‘Eaten by the Internet’: A New Publication on Infrastructure

In a new book out with Meatspace Press under a CC-BY-NC-SA license, Eaten By the Internet explores the paradoxically understated yet ubiquitous impact of the internet’s infrastructure on our society. Seventeen authors, including Ashwin Mathew, Joan Donovan, and Meredith Whitaker, explore the ways that internet infrastructure “organise our social life, politics and economy” in chapters touching on issues like rare earth mining, space internet, and the online ad economy.

CDT Chief Technology Officer Mallory Knodel published a sweeping analysis of the flawed ‘magical thinking’ inherent in regulatory proposals that would break end-to-end encryption. She writes, “Major civil liberties issues are at stake in the anti-encryption debate; with client-side scanning and compelled decryption putting the police in our pockets.”

The book is available in paperback and PDF formats for purchase online, or freely downloadable from the Internet Archive.