Ethereum is taken as the representative platform of the second generation of blockchain system.Ethereum can support development of different distributed applications by running smart contracts.Local database is used to store the account state (named world state) for efficient validation of transactions, and the state root is stored in the block header to guarantee the integrity of the state.However, some researches revealed that the local database could be easily tempered with, and attackers can issue illegal transactions based on the modified account state to obtain illegitimate benefits.This world-state based security problem was introduced, and the preconditions for attack were analyzed.Compared with the two common security threats under the PoW (proof of work) consensus, it was found that when the attacker controls the same mining computing power, the world-state based attack brought higher risk, and the success rate approached 100%.In order to deal with this threat, a practical scheme for attack detection and defense was proposed accordingly.The secondary verification and data recovery process were added to the Ethereum source code.The feasibility and complexity of the proposed scheme was evaluated with single-machine multi-threading experiments.The proposed scheme improves Ethereum’s tolerance to malicious tampering of account state, and is applicable to other blockchain platforms applying local database for transaction validation, such as Hyperledger Fabric.In addition, the time and computational overhead brought by the proposed scheme are not prominent, so it has good applicability and induces acceptable impact on the performance of original system.
Abstract Blockchain is a new general-purpose technology that poses significant challenges to policymaking, law, and society. Blockchain is even more distinctive than other transformative technologies, as it is by nature a global technology; moreover, it operates based on a set of rules and principles that have a law-like quality—the lex cryptographia. The global nature of blockchain has led to its adoption by international organizations such as the United Nations and the World Bank. However, the law-like nature of the technology makes some of its uses by international organizations questionable from an international law and foreign affairs perspective. In this light, the article examines the effectiveness and legitimacy of the use of blockchain for international policymaking.
Blockchain technology was once exclusively associated with cryptocurrencies, but now it has become a powerful force that can reshape industries outside of finance. The concept of decentralized networks is transforming how we manage identity, value, ownership, and even governance. As seen previously, blockchain applications extend into sectors like healthcare, supply chains, social media, finance, and even national infrastructure projects.
Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) are unique tokens stored on a digital ledger – the blockchain. They are meant to represent unique, non-interchangeable digital assets, as there is only one token with that exact data. Moreover, the information attached to the token cannot be altered as on a regular database. While copies of these digital items are available to all, NFTs are tracked on blockchains to provide the owner with proof of ownership. This possibility of buying and owning digital assets can be attractive to many individuals. NFTs are presently at the stage of early adoption and their uses are expanding. In the future, they could become a fundamental and integral component of tomorrow’s web. NFTs bear the potential to become the engine of speech: as tokenized expressions cannot be altered or deleted, they enable complete freedom of expression, which is not subject to censorship. However, tokenized speech can also bear significant costs and risks, which can threaten individual dignity and the public interest. Anyone can tokenize a defamatory tweet, a shaming tweet, or a tweet that includes personal identifying information and these tokenized expressions can never be deleted or removed from the blockchain, risking permanent damage to the reputations of those involved. Even worse, anyone can tokenize extremist political views, such as alt-right incitement, which could ultimately result in violence against minorities, and infringe on the public interest. To date, literature has focused on harmful speech that appears on dominant digital platforms, but has yet to explore and address the benefits, challenges and risks of tokenized speech. Such speech cannot be deleted from the web in the same way traditional internet intermediaries currently remove content. Thus, the potential influence of NFTs on freedom of expression remains unclear. This Article strives to fill the gap and contribute to literature in several ways. It introduces the idea of owning digital assets by using NFT technology, surveys the main uses of tokenizing digital assets and the benefits of such practices. It aims to raise awareness of the potential of tokenized speech to circumvent censorship and to act as the engine of freedom of expression. Yet it also addresses the challenges and risks posed by tokenized speech. Finally, it proposes various solutions and remedies for the abuse of NFT technology, which may have the potential to perpetuate harmful speech. As we are well aware of the challenges inherent in our proposals for mitigation, this Article also addresses First Amendment objections to the proposed solution.
