From Cyber-Utopia to Cyber-War. Advocacy Coalitions and the Normative Change in Cyberspace

492 Pages·2017·8.44 MB·English

by  Matthias Schulze

From Cyber-Utopia to Cyber-War.
Normative Change in Cyberspace.
Dissertation
zur Erlangung des akademischen Grades
doctor philosophiae (Dr. phil.)
vorgelegt dem Rat der Fakultät für Sozial- und Verhaltenswissenschaften der Friedrich-
Schiller-Universität Jena
von Matthias Schulze (M.A.) geboren am 28.03.1986 in Weimar
15.03.2017
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Gutachter
1. Prof. Dr. Rafael Biermann (Friedrich-Schiller Universität Jena)
2. Dr. Myriam Dunn Cavelty (ETH Zürich)
3. Prof. Dr. Georg Ruhrmann (Friedrich-Schiller Universität Jena)
Tag der mündlichen Prüfung: 08.08.2017
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Copyright © 2018 by Matthias Schulze.
Some Rights reserved.
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
(CC BY 4.0). To view a copy of this license, visit
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, PO Box
1866, Mountain View, CA 94042, USA.
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Table of Contents
Table of Contents 4
Acknowledgement 7
Abstract 10
List of Abbreviations 11
List of Tables and Graphics 13
1. Introduction 15
1.1 Puzzle & Research Question 18
1.2 Literature Review 22
1.3 Contributions of the Study 27
1.4 Case Selection: The United States 30
1.5 Structure and Logic of the Argument 32
2. Explaining Normative Change 38
2.1 Norms and Theories of Normative Change 39
2.1.1 Norm Diffusion and Norm Entrepreneurs 41
2.1.2 Critique of Deontological Norms 42
2.1.3 Critique of Diffusion Models 44
2.2 Paradigms and Norm-Change 47
2.2.1 Discursive Struggles between Paradigms 53
2.2.2 Framing 59
2.2.3 Degrees of Change 63
2.2.4 Explaining Change 67
2.2.5 Norm Regression and Dark Norms 71
2.2.6 Summary of the Theoretical Mechanism 73
2.3 Technological and Normative Change 81
2.3.1 Theorizing Technology: Traditional Approaches 81
2.3.2 Defining Technology 84
2.3.3 The Politics of Technology Debate 86
2.3.4 The Social Construction of Technology and its Critique 89
2.3.5 Phase Model of Technological Diffusion 95
2.3.5.1 Emergence/Construction 97
2.3.5.2 Stabilization 99
2.3.5.3 Diffusion to the Mainstream 100
2.3.6 Combining the Frameworks 102
2.3.7 Digital Technology: Software and Code 108
2.3.8 Summary 113
3. Methodology & Research Design 116
4. Case Study 125
4.1 Engineering the Internet 126
4.1.1 Background: Cybernetics 128
4.1.2 The Social Construction of the ARPA-Network (1966-1972) 130
4.1.2.1 Ideas 133
4.1.2.2 Norms Shaping the Construction of ARPANET 137
4.1.2.3 Artifact: The Network Control Program 139
4.1.2.4 Co-shaping the Meaning of Networks 142
4.1.3 Constructing the Internet (1972-1991) 147
4.1.3.1 Artifact: Internet Protocols and Norms 149
4.1.3.2 The Diffusion and Dominance of the Internet 154
4.1.3.3 The Internet Backbone 157
4.1.4 Artifact: The World Wide Web (1989-present) 160
4.1.5 Development Blind Spots 165
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Table of Contents
4.1.6 Summary 167
4.2 The Evolution of Cyber-Utopianism 173
4.2.1 Background: Hacker-ethic and Technical Optimism (1960s) 175
4.2.2 Ideas: Stewart Brand and the Counter-culture (1960-1970) 179
4.2.3 Artifact: Democratizing Technology (1970-1980) 184
4.2.4 Artifact: The WELL and the Social Construction of Cyberspace (1980-1990) 187
4.2.5 Framing Cyberspace as the Electronic Frontier (1990s) 192
4.2.6 The Californian Ideology (1995-2001) 195
4.2.7 Junctures: Dot-com Bubble (2000-2001) 201
4.2.8 Norms and Key Ideas of Cyber-Utopianism 203
