The Web We Lost (4/2); IT, Security, and Power (4/4); Tech Policy Reform in Congress (4/9)

Remember to load images if you have trouble seeing parts of this email. Or click here to view the web version of this newsletter. Below you will find upcoming Berkman Center events, interesting digital media we have produced, and other events of note.

berkman luncheon series

The Web We Lost

Tuesday, April 2, 12:30pm ET, Berkman Center for Internet & Society, 23 Everett St, 2nd Floor. This event will be webcast live.

In the past decade, we've seen the rise of powerful social networks of unprecedented scale, connecting millions or even billions of people who can now communicate almost instantaneously. But many of the promises that were made by the creators of the earliest social networking technologies have gone unfulfilled. We'll take a look at some of the unexamined costs, both cultural and social, of the way the web has evolved. Anil Dash is an entrepreneur, technologist and writer acknowledged as a "blogging pioneer" by the New Yorker for having started his site Dashes.com in 1999 as one of the earliest and most influential blogs on the Internet. Today his work focuses on applying the techniques and technologies of the startup world to the transformation the major institutions of society and culture. RSVP Required. more information on our website>

special event

IT, Security, and Power: Bruce Schneier & Jonathan Zittrain in conversation

Thursday, April 4, 6:00pm ET, Harvard Law School, Wasserstein Hall, Room 2009. Co-sponsored by Harvard's Center for Research on Computation and Society.

From Bruce Schneier: What I've Been Thinking About

I have been thinking about the Internet and power: how the Internet affects power, and how power affects the Internet. Increasingly, those in power are using information technology to increase their power. This has many facets, including the following:

1. Ubiquitous surveillance for both government and corporate purposes -- aided by cloud computing, social networking, and Internet-enabled everything -- resulting in a world without any real privacy.

2. The rise of nationalism on the Internet and a cyberwar arms race, both of which play on our fears and which are resulting in increased military involvement in our information infrastructure.

3. Ill-conceived laws and regulations on behalf of either government or corporate power, either to prop up their business models (copyright protections), enable more surveillance (increased police access to data), or control our actions in cyberspace.

4. A feudal model of security that leaves users with little control over their data or computing platforms, forcing them to trust the companies that sell the hardware, software, and systems.

On the one hand, we need new regimes of trust in the information age. (I wrote about the extensively in my most recent book, Liars and Outliers.) On the other hand, the risks associated with increasing technology might mean that the fear of