Dear All,
We’re pleased to announce the next session of the SPT maintenance and
philosophy of technology special interest group on Thursday 11th September
(18-1915 UTC +1). In this session, we’re excited to welcome Harry Halpin
who’ll be sharing his research on the maintenance and repair of internet
standards in the wake of the Snowden revelations in 2013. Halpin's talk
combines a detailed analysis of the mechanics and evolution of internet
protocols while at the same time shedding light on the political dimensions
of the processes by which complex technological systems are guided and
sustained through time. If you'd like a link to the talk, please email me
at mark@markthomasyoung.net
Best,
Mark
"Immaterial Constitution: The Post-Snowden Maintenance of the Internet"
Harry Halpin (Nym Technologies & Vrije Universiteit Brussel)
September 11th 2025 (1800-1915 UTC+1)
Abstract: The question of whether rights can be enforced by code
underlies the maintenance of Internet protocols by the IETF in the wake of
the Snowden revelations of NSA mass surveillance. Arguments over the
expectations of users for access and privacy between the respective
inventors of the Web and the Internet laid the ground for a new conception
of rights, net rights, founded upon the extended mind thesis. A number of
legislative initiatives started to form a “Magna Carta” for the Web to
enforce these nascent net rights such as the right to private
communication, but these efforts uniformly failed. Yet the repair and
maintenance of the technical standards of the Internet itself by the IETF
produced a new kind of immanent constitution for the Internet based upon
the use of cryptography to defend these rights. A philosophical analysis of
the role of engineering standards bodies in mediating public demands may
very well hold lessons for the translation of politics into technical tasks
of maintenance and repair in the face of crisis.
(In order to avoid confusion regarding the timing of the talk - the
following table clarifies when the talk begins in different locations)
Amsterdam 7:00pm
London 6:00pm
Toronto (New York) 1:00pm
San Francisco 10:00am
Mark Thomas Young
Postdoctoral Fellow
University of Oslo
https://uio.academia.edu/MarkThomasYoung
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