20442777

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The chip, the

sovereign,

and his

crown.

International Business Machines

Corporation

(IBM).

4381

CPU

Multi

Chip Module. Model: IBM

22

A02

293.

Computer History

Museum, Inv.Nr.

102645256.

90

This content downloaded from 141.2.140.67 on Sun, 15 Feb 2015 02:45:20 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp



8/9/2019 20442777


Coomnuter

Juuridisms

CORN

ELIA

VISMANN

AND

MARKUS KRAJEWSKI

1.

ymbolicMachines

Law

relies

on

transfer

edia

and

yet is

itself

transferystem;

t

transfers

rights.1

ike other transferystems, ot the east ofwhich is language, aw

tends

o

nderestimate

edia of

transfer

smere

tools,

ith the

eceptive

ut

come thatmedia

appear

as matters

that

can

be

regulated. Yet a law that claims

tobe

able

to

regulate technological

edium merely produces a paradox,

because

it ims to

regulate othing

ther

han ts wn

grounds f

existence.

Until

the

emergence

and popularization of the

computer and itsnet

works, the aw dealtwith this aradox rather uccessfully. he underlying

rivalry etween law andmedia, when itcame toprocesses of transfer,as

managed by

a

series of assimilations

and mutual

affirmations that took

place

between

two

discursive

regimes,

hat

f

a

law,on theone hand, and

that

of

a

media,

such

as

broadcasting,

on the

other.

Once

the computer

entered

the scene,

however,

the tactical lliance between

law and

media

could no

longer

e maintained.

The

law's traditional

egemony

over dis

course found tself

undamentallyuestionedby

the

medium

that-accord

ing

toAlan

Turing's

famousdictum-can become all othermedia. From

then

on,

the

computer

as universal machine

imposed

its

logic

on the law.

At the

same time,

however,

themedium that

s

the

computer

behaves

in

a lawlike

manner.When

granting

sers access

rights

o its

resources,

the

computer dopted something ike law of access and restriction.

The mutual mimesis between

law

and the

omputer

ndicates thatthe

fundamental

paradox posed by

a

media

law

can

no

longer

be

either

avoided

or denied.

In

actuality,

law and

computer prove

similar

in

structure.

The

fact

that

oth

legal

routines

nd

digital

media

exert

discourse

regimes

that

is,

both

use

control

mechanisms of inclusion and

exclusion,

access

and

nonaccess-qualifies

the

law and

the

computer

alike

as

symbolic

machines.

They

both

operate

in

themedium of a

text

that

generates texts,

and

do so

equally

in a

binary

mode,

themode

of

decision-making.

This

is

why

systems

theory

an so

successfully

describe

legal operations

in

the

cybernetic anguagedeveloped

for

escribing

he

omputer.

While media law aims to regulatethecomputer,the aforementioned

structural

imilarity

etween the

omputer

nd the

aw

necessarily

eads

to

redundancies

that annotbut render

he atter neffective.he law's

medial

Or

R0oo

29

W|nt 2.O

8. p.

9

>109

'C

007 ry

Room nc.

and Msachusett nstitute

of

Tecnology

91





8/9/2019 20442777


Digital Equipment Corporation

(DEC). Alpha chip.

Model:

DEC 290A, Dec. 1991.

Computer History Museum,

Inv.Nr.

102646999.

reinforcementurns t nto

tautological epetition. o wonder, then, hat

the aw

laments ts anishingpower incyberspace. nsteadof analyzingthe

causes of its mpotence, owever, the aw rather aively continues toper

ceive the

nternet

s

amatter of law,which poses certainproblems to the

legal order.

he law

is thusblind to its wn dependency on the omputer

asmedium aswell as to its tructural omologieswith it.

Our

analysis begins with

the

isomorphism

etween

legal and

digital

machines.

Here,

the

omputer pens up

a

competition

ith

that ther

reat

symbolicmachine, the

aw.The

competition evolves roundnothing ther

than the

power

todefine

reality. raditionally,

he law has

dominated

the

reality

f

word and

image

to a

degreeunequaled by

any otherperformative

system. ow,

however,

ith the dventof

the omputer

egal

fictions ust

compete

with digitalvirtuality.

he

virtual is a

mode

of

reality hat vades

the

pace-time ategories

f the

aw;

it

rose once

the

history

f

computing

passed through

he

technologicalphases

ofASCII art and command-line

interfaces

nd achieved graphical

user

interfaces GUI).

From thatmoment

on, reality as computedby transistorells and siliconchips.

That which

appears

on

a monitor

as a so-called user interface

results

from

mathematical relations and calculations and is thus not the

represen

tation f something

that

reexists

in thecoordinates of actual

space and

time

(as

would be the case in

a

photograph).

Such

a

computed reality

ulti

mately proves

unbearable for

a

legal system

that

operates according

to the

logic

of

symbolic representation.

he

legal system

s

thus

fundamentally

imperiled y

virtual

reality;

t follows

spatiotemporal ogic

threatened

y

incorporeal rocedures,physical infinitude,

nd the

nonymity

f

commu

nicative actswithin the

digital

realm.

imply

put,

virtuality hallenges

the

law's

core

concepts:

corporeality, initude,

nd

authentication,2

oncepts

that are fundamental to any claim of territorial sovereignty as well as to

imputations

nd

rules

of evidence.

The

law,

of

course,

does not

simply

give

in

to such

a

challenge.

Rather,

one

can

locate

three

strategies by

which the law

attempts

to

maintain the

spatiotemporal

onditions

of

legal

effectiveness

ithin

cyberspace:fiction,

simulation,

and

technology.

In

the

first

instance,

the

law,

that classic

mas

ter of

fiction, simply

fakes the

reality

of

the

physical

world.

This

happens

when,

for

example,

certain contracts

that

require

a

scriptural

form and

sig

nature

are

simply

declared

by legal

order

to

be

equal

to

their

physical

coun

terparts

when

they

are

closed

on an

electronic basis. The second

strategy,

that

of

simulation,

is

applied

to

questions

that

concern

the

legal

protection

of property. Such protections, however, are primarily based on physical

rules of

scarcity and singularity.

Copyright

rules belong

to

the

set

of

norm

simulations that ompensate for he ondition of scarcity, hich is absent

92 Grey Room 29





8/9/2019 20442777


ft]

i*in

yberspace.

Where neither the

S | ^

J

fiction f

legal

rulesnor the simu

L4a;_ 1IE ilation

ofphysical

ones

help fortify

the

legal ground

in

cyberspace,

the

law has recourse to the third

trategy, hat fmedia technologies.

n civil

law,electronic authenticationprocedures are designed to overcome the

technological fact that Internet ommunications are communications

betweenmachines

(and

their P-addresses s

postal interfaces)

nd not

per

sons.

