User:Tamas Bates/RWRM/Protocol

Introduction:

Galloway begins by establishing the Internet as "the most extensive 'computerized information management' system" currently in existence. This is significant because such systems are components of societies of Control as described by Deleuze. He then runs through a brief history of computer networks, beginning with ARPANet and packet-switching.

"At the core of networked computing is the concept of protocol. A computer protocol is a set of recommendations and rules that outline specific technical standards."

He then goes on to describe nearly all standardized technologies as "Protocols," including HTML and CSS.

Galloway claims the word 'protocol' originally referred to a fly-leaf (blank page) glued to the beginning of a document. I'm unable to verify this, but it is close to the history I was able to find:

Etymology of the word 'protocol': 1540s, as prothogall "draft of a document," from Middle French prothocole (c.1200, Modern French protocole), from Medieval Latin protocollum "draft," literally "the first sheet of a volume" (on which contents and errata were written), from Greek protokollon "first sheet glued onto a manuscript," from protos "first" + kolla "glue."

Galloway makes a standard car analogy followed by broad sweeping statements. Summarized: * "protocol is a technique for achieving voluntary regulation within a contingent environment." [unclear if he is referring specifically to the protocols followed a driver in his car analogy or if this also extends to computer-based protocols] * "These regulations always operate at the level of coding" (refers to "coding" in the same sense meant by "time and space codes" by Foucault) * (transmission) Protocols are indifferent to the content they encode [this can only be true for some protocols] * Protocol allows for the persistence of control in a decentralized society

Galloway invents a new word: Protocological Control. He does not provide a definition, but mentions that this form of control arises when two protocols contradict one-another in their means of control. E.g. DNS as a centralized hierarchical system used to control access to decentralized IP addresses.

He goes through a very dramatic explanation of how DNS could be abused to block access to websites.

"...in order to initiate communication, two nodes must speak the same language. This is why protocol is important. Shared protocols are what defines the landscape of the network--who is connected to whome."

Galloway discusses Foucault's concept of "biopower," and argues that what Foucault was discussing were protocols.

He wraps up his introduction with a thorough explanation and defense of his use of "Periodization:" the discretization of time periods as a means to classify them based on common structures--in this case on the ways in which people are controlled. This follows from discussions about the transition from disciplinary societies to control societies (with the prevalance of each in a given year marking the period that year belongs to).

Physical Media:

Galloway starts off with a comparison of various cold war-era military protocols to Internet protocols and packet-switching, emphasizing the ways in which they differ.

He repeats a description of various network topologies (centralized vs. decentralized, etc.) with a bit more detail.

He goes through a description of what RFCs are and discusses several examples related to Internet protocols.

He goes over TCP/IP connections in some detail, discussing the ways in which computers connect to and communicate with each other and how the protocols deal with various issues that arise in networks (e.g. a router disappearing from the network). See page 46 for a bulleted summary.

He then goes on to discuss the formation of DNS and goes over its hierarchical structure. Some interesting claims are made: "DNS is the most heroic of human projects; it is the actual construction of a single, exhaustive index for all things. It is the encyclopedia of mankind, a map that has a one-to-one relationship with its territory."

"It governs meaning by mandating that anything meaningful must register and appear somewhere in its system. This is the nature of protocol."

He continues with a brief discussion of HTTP, making an odd claim that construction of an HTTP header requires parsing of an HTML document. He also makes the claim that "protocological objects never contain their own protocol," which is easily disproven if one accepts that HTML is a protocol (see:frames).

He comes back to the statement that protocols do not perform any interpretation of data, which is true for the transmission protocols he has discussed so far but incorrrect for protocols in general.

Form

Galloway begins this chapter with a quote from Bertold Brecht about how a radio network constructed to allow for both receiving information and transmitting information would be a great benefit to the populace. His ideal radio structure turns out to be similar to modern computer networks.

This leads to a discussion of a Marxist theory of media and an essay by Hans Magnus Enzensberge who analyzes Brecht's ideal radio network and comes to the conclusion that such a network must have been suppressed for political reasons. He "equates decentralization [of media and communication] with Marxist liberation."