### Ingrid Burrington

Ingrid Burrington writes, makes maps, and tells jokes about places, politics, and the weird feelings people have about both. Her most recent work has focused primarily on infrastructure and magic.

## Presenting

### Ghost Networks

The zeal with which humans develop and implement new communications networks is matched only by their ability to forget the legacies and mistakes already made building past networks. Ironically, at least in the U.S., most of our communication networks build atop the remnants of those past networks. This talk will offer a series of ghost stories about the politics, personalities, and ideologies that continue to haunt our machines, and how our new networks might live with or at least keep the ghosts at bay.

## ... and presenting with Surya Mattu

### Workshop: I Think Therefore ICANN: An RPG about TLDs

No experience necessary, no extra materials needed.

Domain names are where the politics, poetics, and peculiarities of the web express themselves in often the most direct and clever ways. But even the most active domain name hoarder might not really understand how the Domain Name System works, why certain TLDs exist, and how they at times become an arena where real-world geopolitical conflicts play out online.

This is a workshop about understanding the technical structures behind the weird and deeply political world of domain names via a live-action roleplaying game. We'll begin with an overview of DNS, ICANN, the TLD creation process, engage in some roleplaying scenarios based on real-world incidents in ICANN history, and brainstorm alternative models to the current model for network naming conventions. Somewhere between Risk, D&D, Model UN, and TRON.