Cryptography

oftware s

installed

to

bind natural persons

to their

computers

n the ame

way

that uman

beings

arebound to their wn hand

writing.Here,

once

again,

the aw

appears

tomastermedia

technologies.

Although the attle todefine reality nd hence tomaintain sovereignty

in cyberspacemay seem to be won by governmental legal systems, as

opposed

to

the ybersystem, he ontest

is in fact utile rom

he tart.

he

quasi-sovereign power

of the

computer engineer's

code stems from he

ease

bywhich

posing,

implementing, nd applying

a

norm

are

achieved

in technology ompared with the cumbersome procedures that legal

code must

pass

through.

he swift ffectiveness f a

technologicalcode,

which cannot,

when

seen

through egal eyes, appear

as

anything

other

than

uncanny,

renders

ny possible

competition

between law

and com

puter

pointless.

Yet the ffectiveness

f

the omputer ode

is no

miracle.

The

computer

itself as undergone processofwhat one could call

juridification -a ecu

liar daptation f

the omputer o the

egal framework.

efore

the aw could

even

think

f

superimposing

ts tructuren the

omputer,

he

omputer,

hat

hedgehog, as already there,

ortified

ithin an

impregnable

urrow. abbit

law,

venwhen

promulgating

he

first

f

the

omputer's

egal regulations,

arrived too late; thecomputer lreadyfunctionedccordingto a juridical

logic.By incorporating hebasic elementsof the

legal system

nto itsown

administrative

tructure

he omputer ad become

as sovereign s

the aw.

2.

The Silence

of

the Legislators

One

of therather

ong

ist f

astonishing

facts bout the

history

f

comput

ing

is that

during

the first hreedecades of its existence themedium

escaped any regulation

hatsoever. Inher

study

f the

regulation

f

cyber

space,

Vanessa

Geczy-Sparwasser

dates the first

egislative

ction

in

the

United

Stateswith

regard

o the nternet o the

year

1989.3At the

time,

eg

islatorswere alarmed

by

an attack

upon

a

government omputer

network

which gave them a hint of how vulnerable the state's information infra

structure as. Additional

legislative

fforts,

esides those

meant to

prevent

furthernfo-infrastructural

abotage,were onlymade once the conomic

Vismann and Krajewski

I

Computer Juridisms 93





8/9/2019 20442777


use of the nternet ould no

longer

e avoided.The

U.S.

had

initially

roven

reluctant

o

allow thepopular

use

and popularization of

its

omputer

net

works.

Itgave

up

on

this

policy

of

prevention

nly

in

1995-1996

once

the

Internet ad

expanded

from

solely

nationwide

connectionbetween acad

emic and

military

sites

into

theWorldWide

Web.

Eventually,

n

2001,

the

Communications Decency Act came tobe enforced, aimed above all at the

regulation f electronic ommerce.

The European

situation

proved basically the same:

no

legislative

ctiv

ity rose before t ecame amatterofcommerce. n

1994,

without

explicitly

citing he

nternet, report

or he

uropean

Union

(EU)

Commission

( The

Bangemann

Report )

demanded the iberalization f

telecommunications

and an

adjustment

of

the

legal

standards of

copyright

and data

protection.

Two

years later,

out of the diffuse

phenomena

of new

media arose the cru

cial

technologythat

was

finally iven

its

proper

name within

the

legal

world: the

Internet.4

The

focus

adopted

by

the

EU,

as in the

U.S.,

was also

guidedmainly

by

commercial

nterests.

InGermany, egislative versight f the nternet roceeded slightly if

ferently.

Lawmakers had

already

arrived

on

the

scene

when the

new

or

multi-

media were on the

verge

of

becoming

mass

media. The

German

legislature rew

analogies between newmedia and

broadcasting, hich is

afforded

pecial

governmentalprotection

according

toArticle

5 of the

GermanBasic Law

(Freedom

f

Communication).

The aim of

the

udicature

ofArticle 5

is to

regulate

he

roadcast

content,

o

prevent

monopolization,

and to

guarantee

the

technical transmission f

data. The Internet

id not

become

subject

to

explicit

German

legislation

ntil

2001,

and

just

s

in

the

U.S. and the

EU,

the

net of nets

turned

into a

legal

matter

only

once

itwas

perceived

as

the

means of electronic

ommerce.

Such a remarkableeriodoflegislative bstinence-fromthe nset of the

era of

computer

ommunication

to the turn f

the

entury-corroborates

those

egendary

ales

bout

the n-

or

self-regulatory

orces

ithin

the

dig

ital

realm,

tories

that voke

contradictory

ffects

epending

on one's

atti

tude toward

rules,

order,

and law in

general.

Whereas those whose

profession is

to

put things

in

order,

not the least of

whom are

lawyers,

pan

ickedwhen

they

earned bout the

powerlessness

of

state-enforcedaw in

cyberspace,

thers

tookthe nternet's

lleged

unrule-ability

s a

triumph,

a

counterproof

o the

thesis that world

without law is

unimaginable.

Yet,

thedistinction

etween a

threatening

acuum of

legalnorms

(rechtsfreier

Raum)

and

a

welcome

space

of

self-regulation

is

not as clear

as

it

might

at

first

seem. The absence of

any

manifest law does

not

amount to

absolutely

no legality

whatsoever;

it

can mean,

rather,

that a

legal structure has

already

somehowbeen

internalized.

94

Grey Room 29





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In

the case of the computer,

the

latter ase proves to be true,

for t

adopted a legal structure

early

on. As

long

as a computer can

be used by

multiple users ithas to institute hierarchy r create at least a

couple of

rulesbywhich

to rganize

nd controlthe xecutionofdifferent

rocesses.

Since the ge

of

mainframes, t least, very omputerhas had itsown

col

lection of rights ywhich to grantor deny access. These rights egulate

access to calculation)

time-the

power ofgovernance-as well as to

files

the ower

to

dispose

resources.

a.

Personifying

the

Computer

One can

speak

of the omputer's

juridical

tructure rom

he

moment

that

its

perational evelsbecome

as

inaccessible

s

the aw, moment

which has

the ffect f inciting permanent

esire for ccess,

as

shownby the nces

sant

interpretations f Kafka's short

story, Before the

Law

( Vor

dem

Gesetz ).

This lawlike closure

occurredwithin a

specific generation of

computers.

ndeed,

themutation from n

engineer's appliance

to a

legal

machine can be datedprecisely:to1971, theyearXeroxdeveloped the om

puter

as a

desktop.

