This segment of the site provides access to papers that I've published in
the broad area of 'information infrastructure' (II). The term
refers to the communications networks and associated software that support interaction among people and organisations. Since about 1993, the Internet has driven the debate; but the term also encompasses underlying long-distance and short-distance communications technologies, private networks, local area networks, future facilities, and the means of connecting to and using networks such as desktops and handhelds, including systems software and relevant application software.
II was popularised by American Vice-President Al Gore's use of the term 'national information infrastructure (NII)' as a clarion call in the mid-1990s. Many people, in and beyond the U.S., prefer the term 'global information infrastructure' (GII), to emphasise the interconnectedness of the network, of countries and of people. Since 1995, a substantial set of resources has been available on this and the associated eBusiness site, which have together attracted over 15 million hits.
The resources in this segment of the site can be accessed in the following ways, most useful first:
The Topic-Based Index of my papers on information infrastructure themes, up-to-date at 31 December 2023, below
The What's New Page (because the indexes are never fully up-to-date), here
The Chronological Index of my papers on information infrastructure themes, here
The Search Facility, in the button at the top-right-hand side of the page
A chronological index of Presentations is here
Annotated Bibliography of Information Infrastructure Papers
What's Busy? These are the Most Highly Cited and Accessed
Papers
See also the following less-cited and more recent papers:
1.
Fundamentals
Starting-points for newcomers are provided by:
More advanced reading materials are available relating to technical
aspects of information infrastructure.
More advanced reading materials are available relating to human
behaviour in cyberspace.
Broad introductions to key policy issues are available, relating
to:
An indication of the breadth of topics relevant to the area
is provided by a series of notes on the annual Computers,
Freedom and Privacy Conferences in 2002,
2000, 1999,
1997, 1995,
1994 and 1993,
plus 'Why I'm Not Going to CFP 2003'
2.
History of the Internet
I've published a history of the Internet in Australia, which, as far as I'm
aware, is the only reasonably authoritative document on the topic:
And here's an authoritative study of the beginnings of the World Wide Web in
Australia:
Other versions of the Internet history paper are:
- A Brief History of the Internet in Australia
(Early Versions, 1998, 2001)
- The Emergence of the Internet in Australia: From Researcher's
Tool to Public Infrastructure (Book Chapter, 2004)
- An Internet Primer: Technology and Governance (Book Chapter,
2004)
These reviews related to applications of electronic interaction technologies
are relevant too:
3.
Technical Aspects
Key contributions to understanding of Internet Infrastructure have been:
Other aspects have been addressed in the following papers:
Contributions dealing with particular technical aspects of the Information
Infrastructure are grouped a series of sub-themes below.
3.1
Net-Based Payment Mechanisms
A series of works relates to the critical question as to how the transfer of
value is to be achieved over the information infrastructure. The index
for my materials in this area is in my electronic commerce department.
3.2
Electronic
Publishing
An important theme in the area is the provision of digital materials over the
Internet, both gratis and in return for payment of some kind. The index
for my materials in this area is also in my electronic commerce department.
3.3
Intellectual
Property (Copyright and Patents)
Here is the index for my materials in this
critical area, which is also in my electronic commerce department.