ABSTRACT The period from the mid-1990s to the mid-2000s saw the transformation of information and communication infrastructure. In the same period, TPRC evolved from a narrower focus on conventional telecommunications and information policy to “The Research Conference on Communications, Information, and Internet Policy.” Through the lens of my own interdisciplinary work on Internet policy and intersecting TPRC activity, this retrospective describes an arc of change that began at the 1994 TPRC and continued for about a decade. It combines description, commentary, and reflections on what this history might bode for TPRC as metaverses and Web3 progress from today’s hype to tomorrow’s Internet.
This dissertation aims to discuss the effects by regulation on the cryptoassets ecosystem. Given the underlying technologies, as is the case of Blockchain and Distributed Ledger Technology, it is our conclusion that the technology is under constant evolution, making regulatory intervention difficult as it will naturally will not follow at the same space. However, it is our understanding that the regulation to be carried out, would have to entail a switch in the way the legal system is shaped considering that online reality will overlap as well as find itself in contradiction with the physical world. Notwithstanding, there are several legislative initiatives that have been chained together, in special the advances made by the European Commission which are expected to enter into force in 2024. Under the qualification of cryptoassets made by the European Unition, it is our opinion, that are in contradiction with the nature of it. Finally, we conclude that the Portuguese legal system is equipped with the legal tools to regulate this reality. We conclude that regulation may be the end of the cryptoassets consolidation considering that it is based in beliefs in anarchy that sustain the entire market, without any central power involved.
This research in Ethical Control of Unmanned Systems applies precepts of Network Optional Warfare (NOW) to develop a three-step Mission Execution Ontology (MEO) methodology for validating, simulating, and implementing mission orders for unmanned systems. First, mission orders are represented in ontologies that are understandable by humans and readable by machines. Next, the MEO is validated and tested for logical coherence using Semantic Web standards. The validated MEO is refined for implementation in simulation and visualization. This process is iterated until the MEO is ready for implementation. This methodology is applied to four Naval scenarios in order of increasing challenges that the operational environment and the adversary impose on the Human-Machine Team. The extent of challenge to Ethical Control in the scenarios is used to refine the MEO for the unmanned system. The research also considers Data-Centric Security and blockchain distributed ledger as enabling technologies for Ethical Control. Data-Centric Security is a combination of structured messaging, efficient compression, digital signature, and document encryption, in correct order, for round-trip messaging. Blockchain distributed ledger has potential to further add integrity measures for aggregated message sets, confirming receipt/response/sequencing without undetected message loss. When implemented, these technologies together form the end-to-end data security that ensures mutual trust and command authority in real-world operational environments—despite the potential presence of interfering network conditions, intermittent gaps, or potential opponent intercept. A coherent Ethical Control approach to command and control of unmanned systems is thus feasible. Therefore, this research concludes that maintaining human control of unmanned systems at long ranges of time-duration and distance, in denied, degraded, and deceptive environments, is possible through well-defined mission orders and data security technologies. Finally, as the human role remains essential in Ethical Control of unmanned systems, this research recommends the development of an unmanned system qualification process for Naval operations, as well as additional research prioritized based on urgency and impact.
There is a distinct lack of democratic governance in our contemporary era.In this paper I develop a mechanism to overcome this democratic deficit.'The Cryptostate' is an amalgamation of primordial democratic theory and recent technological advancements.By combining democratic principles with distributed ledger technology, we can create a decentralized, transparent, governance framework in which various groups-societies, ethnicities, or nations-can communicate, coordinate, and enfranchise all affected members.Never before in human history has it been technologically feasible to create such an entity.In this article, I demonstrate that not only can such a state exist, but that in the face of our ongoing technological and global upheaval, it must.
