VPNs as boundary objects of the internet: (mis)trust in the translation(s)

Luke Heemsbergen,Adam Molnar

doi:10.14763/2020.4.1513

Abstract

Through empirical methods that walkthrough a typical user experience for acquiring virtual private network (VPN) services, this paper attempts to answer the question of how we come to trust, use and govern VPNs.

Highlights

This paper considers Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) as boundary objects of the internet, in a way that opens new empirical and methodological insights about the tensions between technical materialities and symbolic registers of technology
How do we come to trust, use and govern virtual private networks (VPNs)? How do these objects of the internet tack back and forth between metaphor and technical processes as they garner usership and critique? This paper aims to answer these questions by considering VPNs as boundary objects
While the boundary object we focus on is the VPN, the research design that we discuss is potentially useful in examining other inquiries of boundary objects of the internet

Summary

Introduction

This paper considers VPNs as boundary objects of the internet, in a way that opens new empirical and methodological insights about the tensions between technical materialities and symbolic registers of technology. 603) clarification of boundary objects as entities that people act towards (or with) in relation to their own communities of practice, we follow Star’s call to further explore the ‘tacking’ back and forth of such objects as both symbolic and technical objects within internet-space and governance-space. Note here the tacking from technical to metaphorical, and back to technical transverses and is transfigured through competing domains of power and meaning: we start in technical mathematics and computer science and end in technical legal scholarship Uncovered through this tacking are forces of politics and policing (Rancière, 2006) that shape and shift meaning making through communities of practice linked to the various interpretive objects identified. Politics is Heemsbergen, Molnar antagonistic to policing, breaking tangible configurations to test the assumptions of equality in society (Rancière, 2006, pp. 29-30)

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Conclusion