3.4
Security,
Cryptography, PKI and Biometrics
The indexes for materials on these important topics are elsewhere, at:
3.5
Applications
within the University Sector
Reflecting the Internet's origins in universities, much of my early work related
specifically to academic and university use of the information infrastructure:
3.6
Additional
Topics of Importance
The following papers have addressed specific aspects of Internet technology:
- a particular class of applications that are feasible using the information
infrastructure, Extra-Organisational
Systems (1992)
- Cookies (1997)
- Spam (1997)
- E-Lists (1997)
- PICS - The W3 Platform for Internet Content Selection
(1996)
- an overview of W3C's Platform for Privacy
Preferences (P3P), a Critique (1998),
and a disappointed Re-Visit (2001)
- Electronic Services Delivery: From Brochure-Ware
to Entry Points (1999)
- Key Design Issues in Marketspaces for
Intellectual Property Rights (2000, with Peter Higgs and Gillian
Dempsey)
- Technological Protections for Digital Copyright
Objects, and PowerPoint slide presentation
(2000, with Stephen Nees)
- File-Discovery and File-Sharing Technologies
(aka Peer-to-Peer or P2P): MP3, Napster and Friends, and Their Impact on Music
E-Publishing (2000)
- Stephen King and E-Publishing (2000)
- e-Libraries and e-Shopping (2000)
- Introduction to Information Security
(2001)
- Introducing PITs and PETs: Technologies
Affecting Privacy (2001)
- P3P Revisited (2001)
- Towards a Taxonomy of B2B e-Commerce
Schemes (2001)
- Relevance of Portals to e-Government
(slides, 2001)
- e-Consent: A Critical Element of
Trust in e-Business, plus PowerPoint
slides (2000, 2002)
- 'ENUM - A Case Study in Social Irresponsibility',
plus a primary slide-set, and a
supporting slide-set (December 2002)
- The Social Responsibility of Engineers,
plus PowerPoint slides (2002)
- Very Black 'Little Black Books' (2004)
- Direct Allocation of 2TLDs (2007)
- Mobilising for a (Mostly) Mobile Future, for Cutter Consortium (2010)
- Reactions to Mozilla's BrowserID Proposal
(2011)
- eConsumer Insecurity: Five Sensationalist Headlines, and
Why They're True (2013)
- Direct Registration in .au (2015)
- Direct Registration in .au, again (2015)
- SaaS Backup Fails the Fitness for Purpose Test (2015)
- Managing the Risk of Cloudburst: Backup Strategies
for Users Dependent on Service-Providers (2015)
- Business Models for Secure Service Offerings by ISPs (2016)
- Attributes of Physical and Digital Spaces Relevant to the
Regulation of Human Behaviour (Sketch, 2017)
- How do they get away with it?
The Legal Framework of the Digital Surveillance Economy (2017)
- Risks Inherent in the Digital Surveillance
Economy: A Research Agenda (2019)
- Digital platforms: The need to restrict surveillance capitalism' Australian Privacy Foundation submission to the ACCC Digital Platforms Inquiry - Interim Submission (2019)
- Regulation of digital platforms as part of economy-wide reforms to Australia's failed privacy laws - Australian Privacy Foundation submission to the Australian Government on implementation of the ACCC's Digital Platforms Inquiry - Final Report (2019)
4.
Cyberculture
Introductory material is in:
A series of papers has addressed the nature of human behaviour on the
Internet:
5. Policy Aspects
My contributions in this area have ranged across freedom of information, Internet
regulation and surveillance, the laws and practices of copyright and defamation,
consumer interests and the incursions of direct marketing, trust, e-consent,
cookies, spam, digital rights management, copyright and process patents as constraints
on Internet innovation, identification and nymity in cyberspace, and e-privacy.
My papers are categorised below into a number of sub-themes. Organisations
that represented various interests in Australia were identified at Internet
Industry and Community Groups (1996-). But that has been a rapidly changing
space, and needs revisiting. See, for example, the list
I maintain for the Australian Privacy Foundation.
5.1
The
Public Interest Generally
My most significant papers in this area are:
A separate index lists papers on identity-related
matters.
A series of papers express concern about whether the interests of citizens
and consumers will be served:
- Issues in Technology-Based Consumer Transactions
(1996)
- Public Interests on the Electronic Frontier
(1997)
- The Willingness of Net-Consumers to Pay: A
Lack-of-Progress Report (November 1998 - June 1999)
- regarding the Australian Direct Marketing Association's attempt to entrench
marketer power over net-consumers:
- a summary of Internet issues (1999)
- Origins and Usages of 'Information wants to be free'
(1999)
- Freedom of Information: The Internet as Harbinger
of the New Dark Ages (1999)
- DRM Will Beget DCRM (2001)
- Defamation on the Web (2001)
- Defamation on the Web: Gutnick v. Dow Jones
(2002)
- Internet-Induced Constraints on Freedoms: The
Implications for Innovation and Teasers
(slides-sets, 2002)
- Open
for eBusiness - an interview (2004)
- Identity and Nymity: Public Policy Issues
(2004)
- Is eGovernment for People,
or against People? (2004)
- Identity Management? Or (Id)Entity Mismanagement?
