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.