The critical infrastructure lab

Research Question

1. How does internet infrastructure reconfigure power relationships and resource dependencies, and how could it better serve the public interest?

Why Is This Research Important?

The project aims to (1) increase the understanding of the main driving forces behind the reconfiguration of power relationships and resource dependencies through Internet infrastructure; (2) analyze how less powerful stakeholders can effectively engage in shaping Internet infrastructure through standard setting and governance; and (3) find out what alternative infrastructural futures should look like if the Internet should continue to serve the public interest? 

This research produces concrete recommendations for governments, industry, civil society, and governance bodies. The research outputs serve a wide range of communities that are influenced and affected by contemporary infrastructural developments. 1) Civil society organizations, human rights defenders, digital rights advocates and lobbyists, 2) Policymakers in international negotiations who can benefit from awareness of infrastructure-level risks and opportunities uncovered by the research; 3) Leaders of standards development organizations who can gain insights into standards-setting processes as well as government responses and environmental impact, and 4) Researchers in social sciences, humanities, and natural sciences who study the economics, politics, technical workings, and the societal impact of Internet infrastructure. This research allows all of them to adjust their strategies to a shifting political, technological and natural environment. 

Methodology

Environment stream — a critical supply chain mapping method that includes site surveys of currently deployed data centre hardware; interviews with operators for review and validation; a systematic review of industry publications; quantitative content analysis of policy documents and interview transcripts; desk research on the market availability and geographic production sites of the strategic raw materials, and on understanding the policy, environmental, economic and political conditions for accessing such materials in their respective geographic production sites. The structural negative impact on the ability of the Internet to serve the public interest is measured through reversing the order outlined above, and engaging the actors through semi-structured  interviews, focus group discussions, and workshops with policymakers, industry actors, civil society, and local advocacy groups in the affected territories. 

Geopolitics stream: a content analysis of a body of policy documents and semi-structured interviews. The final analysis is verified and refined through a workshop involving relevant actors from civil society, policymaking and standards bodies. 

Standards stream: “Ethnography of infrastructures”. This research stream starts with a literature review on the state of the art for analyzing software repositories and the technical inscription/enactment of power struggles through technological materiality. Then, critical code analysis/code ethnography is carried out, which means the interpretation of source code as a cultural artefact as cultural analytics of software. The second phase is an iterative process at the heart of which is the construction and comparison of various prototypes, and the third phase is the infrastructural inversion method that combines participative observation in the field with visual observation and technical measurements. 

Media and Publications

• The problem is growth 
• Standing out: critical infrastructure walks in Amsterdam 
• The Climate Crisis is a Digital Rights Crisis: Exploring the Civil-Society Framing of Two Intersecting Disasters The article discusses findings from exploring the intersection of the climate crisis and digital rights in an interactive workshop with civil society representatives and policy makers at an important digital-rights event in Brussels in the European Union.
• Geopolitics in the infrastructural ideology of 5G This paper explores how infrastructural ideologies function as tools in geopolitical struggles for dependence and independence between world powers. 
• Infrastructural Insecurity: Geopolitics in the Standardization of Telecommunication Networks This article argues that the production and maintenance of “infrastructural insecurity” is an inherent part of the process of the standardization of telecommunication networks.
• The Standardisation of Lawful Interception Technologies in the 3GPP: Interrogating 5G and Surveillance Amid US-China Competition This article shows that the 5G competition between the United States and Western Europe versus China is not reflected in the standardisation of lawful intercept in the world’s leading telecommunications standardisation body, the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP).
• Internet Sanctions on Russian Media: Actions and Effects This article interrogates the implementation of sanctions and interpret them as a means to translate the union of states’ governmental edicts into effective technical countermeasures.
• Guidelines for Human Rights Protocol and Architecture Considerations This document sets guidelines for human rights considerations for developers working on network protocols and architectures, similar to the work done on the guidelines for privacy considerations 
• Loud Men Talking Loudly: Exclusionary Cultures of Internet Governance report Taking the IETF as a case study, this primer lays out how seemingly open internet governance bodies throw up distinctly cultural hurdles that impede broad and diverse participation, including by civil society. 
• Standards, Protocols, Ecosystem Report on a round-table discussion “Protocols, Standards, Ecosystem” round table discussion.
• Building a relational infrastructure  the launch of the critical infrastructure lab Report of the launch event of the critical infrastructure lab, which took place on April 13-14 2023 at the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands.
• Network paradigms and infrastructural ideologies: Standards and protocols in a geopolitical context Focuses on topics such as interoperability, open protocols, and tech governance for a healthier digital future, and argues for noticeable, observable and contestable standards for digital identities, and ask who is in position to propose and impose such standards.
• Down with Data Centres: Developing Critical Policy Reflection on the discussion on what a critical policy intervention should look like to ensure environmentally sustainable tech in Europe
• Predatory Delay and Other Myths of “Sustainable AI” 
• AI Infrastructures and Sustainability: Expanding perspectives on automation, communication and media. 
• White Paper – How to master Europe’s digital infrastructure needs?Serves as a basis for consultation among various stakeholders, including Member States, civil society, industry, and academics. It outlines scenarios and seeks input to inform future proposals by the Commission in the domain of digital infrastructure.
• Sanctions and infrastructural ideologies: Assessing the material shaping of EU digital sovereignty in response to the war in Ukraine Policy & Internet Interrogates the sanctions instated against Russian media by the European Union (EU) in response to Russia’s aggression in Ukraine.
• Website blocking in the European Union: Network interference from the perspective of Open Internet Policy and Internet This study examines network interference practices such as website blocking against the backdrop of an almost complete lack of EU-related research.