(2004)
- Issues Arising in Current and Emergent Internet Technologies
(2004)
- Research for eGovernment: Key Issues
(2005)
- Google's Gauntlets (2006)
- Google Challenges Corporations, Consumers
and the Law (2006)
- What's Google Really Up To? (2006)
- Employee Dismissal on the Basis of Offending
Images on Their Workstation (2006)
- Lawyers' 'Nastygrams' re Trademarks
(2008)
- The Cloudy Future of Consumer Computing (2011)
- Reactions to Mozilla's BrowserID Proposal
(2011)
- What Everyone Ought to Know About Passwords
(2011)
- The Dangers of Contactless Payment: Visa PayWave
and MasterCard PayPass RFID-Chip Schemes (2012)
- Consumer-Oriented Social Media as Market Opportunity
(2012, and slide-set)
- Privacy and Social Media Technology (2012, and slide-set)
- What would an Open Source Library for Social Media Look Like? (slide-set,
for ANU RSCS, 2012)
- Consumer-Oriented Social Media as Market
Opportunity (2012, and slide-set)
- Corporate Privacy Disaster: Instagram – 2012 (2012)
- Whose Security? The Politics of Alternative Scope Definitions (2013)
- Consumer-Oriented Social Media: The Identification
of Key Characteristics (2013)
- Privacy and Social Media: An Analytical
Framework (2014)
- The Prospects for Consumer-Oriented
Social Media (2014)
- Easy Privacy for Consumer-Oriented Social Media (2014)
- The Internet That We Want(ed)? (2015)
- Political Freedom: Positive and Negative Effects
of Mobile and Internet Applications (2015)
- Participants' Notes on Rejuvenation of the auIGF (2018)
- Consumer-Oriented Social Media: Key Features, What's Held It Up, How We Get It and slide-set and the prerecorded video of the session (2022)
- Evaluating the Impact of Digital Interventions into Social Systems: How to Balance Stakeholder Interests, and the slide-set (2022)
- Multi-Stakeholder Risk Assessment of Socio-Technical Interventions (Review Version, 2022)
Earlier papers were:
Papers on specific industry sectors include:
Case studies are provided, relating to:
5.2
Privacy In Particular
Threats to privacy represent one of the most serious aspects of information
technology in the 'information society', the National and Global Information
Infrastructure in general, and the Internet in particular.
The following provide a general overview of the topic:
- Information Privacy On the Internet: Cyberspace
Invades Personal Space (short form, May 1998)
- Privacy On the Internet: Threats, Countermeasures
and Policy (long form, in three parts, 1997)
- Current Developments in Internet Privacy
(1999)
- Productisation of Secure eWorking Environments (2016)
- Risks Inherent in The Digitalisation of the Individual:
A Research Agenda (2017)
- Risks Inherent in the Digital Surveillance
Economy: A Research Agenda (2017)
- How do they get away with it?
The Legal Framework of the Digital Surveillance Economy (2017)
- The Ethics and Law of Privacy in the Digital Age
(2018, National Science Week Event, Adelaide)
and slide-set
- Digital platforms: The need to restrict
surveillance capitalism (2019, for APF, lead-author Graham Greenleaf)
- The Effectiveness of Bluetooth Proximity Apps in Tracing People with COVID-19 Exposure Risk (2020)
- The COVIDsafe App: A Case Study in Professional Responsibility (2020)
- Is your television spying on you? The Internet of Things needs more than self-regulation (2020, with Kayleen Manwaring)
- Is Your Television Spying on You? The Internet of Things Needs More Than Self-Regulation (2020, with Kayleen Manwaring)
- Card-Number Protections Depend on Data Deletion (2022, for APF)
For the c. 60 papers on more detailed topics, see these indexes:
5.3
Consumer
Interests In Particular
A separate document identifies papers that address the
assault by marketers on net-consumers.
