The Politics of Micro-Decisions. Edward Snowden, Net Neutrality, and the Architectures of the Internet

131 Pages·2015·1.65 MB·English

by  Florian Sprenger

SNOWDEN
NET NEUTRALITY

S INTERNET
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O ARCHITECTURES
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C SPRENGER
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The Politics of Micro-Decisions

Digital Cultures Series
Edited by Armin Beverungen, Irina Kaldrack,
Martina Leeker, Sascha Simons, and Florian Sprenger
A book series of the Digital Cultures Research Lab

The Politics of
Micro-Decisions:
Edward Snowden,
Net Neutrality, and
the Architectures
of the Internet
Florian Sprenger
Translated by
Valentine A. Pakis
With a Foreword by
Christopher M. Kelty
Bibliographical Information of the
German National Library
The German National Library lists this publication in the
Deutsche National bibliografie (German National Biblio­
graphy); detailed bibliographic information is available
online at http://dnb.d­nb.de.
Published by meson press, Hybrid Publishing Lab,
Centre for Digital Cultures, Leuphana University of Lüneburg
www.meson­press.com
Design concept: Torsten Köchlin, Silke Krieg
Cover Image: © Lily Wittenburg
The print edition of this book is printed by Lightning Source,
Milton Keynes, United Kingdom.
ISBN (Print): 978­3­95796­040­5
ISBN (PDF): 978­3­95796­041­2
ISBN (EPUB): 978­3­95796­042­9
DOI: 10.14619/005
The digital edition of this publication can be downloaded
freely at: www.meson­press.com.
This publication was funded by the “Nie dersächi sches
Vor ab” pro gram of the Volks wa gen Foun da ti on, by the Minis­
try for Science and Culture of Lower Saxony, and the
EU major project Innovation Incubator Lüneburg.
This Publication is licensed under the CC­BY­SA 4.0
(Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 4.0 Unported).
To view a copy of this license, visit:
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by­sa/4.0/
Contents
45 3c 2a a5 d4 31 40 00 40 fd 47 8b 32 74 05 05 51
13 91 26 11
Christopher M. Kelty
Introduction 19
A Civil War on the Internet 22
Sociality and Technology 27
Control and Surveillance 33
End­to­End: The Architecture of Intermediacy 34
Transmission Traffic Jams 38
Deep Packet Inspection 45
“Collecting It All” 53
The End of the Internet 67
Flows Don’t Burst: Packet Switching and the
Instantaneity of Transmission 73
Threats of Destruction 77
The Nodal Points of Decision­Making 82
The Immediacy of the Flow and the
Interruption of Bursts 86
Electricity and Instantaneity 90
Perfect Switching 94
The Disconnection of Connection 100
Conclusion: Toward a Network Politics
of Interruption 105
Acknowledgments 115
Works Cited 117