Such

a

personified omputer,

s

J6rg

flulger's

ccount

of the three

major changes

in

computer

esign

has

shown, turned

n

elec

tronic

device

into an

entity

compatible

with a

law that

computes

and

imputes hings

o

persons.5

erox

designed

a

machine that

ould empower

each individual n front fhis orher

personal

computer, aking

him orher

into an individual

making

use of a

sophisticated tool,

as one of the inven

tors

put

it.The ideal was a direct

manipulation

of

visible

objects

at the inter

face etweenusers and

computers.

Personifying

he

computer

ed

to an incisive

division between

people

and

lawgivers, r,

in

computer terms,

etween users and

programmers.

Those using themachine were not tobe disturbed by themachine status of

the

operations

they performed. They

would

also have

no

need

to

bother

with

whether

their

ardware

system

as

capable

of

doing

more

(orother)

things

than a

typewriter

with

an

enormous

storage capacity.

Users

didn't

have

to

be programmers

nymore;

they

ere

spared any

translation ork

from

ormal

language

nto

ssemblercode. Standard

languages

overover

the

machine

language which

ultimately

onsists

of

Os

and

is) or,

slightly

better,

he

assembler

language,

which

exists

in a

less abstract

mnemo

code

(three

erms

er

line:

one

command

plus

two

registers).

Once the user is no

longer

confronted with the

entire machine and its

outlandish

code,

themachine

appears

to

speak

the user's

language;

the

personal computer seems merely to execute theuser's will. To get a program

running,

the user needs

only

to

call

it

up. Programs appear

on

the

com

puter'sGUI as icons; they

ave names taken from hehardwareworld of

Vismann nd

Krajews;ki

ComputerJuridsms 95





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desks.

They

dress themselves n the

metaphors

of

offices

o theusers feel

comfortably

tworkwhen

employing

heir ew

writing

devices.

Files can

be

opened and closed

conveniently y

mouse clicks.

The

advent

of

theuser,

under the

auspices

of a

personified

computer,

brings forth the end of the

era of the

engineer. What

was

an

insult

to all

engi

neers- userfriendliness -enabled nonengineers to use the computer

instead of

computing and

programming. rom then

on, the

computer

showed

only

its

nthropomorphic

ace;

that

s,

its

nterface.

hat

peculiar

type

of

subject that

is

the

user,

therefore,

is

born

as one

who

is

capable of

neither

any

insight eyond

the

surface

nor

any

programmer's

nowledge

whatsoever.Machine

operations

re hidden

or

opaque;

they

un

in

back of

thefine ut stillhumbleGUI. Interaction

s

welcome,

but

real action

by

the

user

is restricted-and

strictly

ontrolled. he

computer,

hen,

s a

system

that consists of

a technical base and

an

ideologized

superstructure,

switching

core on the

one

side

and a visible

surface on the

other.6

To the

extent hat he

perational asis becomes

highly

technical,

he

medium sets

conditions for ommunicationthat tsusers cannotevenperceive:

The

higher

ndmore

effortless he

programming

anguages,

hemore

insurmountable he

gap between those

anguages

nd a

hardware that

still

continues to do all of

the work....

While on the one

hand it

remains

possible

in

principle

towrite

user-software

r

cryptograms

with a

knowledge

of codes or

algorithms,

n the

other and

user

friendly

oncealed hand

it s

by

now

impossible to

decipher the

rod

uct

specificationsof the finished

product

or even

to

change these

specifications.7

b. The Chip, the Sovereign

The

splitbetween

users and

programmers hat

appened

in

thename of the

computer's

ersonification

as a

major step

into

the

egal logicof the

com

puter.

As defined

so

elegantly

nd

briefly

y the

russian

domestic

law of

1794,

persons

are those

who bear

rights;

hey

ear

rights ecause

the aw

grants

hem

o the earers.

Accordingly, ersonal computers,

s

the ombi

nationof

men and

machine,

are those

who bear

rights-not, owever,

ights

granted

y

a

state-enforcedawbut

rights ranted

y

another

entral

lloca

tion

ntity,

he

o-called central

rocessing

unit

(CPU).

When

installed n a

chip,

for

nstance,

he

80286

developed by

the ntel

Corporation,

the

CPU

operates

n a

hierarchic

ode.Within the

rocessor

or, ather,

ithin

its

reg

isters,tacks, nd abilities to ddressmemory) reswitches, mplementedo

allocate

rights.

he

chip

allows

access graded ccording

o

four

rotective

ings,

which are concentricallyayered.

hese

separate

ystems

rogrammers,

ith

96 GreyRoom

29





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access to the nner

ircle,from sers,whose privileges o not allow

them

o

go beyond thefirst rotective ing.

ommands are activated n the

utermost

level;

their

xecution takes

lace

within

the

rocessing nit itself.

The chip is sovereign: t

stablishes rohibitions, rotects

rivileges, nd

implements aws of

inalterability.

edia

theorist riedrich

Kittler

deci

phered

Intel's

chips

as a

governmental

ureaucracy

in

miniature. As he

writes inhis influential ssay, Protected ode, Although heremay no

longer

be

anywritten

prohibitory

igns that

guarantee a power gap, the

binary

system

tself ncodes the

distinction etween commands

and data,

what the system

ermits nd

what,

conversely,

s prohibited touser pro

grams. 8

uch

a

legalcharacteristic

esultsfrom he

trict

ivision

between

command nd data.After

ll,

since

the

days

of icilian

Emperor

rederic I,

no

administration

an allow

any confusion

etween the two rders f com

mand and

data.

The

Intel-legislator

cts

accordingly

nd

produces proces

sors that

take

measures

against

the

possibility

of

free

alteration

by

distinguishing

etween

data and

command;

t

revents hemutual

coupling

ofboth and allocates immutable ightsfaccess.By contrast, eforethe ge

of the

computer's

personification,

hat

s, during

the era of the

engineer,

modifications

on

an

operational

level

were

possible

at

any time for the sim

ple

reason

that ommands

and datawere not

differentiated.

Stored pro

gramming

meant

that data and commands were

treated

the same,

as

addresses at a

particularmemory

position

in the

machine.9When

addresses

of data and addresses of commands

are

kept

in

the

same

register,

as is the

case

in

so-called von Neumann

architecture,

they

may

be

altered

by

a

single

program.

They

can

even

modify

themselves

by

nonhierarchical

reentries

of commands

and data-with

unforeseeable and

sometimes

unwanted

consequences.

