Protocol: How Control Exists After Decentralization

by Alexander R. Galloway

Is the Internet a vast arena of unrestricted communication and freely exchanged information or a regulated, highly structured virtual bureaucracy? In Protocol , Alexander Galloway argues that the founding principle of the Net is control, not freedom, and that the controlling power lies in the technical protocols that make network connections (and disconnections) possible. He does this by treating the computer as a textual medium that is based on a technological language, code. Code, he argues, can be subject to the same kind of cultural and literary analysis as any natural language; computer languages have their own syntax, grammar, communities, and cultures. Instead of relying on established theoretical approaches, Galloway finds a new way to write about digital media, drawing on his backgrounds in computer programming and critical theory. "Discipline-hopping is a necessity when it comes to complicated socio-technical topics like protocol," he writes in the preface.

Galloway begins by examining the types of protocols that exist, including TCP/IP, DNS, and HTML. He then looks at examples of resistance and subversion—hackers, viruses, cyberfeminism, Internet art—which he views as emblematic of the larger transformations now taking place within digital culture. Written for a nontechnical audience, Protocol serves as a necessary counterpoint to the wildly utopian visions of the Net that were so widespread in earlier days.

Genres: Philosophy, Technology, Nonfiction, Politics, Theory, Sociology, Science

248 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2004

Reviews

[Alexander Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

Given this was written in 2004, this book was a huge contribution. It gets a lot of things right about how computer systems function in power dynamics, and accounts for a lot of misunderstandings about modern policies in a protocol-based world. At the current moment, many of us are still fighting policy-based battles in spaces that are entirely ignorant of the functions and possibilities of protocols, and this is a serious problem in an online world. Because of this, _Protocol_ is still one of the most relevant guides to thinking about information technology policy today.

This book clarifies that the world we know is undergoing a cultural change towards distributed and decentralized networks that are based upon digital documents that are fundamentally supported through protocol systems: bits of code that afford people the ability to interpret online documents in a common way. He goes on to describe how this process is, in no way, a technologically neutral one.

This book goes on to say that under these considerations of Deleuzian (and Foucauvian) notions of power, that we should reconsider how we think about Marxist material critical work. He suggests that in this world, all centralizing units of people are the enemy of those who find liberation in establishing and exploiting protocol: the enemy is corporations, institutions, the state, those groups which govern protocol (e.g. ICANN), and even unions. In fact, in the world of protocols, these groups ultimately become more of a pain than a threat as these groups must embrace the use of protocol to fight protocol. Ultimately, the revolutions are networks against networks in which the rhizomes that build them are networks of post-human cyborgs, incidental conceptual digital artists, hackers, and cyberfeminists.

This book is a wild ride about the (Deleuzian) virtual possibilities of protocol from start to finish. According to Galloway, we have entered into a space of digital potentials that must reconsider post-human, post-structural Continental philosophy, and must leave behind present formations of Marxist criticism (aside from perhaps Marxist Aesthetics) and current economic governing ideologies in order to establish a better materialist form of criticism, design, and pragmatic theory. In some ways, if memory recalls, this seems to be a similar, more technologically up-to-date argument made by Benjamin Bratton in _The Stack_ and is somewhat seconded from a more legal perspective in Benkler's _The Wealth of Networks_. It also echos from the work of _The Cathedral and the Bazaar_.

[xDEAD ENDx · Rating 3 out of 5]

Really wish this was better than it turned out to be. The deleuzian analysis of protocol/control societies is wonderful, despite Galloway confessing the focus of the book to not be about politics/philosophy. However, the Negri/Hardt influence begins to come through near the end when he begins talking about the liberatory potential of protocol/Internet (especially in the form of art).

[Lilly Irani]

The internet is not the wild and free party everyone says. It's governed by protocol that allows all the ad hoc networking to happen. DNS is hierarchical and can be taken down too. This is a model for the new period of history we're in. If you're disempowered, just disconnect and hide from the network. It's easy. (The latest in my overly pithy, probably offensive summaries of critical theory.)

[Nima · Rating 4 out of 5]

کتاب خوبی بود ولی فصل آخرش می تونست بهتر باشه

[Matthew Roche · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting book that feels very dated. In an attempt to be thorough, Galloway provides enormous numbers of references and footnotes, however their similarity in tone and time serve to anchor the book firmly in the 90s/early 2000s, which serves less to ground his core argument than to obscure it. As a result it is an interesting walk down memory lane that doesn’t pack the punch it should.

The underlying argument, that protocol is both a source of power and rebellion in a networked/decentralized economy and society, is astute and useful. Who sets the rules runs the system. And comparing the relatively “democratic” or at least mildly anarchic beginnings of the core protocols on the internet is thorough. But it is hard to connect with Galloway’s enthusiasm from the viewpoint of the mod 2020s and tech monopolies. The protocols he speaks of are all irrevocably obscured behind the new, re-centralized protocols of Facebook, Google mail, and Amazon.