4.2.9 Critical Analysis & Blind Spots of Cyber-Utopianism 211
4.2.10 Summary 215
4.3 Cyber-Utopian Liberalism and the Politics of Cyberspace (1990-2000) 223
4.3.1 Background: The Governance of Information Technologies (1970-1990) 224
4.3.2 Politics: Bill Clinton and Albert Gore as Internet Advocates (1992-2000) 226
4.3.3 Ideas: Cyber-Utopia on the Information Superhighway (1993) 228
4.3.3.1 The Hands-off Norm & the American Internet Governance Model 234
4.3.3.2 Global Framing of the Internet 237
4.3.4 Artifacts: Privatizing Control over the Internet 242
4.3.5 Junctures: Policy Attempts to Control the Internet (1993-1996) 244
4.3.5.1 Policy: The Clipper Chip (1993) 244
4.3.5.2 Policy: Wiretapping the Internet with CALEA (1994) 250
4.3.5.3 Policy: Internet Censorship with the Communications Decency Act (1996) 254
4.3.6 Critical Analysis and Paradigm Blind Spots 257
4.3.7 Summary 259
4.4 Information Warfare and the Origin of Cyber-Realism 265
4.4.1 Background: Growing Awareness of Computer Insecurity (1967 - 2011) 267
4.4.2 Ideas: Formation of the Information War Doctrine (1976-2000) 273
4.4.2.1 Optimistic Cyber-Realism: Revolution in Military Affairs (1992-2000) 276
4.4.2.2 Problem Definitions of Cyber-Realism 279
4.4.2.3 Core Ideas: Information Weapons & Digital Battlespace 287
4.4.2.4 Analyzing Emerging Norms of Cyber-Realism 291
4.4.3 Setting the Path: The Institutionalization of Cyber-Realism 294
4.4.4 Politics: Turn to Realism - Critical Infrastructure Initiative (1996-1999) 295
4.4.5 Discourse: Y2K and Critical Infrastructure Failure 301
4.4.6 Preliminary Summary 304
4.4.7 The Politicization of Cyber-Realism with the War on Terror (2000 - 2008) 308
4.4.7.1 Ideas: Cyber-Realism and Counter-Terrorism (2001 - 2007) 311
4.4.7.2 Policy: The Patriot Act and Intelligence Reform (2001 - 2004) 316
4.4.7.3 Artifacts: NSA and the Full-take Norm of Internet Control (2001 - ) 322
4.4.7.4 The Fusion of IW, Surveillance and Cyber-war (2003-2008) 332
4.4.8 The Norm of Internet Control 340
4.4.9 Critical Analysis of Cyber-Realism 342
4.4.10 Summary 346
4.5 From Cyber-Utopia to Cyber-War: The Obama Presidency (2008-2013) 353
4.5.1 Background: The Hybrid Presidency 354
4.5.2 Ideas: Cyber-Utopianism under Obama and Clinton 357
4.5.3 Practice: Professionalization of Offensive Cyber-War & Surveillance 363
4.5.4 Discourse: Cyber-Doom and the Hegemony of Cyber-Realism 371
4.5.5 Artifacts: The Snowden Leaks 376
4.5.6 Juncture: The President's Panel on NSA Practices 383
4.5.7 Outcome: The Dominance of Cyber-Realism 389
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Table of Contents
4.5.8 Critical Analysis 394
4.4.9 Summary 396
5. Conclusion 401
5.1 Theoretical Findings 405
5.2 Methodological Issues and Alternative Explanations 412
5.3 Discussion and Outlook 416
Bibliography 420
Appendix 449
Quantifying the Internet and the Digital Revolution 449
List of Internet Milestones and Security Incidents 454
Polls on the Dominance of Cyber-Realism 458
2016 Presidential Candidates' Opinion on Cyber-Realist Ideas 464
Intelligence Community Directors 466
Corpora 469
Engineering Corpus 470
Cyber-Utopian Corpus 475
Information Superhighway Corpus 480
Cyber-Realism Corpus 485
Obama Corpus 489
Ehrenwörtliche Erklärung 492
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Acknowledgement
The purpose of this acknowledgement is to clarify my subjective position in front of the
reader, as criteria for good qualitative research suggest (Creswell, 2012, p. 51). Since this
is a qualitative case study, the subjective position of the researcher always is a potential
source for bias.