Additional papers are provided on the concept of Trust.
5.4 Democracy
In Particular
A small series of papers considers the exercise of democracy in the new context
set by the Internet:
5.5 Public Policy
- Opportunity
A series of papers addresses the need for the information infrastructure to
be exploited, in order to achieve both economic and social goals. Introductory
materials are at:
More advanced treatment is in:
5.6 Public Policy
- Regulation
A considerable number of papers express disquiet about particular aspects
of the information infrastructure, including the feasibility and appropriateness of particular forms of regulation.
Here are some particularly important contributions:
But there have been many others:
- guidance to corporations and government agencies concerning Privacy
and Dataveillance; and Organisational Strategy (1996)
- How Do You Cope With Censorship? An Analysis for
IT Services Executives (1996)
- PICS - The W3 Platform for Internet Content Selection
(1996)
- Regulating the Net, electronically published Reference
Pages (1996-)
- Regulating Financial Services in the Marketspace:
The Public's Interests (1997)
- The Monster from the Crypt, with a revised
version presented as Impacts and Effects of Digital
Money (1997)
- Crypto-Confusion: Mutual Non-Comprehension Threatens
Exploitation of the GII (1996)
- A Prosecution for Child Pornography in the A.C.T.
(1998)
- Electronic Trading in Copyright Objects and
Its Implications for Universities (1999)
- On-Line Gambling: Authentication and Identification
Technologies and Issues, plus Slides
and Resources (2000)
- Internet-Induced Constraints on Freedoms: The
Implications for Innovation and Teasers
(slides-sets, 2002)
- The Economic and Cultural Impacts of the Free Trade
Agreement Provisions relating to Copyright and Patent Law (2004)
- Submissions re the Free Trade Agreement Provisions relating to Copyright
and Patent Law, to the Joint Committee on
Treaties, and the Senate Select Committee
on the Free Trade Agreement (2004)
- List of Key Submissions to the Joint Committee
on Treaties (2004)
- Peer-to-Peer (P2P) - An Overview (2004)
- Issues Arising in Current and Emergent Internet Technologies
(2004)
- Towards a P2P Research Agenda (2005)
- Direct Allocation of 2TLDs (2007)
- I.T. Challenges to Information Law (slide-set, 2012)
- Current Concerns about Media Standards (2015)
- The Internet That We Want(ed)? (2015)
- Direct Registration in .au (2015)
- Direct Registration in .au, again (2015)
- Regulatory Failures in the Security Space: Some Current Cases (2016)
- The Contested Semantics of 'Security', and the Current
Challenges of Big Data and IoT (2016)
- How did we let the Digital Surveillance Economy come into existence? And what can we do about it? (2018, ATSE, Canberra), plus slide-set
- The Impact of the Digital Surveillance Economy on Competition in Australia (2018)
- How Can Consumers Achieve Satisfactory Protections Against IoT's Threats? (2019)
- Submission to ISOC re 'Privacy and the Internet of Things (IoT) (2019)
- Is your television spying on you? The Internet of Things needs more than self-regulation (2020, with Kayleen Manwaring)
- Is Your Television Spying on You? The Internet of Things Needs More Than Self-Regulation (2020, with Kayleen Manwaring)
- 'Bringing Australia's Privacy Act up to international standards' (2020, with Graham Greenleaf et al.)
- 'How is Society to Risk-Manage the Threats Inherent in Applications of AI to Cybersecurity?' (SINS Panel, 2021), and slide-set
- 'OAIC Guide to Securing Personal Information' (2021)
Created: 15 February 1995 -
Last Amended: 31 December 2023
by Roger Clarke
- Site Last Verified: 15 February 2009
This document is at www.rogerclarke.com/II/index.html
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