Crowdsourcing request: interview subjects for cyber governance
Tuesday, September 14, 2010 at 8:34AM 
For a side writing project I'm working on, I'm looking to do some interviews (either by email or phone) on the subject of cyber governance.
What interests me: What are the models out there in the real world for doing this? What's the experience base of success and failure? What are the major schools of thought? Where is this debate heading and what does the future of cyber governance look like--especially as we migrate from the early perceptions of a totally free Web to something more fenced off?
You can either submit a comment or just email me at thomaspmbarnett@mac.com.
Trying to wrap this up quickly, so speak up if you want a conversation. Nobody needs to know everything; just make sure you've got something to say or can get me someone with an interesting perspective/experience base.
Likewise, if you know of some great citation on the subject, pass it along.
Reader Comments (7)
By "cyber governance" I presume you're talking about governance over various aspects of the Internet and Web. I don't know if you're interested in this aspect or not, but for several years I was responsible for the process by which the Mozilla project decides which Certificate Authorities (entities that issue digital certificates to web sites and others -- example CAs include VeriSign, Comodo, Entrust, etc.) to "trust" in the Firefox browser -- basically to ensure that when you browse to, e.g., https://www.bankofamerica.com/ you've got some reasonable assurance that you are indeed at the true Bank of America web site. This also impacts verification of digital signatures in email clients, etc.
It's an interesting topic to me for lots of reasons: First, we used an open process to make these evaluations, in which anyone can comment and all information used in CA evaluation is public to the maximum extent possible; this conflicts with the traditionally closed nature of the CA industry (and the security industry in general). Second, we had to deal with the theory of CAs, digital signatures, etc., as embodied in EU directives, national digital signature legislation, etc., vs. the reality of how this actually worked in the real world. Third, we had to deal with a proliferation of new CAs (both government and commercial) coming on line around the world, including in a number of New Core countries. (Standing up a CA infrastructure seems to be a right of passage for lots of countries as they develop.) Finally, we had to do all this in loose cooperation with other browser vendors (e.g., Microsoft) and with the CAs themselves, working within a semi-formal industry body (CA/Browser Forum). Basically the whole thing was a major rule-set revamp to try to adapt traditional practices to present-day global reality.
If you're interested in reading more about the process as it's implemented at Mozilla there's more online than anyone in their right mind would want to read, starting at <https://wiki.mozilla.org/CA:Overview>. The page at <https://wiki.mozilla.org/CA:Schedule> (requests in queue) in particular gives an idea of the global scope of what we had to deal with.
Forgot to add: Here's an example of how the issue of Certificate Authorities is becoming more visible and controversial: "Experts Warn of a Weak Link in the Security of Web Sites", New York Times, August 13, 2010 <http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/14/technology/14encrypt.html>.
http://twitter.com/evgenymorozov
Evgeny Morozov is a bit of a guru of the internet as a powerful political tool.
Might be good to talk with.
The big problem is that you cannot govern that which you do not understand. As actual understanding of networks, the big network and the operation and practice of computers is not widespread it will be difficult to find people who have enough expertise and more importantly the inclination to theorize about network governance. Most of the people who have the knowledge and have worked in this field are opposed to widespread network governance and it will be an uphill and I would guess losing battle against the 'Stainless Steel Rats" who presently own it.
"Cyber governance" in video games tends to go along the lines of guilds or clans.
Clans-First person shooters, typically tribal in nature with loose affiliations or small bands. The games tend to encourage small, close groups. This also happens within RTSes where you have a Clan leader and officers, but the organization is still loose with maybe a website, forum, practice rounds, and a chat room through the game.
Guilds-
These are complicated, but they also reflect the game type. In an MMO you have specific targets to go after with raid organizations that kill large targets (army versus big ass dragon) and distributes gear/loot through an economy called a DKP or dragon kill points system or a "communist" system called a Loot Council.
DKP:
http://www.wowwiki.com/Dragon_kill_points
Loot Council:
http://www.wowwiki.com/Loot_council
Random:
http://www.wowwiki.com/Random
*This means when the dragon dies, people "roll virtual dice" to get the items that are dropped from the kill. Most groups function off of this, but loot distribution on open raids (non guild aligned raiding) goes for this.
A raiding guild has the most centralized government:
1. Guild leader-centralizes authority, normally guild creator or an appointed new leader by the old leadership
2. Officers-typically volunteers appointed by the Guild Leader to run things such as guild recruitment, DKP or Loot Council, and deal with behavior issues.
More information on guilds:
http://www.wowwiki.com/Guilds
If you notice the more complex the game in scale to time, effort, and ect. the more complex the government in the game. Many players that came to WoW came from Ultima Online, Everquest, and Final Fantasy Online to WoW crossed over and really just imported the old governance rules. Also, guilds and servers often develop their own mini-cultures and terms. Even games have their own slang such as "Melt Face" to indicate "direct damage spells," really think Zeus zapping someone with a lightning bolt with numbers on it.