Writing this thesis was a tremendous experience. It allowed me, to scientifically
engage with the technology and medium I grew up with. I experienced much of the
evolution of the World Wide Web with the eyes of a curious teenager. I became a cyber-
utopian believing in the grand vision that the Internet could foster global cooperation,
exchange of ideas and democratization. Speaking for the first time with a total stranger
from the other side of a globe over the Internet was (and is) a powerful experience. Being
able to digitally access almost any written book, music or piece of art within a matter of
seconds still is remarkable. We seldom acknowledge the fact that for the first time in
human history, we can access almost all human knowledge with a mouse click. I strongly
believe that the global communication enabled by the Internet allows us to solve global
problems like climate change, pollution or economic inequality. Having said that, I am
skeptical of any actor who tries to control or manipulate this global conversation, either via
censorship, surveillance, digital-disruption (I.e. cyber-war) or any other means. At the
same time, this thesis allowed me to confront my early utopian ideas about cyberspace and
reflect upon them more deeply. While researching this thesis and struggling with the
problems of hacking, terrorism and inter-state espionage, much of my cyber-utopian
euphoria declined.
National security actors indeed have a point when they warn about the national
security implications of the Internet and this work allowed me to better understand their
position. I understand why surveillance of Internet data-streams is a political demand and
acknowledge, that it might (!) have some positive effects on catching terrorists.
Surveillance is neither good nor bad, but it depends on the political governance, as
surveillance scholar David Lyon argues. I do believe that the conduct of intelligence
agencies is necessary to protect democracy from outside forces, as long as it is transparent,
accountable, proportional and under independent evaluation. "Given the history of abuse
by governments, it's right to ask questions about surveillance, particularly as technology is
reshaping every aspect of our lives" as President Barack Obama once said (Obama, 2014).
We must be able to evaluate the costs and benefits of Internet control systems, which is
currently complicated because of secrecy. We must critically ask the question whether the
minimal gain of security is worth the tremendous financial and political costs Internet
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Acknowledgement
surveillance has for democratic states and global civil society, especially given the danger
that these tools fall into hand of an authoritarian leader with little regard for checks and
balances. While the Internet has the enormous potential of uniting mankind by creating a
real-time global conversation that might enable us to solve global challenges, chances are
that human ignorance, fear, populism and unchecked powers threaten the existence of the
Internet. There are powerful forces at work that try to control the global conversation. This
thesis sheds light on these dynamics from a critical perspective.
As you will see, this work is highly interdisciplinary, drawing from a variety of field
such as International Relations, Political Science, Critical Security Studies, Sociology,
Science and Technology Studies and History. During the doctoral seminars with my
supervisor and other colleagues I often encountered a fundamental critique with my work
along the lines "well, all that technological stuff is quite interesting, but where is the
political science in it?" I agree, and apologize, that my presentations during these years
were somewhat "techy" and "nerdy" and not really "political sciency". To respond to this
critique, I argued that the individual parts may not be political science, but the big picture
will be (and hopefully is). While studying technology scholars such as Lawrence Lessig
and Landgon Winner, I discovered two important insights. First, we should think politics
bigger: not just in terms of formal political institutions and laws but also in terms of hard-
and software. Technologies are politics. This will become clearer during the thesis.
Second, the inventor of cybernetics Norbert Wiener argued that "it is these 'boundary
regions' of science which offer the richest pickings to the researcher. This is because they
are ideas where the traditional methods simply don't work" (Naughton, 1999, p. 62). That
is why I am a strong advocate of an interdisciplinary perspective.
I want to thank the following persons (in no particular order). I want to thank Anna
Fritsch for countless times of psychological and emotional support through all the ups and
downs such a long project has. I am also thankful for inspirational comments and the
endless proof-reading sessions by Charlie Fritsch. I want to thank my supervisor Prof.
