enlightened

government activity that was needed could be

achieved.

Licklider, describing how this choice hung in

balance, compared the problem to a switch. He

warned:

Thus though the crux is a switch, it is not a

switch in a level track. One branch goes

down, one up. It’s a choice between data

and knowledge. It’s either mere access to

information or interaction with informa-

tion. And for mankind it implies either an

enmeshment of silent gears of the great

electrical machine or mastery of a marvel-

ous new and truly plastic medium for for-

mulating ideas and for exploring, express-

ing, and communicating them.

Today we do indeed have the marvelous new and

truly plastic medium for communication that Licklider

predicted and we also have the responsibility of

determining the future of this important social and

technological treasure. Will we heed the warning of

Licklider and others of his generation who so clearly

saw the challenge, that the development of the Internet

presents to our society? Will the challenge be properly

taken up so we can indeed proudly welcome in the new

millennium? The Internet and the new means of

communication that it makes possible fortunately

provides us with the ability to meet the challenge.

Notes

1. JCR Licklider and Robert Taylor, “The Computer As a Com-

munication Device,” Science and Technology, April, 1968. Also,

In Memoriam: JCR Licklider, 1915-1990, Digital Systems Re-

search Center, Palo Alto, California, 1957. Online at:

http://mem

ex.org/licklider.pdf.

2. “MEMORANDUM FOR: Members and Affiliates of the Inter-

galactic Computer Network. FROM: J.C.R. Licklider,” ARPA

Memorandum MAC-M-23, April 25, 1963. Online at:

https://

www.kurzweilai.net/memorandum-for-members-and-affiliates-of-

the-intergalactic-computer-network.

3. A URL for the discussion is at:

http://www.ais.org/~ronda/new.

papers/discussion.txt.

Page 43

4. This discussion was important in many ways as it involved a

number of people from diverse communities in a discussion of the

importance of and the need to support basic research. A second

reason this discussion was especially important is that the dis-

cussion was free wheeling. People were willing to cooperate in

exploring the issues raised.

5. Ritchie explained earlier in the post: “Rich Rashid was around

a couple of weeks ago, and said that there were 300+ employees

in MS research . … There are roughly 1200 employees in Bell

Labs research, split approximately equally between physical and

information sciences. The company is committed to spending 1%

of revenues ($7.2B last reported quarter) on the activity … .”

6. See Michael Hauben, “Behind the Net: The Untold Story of the

ARPANet and Computer Science,” Chapter 7 in Netizens: On the

History and Impact of Usenet and the Internet for further descrip-

tions of the development of the Network Working Group and an

example of an early RFC. The distribution list of RFC 3 was: 1.

Bob Kahn, BBN; 2. Larry Roberts, ARPA; 3. Steve Carr, UCLA;

4. Jeff Rulifson, UTAH; 5. Ron Stoughton, UCSB; 6 Steve

Crocker, UCLA.

7. Robert Kahn, “Scanning the Issue: Special Issue on Packet

Communication Networks,” Proceedings of the IEEE, Vol. 66,

No. 11, p. 1303.

8. “An Interview with Leonard Kleinrock,” conducted by Judy

O’Neill, 3 April, 1990. Charles Babbage Institute, The Center for

the History of Information Processing, University of Minnesota,

Minneapolis.

9. Ibid.

10. Ibid.

11. From an Interview with Robert E. Kahn, conducted by Judy

O’Neill, on April 24, 1990, Reston Virginia, Charles Babbage

Institute, Center for the History of Information Processing, pp. 18-

21. Kahn Said:

“When I got there [DARPA] there was money budgeted for a

packet radio program, and I undertook to make it happen. The

skids were all greased for that. Part way through the first year of

the program it became clear to me that we were going to have to

have a plan for getting computer resources on the net. In 1973,

mainframe computers were multi-million dollar machines that

required air-conditioned computer centers. You weren’t going to

connect them to a mobile, portable packet radio unit and carry it

around.”

“So my first question was ‘How am I going to link this packet

radio system to any computational resources of interest?’ [Kahn

had just succeeded in solving that question with the ARPANet at

the ICCC72 show]. Well, my answer was, ‘Let’s link it to the

ARPANet.’ Except that these were two radically different net-

works in many ways. I mean, all the details were different. I don’t

mean conceptually they were different. They were sort of the

same genre. Just like, say Chinese and Americans are of the same

genre except one speaks Chinese and one speaks English, one

lives on one side of the world, one lives on the other side, they go

to sleep during your daytime, etc. The details of the two networks

were rather different. The ARPANet ran at 50 kilobits per second

and the packet radio system ran at 100 or 400 kilobits per second

One had thousand bit uncoded packets; the other had two thou-

sand bit packets which could be coded. The ARPANet assumed

that once you sent something it was delivered with a hundred

percent reliability. The other assumed that much of the time you

would never get anything through even though the system was

working. The protocols that were designed for the ARPANet

wouldn’t work over the packet radio net because when a packet

entered the packet radio net, the only thing the ARPANet would

have told it was where it came from but not where it was going.

