Interop: The Promise and Perils of Highly Interconnected Systems

308 Pages·2012·34.161 MB·English

by  John Palfrey, Urs Gasser

J O H N PA L F R IE Y AND U R S G A S S E R
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I n t e r o p
I n t e r o p
The Promise and Perils of
Highly Interconnected Systems
John Palfrey
and
Urs Gasser
A Member of the Perseus Books Group
New York
ALSO BY JOHN PALFREY AND URS GASSER
Born Digital
Intellectual Property Strategy
Copyright © 2012 by John Palfrey and Urs Gasser
Published by Basic Books,
A Member of the Perseus Books Group
All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be re
produced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief
quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information, address Basic Books,
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Palfrey, John G. (John Gorham), 1972-
Interop : the promise and perils of highly interconnected systems / John Palfrey and Urs
Gasser.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-465-02197-0 (hardcover) — ISBN 978-0-465-02907-5 (e-book) 1. Systems
integration. 2. Standards, Engineering. 3. Technology —S ocial aspects. 4. Internetworking
(Telecommunication) I. Gasser, Urs. II. Title. III. Title: Promise and perils of highly inter
connected systems.
TA168.P26 2012
620.001'1— dc23
2012002593
1 0 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
To the Berkman Center team,
whose members teach us about human interoperability every day.
C O N T E N T S
Introduction: Why Interop Matters 1
PART I
The Theory of Interop
one The Technology and Data Layers 21
two The Human and Institutional Layers 39
PART II
The Promise and Perils of Interop
three Consumer Empowerment 57
four Privacy and Security 75
five Competition and Uniformity 89
six Innovation 111
seven Systemic Efficiencies 129
eight Complexity 145
PART III
Solving for Interop
nine Getting to Interop 157
ten Legal Interop 177
eleven Interop by Design: The Case of Health Care IT 193
twelve Interop over Time: Preservation of Knowledge 211
thirteen Architectures of the Future: Building a Better World 231
Conclusion: The Payoff of Interop as Theory 255
Acknowledgments, 263
Notes, 265
Suggested Readings, 275
Index, 281
vn

Introduction
W hy Interop Matters
T
he Internet has made the world at once a smaller and a more
complex place. Digital technologies connect billions of people,
businesses, organizations, and governments with each other in
ways that enhance our lives but that we don’t fully understand. We are in-
terconnected as never before, to our enormous benefit: we stay in touch
with far-away family and friends for low cost; we learn about news instanta-
neously, access knowledge remotely, collaborate more efficiently, and do all
kinds of business online. Our most complex systems—government agen-
cies, financial institutions, transportation infrastructures, health care and
energy systems—are linked by these new, invisible information channels,
which are essential components of today’s global economy.
This capacity for connection is about more than just making our lives
more convenient or efficient. Organizations can become more specialized,
better at what they do, and more able to collaborate effectively across dis-
tance and time—whether in business, public life, or civic activism—in
ways that are changing the course of history. Consider what a highly con-
nected network of people in the Middle East, many of them very young,
1