Yale Law visiting fellow to examine international tension sparked by new Web standard

Yale Law visiting fellow to examine international tension sparked by new Web standardApril 16, 2007Margaret Costello Spillettmcostell@syr.edu

The introduction of a new standard that will increase the number of available Internet addresses may seem at first an unlikely candidate to provoke incendiary international tensions. But in an upcoming lecture at the School of Information Studies, visiting fellow in the Information Society Project at Yale Law School Laura DeNardis will describe how the development and adoption of IPv6 has intersected with contentious international issues, ranging from tensions between the United Nations and the United States, power struggles between international standards authorities, U.S. military objectives, international economic competition, third world development and the promise of global democratic freedoms.

DeNardis will present her lecture, “Politics of the Next Generation Internet,” on Tuesday, April 24, at 11:30 a.m. in the Katzer Collaboratory, Room 347 of Hinds Hall. Her talk examines what’s at stake economically, politically and technically in the development and adoption of IPv6. She will explore the theoretical nexus between technical standards and politics. She will also consider views that laud the Internet standards process for its participatory design approach and attribute unexamined legitimacy to a somewhat closed process.

DeNardis’ research addresses the cultural, political and legal dimensions of Internet technical protocols and network security standards. A technical analyst in computer networking and security, DeNardis has published in numerous technical journals and served as a National Science Foundation reviewer in advanced network protocols, broadband innovations and Internet security. Professionally, she was previously a management consultant in Ernst & Young’sinformation technology practice, was an independent network and security consultant, and taught for three years as an adjunct professor in the School of Information Technology and Engineering at George Mason University. She holds engineering degrees from Dartmouth College (A.B.) and Cornell University (M.Eng.), and recently received a Ph.D. in science and technology studies from Virginia Tech.