Blockchain technology becomes relevant in economic exchange as it lowers costs and contributes to cost-efficiency and effectiveness of economic transactions. The key quality of Blockchain lies in ensuring the authenticity of digital data: trust in the traditional legal relationship has been replaced by digital verification of data in blocks. As an important phenomenon, Blockchain calls for legal answers on the issues arising from its application. An example of this development is the legal regime of smart contracts. A smart contract is a transaction in which any rights and obligations of the contracting parties are programmed in a code. Being the result of Blockchain technology application, such a contract implies the need for trust between the contracting parties. As a legal phenomenon, Blockchain (smart contract) technology raises the issue of liability for performing contractual obligations. Smart contracts can minimize certain contract risks and additionally simplify contract execution. They are immediately put into effect, without the need for any further interaction between the parties. The essential components of smart contracts are the digitally verifiable data and the automatic performance of legally relevant actions based on digitally received and processed information. All of the enlisted issues are important for proper understanding of liability of Blockchain actors.
Tadas Limba, Andrius Stankevičius, Antanas Andrulevičius
Cryptocurrency market is developing fast during the past few years. Cryptocurrency now is available as a form of payment for retail goods, as an instrument for a wholesale international transaction a mean of exchange for whatever goods and is available through ATM's. Moreover, it is developing as a possibility for fundraising a) as a private debt b) as seed capital. Companies like Facebook are discussing launching own cryptocurrency. Bank UBS is developing its blockchain based virtual currency as well. However, scientist agrees that cryptocurrency has an important impact to national security. It became a relevant instrument for illegal good transactions, a mean of exchange in the darknet and an instrument for money laundering or infrastructure for new kind of money-laundering practices (for example-"Smurfing" phenomena (EU Observer, 2019)) European Union is launching AML and KYC procedures for the cryptocurrency market. Would it be efficient? Why are we implementing KYC and AML procedures for cryptocurrency? Is it able to minimize risks?
While ‘classical’ human identity has kept philosophers busy since millennia, ‘Digital Identity’ seems primarily machine related. Telephone numbers, E-Mail inboxes, or Internet Protocol (IP)-addresses are irrelevant to define us as human beings at first glance. However, with the omnipresence of digital space the digital aspects of identity gain importance. In this submission, we aim to put recent developments in context and provide a categorization to frame the landscape as developments proceed rapidly. First, we present selected philosophical perspectives on identity. Secondly, we explore how the legal landscape is approaching identity from a traditional dogmatic perspective both in national and international law. After blending the insights from those sections together in a third step, we will go on to describe and discuss current developments that are driven by the emergence of new tools such as ‘Distributed Ledger Technology’ and ‘Zero Knowledge Proof’. One of our main findings is that the management of digital identity is transforming from a purpose driven necessity towards a self-standing activity that becomes a resource for many digital applications. In other words, whereas traditionally identity is addressed in a predominantly sectoral fashion whenever necessary, new technologies transform digital identity management into a basic infrastructural service, sometimes even a commodity. This coincides with a trend to take the ‘control’ over identity away from governmental institutions and corporate actors to ‘self-sovereign individuals’, who have now the opportunity to manage their digital self autonomously. To make our conceptual statements more relevant, we present several already existing use cases in the public and private sector. Subsequently, we discuss potential risks that should be mitigated in order to create a desirable relationship between the individual, public institutions, and the private sector in a world where self-sovereign identity management has become the norm. We will illustrate these issues along the discussion around privacy, as well as the development of backup mechanisms for digital identities. Despite the undeniable potential for the management of identity, we suggest that particularly at this point in time there is a clear need to make detailed (non-technological) governance decisions impacting the general design and implementation of self-sovereign identity systems.
Nowadays the cryptocurrency industry is constantly growing and developing. Each year it attracts a big number of investors and businessmen from all over the world. Since the creation of Bitcoin in 2009, more than a thousand new cryptocurrencies with different features were created. Most countries are already working on an effective regulatory mechanism for the cryptocurrency industry. However, the question is whether the regulation will not contradict the essential features of digital currency, such as decentralization, independence and anonymity. This MA thesis analyzes the issue of cryptocurrency regulation as an important stage in their development and evolution. I compare the regulatory frameworks, developed by Canada, the USA, Great Britain and China, which are considered to be the world leaders in the cryptocurrency industry and the ICO sector. In this MA thesis I also try to explain how cryptocurrencies are perceived both by the cryptocurrency community and the regulators in order to give an answer to the question "What is a cryptocurrency?". Finally, this thesis also discusses the issue of cryptocurrency lobbying as an important part of the communication between the state and the third sector.
