The fun thing about Internet Engineering Task Force is that really, there’s no joining or leaving. It is just a space. It has two components. First, it has an online space. Mostly, I joined mailing lists — that is to say people emailing each other and copying everybody else. Aside ...

Wikipedia came very late. My history working with the Internet, my first project when I participate in the Internet, and that was before the Web, was the Gutenberg Project. It’s still very much alive today — anybody can read public domain books, usually published before the First World War, because ...

They were exiled! They couldn’t return to their country anymore. They were locked out from their country — because they believed that there is a better way for the people to communicate with the government, which they perceived as not taking the input from the people.

But then, the student ...

I was 13 years old at the time. It was actually very democratizing. The initial setup fees were not that high. The telecom did not charge special fees for access to international forums. It was a flat rate. As we were not a rich family, I don’t think it’s a ...

Like most of the rest of the world, the first Internet users were people in the academic community. People who study computer science, people who have this very powerful computing center in many of Taiwan’s universities, especially in Taipei and Hsinchu.

However, at the same time, Taiwan also has a ...

Certainly. The Web came actually much later. It’s around 1993-1994. I was on computer networks before that. In 1992, there was already Internet coverage. That was when I lived in Germany. When I moved back to Taiwan, that was in 1993.

Around that time, there were a federation of networks ...

There were books about computer programming, but back then computers were expensive. We were not a rich family, so my parents were not exactly sure whether to buy this very expensive gadget. That was back in 1989.

So I learned, actually, computers were very predictable if you know how it ...

Yes, it is true.

My name is Audrey Tang, I live on the Internet. Physically, for two months every year, I’m in Paris. For the rest of the months, I’m usually based in Taipei, Taiwan. That’s it.

At midnight, with Blaise from Google.

Exactly.

Yes, that’s how it works in London.

The consensus was that they had to pay taxes, they had to display prominently their registration, and that they had to provide the insurance statements. We also compared these concerns with other countries, who had similar contentions not only with Uber, but also with Airbnb.

With Airbnb, we now have ...

I have a lot of hope, because I was also a conductor of this type of work, but with the government and the private sector. When Uber comes to Taiwan, they did not ask for anybody’s permission.

Uber charged, initially, higher fees than taxis, so taxi people were okay with ...

We are listening to the first Virtual Choir, curated by Eric Whitacre, the composer of this music, with 185 singers from 12 countries. These people did the recordings at their homes, wearing headphones, some people singing some parts, some singing other parts, and they were singing by looking at the ...

The thing with open source, with giving my copyright away, is that I cannot control who use it. For example, I invented a way of making a spreadsheet faster over the Web. But when I was working on it, first I’m working on somebody else’s prior work. Second, I cannot ...

It is true that I work with some Silicon Valley companies and as an entrepreneur, but I’m not particularly rich. It’s just that I decided that my skills or my time is valued enough so that people are willing to let me live, somewhat comfortably perhaps, in exchange of my ...

Well, I did work professionally for 20 years. When I say I retired, I mean that my time is spent primarily in the third sector. That means I work with people who volunteer, who work with me, who can join or leave at any time.

Still, we make important contributions ...

Mm-hmm.

The word "hacker," when it was first used in the 17th century, it means people who hack on the wood and to make tools using wood. They also make their own woodworking tools, and most of the woodworking tools and the furniture at that time were made of wood themselves. ...

I said the three virtues were: end-to-end, anybody-to-anybody; freedom from tampering and from censorship; and freedom to invent new uses. These all pertain to things that we voluntarily put on the Internet. The Internet is a way to talk to each other.

It is not, however, a way for people ...

Certainly. The term Internet neutrality means three very important things, and they intertwine with each other. First, it means that anybody can talk to anybody. There’s no discrimination based on who you are. Second, it means that when anybody sends a message, it is carried verbatim — that is to ...

Yes. When I say “we,” I mean the Gov Zero, the g0v. We are a movement, just like the Internet, that anybody can join. The only requirement is that you must allow other people to reuse your work. That’s it. Anybody can start any project. The translation, the transcripting, the ...

This music you just played, it’s pretty nice to hear that. It describes this idea that when people are in love, they could just idle there, do nothing, but they still feel like they’re in love. The are content with their life, with a satisfaction in harmony with the environment. ...

Yeah, it’s very, very fast. I think that’s because Taiwan was the main manufacturing place of personal computers at that time. All those personal computers were made in Taiwan.

Yeah, it’s nostalgic.

This is very nostalgic Taiwanese pop music.

Well I’m a professional mediator. It’s my job to talk like this. [laughs]

No, the one I chose was “Lux Aurumque”.

