REYNALDO ROSS D. SUCGANG IV

Reaction Paper on Cyberspace Regulation

This is a reaction paper on the video lecture of Professor Lessig regarding the

regulation of the cyberspace.

In the growth of the internet and cyberspace as a place of social behavior, there

was an important and pronounced view whether cyberspace would be regulated or how

the government might interact with cyberspace as such there was a fallacy that

cyberspace is ‘unregulable’ or cannot be regulated by the government. However, there

was in fact a way that the government can regulate cyberspace by providing different

modalities that represents as the architectural design of the cyberspace. Such power to

regulate causes concerns to the public that if the government can interact in cyberspace,

it would endanger the protection of the values and ideas of each citizen in the cyberspace

and may cause a threat to our liberty and

The architectural design of the cyberspace would show that if the government can

only follow strict implementation of the modalities, then there will be an effective way to

regulate cyberspace. As Prof. Lessig have provided, there are four (4) modalities that

should be observed and these are the laws, norms, market and architecture. Cyberspace

is primarily regulate by the law in which such law provides for rules in which people would

behave by provided rules before committing a behavior, which is called ex ante rules and

ex post punishment in which the state provides for punishment to entice people to comply

with the rules as provided by law. Such law will affect the norms of people in such a way

that it will comply with the rules provided by not committing acts or omission to violate the

same. The law regulates markets in cyberspace in terms of commercial activities and

norms of behavior of people still apply. Then architecture is regulated by simultaneous

conditions or constraints in cyberspace in which the people is enforced and should

perform.

Although cyberspace is in itself an architecture because it is a set of technology

software and hardware embed in its design certain capabilities and disables certain other

capabilities. The basic code of cyberspace implements a set of protocols of TCP/IP which

enable the exchange of date among interconnected networks. The TCP/IP have

consequences for the regulation of behavior of the people in cyberspace. However, it

makes the regulation difficult because it would be hard to identify who the people are,

where the behavior came from and to where the data is sent to. This problem was referred

to by Prof. Lessig as ‘relative anonymity’ because the system does not automatically

identify the source of the data, what is the date and to where the data is sent. This what

makes cyberspace unregulable.

However, as time passes, also there are changes evolving in order to easily

regulate or identify the architectural design of cyberspace. As Prof. Lessig has mentioned,

there are three (3) changes that makes the TCP/IP understandable and for the

government to easily regulate cyberspace. These 3 changes are called cookies, sniffer

technology and IP address mapping. Cookies would know who the source of the data

came from and letting the sites a person visits remember his preferences or letting him

avoid signing in each time he visits a certain site. Sniffer technology would resolve the

problem of what the data contents are as sniffers examine network traffic making a copy

of the data but without redirecting or only directing with TCP/IP packets. By capturing

packets and examing it base on the type of information on the network to know what

behavior is on that particular data. IP address mapping, on the other hand, is where the

address of a connected device or computer in a TCP/IP network in order to locate a device

in the network or where the logical IP address is coming from in order to locate the

geographical location of the person using the internet. In these changes, it would be easy

for the government to regulate and control the behavior of the people using and engaging

in cyberspace.

The government in regulating cyberspace for me may provide for both positive and

negative effect and outcome to every individual in the society. Positive in cases where

the government can prevent threats, terrorism or danger that may cause or bring to the

society and in which case provides safety for the citizen. It can regulate the norms of the

people positively by detecting bad behavior and preventing such behavior from taking

place. It can also regulate free market interaction in cyberspace and can provides for

rights and protection to online commercial transactions. It can likewise give benefits in

awareness, education and training that the people need. The government regulating the

internet, cyber bullying, cyber libels, cybercrimes and other cyberattacks can be

prevented and the people can have a way to seek recourse and remedies from these

attacks and in the people can feel safe from these attacks. Yet, despite the positive

protection that cyber regulation can provide, there can be negative effects in this

regulations. The government, by regulating cyberspace, can abuse their power and can

violate our constitutional rights. Through the internet anything is possible now and even

our personal and private life can be put in danger with just one click of the button. Our

right to be secured in our persons and properties from unwarranted searches and

seizures, our privacy of communication and correspondence and our freedom of speech

and of expression can be violated by the same cybersecurity and cyber regulation that

ought to protect us. Our rights of privacy, security and freedom is at stake and the

government can easily encroach our rights without our consent or against our will. The

law regulating the internet or cyberspace has the ability to use its power to change our

behavior, our norm, the market or architectural design. But there might only be an abuse

if one of the modalities overlaps or abused its power over the other modalities.

Nevertheless, if the government can maintain equal function of the four

aforementioned modalities and will work equally, this four modalities working together will

have a better and effective way of regulating cyberspace without infringing or prejudicing

the rights of the citizens. In applying these modalities equally, the government can

maintain an effective course in regulating cyberspace without any fear of trespass from a

recipient using the internet. This four modalities is a means to an end of an effective

regulation wherein cyberspace will change positively in a way that it can effectively

protects anonymity, privacy, free speech and individual control from the government.