Although data and commands are still kept together, neatly and arbitrar

ily,

n

random

ccess

memory

(RAM), today's

user has

no

opportunity

o

intervene

ithin those

highly

restrictedreas

where addresses

are

managed

and accounted.

Some

higher

power

always

intervenes. ven

the

program

developer

who

uses

concurrent

tandard

anguages

ike

JAVA

as

no access

to RAM

in

order,

for

example,

to

intervene and

manipulate pointers.

Although

the

programmer

can

issue almost

any

kind of

command

to

make

themachine

act

as

he

or

she

desires,

control of

RAM is

no

longer

the

pro

grammer's

responsibility.

he

memory,

and thus the

sovereignty

ver

addresses andmodes of their

anipulation,

is

administered

nd controlled

by

the

authority

between

the source

code and the

binary

code of the

CPU,

the so-called JavaVirtual Machine (JVM). This may be understood as the

level of control exercised

over

the

programmers,

who

are

treated

as users

by the

rogrammers

f the

rogrammers.uch a delegation

f

work-in

fact

Vsnnard Krajewski

j

omputerJurid2ms

97





8/9/2019 20442777


International Business Machines

Corporation

(IBM).

IBM 64K

FET Memory chip, IBM 4331

Processor, 1964.

Computer

History

Museum, Inv.Nr. 102640496.

a restrictionf

power-produced by

the

JVM

s

officially

ermed error re

vention

n

order towarn everyday rogrammersway from ypical

ources

of

bugs (e.g., ointer rithmetic).

n

fact, his

measure of error

revention,

which theprogrammers' rogrammers ffer heir lientele,means-aside

from hehabitual claims of convenience

and error

revention-a

decisive

reduction n themachine's

potential.

c. The

Hierarchy

f

Operating ystems

In addition to the

plit

between data

and

command,

the

scarcity

f time s

another reason for the

legal design

of the

computer's

interior.

he time

available

to

those

who

might

receive the attention of the

emperor

is not the

same

for

veryone;

similarly,

chamberlain

is

needed

to

regulate

time

allocations

within the

omputer.

rom themoment of the first

ttempts

o

createmulti-user

operating ystems

n

the

1960s,

the

need tohandle

many

different

sers,

eachwith a different

etof

privileges,

as

only

grown.

One

well-known

solution,

which

has served as themodel for ll its

uccessors,

began as an experiment calledMultics (Multiplexed Information nd

Computing

Service).

It

is

based

on two

main

principles: first,

he scarce

time

of

the CPU's calculation

power

could be shared

among

multiple

users

with different emands

by deploying

one user's idle time to serve

other

active

users; second,

the

computer

could be made

capable

of

running

processes by

several

different sers at once. Both

concepts require

strict

rules

in order to

regulate

time allocation

and decide whether

or not to

grant

admission todesired

processes

and

resources.

In

1970,

this

experimental system

was

baptized

Unix

(for

niplexed

Informationnd

ComputingService)

and

came

initially

ith

a

strictly

ier

archical file

ystem

hat

nabled communication etween the

machine

and

many users. Interactionwas primarilybymeans of textual commands

entered

by

the

user

into the terminal.

Those

commands

were

then

exam

ined

according

to a

number of

criteria: Who is

typing?

What does he

or

she

want?

What are his or

her

rights? and, finally,

What

will

he

or she conse

quently

be allowed

to

access?

This

examination

judged

the

user's

right

to

access

resources,

determining

whether

or not

he

or

she would be allocated

a slice of calculation time

or access to

specific files,

processes,

and

data. The

operation

of

assigning

user's

rights

as

granted by

the file

system

is

based on

anAccess

Control

List

(ACL).10

The

agent

who

passes

judgment

is

neither the chamberlain

nor

the

gate

keeper,

as

the

operating system's

legal modality might

lead

one to

conclude.

There is a gatekeeper, but it serves only as the first instance, the firststep into

a

longer

series

of

examinations. The one who rules the

list of

rules,

who tells

right rom ight, ho resides at the topof thehierarchy n order

togovern

98 Grey

Roomn

29





8/9/2019 20442777


the ommunication

hannels,

who incorporates he

right

to

give

access

or

deny privileges:

this

most

supe

rioruser is

simply

called the root. erivatives of

Unix

(e.g., eta)

and

other

perating ystems

rganized

in

similarly ierarchicalfile-system

tructures,

all this

uper-user,

lightly

readjusted o thehierarchical tructuren itsnoble rank, he baron.

Possessing all of the rights f inclusion and

exclusion,

this

paralegal

authority,

ith its

thinly

eiled

label,

possesses

theunlimited

power

to

(re-) rrange

nd define

new) groups of

special

userswho have

higher

or

lower)

privileges. his

super-user

ust

maintain a

whole

court

of

ministe

rial

posts,

services,

nd duties

in

order to

manage

the

system

nd

keep

it

running.

he super-user

ands

over

special duties

to these

subgroups

in

order

to

assume thewelfare of the ntire

systemwhile,

at the same

time,

limiting

he

privileges of those itclasses as

normal

users to

the

default

use of

system

esources.

he super-user as sole command

over

thiscom

plex

systemof

differing rivileges.

In

a

word,

thewhole

concept

of the

super-userccupies a solitary nd unique position: it erves s the ystem's

sovereign.

t

has completepower

of access at its

disposal,

because

any

lib

erationfrom he

trictures f access controlwould

endanger

the ntire

ys

tem.

The

sovereign

must therefore void

juridical approaches

that

demand

open

access, as,

for

instance,

in

the

case of laws that would

require omputer

ystems

ohave back door access for

egal

authorities,

new

types

f software rchitecture ased

on nonhierarchical

pproaches

to

organization,

r

requestsfor

root ccess

from

sers

whose lack

of

knowl

edge

means

they

ould do tremendous

amage (unintentional

r

not)

if

hey

were

granted

uch access.

The super-user's irst enet s thus to resist laims

for

nrestricted

ccess;

ithas internalized he tenth f the

ten esser tenets

ofMike Gancarz's Unix philosophy: Thinkhierarchically. '12

d.

The

Law

of Media under the Terms of the

Computer

The distinction

etween commands and

data indicates the uridical

logic

underwhich

Intel's

hips already

function. ulti-user file

ystems

follow

the

logic

of bureaucratization that

accompanies

the

logic

of law. The multi

user

file

ystem

perates

on the trict nd

hierarchically

tructured

istinc

tion

etween admission and denial of access.

It is

precisely

within

the

hips' legaldesign

and the file

ystems'

hierar

chization

of

access,

that heultimate

xplanation

for

he

remarkably ong

absence of

legislative

ction

with

regard

o the

omputer ies.