In this paper, we consider the activities of hacker's social movement through the history of hacker culture and philosophy in modern times. Some social movements of contemporary hackers are called hactivism, but if hactivism aims for social reform, people’s support needs to be acquired it. Therefore, this paper considers the principle of winning the trust of citizens from the viewpoint of “justness and legitimacy” according to the theory of Giddens and Max Weber. Futhermore, through consideration of Wikileaks and bitcoin, we point out that there are many problems in hactivism.
Distributed ledger technology, a method of storing and maintaining the integrity of multiple copies of critical data using a massively redundant network of participating machines, has found a “killer application” in blockchain, a type of distributed ledger. A blockchain consists of sequential blocks that may never be modified or reordered, leaving a public, auditable record that is consistent and highly resistant to tampering and deletion. These qualities make blockchain eminently suitable for its most common use, cryptocurrency, and its occasional variants in the form of cryptocurrency tokens, used to represent ownership or some other right to virtual or physical goods and capabilities. Blockchain also enables smart contracts, discrete bodies of software written to serve both as the memorial and the means of execution of an agreement between parties. Smart contracts can have all the elements of a traditional contract, and as jurisdictions legislate or jurists rule on the fine points of enforceability and the acceptability of smart contracts as traditional contracts, applications in nearly every area of commerce have emerged. Digital lawyers may not need to become software developers, but deepening their understanding of the capabilities and limitations of the technology, developing a keen awareness of the issues at the intersection between code and the law, as well as the law’s readiness in this area, will be of great advantage to them and their clients in this rapidly evolving area at the intersection of technology, commerce and law.
"The article analyzes the potential uses of cryptocurrency as collateral in Article 9 secured transactions. At present, there is no clear guidance as to what status, if any, cryptocurrency has as collateral under Article 9. This paper briefly defines cryptocurrency, explains how it functions in its various forms, and shows why it would behoove lenders to utilize cryptocurrency as collateral. The current regulatory efforts over cryptocurrency are discussed to provide some context, through which the proposed actions and revisions of Article 9 are viewed. Finally, this paper recommends how cryptocurrency can be used as collateral under Article 9 under the current system, suggests possible revisions or explanatory notes which can be added to Article 9 to provide clearer guidance for policymakers and lenders alike."
Tema ovog rada su kriptovalute. Budući da većina ljudi nije pravodobno upoznata s ovom temom, ovaj rad prikazuje i opisuje kriptovalute te način na koji se upotrjebljuju u svakodnevnom životu. Kriptovalute (eng. cryptocurrency) digitalne su valute dizajnirane kao sredstvo razmjene. Poznate su po tome što su državne agencije i banke isključene iz procesa razmjene. Kriptovalute omogućuju jednostavnu, jeftinu i brzu transakciju na području cijeloga svijeta. Trenutno najisplativije kriptovalute su Bitcoin i Ethereum, a u radu je opisana njihova korisnost, prednosti i mane. Budući da se Bitcoinu predviđa uspješna budućnost i sve je prisutniji i prihvatljiviji na tržištu, u radu su navedeni primjeri iz Hrvatske koji to potvrđuju. Sve veći broj poduzetnika odlučuje se za uvođenje kriptovaluta. U primjerima je obuhvaćen širok spektar djelatnosti, od frizerskih usluga, preko raznih tvrtki koji se bave prodajom računalne opreme, ugostiteljskih usluga preko mogućnosti brzog i lakog podizana gotovine na kripto bankomatima pa sve do plaćanja komunalnih usluga, pa čak i humanitarno djelovanje. Mnogi smatraju da su kriptovalute samo sinonim za prijevare i pranje novca, no programeri tvrde da su kriptovalute samo jedna vrsta tehnologije, alat koji sam po sebi ne može biti ni dobar ni loš, ovisno o tome za što se koristi. Autor ovoga rada proveo je istraživanje o tome kako se može besplatno započeti trgovanje kriptovalutama te je anketom ispitao stavove ispitanika o implementaciji kriptovaluta u društvu.
