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Title: Splinternet
Subtitle: How Geopolitics and Commerce Are Fragmenting the World Wide Web
Author: Scott Malcomson
Narrator: Jonathan Yen
Format: Unabridged
Length: 4 hrs and 43 mins
Language: English
Release date: 09-08-16
Publisher: Audible Studios
Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 2 votes
Genres: Science & Technology, Technology
Publisher's Summary:
There's always been something universalizing about the Internet. The World Wide Web has seemed both inherently singular and global, a sort of ethereal United Nations. But today, as Scott Malcomson contends in this concise, brilliant investigation, the Internet is cracking apart into discrete groups no longer willing, or able, to connect. The implications of this shift are momentous.
Malcomson traces the way the Internet has been shaped by government needs since the 19th century - above all, the demands of the US military and intelligence services. From World War I cryptography and spying to weapons targeting against Hitler and then Stalin, the monolithic aspect of the digital network was largely determined by its genesis in a single, state-sponsored institution.
In the 1960s, internationalism and openness were introduced by the tech pioneers of California's counter-culture, the seed bed for what became Google, Microsoft, Facebook, and Apple. But in the last 15 years, security concerns of states and the privatizing impetus of e-commerce have come to the fore and momentum has shifted in a new direction, towards private, walled domains, each vying with the other in an increasingly fragmented system, in effect a "Splinternet".
Because the Internet today surrounds us so comprehensively, it's easy to regard the way it functions as a simple given, part of the natural order of things. Only by stepping back and scrutinizing the evolution of the system can we see the Internet for what it is - a contested, protean terrain, constantly evolving as different forces intervene to drive it forward. In that vital exercise, Malcomson's elegant, erudite account will prove invaluable.
Critic Reviews:
"This is not your ordinary history of the Internet. Scott Malcomson has brilliantly extended the connections between Silicon Valley and the military back far beyond DARPA - back, in fact, to World War I. If you want to understand the conflict between cyberspace utopians and the states and corporations who seek to dominate our virtual lives, you've got to read this book." (James Ledbetter, editor, Inc. Magazine)
Members Reviews:
What a well-informed person should know about the origins of the internet and the battleground it is today.
This is an engrossing true tale of how the quest for war-making technology led us to computers, the internet and a new frontier of conflict between nations. And it gives a behind-the-scenes look at the personalities who drove it all, from WWI to the present. Lots of research and footnotes, but with fluid and enjoyable prose. This book would make a good socio-political-historical companion to the concise book âD is for Digitalâ by Princeton prof Brian Kernighan; his subtitle is: âWhat a well-informed person should know about computers and communications.â With Splinternet, you can add: âand how it all happened.â
the subject matter was covered in great detail with many references
The book was very well written, but more important, the subject matter was covered in great detail with many references.
Five Stars
Very informative.
Mediocre
Mostly the history of computers and military tech evolution. Only very end gets to modern history and discussion of current state is very brief.