Chip design

follows juridical structures just as the file system that is part of the operat

ing system

omplies

with

the

regulations

f

a

legal design.

The

juridical

administrationaltructuresithin the hip

render

ny legalregulation

rom

Vismann

and Krajewski Computer Juridisms

99





8/9/2019 20442777


the

utside superfluous

s

long

s outside

interests, bove

all

commercial

ones, do not

demand it.

nly

when the

omputer

finds

tself

oupled

with

socioeconomic

systems

oes

the

aw

take

n

the role ofmediator

between

conflicting

nterests,

uch as those of

users

in

thename of free

peech

or

open

access or

those of themarket

in

the

name of

freedom

of

action. The

law that ssigns

itself he role of conflict rbiter

emains

lind

to

the

com

puter's ntrinsicuridicality.

Thus,

the silence of the

lawmakers

ith

regard

to the

profound

split

between bases and

surfaces

has a

reason:

only

surfaces fall

under

explicit

juridicalregulations,

ot the transfer

echnologies

etween

computers.

hat

means the

erson

who is

communicating

nd not the

ommunication ech

nologybecomes the

bject

of

legislation.

he law

remains nable to scruti

nize the awlike

PU,

that landestinerival f

nstitutionalized

overnment.

This situationhas given rise to the

deplorable consequence

that hand

ful f

companies

have established the onditions for

sing

the

omputer

s

a

communications

medium. While such

a circumstance

would

normally

bring bout

antitrust

egulations,

t falls elow the

perceptual

threshold f

the

overnments

nd

parliaments

f a

computer-connected

orld. From the

perspective

f the

ser,

thismeans that he ser's so-called

autonomy

omes

at a

price:

that of

an

operating system

fixed at a

certain, contingent

moment

in the

omputer's

development

nd not

individually

lterable.

eyond the

interface,

sers

have no access whatsoever.

Where

the influenceof the user

ends,

the

power

of the

programmer

begins.

Once

again,

however,

he

programmers

re

themselves lassified n

a

highly

hierarchicalmanner.The

programmer

f the

programmer,esign

ing

the tools and

methods of a

coding language

such

as the

ompiler, ode

syntax,

abstract

data types,

and so

on)

maintains the

ultimate power

because he or she,as the onstructor f theprogramminganguage itself,

defines what the

normal

programmer,

as a

user,

will

be

able to

do.

Both

types

f

programmers stablish the

onditions for

sing

the

omputer,

nd,

as

such, they

ehave like

lawmakers

r, rather,

ode-makers.

mplemented

within

the

CPU and the

hierarchy

f the file

system

s the law

governing

communication

with and

through

he

computer.

n this

respect,

ode and

law

maintain a

relationship

fmore than

tructural omology.

he code is a

law-as

Lawrence

Lessig pointed

out

when he described

code

metaphor

ically

s

a

synonym

or he

onditionsunder

which the

omputer

runs.13

The

personification f the

omputer,

ts

design for

he enefit f a

private

person

who is not an

engineer,

s the

user-friendly

ide of

a software

ro

ducers'market strategy ithoutwhich thecomputerwould undoubtedly

never have

gained

the

popularity

it has. Yet it

is

precisely this

populari

zation, almost democratization, f a

formerlyxclusive device

under

the

100 Grey Room

29





8/9/2019 20442777


control of

a priests' caste

of

engineers

that

aid

thegroundworkfor the

juridism f

the hip's architecture. rivileges,

rotection ones,

and

access

rights egulate hat is

accessible

for ommonuse. An insurmountable ar

rier etweenusers and system rogrammersafeguards he

omputer's

nal

terable functions.

eyond

this

barrier,

s

in

Kafka's

story,

new

barrier

appears betweentheprogrammernd theprogrammer f theprogramming

languagewho decides how thebasic set of elements is to be designed,

which

rights

nd

properties

will be

granted

to

whom,

andwhich will

be

denied.What follows, lmost

as

an

involuntary eflex,

s

the

claim for

access. At

all levels

of

the omputer's rchitecture,ccess-the keyword

f

the

twenty-firstentury one

does not

need

a

Jeremyifkin

to tell s this)

is

demanded

in reactionto these

arriers.

Although

the

law

has

reinforced such

a claim by establishing a right to

discrimination-freeccess,

it

has

thus far

one

sowithout addressing the

uncannymimesis

in effect

etween

the

omputer nd

the

aw.Rather than

being

alarmed

by

the functional

omology

between the aw and

thecom

puter, egislatorsn theWesternworld continue usiness asusual. They fail

to

realize

that he niversal

machine's

own inner

uridisms

ender aw

inef

fective. fthe

aw fails

to

cknowledge

the

omputer's perational

mimesis

of

a

legal logic,

t

will,

sooner

or

later,

ecome outmoded.Contemporary

laments bout thediminishingly inding

force

f the aw

in

cyberspace re

only the

nitialmanifestation

of

the trend

oward elf-marginalization

n

the

part

of

any

law

that does not reflect on its

own

dependence

on

media;

that s,on its

wn

mediality.

The

long-held

nderstanding

fmedia

merely

as

tools and, accordingly,

as matters

of

law, ultimately

reveals the

paradox

at the core of

any

media law. How can the law address and

regulate

what it

is

itself ubjected

to?

Although legend holds that the state has turned, in regard to itsmedia,

from

strong overeign

to

the

supervisor

of

networks,

the

state-enforced

media

law

has

been defective

from the

start,

long

suffering

from

an

overes

timation

of

its

ability

to

regulate alphabetic

media

in

the

same manner as

legal

matters

such

as

labor,

ene

technology,

r

waste.

Alphabetic

media

neither

re nor

have

ever

been

purely

means

for

egally

efined

nds; they

have

never

simply

served

to

realize

rights.

edia

technologies

have

to

decide about the

onditions under

which all

systems,

ncluding

the

legal

system,

hink nd

speak.

Media law

must

thereforeeformulatetself nder

the

same conditions established

by

the

universal

machine for

o-called

users. For

what

is

the law with

respect

to

the

computer

ifnot

a

user itself?