On the Internet, by default — that means without doing anything — any computer can talk to any computer. When somebody has a better idea, they don’t have to ask anybody’s permission. They can just make it happen on their computer. When a nearby computer sees it and wants to ...

When I was 12, I decided that I don’t want to be schooled anymore in the school system. I started to leave the school system when I was 13, and when I was 14 I discovered the Web. But before when I was 14, there were two years where I ...

Well when Lawrence Lessig, the law professor and the creator of the Creative Commons movement — where authors relinquish part of our copyright so that we can work with the world on creations together — when he coined the idea that code is law, he doesn’t literally mean law as ...

Yes.

Yes, actually the Beijing protest in 1989 was the first year of a color camera was paired with satellite connections and photofax machines, so people can get colored footage out. Because back then, people thought that photos had to be in films.

The police did not understand that photos can ...

Certainly. When I was in Germany, I already practiced computer programming. But at that time, the way for computers to talk to each other was limited to the academia, to universities, the early pioneers of the Internet.

It was called the ARPANet at the very beginning. But when I come ...

When I was very young, when I was 11, I lived in Saarland, and it’s very close to French borders. Actually, in our schools we taught German, and then French, and then English, in that order. So I traveled with my parents through Luxembourg to Paris, to these nearby regions; ...

Ça peut être des virus de l’esprit, ça peut être des virus de l’espace. Mais, on peut en parler de toute façon systémique. Ce ne sont pas des choses qui sont inévitables parce que simplement les symptômes refusent de parler. Et les gens qui peuvent encore parler sont une foule. ...

Et en le disant, c’est exactement comme le climat. Regardez la terre de l’extérieur. Vous pouvez voir beaucoup de tsunamis, beaucoup de changements dans le climat de climat arctique. Bien sûr, les tsunamis ne négocient pas avec les hommes politiques. Ce sont des catégories d’objets complètement différents. Mais, si on ...

Quand je pense aux musulmans, je pense à 150 millions, ou 150 milles musulmans à Taiwan, les indonésiens qui travaillent avec nous tous les jours. Et il y a quelques heures, je parlais avec nos interlocuteurs de ce soir. Ils nous ont dit: ’ Peut-être que certains ne voudraient pas ...

Avant de parler de la démocratie, il faut parler de démos, c’est-à-dire la foule, la population. Un peuple, des gens qui sont au même endroit imaginaire ou pas. Mais au moins, ils pensent qu’ils peuvent interagir les uns avec les autres d’une façon qui a du sens.

Je ne dirais pas que je suis un intellectuel dans une discipline ou une autre parce que la façon dont j’ai appris. Je vois comme des étoiles dans le ciel la nuit. Mais je ne les vois pas comme des constellations appartenant à des écoles spécifiques. Les étoiles sont comme ...

Donc, je peux lire tous les classiques sans rien payer parce que je ne viens pas d’une famille aisée. Et c’est d’une certaine manière quelque chose de très français comme le collège de France qui dit que le savoir appartient au monde entier.

Moi, je me définis comme un anarchiste conservateur. Et en 1993 quand j’ai quitté l’école je me suis éduquée moi-même grâce aux œuvres disponibles des classiques qui n’étaient plus couvertes par les droits d’auteurs, donc, écrits avant la première guerre mondiale et numérisés par la communauté Internet.

Et lorsque l’espace est structuré de cette façon là comme une technologie ouverte non violente, on arrive à un consensus. Il y a une convergence, on peut se mettre à la place des autres. On peut sortir ce qu’est la souffrance des autres, ce qu’est la joie des autres sans ...

Comme le professeur vient de dire, l’informatique c’est une façon de mettre de la logique dans un certain espace. La logique c’est comme des notes par exemple et on joue de ces notes là grâce à l’ordinateur. Et là, on le met dans un espace où on peut interagir de ...

Donc, c’est une façon d’établir des lois par le peuple.

Moi j’étais le médiateur pour la délégation Uber à Taipei et avec les ministères concernés et je suis aussi médiateur avec Airbnb et d’autres forces mondialisées qui veulent parler avec l’administration taïwanaise. Et je suis également responsable de la mise en place d’un espace de délibération pour le public numérique ...

Et nous avons manifesté devant le gouvernement pour dire comment on devait avoir une démocratie et on utilise le même principe, les mêmes applications créées pour une information démocratique de l’Internet pour faire un dialogue entre les diverses parties prenantes.

J’ai travaillé comme quelqu’un dans l’informatique depuis 20 ans. Mais j’ai pris ma retraite il y a deux ans et après avoir pris ma retraite, j’ai travaillé avec la société civile du mouvement Occupy à Taiwan où nous avons occupé le parlement pendant 20 jours.