Just got back from an entertaining and informative talk with Jonathan Zittrain as part of the Guardian's series of internal lectures "The Future of Journalism". To encapsulate the two-hour presentation, Zittrain fears that as a result of the security and privacy issues we face the internet will become increasingly "locked-down". This will result in the disappearance of the character that makes the itnernet itself so productive of new ideas - generativity. He is interested in averting this grim future, and explores ways we can encourage the internet and its user group to govern itself in a more sensible fashion.

At times he is worrying in his pinpoint description of the ramshackle and idealistic generation-old infrastructure we have built our modern system of communication and thus commerce on. He is hilariously irreverent in his view of the power, and powers, of technology.

His retrospective of the invention of the internet and the personal computer industry, and the hardware that it entails, is the funniest I have heard. His deconstructions of the idiocies of the American administration, the execrable nature of Chinese censorship and the "60's weirdness" of the protocols that govern communication on the internet are perfectly lighthearted and yet serious in their understanding of the dangers inherent in each.

Zittrain has seen the future of the internet, and it is not nice. His book is titled "The Future Of The Internet And How To Stop It". He does not strike you as a cynical man or an alarmist, but a realist.

The book is available for free download, or you can order from Amazon.

Jonathan Zittrain's website
Guardian blog of the talk