2.12 Notes

DNS: domain name server. Which IP addresses correspond to domain names. Altering that information would make the Internet unfunctional.
TCP/IP helps the domains interact with each other and share information. Opposite of the telephone system, which had a centralized hub

"Empire has no Rome" (Galloway) means – no central power


Alex Galloway "Protocol" and Jonathan Lethem, "The Ecstasy of Influence":


1. One idea that was already highly familiar to you from other contexts, with a description of what it means or what its implications are, and what those contexts are.

"Protocol is to control societies as the panopticon is to disciplinary societies. Protocol is more democratic than the panopticon, but it is still structured around command and control" (Galloway 87).

Driving at night on an empty street, one would still stop at lights and signs for fear of being watched -- but not so much this paranoia, but that the paranoia has imbedded itself into one's subconscious to the point where the watcher has succeeded. Drivers are aware of the transparency and fear repercussions, so their obedience has become subconscious. They become internalized dispositions -- get people to act in ways in accordance with conventions. Govern our actions in real life (protocol does)

switch 

2. One idea that was new and interesting to you, with a description of what it means, and why it was interesting.

Lethem says on page 61, "That  is to say, most artists are converted  to art by art  itself. Finding one's voice isn't just an emptying and purifying  oneself of the words of others but an adopting and embracing of filiations, communities, and discourses.  Inspiration  could  be called  inhaling the memory of an act never experienced.  Invention,  it  must  be humbly admitted, does not  consist  in creating out of void but out of chaos. Any  artist  knows  these  truths,  no matter  how  deeply  he  or  she  submerges that knowing."

One could compare this to a quote attributed to Einstein, "The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources." -- Albert Einstein. 

Copyright is suppressing creativity, not fostering it. And those who claim to "own" intellectual property are those guilty of "source hypocrisy" (65) because they in turn got their ideas from others.

3. One idea that you didn't understand or that seemed fundamentally mistaken, confused, or misguided, with an analysis of the specific part of it that seemed most problematic or difficult and why.

"By design, the Internet Protocol cannot be centralized. The RFC documents declare this in black

and white" (Galloway 85).

RFC documents say TCP IP stack cannot live on any one machine... moment of irony? People wrote the "centralized" power proposals -- they put themselves in a point of power by writing it, that it comes from a central place.