So the packet radio net had no further information to know where

to route it. If a packet got lost along the way, the ARPANet hosts

would come to a halt. Well, in a radio net you can get interference

and so some loss is natural So we really had to rethink literally the

whole issue of host transport protocols. Vint Cerf and I jointly

came up with the TCP/IP concept as a new transport mechanism

as part of an architecture for internetworking. DARPA then gave

a contract to Vint at Stanford to actually implement the TCP/IP

concept - along with small efforts at BBN and at University

College London. Vint had the lead for developing the specifica-

tion.”

12. Katie Hafner and Matthew Lyon, When Wizards Stay Up Late:

The Origins of the Internet, New York, 1996, p. 223.

13. Ibid.

14. Ibid.

15. Vint G. Cerf and Robert E. Kahn, “A Protocol for Packet Net-

work Intercommunication,” IEEE Transactions on Communica-

tions, Vol. Com-22, No. 5, pp. 637-648. The authors called the

protocol TCP in their paper (Transport Control Protocol), but later

a part of the protocol was split off into a separate protocol and

called IP (Internet Protocol), and the name for the protocol then

became known as TCP/IP. Online, for example, at:

https://www

.cs.princeton.edu/courses/archive/fall06/cos561/papers/cerf

74.pdf.

16. Ibid., p. 637.

17. Ibid.

18. Ibid.

19. Ibid., p. 338.

The authors write: “It would be extremely convenient if all the

differences between networks could be economically resolved by

suitable interfacing at the network boundaries. For many of the

differences, this objective can be achieved. However, both eco-

nomic and technical considerations lead us to prefer that the

interface be as simple and reliable as possible and deal primarily

with passing data between the networks that use different packet

switching strategies.”

20. Ibid., they explain the rationale for their choice: Their con-

clusion is, “We obviously want to allow conversion between

packet switching strategies at the interface, to permit interconnec-

tion of existing and planned networks. However, the complexity

and dissimilarity of the HOST or process level protocols makes it

desirable to avoid having to transform between them at the

interface, even if this transformation were always possible. Rather

compatible HOST and process level protocols must be developed

to achieve effective internetwork resource sharing.”

“The unacceptable alternative is for every HOST or process to

implement every protocol (a potentially unbounded number) that

may be needed to communicate with other networks. We therefore

assume that a common protocol is to be used between HOST or

processes in different networks and that the interface between the

networks should take as small a role as possible in the protocol.”

21. Ibid., p. 638.

22. Some of these others included Ray Tomlinson at BBN, Peter

Kirstein at University College, London, and dozens of graduate

students including Daryl Rubin.

23. John Adams, “Architects of the net of nets,” IEEE Spectrum,

Page 44

September 1996, p. 61. Adams writes: “Minicomputers were used

as gateways between networks. Owners did not need to alter their

networks, but hooked up to a black box to handle outside connec-

tions.”

On November 22, 1977 Vint Cerf with a crew of others demon-

strated a triple-network Internet. “Radio repeaters dotted the hills

around Menlo Park, so that a moving van with a packet radio

terminal could send Internet packets into the ARPANet’s land

lines and through satellites to Norway and University College,

London. The packets then returned through the Atlantic packet

satellite network to West Virginia back into the ARPANet where

they hopped to Machine C at UCLA’s Information Sciences

Institute (ISI) in Los Angeles. ‘The packets took a 150,000-km

round trip to go 650 km down the coast from San Francisco to Los

Angeles,’ Cerf recalled. ‘We didn’t lose a bit.’” (p. 61)

24. The cutover is described in the draft paper “From the ARPA-

Net to the Internet: A Study of the ARPANet TCP/IP Digest and

of the Role of Online Communication in the Transition from the

ARPANet to the Internet” at:

http://www.ais.org/~ronda/new.pap

ers/tcpdraft.txt.

25. In 1996, Adams reported that there were more than 94,000

networks connected as part of the Internet and the number was

growing exponentially.

26. In the Federal District Court Case on the Communications

Decency Act, Judge Dalzell issued an opinion where he noted the

autonomy of the users on the Internet and advised the U.S.

government of its obligation to protect the autonomy of the

common people as well as the media magnates. The Federal Court

Decision striking down the CDA for interfering with that auton-

omy, was affirmed by the U.S. Supreme Court.

27. Paraphrase of statement by Robert Kahn.

28. Ibid., note 1, p. 21.

29. See also J. C. R. Licklider, “Communication and Computers,”

in Communication, Language, and Meaning: Psychological

Perspectives, edited by George A. Miller, New York, 1973, pp.

205-6. Licklider writes: “The computer has not yet had much

effect upon human communication, but I think that in a few years

it will have a tremendous effect. I believe that people will com-

municate through networks of interactive multiaccess computers,

making use of programs similar to those already described as aids

to thinking – variants of those programs designed to interact

simultaneously with two or more users.”

