=================================================== From ahae@cs.rice.edu Thu Mar 18 14:20:55 2004 =================================================== The authors discuss the Internet's development from a research system to a recognized component of society. They observe that the Internet has attracted many different players with conflicting interests, and that this has resulted in major struggles, a phenomenon which they have termed 'tussle'. They suggest that tussle should be considered explicitly during the design process, and that different tussles should be isolated from each other and from the rest of the system wherever possible. The paper has some merit because it highlights the connection between engineering and society which, at least in technical papers, is often neglected or even completely ignored. However, the issue discussed here is neither completely new nor particular to the Internet; yet, no references to related work in sociology and philosophy are given. Another weak point of the paper is its coherence. It discusses a very complex issue, on which books have been written, in only ten pages, and yet dives into a lot of detail in some instances (source routing, firewalls). Not surprisingly, the authors then fail to provide an adequate analysis of these questions in the few paragraphs they allocate for each. Finally, the authors tend to discuss ethical questions without clearly stating the assumptions or value systems they use. For example, the paper generally implies that choice and competition are good, yet it never gives reasons or even clarifies what 'good' is supposed to mean (good for society? for customers? for the authors? and in what sense?). =================================================== From amsaha@cs.rice.edu Thu Mar 18 17:44:24 2004 =================================================== The paper speaks about how design in the internet should consider that there are several players in the internet and that they might have adverse goals, something that the authors call "tussle". The paper is more of a philosphical paper and does not give any technical advice. The paper brings out issues of economics and trust (security) which are becoming more and more important as the user base of the internet is increasing. What I am skeptical about this paper is whether it has any concrete value. Things mentioned in this paper are quite obvious but no concrete design guidelines are provided. Not even an example was provided. Telephony is a very mature area and they are doing pretty well. Did they design for "tussle" or did things started to fall in place just because the technology had matured, which is not the case in internet which is still quite immature. However, the basic difference is that telephony does not allow a plethora of applications as does the internet. - Amit