Freedom, Control, Security: Current and Future Implications for Internet Governance

Internet Governance is concerned with the organisation, control, and strategic development of the Internet. It is a relevant and widely debated topic lacking universal consensus. Furthermore, from the operational perspective, administrative control and technical operation of the Internet are crucially relevant issues for the global dissemination of information, online virtual communities and the global economy. Thus political and technological aspects and considerations are interwoven and cannot be separated. Key Internet operation and maintenance organisations such as the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) are currently in the process of formulating the scope and agenda of future Internet governance with significant implications for online services. Such developments are thereby having a major impact and are strongly present in the operation of the Internet with further implications regarding Internet security and control aspects inside Internet groups and communities. Governance and security are issues necessitated on protection from perceived chaos, real or symbolic violence or even terrorism, but who governs and secures the Internet against such threats? Indeed who will protect us from security? These issues are discussed at different scales and the article uses the example of Botnets to demonstrate how control is distributed both horizontally and vertically in keeping with contemporary forms of governance and security, reflected in the technical infrastructures of the Internet itself.