Kriptovalute su digitalni novac utemeljen na kriptografiji i decentraliziranom sustavu. Postoje samo u elektroničkom obliku kao jedinstveni digitalni novčići ("tokeni"). Iza njih ne stoji autoritet države niti ih je moguće svojevoljno proizvesti. Rad se fokusira na značajkama, postavkama, razvoju i svim međuodnosima važnih ekonomskih faktora koji utječu na kriptovalute. U prvom poglavlju navedena su obilježja kriptovaluta. Drugo poglavlje daje primjere i govori o primjeni kriptovaluta u svakodnevnom životu. U trećem poglavlju je raspravljano o trenutnim i budućim regulacijama najmoćnijih zemalja svijeta (G20) , kao i njihovoj zajedničkoj suradnji u želji za jedinstvenim i standardiziranim pravilima, a sve u svrhu što kvalitetnijeg nadzora nad kriptovalutama kako bi se spriječile malverzacije i zaštitili potrošači. Četvrto poglavlje govori o inicijalnoj ponudi kovanica, a peto poglavlje je namijenjeno sigurnosti kriptovaluta. Cilj istraživanja je utvrditi koliko je studentska populacija upoznata i usmjerena prema novim oblicima digitalnog novca, koje značajke kriptovaluta smatraju pozitivnima, a koje negativnima i u kojoj su mjeri investirali ili su spremni investirati dio svojih ulaganja u kriptovalute i sl. Metode istraživanja korištene u radu su kompilacija na temelju proučavanja postojeće literature o temi rada, prikupljanje i analiza podataka vezanih uz kriptovalute, ponajprije podataka vezanih uz cijene i tržišnu kapitalizaciju, anketiranje studenata Ekonomskog fakulteta u Rijeci i metoda dedukcije putem koje su pokazane sve važne karakteristike i obilježja kriptovaluta. Na temelju provedene ankete u kojoj je sudjelovalo 90 studenata Ekonomskog fakulteta u Rijeci zaključak toga dijela istraživanja je da je mlada populacija dobro upoznata s kriptovalutama i njenim glavnim značajkama, ali i određenim nedostatkom informiranosti o tehnologiji (trećina studenata nije čula za pojam "blockchain") i nedovoljnoj odlučnosti oko investiranja i trgovanja u kriptovalute. Povrh toga, dokazan je i negativan utjecaj hakerskih napada i određenih kriminalnih radnji, kao i nestabilnost tržišne cijene na povjerenje studenata, ali i ukupne populacije vezane uz globalni financijski sustav u kriptovalute. Ishod istraživanja omogućio je da zaključimo kako su kriptovalute trenutno u ranoj fazi razvoja i nisu se dovoljno implementirale za široku primjenu u trgovini roba i usluga ili općenito kao sredstvo razmjene. Faktor koji je uključen u istraživanje kako bi opisao veličinu, odnosno obujam neke kriptovalute je tržišna kapitalizacija u dolarima. Temeljna ideja ovog rada je informirati čitatelja o pozitivnim i negativnim značajkama koje se se vežu uz kriptovalute. Na taj način čitatelji će biti bolje informirani i educirani o potencijalnom riziku ulaganja u kriptovalute, kao i većoj razini zaštite prilikom posjedovanja neke digitalne valute.
