Protect your PC, Protect our Network, Protect the Internet: JOIN Herdict

This fall the Berkman Center for Internet and Society (and JZ’s new home) will unveil Herdict, a suite of programs that gathers data from users around the world about their PCs’ performance and ability to access websites. Herdict aggregates this information and aims to provide a real time picture of users’ PC health and web accessibility. Herdict HomeIf you read The Future of the Internet or saw some of the interviews, or came to Berkman@10, Herdict is the “take away.” For the Internet we know and love is under attack. The openness that allowed users to write any software they wanted, run that software on any machine, and share that software with anyone who wanted it created a lot of great code: Google, Facebook, etc. But that same openness also encouraged a lot of bad code: malware, badware, bots, and so forth. In an effort to protect themselves from this bad code, users are moving from open, “generative” technologies (PC’s) to closed, “tethered” ones (TiVo’s). These tethered appliances give users security but at the price of innovation.

Our current focus is on Herdict for Network Health. Netizens will be able to report any web sites they cannot access through the Herdict website or Firefox/IE plug-in.

By aggregating individuals’ reports across the Internet, Network Health strives to create a real-time picture of network accessibility. Users will be able to read reports of inaccessibility by region or by country, or track specific web sites over time:

Using this information Network Health users will then be able to start diagnosing why sites are inaccessible – network failure, government censorship, or something else – through the OpenNet Initiative.
But Network Health is just one application in the Herdict suite. PC Health, which is still in development, will allow users to track information about their computers’ performance and compare it to the performance of other computers on the network. For example, if PC Health tells a user that her computer is running poorly in comparison to other computers on the network, it might be an indication that she has badwares in her computer. Or if PC Health finds that all the computers with a certain piece of software are running poorly, it might be an indication that the specific software is bad.

Herdict is a collaborative effort: its success relies on the participation of internet crowds. So become a publicist. Link to Herdict on your blog. Share the program with friends. Help make contacts with traditional and online media outlets. And visit our web site for updates.

The Internet will not save itself. Herdict will help us use open technologies responsibly, and help us protect what makes the Internet so great.

(disclaimer: pictures are for illustration purposes. Design and content might change)