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Well, I finished the book late on Friday, so here's my comment:
Although the book nicely (if verbosely) describes the current situation regarding internet lack of security, and the ways in which this will likely lead to a crippled internet in the future... I was disappointed by the fact that the book offers no real solutions to the problem. Instead of giving us ideas or other ways to stop the future train wreck that is today's internet, Zittrain concludes with a description of the potential of Nicolas Negroponte's One Laptop Per Child project, and suggests that we should let these appropriately-empowered children fix the internet for us.
This, despite the fact that Zittrain describes in multiple places the human capacity to duck responsibility, misbehave and procrastinate, instead of fixing the problems at hand. Yet he assumes the children from the Third World will step forward and fix our mess with creative programming and an idealistic desire for good.
That, and the image on the cover, serves to remind me of a commercial depicting an adult who represents wasteful and polluting humanity, standing on the railroad tracks as the train named Disaster plows down on him, whereupon he steps aside to avoid the train... and we finally see a child standing there behind him, still on the tracks, sadly waiting for the train to run her down.
Surprisingly, Zittrain discusses the web's lack of security, and even indicates in places where some establishment of security in the early days of the internet could have prevented viruses, denial-of-service attacks, hacks, ID theft, botnets, and threats to national security. Yet he fails to actually recommend specific applications of security measures to the web, as if the very words are too heinous to utter.
Overall, a book that says, very clearly, "Yes, we have a problem"... then finishes with a rendition of "I believe the children are our future, teach them well and let them lead the way..."
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