Omar Khadeer Hussain, Elizabeth Chang, Farookh Hussain, Tharam S. Dillon · 5 authors
Risk is associated with almost every activity that is done in daily life. Analyzing the Risk involved in a transaction is important to decide whether to proceed with the transaction or not. Till now, Risk has been discussed extensively in the area of Investment, Finance, Health, Environment, daily life activities and Engineering. All these areas have different interpretations of Risk, which is not suitable to apply to a transaction in the area of Computer Science. In this paper we focus on defining Risk in a decentralized transaction in e-commerce.

 
 
 Truth be told, the “Y2K bug” was quite a disappointment. While the technopundits wooed us with visions of network failures worthy of millennial fervor, Jan. 1, 2000, came and went without even a glimmer of the catastrophic. Yet the Y2K “bug” did reveal the degree to which the American apocalypse now took the form of the network itself. The spaces of everyday life in America and elsewhere in a developed world produce and are produced by network structures that Manuel Castells has called “spaces of flow.” As such, Catastrophe today is marked more by dispersion and dissipation, rather than breakdown — a dis-strophe of social forms, structures, and experience. The dissipation of enactive networks does not, however, equate with a system failure. With the Internet “bubble burst” of March, 2000, the very exuberance of market flows were very much the conditions of possibility for both the irruption of a new economy and its sudden evaporation. It is not the ephemerality of these social forms and structures that disorients activities of everyday life in a network society, but rather our lack of control over distributed processes. The bubble burst, then, by no means sounded a death knell for distributed network functions. Rather, it marked a moment of increased misrecognition of the forms, structures, and practices that were the conditions of possibility for the event itself, as an ideology of authentication eclipsed a rhetoric of emergence and flow. Billions in capital disappeared in a matter of weeks, but the network forms and structures that allowed individual users “direct access” to the flows of capital remained in place for a normative virtual class, articulated as personalized and privatized spaces of control. As the bubble burst signaled an instance of digital dis-strophe, the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center marked a similar dissipative moment, articulated in the material terror of over 1,300 feet of skyscraper steel and human bodies turned to wreckage and dust. Much as the market crash of 2000 represented a collapse from within of the same network processes that enabled the market’s phenomenal growth, for all the “foreignness” of the terrorists, al Qaeda as an organization appeared decidedly at home in the globalized network society that it threatened to destroy. In an instance of Baudrillardian “ironic revenge,” terrorism appropriated all the trappings of a global space of flows in the name of subverting that same social structure (Baudrillard, “Spirit” 17-19). Only within the conditions of possibility of networked social space could such attacks occur. As such, terrorist cells functioned (the media informed us) as nodes in a distributed network, a human articulation of a space of flows capable of enacting horrifying acts beyond control. While in the years leading up to the market collapse of March, 2000, a growing number of an emerging virtual middle class (from cyberhippy to day-trader manqué) began to understand distributed networks as material expressions of a social revolution, the image of a distributed network changed after 9/11, becoming a global spatiality of fear and danger. As independent scholar Sam Smith notes on his weblog: I expect the organizing principle of the coming age – the era that began on September 12… – will be the distributed network, and we already have some early indications of what this period might look like. The decentralized potency of the Internet is a perfect metaphor in so many ways, and al Qaeda itself provides an apt demonstration of the character and power of the distributed network…. As our ill-prepared military has discovered, it’s hard to kill something you can’t find. Thank goodness for the Taliban, eh? Although figured as an anti-modern fundamentalism, the terrorist networks associated with September 11 served as an image of contemporary network structures themselves. The enemy, it seemed, was not some reclusive figurehead, but rather, the spatiality of the network itself, enacted by distributed, autonomous agents. Carl Conetta, writing on the nature of al Qaeda as a distributed network, notes in particular its ability to “[link] subnational elements together in a transnational web,” to thrive in nation-states that have collapsed or are about to collapse; in short, al Qaeda “lives in the interstices” of modern global space (Conetta). As globalization’s ironic revenge, distributed terror maps the interstitial flows that exploit the inability of centralized authority to coordinate emergent, enactive forms of network agency. In response, the US Congress passed the Patriot Act as an attempt to introduce