More than anything, the computer calls for a change in how one views

the

relationship

between

media and law. The

concept

of

the law as

a

medi

atorof Internet onflicts s completely nadequate

to themedium, since it

Vismann

nd

Krajewski

ComputerJuridisms

101





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8/9/2019 20442777


itself. he dualism of the

ource codewas

recognized during the

early years of the

personal computer age

when Donald

E. Knuth-famous for

his multivolume

book, The Art of Computer

Programming, nd

evenmore famous for

he

creation of the typesettinganguageTEX-laid claim towriting computer

programs

hat uman beings could

read likeworks of literature.

nuth orig

inated a new paradigm

of coding, so-called literate

rogramming, hich

demands

a

dense fusion

f commentary nd algorithmic

tructure.16

Algorithms

nd commentaries oth evolve deeply

interwoven ithin

the

same

file, istinguished

nlyby tags

that dentify

heir tatus. nuth

devel

oped

this

notion further

n

a

language

named

WEB,

where algorithmic

structures re

embedded in

descriptive

ext ather

han ice versa as

isusu

ally

the case. The WEB source code

can then be treated

in

two ways:

it can

be

tangled, which

will then

produce compilable

Pascal code (today,

code),

or

itcan be

weaved,

which renders neatly

formatted,rintable

documentation for EX).

(Pre-)processorslike tangle

r weave or the

ompilers

f the ascal/C

language

or

TEX)

ct to close

codes,

that

s,

as codification.

he

process

of

closing

a code entails

the nsertion f a

juridical

tructuret the evel f

pro

tocol.While

compiling

input

files,

the

(pre-)processors

freeze the

code

development

at a certain stage

in order to

yield

new

files

for

the

perfor

mance

of

new

tasks like

giving

hermeneutic

ids to thehuman

reader

of

code

fragments

r

making

the

tring

HelloWorld

appear

on

screen).

hese

compilers

or

(pre-)processors

unction

ike filters,

r like ditors

complet

ing

book.

They ignore

he

material that ervesotherpurposes

and select

those

particular

tems

necessary

for urther

rocesses. They

act like

story

tellers, hich in thiscasemeans thatthey ell thedesired storyfrom he

executable

code

(or

vice

versa),

in

a

manner, however,

this

is

somewhat like

telling ight

rom

rong.

The culture

of

commenting ventually eads

tocodes and

codifications

on the

network level.

There,

developers

communicatewith

colleagues

through

omments,

t least since the

timethat he

egendary

requests

for

comments

became

ubiquitous

under

the abbreviationRFC.17

Stephen

CrockerofUCLA

provided

a

personal back-story

o the

RFC

by recounting

that

he had the idea of

using

such

a

philological

form of

commentary

for the

collaborative nvention

f

a

program

hat

ould

connect

different

omputer

systems

o

one another. he leader f

the

nteroperability

roup

that evel

oped theRFC process explainedhis choice oftheword comment,n retro

spect,

as

intending

to express

that

anyone

could say

anything

and that

nothingwas

official. 'l8

104 Grey Room 29





8/9/2019 20442777


International Business

Machines

Corporation

(IBM). IBM

512K

CMOS SRAM, Static

Random

Access Memory chip,

1991.

Code

name: LIGHTNING.

Computer

History Museum,

Inv.Nr. 102640493.

In the deal case, the

omments n Crocker's

protocolyielded

a code as

they

ere

transcribed

n

programs.

ccording to this dealized

account of

its

creation,

theRFC

eventually

produced

thenetworkprogram that

as

commented

n, the o-calledTCP/IP protocol,

which has become

the

tan

dard

for ll

data-transferrocesses

between

networks.

I never dreamed,

wroteCrocker, these

noteswould be

distributed

hrough he erymedium

we were discussing

in thesenotes. 19

hat

very

medium, theARPANET,

which was

created n 1969

by

comments mong colleagues, forms

othing

less

than the transformation

f a permanently elf-commenting

ommen

tary

into a code-a

commentary

setwithin a

feedback

loop

in order to

opti

mize

the codes

that set

the

bit-scope

and determine

the

transmission

process

of

contemporary

elecommunications.

The fact

hat rotocols

resultfrom

collaborative

evelopmental

roce

dure

should not

distractfrom he

uridism

nherent n such

procedures

of

commenting. nalysis

of the

uridic

tructure f this

nteroperation

nder

mines the tory f

self-regulation

n

cyberspace.

The

notion

that

n

acade

mic network'suse of commentsto communicate led to the creationofa

communications

protocol

based on some of

those

comments

mplies

an

organic

way

of

making

code. It is a

story

that

still

inspires

theories that

emphasize

the nternet's

utonomy. et,

the

eneral

picture

f collaborative

creation

bscures

the

fact hat

n

agent either

uman or

human-built)

ust

filter

all of the comments

and decide which are

in force and which become

code.

Much the

same

process

occurs

in

this

instance

as

in

that of the com

munication between

programmer

nd

computer.

ike

the transformation

between

source and

code,

an

agency

filters

out

all comments

that do not

meet the formal

requirements

that are set

up

by

certain

persons.

Not all com

mentaries

have the

potential

to

become a code.

Some

are

simply humorous,

hypothetical, istorical,or self-referential.ven among the formal om

mentaries

(i.e.,

those

that ould become

code),

not

all

will

actually

become

binding

codes.20

omments

may

contradict

ne another

r

be redundant.

Some

have

to

be

selected,

and

someone has

to

select

them.

In

this

case,

unlike

that of

the

automatic

selection

process

performed

by

the

com

piler/(pre-)processor,

he

ditor s

a

person:

at a

certain

oint

in

the

rocess,

a

person

reads all

the

(meta-)tagged,

presorted

files

(in

XML

manner)

to sort

workable

from

nappropriate,

herebynforcing

ertain

omments

nd

can

celing

others.

In

the

case of

the

RFC

Standards,

the editor

in

charge

did

not

remain

in

the

shadows

of

any

supposedly

collective

process

of

norm

cre

ation

through

commenting.

He was a

person

with

a

civil

name:

Jon

Postel.

Postel provides evidence of thecode's intrinsic uridism.Juridism s

characterized

by

a

central

agency

that allocates

rights

or

defines

norms.

Thus,

computer

odes

are juridical,

ven if

hey tem from n open

culture

Visma and

Kraj~wsk

Cr

putr Jurdisms

1 5





8/9/2019 20442777


of

commenting.

he

history

f law teaches that

cultureof

commenting

s

no

impediment

ocodification nd thus tocertain

uridical

traits.

ndeed,

legal

codes

often derive from

none other

than comments.

The famous

Digesta that aid the

groundwork

or

estern

law drew their

aterial

from

the

oman

jurists

ho

had

communicated mong

themselves

y

comment

ingon cases. Themass of their ommentaries ere eventually digested,

compiled

in

a

book,

in Latin a

codex,

fromwhich the word

code

origi

nally

derives.

