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Standards Make the World

PaperDavid Lang

David Lang explores how standards function as protocols — examining the role of measurement, specification, and shared convention in making the material world legible, buildable, and interoperable.

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Paper

Standards Make the World (Anthology)

David Lang's anthology explores how standards shape the physical and digital world, using concrete examples of open-source hardware development to demonstrate that standards-setting, contrary to popular belief, is a dynamic and innovative process rather than a purely technical or bureaucratic endeavor. The work documents how iterative design, community collaboration, and openness can improve standards even when progress is slower than purely software-based development.

David Lang

Paper

Protocol Reader 2025

The 2025 edition of the Protocol Reader, a curated collection of essays, research, and perspectives on protocols across technology, governance, culture, and society.

Summer of Protocols

Framework

End-to-end Encryption in ActivityPub: Case File

This case file documents an effort to integrate end-to-end encryption into ActivityPub, the distributed social network protocol, by mapping Messaging Layer Security (MLS RFC9420) onto the existing standard as an extension. The central tension is balancing security robustness with implementability simplicity, requiring the authors to examine user interfaces across messaging platforms and architectural variations before recommending a design approach for E2EE in federated social networks.

Evan Prodromou, Tom Coates