Eben Moglen is probably a name you've never heard of. To be honest, until today, neither had I. Mr. Moglen is a professor of law and legal history at Columbia University, and is the founder, Director-Counsel and Chairman of Software Freedom Law Center, whose client list includes numerous pro bono clients, such as the Free Software Foundation. Now, you may be wondering "Why this guy? Why this random professor?" Well, I'll tell you why. I was stumbling across the internet, into various small-time news providers, websites, other blogs, and stumbled across a video titled: The alternate net we need, and how we can build it ourselves.
Needless to say, my curiosity was peaked. What kind of alternate net do we need, exactly? I wondered... And how can we build this alternate net? Mr. Moglen starts his press conference of sorts by getting the attention of his audience before throwing us into the technicalities of his ideas. The video was fifteen minutes long, I noticed upon clicking the link. I almost hit Read It Later to watch another time, but he caught my attention--piqued my interest and before long I was muttering to my laptop a quiet little "Amen." (The irony of such an outburst does not escape me.) Furiously I typed out his words as he spoke, as a quick Google search did not help me find a text-version of his speech. Perhaps when you read this, you'll feel nothing. If that's the case, get the hell out of here. If you've never bothered even a mediocre amount of introspection--never wondered where the future would lead us--how technology was becoming more and more integrated into our every day lives--never pondered the future of the internet and our place in it--go away and don't come back. You're an empty-headed simpleton and don't deserve to read my lovely, lovely articles.
And if you're still reading, well, spectacular. This is what Mr. Moglen said that caught me hook, line and sinker, nearly forcing me to consider him as a new hero of sorts.
"We may be losing the autonomy of personality. When you have lived your entire life sharing everything, it may not have occurred to you that it used to be created internally... That the struggle of the individual--shall we use the word "soul"--to understand itself and its place in the universe used to be internal... Not to be decided by an advertiser, and not to be adjusted by an intermediary. Let us suppose that the single greatest offense against freedom of thought that ever existed was the burning of the Library of Alexandria, and let us suppose that the second greatest harm that could be done to freedom of thought is to assume that the Library of Alexandria has been recreated at KGB headquarters... It's a shame to build a prison and torture people to get them to inform on their neighbors--when you can just have centralized social networking and everyone will do it for you.
So now we have a problem, and that is that our net has been turned against us. I appreciate that it is not only against us, and that the turn may not be permanent. But we have lost too much already. And we lost it because we lost anonymity.
Did you just shudder a little? Did you just feel something? No? That's okay, as long as it made you fucking think. That's what he wants, that's what I want. (Not that you should care. OH WAIT YES YOU SHOULD.)
So where was he going with this? His introduction had been nothing short of successful as far as a hook goes, but how was this involved in building a new internet? What did he find so blatantly wrong with ours now?
He goes on to talk about how back in '95 he sat down with some big shots to talk about public encryption. Due to the casual nature of their meeting, one fellow was able to ask: "No one cares about anonymity, do they?" Moglen says a cold chill went up his spine.
"...Because without anonymity, the human race will not be human anymore."
Moglen explains that this isn't the net we have, and he's right. Our internet is monitored by anyone and everyone at any given time--or at least by "someone who works for someone else and would answer a subpoena if called upon." As he says, our internet is provided by people who work for other people who probably don't have our interests at heart. And why should they? Their money comes from providing a service, not from making sure that service is what it should be. His quick solution is fairly simple. "We need smart routers that work for us." As we all know, routers are the link between us and the internet at large. He explains that those routers we have in our homes or offices or businesses are "dumb" routers. I mean honestly, what do they do? They merely deliver the internet to our homes. That's pretty easy work. Moglen then goes on to hypothesize on several what if's--What if our routers automatically encrypted and decrypted our emails for us? What if our routers automatically backed up our information so that we'd never lose it ever again? What if it protected us from those people who are able to hack through our feeble defenses? What if it could give us a better Skype, a better Facebook?
He holds up a router and explains that we're going to "drown in hardware like this." He says it in a positive sense, I do believe. He explains how simple such a piece of hardware could be, and do so much for us. Small enough to carry around and to run off of batteries, how we can plug it in whenever and wherever we want to make sure our information is protected. I chuckled a little when he added, "And anyone who wants to know what's inside this box can go get a search warrant." He makes a valid point--as he should, being a professor of law.
But Moglen doesn't want to make hardware; he wants to make software. Why? Because software can be free. He explains the software he's working on that will be available to anyone, anywhere. After listening to him explain this software, I can only wish that it were available now for pre-order. I want that safety--I want that anonymity. I want secrecy. I believe it's my right in this new age of the internet and technology to do and say and see what I want online, and I should have the right to do it without worrying about Big Brother disapproving of what I'm viewing. Now, I'm not planning on performing particularly illegal actions once this technology becomes available to me. No, I plan on continuing my every day online life with the added benefit of feeling safe and secure while I do it. Of knowing that my private life is actually private.
"Left to their own devices, the goverments, the data-miners, the content owners, and those network operators... Would deprive of us anonymity and in doing so, would deprive us of our identity. But they won't be left to their devices... They'll be left to our devices. And our devices are about freedom."
Moglen seems a little flustered when he talks about how every morning he sees people reporting their location to Steve Jobs. He draws the connection that the information we give out so freely, so easily, is the information lackadaisically pushed out of devices the KGB would have given everyone if they'd only known how. He brings to our attention our problem--our apathy in which we give out so much fucking information about ourselves because we're too ignorant to realize what we're doing. Ignorance or apathy, or the deadly combination of the two.
I don't want to sound political, and I don't want to sound like I'm preaching at you, but doesn't it just make sense that we should have the option to be free, safe, and secure online? Doesn't that just seem right?
"Turn freedom on. This is it. This is the moment."
