Net Neutrality Archives -

Nerd Nite 108: Adventures on the Electronic Frontier

Join us at the North Door on Wednesday, November 14th for this month’s Nerd Nite!

Nerd Nite 108 – Hackers, Lawyers, and Cyberpunks: Adventures on the Electronic Frontier

7:00– Alley entrance open
7:20– Speed-dating starts
7:30– Seating area/main room open
8:00– Show starts

SPEED DATING IS OPEN! https://austin.nerdnite.com/speed-dating/

As always, Nerd Nite is free. If you want to, you can RSVP to our Facebook event, or just show up.

Talks may not be given in the order described. Grab a drink, tip your bartenders, and relax!

ASL interpreters will be present. Our awesome librarian friends from the Austin Public Library will bring books, too.
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We’re incredibly excited about this month’s Nerd Nite collaboration with EFF Austin! The Electronic Frontier Foundation is an international non-profit digital rights group, and the Austin chapter has provided three amazing speakers to fill the night with interesting and exciting topics quite relevant to current events!
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This month’s talks:

“Net Neutrality 101” by Kevin Welch

Net Neutrality has become a rallying cry for the internet, but for a subject so essential to modern digital activism, it can be a thorny concept to fully wrap one’s head around. Proponents and detractors will make arguments citing obscure legal precedents and technical jargon that can be hard to cut through. Join Kevin Welch, president of EFF-Austin, as he provides an accessible yet thorough introduction to the legal, legislative, and regulatory history of net neutrality.

Kevin Welch is the president of EFF-Austin, an Austin-based digital civil liberties non-profit affiliated with Electronic Frontier Foundation.

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“Keep Austin Wired: A History of Local Net.Activism” by Jon Lebkowsky

Austin was an early hotbed of internet activism, primarily through EFF-Austin, formed in 1991 as a potential alpha chapter of the national Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). EFF’s first major case was in Austin – Steve Jackson Games vs the US Secret Service. I’ll talk about EFF-Austin’s formation and 27 year history, including its relationship to projects like Robofest and Austin Wireless City.

Jon Lebkowsky is co-founder and CEO of the member-owned web development company, Polycot Associates. He is also an activist and writer/blogger focused on strategic foresight, Internet evolution, digital culture, cyber liberties, media, and society.

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“A More Secure Home Network” by Chris Boyd

Chris will discuss his model for improving security and privacy by separating traffic from IoT, smart devices, toasters, and other networked devices currently found in homes.

Chris is a long time packet pusher, and started learning networking and data communications just before the dawn of the World Wide Web.

Nerd Nite 108: Adventures on the Electronic Frontier

Wednesday, Nov 14, 2018, 8:00 PM

North Door
502 Brushy St, Austin, TX Austin, TX

1 Activists Attending

Join us at the North Door on Wednesday, November 14th for this month’s Nerd Nite! Nerd Nite 108 – Hackers, Lawyers, and Cyberpunks: Adventures on the Electronic Frontier 7:00– Alley entrance open 7:20– Speed-dating starts 7:30– Seating area/main room open 8:00– Show starts SPEED DATING IS OPEN! https://austin.nerdnite.com/speed-dating/ As always, N…

Check out this Meetup →

https://www.facebook.com/events/1979903402307757/

Local Presentation on Net Neutrality

EFF-Austin President, Kevin Welch, will be discussing the importance of Net Neutrality on June, 28th, 2018.

Though a hot topic, it may help to freshen up on the who, what, when, where and why of the subject.

Who/When/Where

The idea of Net Neutrality was developed by American lawyer Tim Wu, in his 2003 paper, Net Neutrality. Since then, the FCC as adopted its principles and used them as guidance for regulating Internet Service Providers.

In 2017, FCC chairman Ajit Pai argued that Title II, another piece of legislation in the evolutionary line of Net Neutrality, had hampered infrastructure investment. “Among our nation’s 12 largest Internet service providers, domestic broadband capital expenditures decreased by 5.6% percent, or $3.6 billion, between 2014 and 2016, the first two years of the Title II era,” he stated. “This decline is extremely unusual. It is the first time that such investment has declined outside of a recession in the Internet era.”