modes of control into distributed networks and place them at the fingertips of state-based agencies. In an era of global flows, the Patriot Act reestablished the homeland as both a concept of social space and a delimited space of practice, articulated through global network structures. As part of President Bush’s “war on terror,” the Patriot Act declared war on the dispersive and dissipative nature of distributed networks by introducing what Deleuze and Guattari would call state-based apparatuses of capture. But as Deleuze notes, in a world of flows, “capture” occurs as a modulation, not an enclosure — a system of distributed control that is itself expressed in flows (4). The Patriot Act acknowledges networks themselves as modes of agency (noted in its frequent reference to an “intelligence service or network of a foreign power”), and as such institutes a legislative structure to “trap and trace” emergent network structures. In effect, the Patriot Act marks a modulation of networked social space that affirms the primacy of global flows in contemporary life at the same time that it initiates state-based systems of distributed control. Apparatuses of capture modulate flows by eliminating the interstitial and regulating transmission as a mode of order. The “homeland security” measures, then, are precisely this sort of effort to modulate the forms, structures, and practices of a space of flows. As the US military force mounted, one heard less and less talk of the distributed network form of terror, as an uncontrollable threat coalesced in the modulated image of a handful of figureheads: a “line up” in its most literal sense connecting bin Laden, Zakawi, and Hussein. The infamous Most Wanted card deck shifted our imagination from the shuffling networks of global terror to a linear ranking of Ba’ath Party players — a chain of command in a “rogue nation,” from ace of spades to the two of clubs. The topology of fear had changed. Within months, the U.S. government’s rhetoric had swayed our attention from terrorist networks to an “Axis of Evil.” Gone were the references to the complex webbings of distributed systems, and in its place, the reassuringly linear, gravitational orientations of good and evil. The “axis” not only revived the relatively clear lines of geopolitics of the Second World War; it also attempted to reestablish a representation of space predicated upon unidirectional movements and centralized control. Meanwhile, back in the homeland, DARPA’s Total Information Awareness (TIA) Program (renamed the Terrorist Information Awareness Program for better PR) promised a means of capturing flows of information through distributed control over the network. Whereas terrorist organizations exploit the interstitial spaces of a global network society, TIA as a state-based apparatus of capture promised to utilize these same networks to modulate a space of flows and extract orderly patterns of information. The agent of the state doesn’t necessarily control the flow of these networks, but rather, extracts mappings of emergent connections enacted by the network itself. Patterns of informatic exchange and transmission, then, provide distributed control over a network environment that can only be defined by flows and virtualities. In contrast to the data mining we are all used to in a commercial setting, where patterns of aggregate data give rise to “meaningful” market analysis, distributed control systems would instead focus on “rare but significant connections” mapped by the relational structures of a situated subject (DARPA A-14). Lines of contact emerge as pattern recognition allows authorized agents to “connect the dots” (a favored expression throughout DARPA’s report to Congress) within an undifferentiated network of data-flow. Distributed control creates a means for modulating what would otherwise appear as abject noise or aberrant links; the very fact that terrorist networks are represented as abject, interstitial social formations (and vice versa) becomes the condition of possibility for their recognition and capture. In a world in which networks of flows shape both state structures of power and the attempts to destroy those same structures, the lines have been drawn — and modulated. Through systems of distributed control, enactive networks now increasingly speak to a social space in which agency itself maps an emergent network. Less than two years after the Patriot Act was signed into law, DARPA lost Congressional funding for TIA. Again, it was the potential for success that induced our visions of digital catastrophe — that such a large body of data subjected to distributed control presented the potential for the network’s ironic revenge. Yet in many ways the modes of distributed control enacted by networks of pattern recognition are already matters of everyday life, misrecognized as “conveniences” in a network society. While spam filters and software agents hardly equate with the sophistication of TIA programs, the goal of each is the same — to modulate flows and cast off or capture the interstitial within programs of order. While information may want to be free, the forms, structures, and practices of everyday life reveal the degree to which a normative virtual class exerts a will to control, and an ir