The

Byzantine

EmperorJustinian

ppointed

an

editor, Jon

Postelof

Byzantium,

ith

the

ame

Tribonian,

ho

guided

the

rocessof

con

verting omments nto

single

code

by

selecting articular

data

from

ut

of

the

masses

of

texts.

ollowing

this

procedure

of

formatting

book

out

of

abundant

commentaries,

he

igesta

established,

n the ne

hand,

an inal

terable aw

text,

nd on

the

ther,

n

ever-changingommentary y

which

it

is

accompanied. What finds

its

way

into

a

codex,

between the

two

covers

of

a

book,

is from then

on

literally closed;

it cannot

be altered and

thus

brings

toan

end

the

nonhierarchical

form f

text

eneration

ia

unceasing chains

ofcommentary ithout ulterior reference. he closure ofcodes-that is,

what is later

called

codification-ends

the

practice

of codes that

appear

and

disappear according

to

their

use. In the

aftermath of this

closure,

a

certain

melancholy

enters the

legal discourse;

what

is

mourned is the end of law in

the

making.

Codification

means

for

awyers,

uch

as FriedrichCarl von

Savigny,

the

monopolization

of

legal texts. avigny described the

moment

of

closure,

the

codification,

as

abolishing

the ideal

of a

provisional

law in a

constant

rocess

of

making (Werden).22

similarly

elancholic undertone

can be observed in some accounts

of

the

history

of the

nternet hen it

comes to the

monopolization

of

communication standards.

Today,

the

Digesta

of

the

digital,

the

RFC,

have found their

avignywho

praises the

time efore he nternet'snstitutionsfstandardizationssumed the tatus

of a

central

agency

that decides

about the codes

in

force-a

time

when

com

ments stillhad

the

power

to

create,

lter,

nd

overthrow odes.23

Rather than

dopting

a

Savignyian

toneof

anticodification,

lexander

R.

Galloway

has

defended

the

necessity

of

centralization,

even

for ode

making

that tems from

omments,

cknowledging

this

entralizationas

a

precondition

for

more

freedom

on

the

side

of the user

and

finding a

com

forting

ormula

n

what he calls a

generative

ontradiction

etween

pro

tocol

and

its

institutionalization: in order

for a

protocol

to

enable

radically

distributed

communications between

autonomous

entities,

it

must

employ

a

strategy

f

universalization,

and

of

homogeneity. 24

he

paradox of the intrinsic juridism of the code that claims to be other than

law

is

interpreted

ere

as

the

dialectic of freedom.

utonomy requires n

autonomy-granting

nstitution.

106 Grey Rom 29





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The notion thatfreedom rises

from, r is grantedby, a central

agency

sounds familiar

nd begs the uestion

as to

whether

computer uridism

s

unavoidable. The centralizedpower

that merges t a certainpoint

in the

development

f codes is, after

ll, amanifestation f the atent uridism

f

the

ode itself.

et,

when

itcomes

to

thepossibility

of avoiding the odes'

juridification,t is nothelpful topresuppose a generative ontradiction

(which

merely

repeats the

division

into

n

operational base and

a

super

structure) etween

strict nstitutionsn the nner

rcanum of

the

omputer

and freedom

n

the urface. uch

a

perspective

tarts

he

moment computer

culture ha~s lready and

irretrievablytepped into

a

juridical framework.

The

turnfrom ommenttocodification, rom culture

ofpermanent om

menting

to a legal logic of

closure,

is thuspresented

as unavoidable, pre

supposing

an

intrinsic esire for rder.

Such a perspective

employs a well-established

argument: hecodifica

tionof the igesta

as the

primordial,

entralizing

egal

event

legitimized

the foreclosure

f

a

culture

of

commenting

n

favor f

a

panoptic

survey.

The profoundeffects f this closure for estern culture cannot be over

estimated. ommentaries,

which

provided

thematerial for odifications,

consist in

a

self-observing,

elf-constituting,

nd

yet at

the

ame

time

elf

deconstructing

nd

permanently elf-optimizing

ractice.

In

the

yes

of a

centralized law,

uch

a

practiceproduces

nothing ut disorder nd confu

sion and thus

demands

homogenization

nd the stablishment

fnetworks

of rules.

This was the case with Roman law

in the sixth

century,

and it is the

case

with transnational

aw

in

the

twenty-first.

The current

trend toward codification

in

transnational

aw operates

according

to

the

ogic

of

codes.

The

trend

s

even

called

creeping

odifica

tion-as

ifno

codifying

agency

were at work.

The

denial

of a

selecting agent

gives rise to stories fself-regulation.s creeping as codificationsmay

be, they ultimately

create their

own

agencies,

which

operate

within

a

juridi

cal mode

of

allocating rights:

gencies

such

as

editors and

programmers

who

design

the

pseudo-autonomy

of the surface

at

the

price

of

centralizing

the

perational

base.

Is

juridism, pecifically

he

move toward odification

in

the

digital,

thus

unavoidable?

One

is

tempted

to

say yes:

as

soon

as

codes

are at work-even

as

an

alternative

to

imposed law-they always

already

have

one

foot

in

the

juridical

realm. And

yet,

the other

foot still

belongs

in

theworld of the

engineer.

What

is

needed

is

a

perspective

on

computer

developments

that

is as

equally

well-informed

in

media as in

law in order

to

sort out the latent

juridisms

that

contradict the

predominant

tales of self

regulation, in legal as well as in virtual-digital contexts.

V~smann

nd

Krajewskg

Computer

Juridsms

1 7





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Notes

1.

For

a more

detailed

explanation,

see

Cornelia

Vismann,

Jurisprudence:

A

Transfer

Science,

Law

and

Critique

10

(1999):

279-286.

2.

Christoph Engemann,

Electronic

Government?Vom User

zum

B?rger:

Zur

kritischen

Theorie

des

Internet

(Bielefeld,

Germany: Transcript,

2003).

3.

Vanessa

Geczy-Sparwasser,

Die

Gesetzgebungsgeschichte

des

Internet:

Die

Reaktion

des

Gesetzgebers auf

das Internet

unter

Ber?cksichtigung

der

Entwicklung

in

den

U.S.A.

und

unter

Einbeziehung gemeinschaftlicher Vorgaben,

Beitr?ge

zum

Informationsrecht

Band

3

(Berlin:

Ferdinand

Sch?ningh Verlag,

2003).

The

following

paragraphs

draw

upon

G?czy-Sparwasser's

account.

4.

Although

the infrastructure

known

as

the

Internet

has

a

history

which

begins

at

the latest with

the ARPANET in

1969,

the

term

Internet

was

used

by

the EU

report

metonymically

to

describe

the

new

phenomenon

and its effects

which

came

along

with the

introduction of the World Wide Web

in 1991.