30. My research studies have included the follow: one of the

earliest online mailing lists on the ARPANet, the MsgGroup

mailing list from the 1975-1980 period; early USENET news-

groups from the 1981-1983 period; and ARPANet mailing lists

from the 1981-1983 period. See for example, “ARPANet Mailing

Lists and USENET Newsgroups: Creating an Open and Scientific

Process for Technology Development and Diffusion” at:

https://

www.ais.org/~ronda/new.papers/msghist.txt and “Early USENET

(1981-2) Creating the Broadsides for Our Day” at:

https://www

.ais.org/~ronda/new.papers/usenet_early_days.txt.

31. Sometimes the discussion on USENET can include over a

hundred different comments, often by 3/4 that number of people,

which leads to the kind of broad ranging perspective needed to

consider an issue. An example was a discussion on USENET

when the U.S. Congress passed the Communications Decency

Act. It had more than a 100 comments. Also when people who

have experience on USENET meet in person they often have an

easier time than other people would have exploring an issue where

they differ. The people on USENET have grown used to recogniz-

ing that differences are a treasure to explore rather than becoming

hostile to them.

32. Ibid., note 1, p. 24.

33. Ibid.

34. Ibid., p. 24.

35. Ibid., p. 25.

36. A Brief History of the Internet” by Barry M. Leiner, Vinton

Cerf, David D. Clark, Robert E. Kahn, Leonard Kleinrock, Daniel

C. Lynch, Jon Postel, Larry G. Roberts, Stephen Wolff.

https://

www.internetsociety.org/internet/history-internet/brief-history-

internet/. See also “Imminent Death of the Net Predicted!” Chap-

ter 12, in Netizens: On the History and Impact of Usenet and the

Internet by Michael Hauben and Ronda Hauben, IEEE Computer

Society Press, Los Alamitos, CA., 1997. (There is a draft version

of this book online at:

http://www.columbia.edu/~hauben/net

book/.)

37. The conference was the “Virtual Conference on Universal

Service and Open Access to the Telecommunications Network.”

See, Ibid., Hauben and Hauben, Chapter 11, “The NTIA Confer-

ence on the Future of the Net: Creating a Prototype for a Demo-

cratic Decision-Making Process” and Chapter 14, “The Net and

the Future of Politics: The Ascendancy of the Commons.”

38. See Netizens: On the History and Impact of Usenet and the

Internet, p. 216. Steve Wolff who was then head of the NSFNet,

at a meeting in 1990 about privatization, is quoted saying “it is

easier for NSF to simply provide one free backbone to all comers

rather than deal with 25 mid-level networks, 500 universities, or

perhaps tens or hundreds of thousands of individual researchers.”

The Report that was then online describing the 1990 conference

at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government noted that the

privatization would probably lead to only the wiring of the geo-

graphical areas where companies could be confident of high prof-

its, which would be large metropolitan areas with a high percent-

age of Research and Development facilities. This practice of only

providing access in areas that companies believed would be highly

profitable is known as cream-skimming. Thus the decision to

privatize was understood to be contrary to the public policy goal

of providing access for all to the Internet.

39. In “A Brief History of the Internet” the authors note that the

NSFNET program cost the U.S. taxpayer at least $200 million

from 1986 to 1995. That during “its 8-1/2 year lifetime, the back-

bone link had grown from six nodes with 56 kbps links to 21

nodes with multiple 45 Mbps links. It had seen the Internet grow

to over 50,000 networks on all seven continents and outer space,

with approximately 29,000 networks in the United States.” Similar

large amounts of taxpayer funds were spent for the development

of the ARPANet. Thus the goal of access for all to the Internet as

a new means of communication is a fitting obligation of govern-

ment in return for utilization of taxpayer funds to create the

ARPANet and the NSFNET.

40. See letters dated Oct 15, 1998 from Representative Tom

Bliley, Chairman of the House Committee on Commerce, to Ira

Magaziner, Senior Advisor to the President for Policy Develop-

ment and William M. Daley, Secretary of Commerce. Also see a

letter to Congressman Bliley at:

http://www.columbia.edu/~rh120

/other/letter_to_congress.txt.

41. See the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) at:

https://

www.ntia.doc.gov/page/1998/memorandum-understanding-

between-us-department-commerce-and-internet-corporation-

Page 45

assigned-.

42. See NTIA website for the Green Paper discussion at: https://

www.ntia.doc.gov/legacy/ntiahome/domainname/proposals/co

mments/comments.html. The Green Paper can be seen at: https://

icannwiki.org/Green_Paper.

43. Harold Sackman, “The Information Utility, Science and

Society,” in The Information Utility and Social Choice, eds.

Harold Sackman and Norman Nie, AFIPS Press, Montvale, NJ,

1970, p.157.

44. Ibid., p. 158.

45. Ibid., p. 159.

46. Ibid.

47. J.C.R. Licklider, “Social Prospects of Information Utilities,”

in Ibid., note 43, The Information Utility and Social Choice, p. 18.

48. Ibid., note 43, Sackman, p. 144.

49.Ibid., note 47, p. 6.

50. Ibid.

EDITORIAL STAFF

Ronda Hauben

William Rohler

Norman O. Thompson

Michael Hauben (1973-2001)

Jay Hauben

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