Galloway correctly articulates the dynamics of protocols, namely the layered aspect, yet he doesn’t seem to take the argument to its next logical step, that any layered model can always support a new layer, and if that new layer becomes ubiquitous, it can be re-centralized.

Hacking culture is gone. The early Internet of RFCs is in the past. Access to the network is through a limited number of doors, and almost all of them are centralized, even if they run on a decentralized substrate. That which is virtual can always be reconfigured.

[Will · Rating 5 out of 5]

"The ultimate goal of the Internet protocols is totality. The virtues of the Internet are robustness, contingency, interoperability, flexibility, heterogeneity, pantheism. Accept everything, no matter what source, sender, or destination."

"Pixels cannot be visible. Fonts must be smooth. Full color palettes are better than limited ones. High-resolution, representational images are better than cheap, simple ones. Low resolution shatters the illusion of continuity because it means that the source, the code, is not being properly concealed."

"The contradiction at the heart of protocol is that it has to standardize in order to liberate. It has to be fascistic and unilateral in order to be utopian. It contains, as Jameson wrote of mass culture before it, both the ability to imagine an unalienated social life and a window into the dystopian realities of that life."

"Yet the success of protocol today as a management style proves that the ruling elite is tired of trees too."

[Mark Sutherland · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well, that was something.
It's interesting to see an area I know a lot about from a technical perspective (networks, the internet) critiqued from a perspective I'm mostly unfamiliar with. Some of the jargon and reasoning was a bit difficult to follow due to this, but I think I gleaned enough from it for it to be useful.
I'd say it tails off a bit towards the end, it dissolves into textual descriptions of early 21st century internet that don't seem to contribute much beyond their existence.
It does, however, contain this excellent quote in the conclusion:

It is important to remember first that the technical is always political, that network architecture is politics.

I don't think I'll be reaching for something else in this vein for a while, but the experience was certainly worth the effort.

[Louis Maddox · Rating 4 out of 5]

Section on hackers began to let Galloway's writing down: I didn't find it sufficiently critical (for a writer who professes to distrust authority) when citing the definitions of hacking/a hacker verbatim from Levy, prior to this it had been quite convincing but from this point I started to see how shallow some of the critique was.

[Nan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Although it was hard for me to read because I'm not a comunnication, informatics or cybernetics expert, there are some interesting ideas here: cyberspace, digital migration, digital bodies... I recommend it but you need to read it with a high disposition to analysis and reflection.

[Paul · Rating 2 out of 5]

Overall rather a disappointment. Some nice ideas, internet history and curiosities but poorly organised and under edited. The arguments/narrative set up in the early chapters are not really carried through convincingly.

[Ryan Seffinger · Rating 3 out of 5]

Cool stuff. A bit outdated in 2020/2021. The info was all interesting but I wish Galloway had spent more time working in his political conclusion of the way network protocol replicates a market economy than the jumble of interesting information.

[Alif Ibrahim · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic book, clearly written and incredibly insightful

[Steen Ledet · Rating 4 out of 5]

Solid discussion of control societies.

[Sophia]

Alexander Galloway is literally retarded.

[Marty · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've seen this book in various footnotes for a number of years and finally got a hold of a copy. It chronicles the rise of the Internet
and specifically the interaction of technological protocols and social practices.

Galloway outlines how the design process and decision-making that brought about the Internet embeds into society a NEW model of control. This model he calls "distributed control" and argues convincingly about its impact.
He also focuses on the varied practices of resistance that arose to new technology-Hacking, net.art and cyberfeminism.

He offers some valuable insights that would be useful to media scholars and social theorists. General readers might be bogged down by either tech-speak or seemingly irrelevant asides. I had hoped it would have a little more on the theory side, but it definitely has an interesting analysis.

[Mike · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a really forward-thinking work from Alexander Galloway. He makes an argument that inverts how most people conceive of the Internet and freedom: Rather than the Net being the ultimate form of unrestrained or controlled communication, it is actually governed by perhaps the most stringent systems of organization--protocol. Through both distributed and centralized structures, the Internet offers us the opportunity to effect change in ways we may never have imagined. While parts of the book I found meandering (discussions of political resistance native to the Net), it holds up remarkably well, even a decade after being published (a notable trait for work in new media).

[Eva · Rating 3 out of 5]

About the nitty-gritty, the politics, the hierarchies, the glitches of the distributed system we call the internet. Who is really in control? Makes you realize that on the surface the internet seems to permanently change and redefine itself, but that its backbone - its protocols - are old and unchanging.

[Tony Poerio · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really like this book. At the time I read it, maybe around 2010, I'd never come across anything else similar to it. And Galloway's arguments are smart, succinct, and provocative. Most of the are also, in my opinion upon seeing the world transform since then, accurate.

[Timothy · Rating 5 out of 5]

outstanding intellectual critique of network protocols. nice balance of critical theory and techie speak.

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Reads like a manifesto and a post apocalyptic futurist novel at the same time, except it's all true.

[Sam]

Stellar. For real. Took a 6-person seminar with Alex and I was GAGA over how scary smart the dude is.