Medialab Prado

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Javier de la Cueva's approach, moderator

History has shown how simple it is to communicate (move) a sole bit of data: lights, flags, mirrors, movements or whistles were sufficient to transmit that information over distances. However, when what needs to be moved is a vast amount of informations and the bandwidth is small or has assymetrical speeds for uploading and downloading, then data dispersion acquires great significance.

Sovereignty (the legal rationalization of power of which Max Weber spoke) is no longer concentrated. We now find that it is scattered and protected by the basic right to privacy and secrets in communications, much to the dismay of today’s governing powers. With the defence of the entertainment industry as their excuse, they wish to castrate new data distribution systems.   

It is hackers who are contributing the means to politics to transmit vast amounts of data in technologically challenging environments and also, perhaps unknowingly, a modification in sovereignty. In this case, the code is written thought, a proactive thought that implies action, action which is being shown to be anything but neutral politically: instead, it is loaded with ideology.

 

Andoni Alonso's approach

Peer to Peer in the digital realm represents the opening of a new commons, that is, the digital commons. Efforts to fence and enclosure it are all around and P2P is alone one of the most innovative and freeing resource in the internet. Free knowledge, open design and many other initiatives and projects have flourished thanks to P2P. So what  it is happening right now is the fight to preserve that realm out of the reach of corporations. States work very often supporting private interests and that goes against public goods. Very often laws do not defend that public good. Therefore a civil response is needed to defend our right.

 

Vicente Ruiz Jurado's approach

New technologies are precisely that: new. And, being new, they are experiencing significant improvement and redefinition processes. Initially, their use is usually limited to a vanguard and quite specific circles. Those technologies designed for the general public that evolve under favourable conditions will eventually attain widespread use.

This will be the case of P2P, a technology still in the early stages. Its use will expand to reach more people and wider fields of application, extending beyond the simple exchange of bits. In the future, distributed P2P systems will be used for auctions, the exchange of goods and services, donations, and financial loans, relegating formerly centralized hierarchical models to the past and ushering in decentralization, fairness, and equality of roles.

We will also see an even greater conflict of interests than we are faced with at present.