Rather than rehashing his excellent Smart Mobs, Howard is urging this group of techheads to keep the Net free and use it to spread freedom to the real world. We should be users, not consumers, he says. End to End ought to be maintained. This group in particular should understand the regulatory environment. The technoids will be more effective by building new technologies rather than attempting to fight against the professional politicos. We need to create a “preserve” where we can invent the next generation; the preserve should include opening spectrum for more innovation.

He asks: Why not invent technology that lets us deal directly with musicians rather than having to go through the recording industry? [I don’t think that this is a technological issue so much as an economic one.]

Build platforms for self-organizing networks. Watch what happens with trust.

Design Principles: Support End to End and link to others.

In the Q&A, Howard says we need to get the defaults right when it comes to privacy. “Only geeks play with defaults.”

I ask: Since the default is about to flipped from anonymity to identity, what about digital ID? Howard: We need to know who we’re talking with although not necessarily tie it back to a real world identity. Cory follows up: Since these pseudonymous identities may represent groups or bots, what does that do to trust? Howard replies that so long as they act in a trustworthy way, we don’t need more ID than that.

[When I say “we,” I mean “the technically adept people here,” i.e., not me.]

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