Then there's the whole customer service side to it and corporate relations for the community relations departments and the "Game Masters" often called "GM's" within MMO's that do in game customer service. In older games where rules were more loose, there was a "wild west" appeal to the rules sets and diplomacy with GM's was often necessary when in dispute over a static monster to kill that people would race over. This still occurs in some games such as Everquest 2 or even WoW, but not in the frequency before raids (scripted events with boss characters i.e. slay the dragon with an army) were instanced (individual maps/level/zone to play in for the players in the raid) where they had to compete in static zones (places that anyone and everyone can enter).
Some servers in games such as Everquest created rules like rotations to schedule times to kill certain raid targets when they would spawn or "pop." In a static zone (one where anyone can enter) when a large boss is killed it'll respawn in a number of days give or take a random amount. So people can "predict this" by placing characters near to "scout" for bosses to spawn to kill, in the old days people in guilds would compete with each other to run to these boss NPCs and kill them. The competition often was from people of different time zones waking up early or staying up late if there was no set rotation, and it would get fierce with people trying to kill each other's avatar/character with "trains"/running enemies at other avatars to kill them and set them to their respawn locations. Which would make GM's become involved to enforce rules about "zone disruptions" and the like.
On the controversy end with fan fiction writings and art, Verant (subsidiary and original producer of Everquest, eventually bought out by SoE) had this famous incident:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mystere_incident
http://www.gamespot.com/news/2637913.html
So corporations in the private sector are trying to deal with the issues within the game worlds, there's some interesting rules if you read here:
http://forums.station.sony.com/eq/posts/list.m?topic_id=167083
Notice this rule:
Don't use the forums as staging grounds for planning disruptive activities or to promote general unrest in the form of sit-ins, polls, petitions, etc.
There was also a boycott of Omens of War because Gates of Discord expansion was released and very buggy with a graphics engine change that brought huge bugs with it as well. This went on to have a total overhaul of customer service relations. More information:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EverQuest:_Gates_of_Discord
Links in the wiki over the "Guild Summit" and ect.
I can list more information and write more in depth if you have any questions, I've included an email in the "Author Email" section. I realize this may not be what you intend, but it does deal with governance and online media and how "ownership" and identity really works in the digital age.
Use this email included here if you want to contact me, other one lost password to. My mistake.
But to add I'd like to add more, the "guild leader" in the game world is a lot like the field commanders you see today in Iraq/Afghanistan or more specifically like "Wild West" sheriffs and mayors. They have to deal with a lot of issues such as governance of the locals to other guilds and make pacts/treaties. At most it seems like an elder tribesman role to a degree, because of conflict resolutions while setting the goals and even keeping public moral up.
These "guild leaders" in MMO's perform a specific task role as almost an extension of Customer Service. They're purely voluntary roles, but take on a great deal of responsibility to manage a group of people. This also depends on the game's raid limit for players, in games such as Everquest that have a large raid average (54, down from 72+ at its height) to WoW which is 40 with smaller raids as well. Can read more here for WoW:
http://www.wowwiki.com/Raid
So in conclusion, a part of the "governance" is in the hands of volunteers that derive a level of satisfaction from doing work. There's different ways to lead guilds as well that's much more diverse and some are unique to specific guilds themselves. Even then, going from "guild to corporate" is something not unheard of either with men like this:
http://www.wowwiki.com/Alex_Afrasiabi
Guild leader for Fires of Heaven (Ultima Online->Everquest->World of Warcraft, the guild still exists) some of his old commentary can be found here:
http://www.fohguild.org/archive.php?page=52
Any post by "Furor Planesdefiler" was him, he was a very avid player known for his "whining" and writing style. WoW sought out Furor at first as a beta testing guild, later he got hired. This was also when the "Gates of Discord" controversy hit several years ago, which again shows a system perturbation and how rules change.
Another person is:
http://www.wowwiki.com/Jeffrey_Kaplan
He was the guildleader of Legacy of Steel in Everquest.
http://www.legacyofsteel.net/oldsite/index.htm
Check the archives on anyone named "tigole:"
http://www.legacyofsteel.net/oldsite/arc69.html
http://www.wow.com/2007/10/15/a-tigole-flashback-to-legacy-of-steel/
You'll get a sense of the posts how people commented on the game were leaders and how these leaders were read by developers (of Everquest and even other games), developed relationships with them on a personal level, and in Tigole's case one of his guild members worked for Blizzard and he got hired that way.
Interesting again with how the leaders acted as "muckrackers" for the "governance" of the game and later climbed to become game designers themselves. This is in part demonstrates social mobility within "online gaming governance."
So overall, if you want to see how "actual governments work when created from the virtual world" and how these "virtual governments" work with corporations and even in the "real world" governments in other examples that deal with virtual property. The "connectivity" really is weird, and if you extrapolate the trends in the MMO industry you can see there's many "unforeseen changes" that percolate out of the technology and social activities.
If there are specifics you're looking for, use the email for "Author Email Optional" on this comment not the other one.
Last note on "guild leaderships" there's actually a web comedy that deals with "guilds" called The Guild:
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=the+guild
The show's description:
A comedy web series about a group of online gamers, and how they interact online and offline. Winner of they YouTube and Yahoo best web series awards in 2008, winner of three Streamy Awards in 2009.
Think of it as "MMO's West Wing," only more mundane and a lot more dysfunctional... As with any good satire/comedy, there's a bit of truth to it. So indeed, the "MMO guilds" have went "main stream" even to the degree of nation states in entertainment.