Pai and his cohorts proceeded to begin repealing Net Neutrality Laws that same year, thus bringing us to the ongoing battle to keep it alive.

Why

Essentially, the goal of Net Neutrality is to ensure that the internet remains a fertile grounds for innovation and growth.

Wu explains that in the habit of ignoring long-term growth ISPs have “shown a tendency” to ban new and emerging applications/network attachments, out of “suspicion or an interest in price discrimination.”

He stresses that ISP operators and prospect holders have a cognitive bias that makes it unlikely for them to come to the ‘right decisions,’ in terms of the development for the optimal path of innovation, that could minimize the excesses of innovative competition.

What

Net Neutrality is an attempt at striking a balance, as Wu states in the original paper: “To forbid broadband operators, absent of a showing of harm, from restricting what users do with their internet connection, while giving the operator general freedom to manage bandwidth consumption and other matters of local concern.”

Plain and simple, this translates to making sure that users and customers are able to continue using their service without ‘discrimination’ against their apps, programs etc, while ISPs are able to still police only their own local network.

Wu explains that ISPs have every right to police their local networks, but most importantly, that there shouldn’t be ‘restrictions’ across the ‘inter-network’.

Because of Net Neutrality regulations, we are able to freely and efficiently use the internet as the public utility that its become. Join us for our presentation, for these ideas help uphold the structure of the internet and its ability to nurture growth and development. Information on the event can be found here.

February 6th – Unwarranted Surveillance – A JOLTT panel featuring EFF’s Shahid Buttar

The Journal Of Law And Technology At Texas (JOLTT – http://jolttx.com) is proud to present the panel Unwarranted Surveillance, featuring Shahid Buttar of EFF and Bobby Chesney and Steve Vladeck of The UT School of Law. Shahid will be visiting Austin as a guest of EFF-Austin, a long-time local affinity group of EFF and a member of their Electronic Frontier Alliance (EFA).

Congress recently reauthorized, extended, and expanded NSA surveillance without a judicial warrant requirement to restrain documented (and potentially recurring) abuses. Why does domestic surveillance prompt concerns from across the political spectrum? How does it relate to constitutional norms and principles? And how does it connect a recurring debate in the federal policy arena to local policing—and policy opportunities available to grassroots networks and local policymakers in cities across the country? All this and more will be discussed at this panel.

Shahid Buttar is an artist, writer, organizer, and lawyer. He works at the Electronic Frontier Foundation as the organization’s Director of Grassroots Advocacy, offering him opportunities to work with organizations and affinity groups around the country fighting mass surveillance and corporate control over science and culture. Shahid also serves on the boards of Defending Rights and Dissent and the Fund for Constitutional Government, served as the Executive Director of the Bill of Rights Defense Committee from 2009-2016, and graduated from Stanford Law School in 2003, where he served as Lawrence Lessig’s teaching assistant for Constitutional Law.

Robert M. (“Bobby”) Chesney is an American lawyer and the Charles I. Francis Professor in Law at The University of Texas School of Law, where he serves as the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and teaches courses relating to U.S. national security and constitutional law. In addition, he is the Director of the Robert S. Strauss Center for International Security and Law, a University-wide research unit bridging across disciplines to improve understanding of international security issues, as well as cyber-security and AI-related issues. Chesney addresses issues involving national security and law, including matters relating to military detention, the use of force, terrorism-related prosecutions, the role of the courts in national security affairs, and the relationship between military and intelligence community activities. He is a co-founder and contributor along with Benjamin Wittes and Jack Goldsmith to the Lawfare Blog.

Stephen Vladeck is a Professor of Law at the University of Texas School of Law, where he specializes in national security law, especially with relation to the prosecution of war crimes. Vladeck has commented on the legality of the United States’ use of extrajudicial detention and torture.

Open to the public.

Location Details: UT School of Law is located off of Dean Keeton St & Robert Deadman Dr. The meeting will be held in Townes Hall (TNH) Room 2.140 which is on the Ground Floor near the North Patio and Courtyard.