5.

J?rg

Pfl?ger,

Konversation,

Manipulation, Delegation:

Zur

Geistesgeschichte

der

Interaktivit?t,

in

Geschichten

der

Informatik:

Visionen,

Paradigmen,

Leitmotive,

ed.

Hans

Dieter

Hellige

(Berlin:

Springer,

2004),

367-408.

The

following

quotations

are

taken from

this

essay.

6.

See

Wendy

Hui

Kyong

Chun,

On

Software,

or

the

Persistence

of Visual

Knowledge,

Grey

Room

18

(Winter 2004):

26-51.

7.

Friedrich

A.

Kittler,

Protected

Mode,

in

Literature,

Media,

Information Systems,

ed.

John

Johnston

(Amsterdam:

G+B Arts

International,

1997),

158.

8.

Kittler,

Protected

Mode,

160-161.

9.

John

von

Neumann,

On

the

Principles

of

Large

Scale

Computing

Machines,

in

John

von

Neumann,

Collected

Works,

vol.

5

(New

York:

Pergamon

Press,

1961),

1-33.

10.

The

data

structure

of

Access

Control

Lists

are

organized

like

most

databases: with

tables. Not

coincidentally,

the

table,

in

addition

to

being

the basic

medium

of

economics,

is

one

of

the

primary

media

by

which

states

wield

power.

For

the

table

as

a

method

of

govern

ment,

administration,

and

accounting,

see

Cornelia

Vismann,

Akten: Medientechnik und

Recht

(Frankfurt:

Fischer

Taschenbuch

Verlag,

2000),

205-212

(English

translation forth

coming

from Stanford

University

Press,

2008);

Bernhard

Siegert, Passage

des

Digitalen:

Zeichenpraktiken

der

neuzeitlichen

Wissenschaften

1500-1900

(Berlin:

Brinkmann und

B?se,

2003),

166-171;

Joseph Vogl,

Kalk?l und

Leidenschaft:

Poetik des

?konomischen

Menschen

(Munich:

Sequenzia,

2002),

59-63;

R?diger Campe,

Vor

Augen

Stellen:

?ber

den

Rahmen

rhetorischer

Bildgebung,

in

Poststrukturalismus:

Herausforderung

an

die

Literaturwissenschaft,

ed.

Gerhard

Neumann,

Germanistische

Symposien,

Berichtsb?nde

18

(Stuttgart:

J.B.

Metzler,

1997),

208-225;

and

Markus

Krajewski,

In

Formation:

Aufstieg

und

Fall der

Tabelle

als

Paradigma

der

Datenverarbeitung,

in

Nach Feierabend: Z?rcher

Jahrbuch

f?r

Wissensgeschichte,

vol.

3,

ed. David

Gugerli,

Michael

Hagner

et

al.

(Z?rich,

Berlin:

Diaphanes

Verlag,

2007).

11.

Strictly

speaking

it

should be

called

king.

The

developers

of

these Unix

dialects,

BeOS,

for

instance,

or

Zeta, however,

disregarded

the formal

hierarchy

of

noble ranks and

called

the

king

a

baron.

Barons,

both

in

the

aristocratic

system

and in

hierarchical

file-system

based

operating

systems

like

Unix,

enjoy

a

higher

reputation

than

do

non-nobles

(i.e.,

regular

users).

12.

Mike

Gancarz,

The

UNIX

Philosophy

(Boston:

Digital

Press,

1995).

108 Grey Room 29





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13.

Lawrence

Lessig,

Code

and

Other Laws

of

Cyberspace

(New

York: Basic

Books,

1999).

14.

On

the

difference

between code and

law,

see

Vaios

Kravas

and

G?nther

Teubner,

http://www.CompanyNameSucks.com:

The

Horizontal

Effect of

Fundamental

Rights

on

'Private

Parties'

within Autonomous

Internet

Law,

German Law

Journal

4,

no.

12

(2003):

25-27.

15.

Klaus

G?nther

and

Shalini

Randeria,

Recht,

Kultur

und

Gesellschaft

im

Proze?

der

Globalisierung,

Werner

Reimers

Stiftung,

Schriftenreihe

Suchprozesse

f?r

innovative

Fragestellungen

in

der

Wissenschaft,

Heft

4

(Bad

Homburg,

Germany:

Programmbeirat

der

Werner

Reimers

Konferenzen,

2001).

16.

Donald

E.

Knuth,

Literate

Programming,

The

Computer

Journal

27

(1984):

97-111.

Knuth's

idea has been

adopted

in

a

somewhat

reduced

and less

sophisticated

manner

in

actual

programming

paradigms

like

JAVA

with

tools such

as

Javadoc,

which

rearranges

the

commentary

of

the code

as

the

explanation

of

how

to

use

it. For

details,

see

http://java.

sun.com/j2se/javadoc/writingdoccomments/.

17.

For

good analytical

accounts,

see

Bernhard

Siegert,

Die

Trinit?t

des

Gastgebers/The

Host's

Trinity,

in

ONLINE,

ed.

Helga

Konrad.

(Graz:

REMAprint,

1993),

130;

Alexander

R.

Galloway,

Protocol

vs.

Institutionalisation,

in

New

Media,

Old Media:

A

History

and

Theory

Reader,

ed.

Wendy

Hui

Kyong

Chun and

Thomas

Keenan

(New

York:

Routledge,

2006),

193;

and

Engemann,

27.

18.

Stephen

Crocker,

The

Request for

Comments

Reference

Guide,

RFC

1000,

August

1987,

http://www.rfc-archive.org/getrfc.php?rfc=1000.

19.

Crocker.

20.

RFC

1111

is

titled

Request

for

Comments

on

Request

for Comments.

See

Galloway,

193.

21.

Siegert,

Trinit?t,

130;

and

Galloway,

187.

22.

Friedrich

Carl

von

Savigny,

Vom

Beruf

unsrer

Zeit f?r

Gesetzgebung

und

Rechts

wissenschaft

(1814),

in

Thibaut

und

Savigny:

Ihre

programmatischen

Schriften,

2nd

exp.

ed.,

ed. Hans

Hattenhauer

(Munich:

Verlag

Franz

Vahlen,

2002),

115.

23.

For

a

survey

of the

historical

roots

of

this

conduct,

see

Chris

Woodford,

The Internet:

A

Historical

Encyclopedia:

Issues

(Santa

Barbara,

CA:

ABC

Clio,

2005).

24.

Galloway,

196.

Vismann

and

Krajewski

I

Computer

Juridisms

109

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