Rafael Biermann for being so open and enthusiastic about my interdisciplinary research
style, allowing me to explore the boundaries of political science. The feedback was always
super constructive and the working atmosphere at the department excellent. I want to thank
Dr. Myrian Dunn-Cavelty for being so nice to evaluate my work and give valuable
comments. I also want to thank my colleagues at the department, Sven Morgen for
constantly thinking outside the box and maintaining a constructive critical stance towards
many ideas, Carolina Rehrmann for the uplifting work-spirit, Marianne Beyer and Jana
Thierbach for almost everything that had to be organized, managed or solved. I want to
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Acknowledgement
thank my doctoral colleagues, Johannes Gold for always excellent critique and discussions
and Christian Opitz for proof-reading and the positive spirit. I really appreciate it. I also
want to thank the student assistants at the department for political science in Jena, among
them Katrin Pakizer, Helena Falk, Katrin Oestmann, Frank Wieber, Thea Schatz and
Torben Kruse who scanned endless pages and thus supported this research.
Academically, I want to thank Miles Townes, whose paper on TCP/IP norms was
one of the first papers from an IR perspective of which I thought, that "this is it", the point
to start this dissertation. Miles pointed me in the right direction, combining norm research
and Internet history. Ronald Deibert and the team at the Citizen Lab initiated my interest in
Internet control practices of states and offered many insights during my research trip in
summer 2015 to Canada. Among them Erik, Christopher and Ben with whom I had endless
discussions (and Poutine). I am also very grateful to Prof. Leonard Kleinrock, Dr. Vinton
Cerf, Dr. Steven Crocker who kindly responded to my Emails regarding the technicalities
of the Internet protocols.
Matthias Schulze
Leipzig, February 2017
About this digital version
This digitally published version is the original Ph.D. thesis that was handed-in in March
2017. It contains all original graphics, a more detailed description of the causal
mechanisms and all the little errors that the proof-readers and I did not discover. This
version is published under an open commons license, mimicking the original spirit of the
Internet. There will be a slightly edited book version containing a more streamlined and
refined text, fewer graphics and hopefully less punctuation errors. This will come out later
as a 2 , revised print edition, for those of you who still prefer physical books.
nd
Matthias Schulze,
Berlin, June 2018
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Abstract
This dissertation analyzes a normative change in state perception and political action
towards the Internet. This change is currently reflected in certain measures aimed at the
exercise of control and state sovereignty in and over cyberspace. These include phenomena
such as the total surveillance of data streams and the extensive collection of connection
data by secret services, the control (political censorship) and manipulation of information
(information war) as well as the arms spiral around offensive cyber capabilities to disrupt
and destroy information infrastructures. States face a loss of control that they want to
compensate for. The phenomenon of the perceived loss of control and the establishment of
a norm of control (filter and monitoring technology) is equally evident in various
democratic and non-democratic states, as various studies show.
This militarized perception of the Internet is remarkable in so far as Western
politicians used to perceive the same Internet technology in the 1980s and 1990s in a
completely different way. Back then the lack of state control was seen as desirable. Instead
of controlling and monitoring all aspects of the Internet, a "hands-off" and laissez-faire
idea dominated political behavior at the time: the possibilities of democratization through
information technologies, the liberalization of authoritarian societies through technology
and the free availability of global knowledge. The idea of national control over
communications technology was considered innovation-inhibiting, undemocratic and even
technically impossible. The topic of this work is the interaction between state power and
sovereignty (e.g. political control through information sovereignty) and digital
technologies. The research question is: Which process led to the establishment of norms of
control and rule (surveillance, censorship, cyber-war) with regard to the medium Internet?
Furthermore, the question arises: What are the implications of this change in standards for
the fundamental functioning of the Internet? The aim is to examine in detail the thesis of
the militarization of cyberspace empirically on the basis of a longitudinal case study using
the example of Internet development in the USA since the 1960s. An interdisciplinary and
multi-theoretical approach is chosen from constructivist norms research and the Social
Construction of Technology approach.