Common Contracts

A social contract for cyberspace

November 15th, 2021

• Filed
  November 15th, 2021

Abstract—The current standards for the Internet and its services and devices are set and developed by multiple stan- dards organisations, and national governments. In this paper, we argue that a social contract is needed between these organisations, and the entities (individual users, organisations, devices, and service providers) which use the Internet to communicate. Criteria which a social contract should meet are proposed; fourteen major current cybersecurity or ethical issues are then discussed; the necessity and feasibility of a social contract are considered. A draft social contract is then proposed and solutions or strategies to address the fourteen issues identified previously, on the basis of this draft social contract, are presented.