Nurturing the Cybercommons, 1981-2021

Saturday, October 20, Angell Hall (Aud D)

8:30-9:00 Registration

Come early, register and have a bagel and some coffee/tea.

9:00-9:15 Welcome

Opening remarks

Across the Great Divide: Where is the Internet Going, and Who Will Go There?

9:15-10:15 Tomorrow's Internet: Internet2 and the Issues It Raises

Gary Bachula, Garret Sern
Internet2 is a consortium working to develop and deploy advanced network applications and technologies, accelerating the creation of tomorrow's Internet. Speakers from Internet2 and EDUCAUSE will provide a glimpse of the Internet of the future, followed by a panel discussion of the key legislative, regulatory, and budgetary issues that such a future entails.

10:15-10:30 Break

10:30-11:30 The Digital Divide

Kate Williams, Salvador Rivas, Dara O'Neil
As information technology races ahead, too many people are in danger of being left behind. Speakers from the Alliance for Community Technology (ACT) and elsewhere will discuss the problem and the opportunities for closing the gap, featuring highlights and conclusions from a summer ACT workshop on the Digital Divide.

11:30-12:30 Electronic Records and Government Accountability: Present Practice and Future Prospects

David A. Wallace, Cal Lee
Government records are a vital component of democratic decision making and public accountability. By preserving and providing public access to information that documents the activities of government, we can scrutinize those activities. Creating and managing records in digital formats has the potential to make our public institutions more transparent and responsive to our needs. Unfortunately, this potential is often not realized. Policies, procedures and systems that have been established for the management of paper records are often not adequate to deal with the current environment.

This session will begin with the history and present practice of government recordkeeping, including some of the major legal mandates. We will then discuss some of the unique challenges raised by electronic records (organizational and technical), including some specific examples. We will conclude with an assessment of where we are now. Research on long-term digital preservation has shown increasing promise in recent years, and vendors have introduced specific applications to deal with electronic records management. Many of the implementation details, however, have yet to be laid out. This is particularly true for compliance with Electronic Freedom of Information Act (EFOIA) request, which are still being addressed in an extremely ad hoc manner.

12:30-1:30 Lunch

1:30-2:30 The Body Politic: Biometrics, Identity and the Politics of Surveillance

Andrew Clement, Peter Hope-Tindall

Many jurisdictions have initiatives underway to implement biometrics, yet others are ready to issue smart cards to their citizenry. From national identity cards to ATM's, from airport security to benefits entitlement, the recognition of face, finger, hand, iris, gait and even odour has become the sine qua non of identification.

But biometrics are not infallible and biometric technology may not be suitable for many proposed applications. Even where it is, the necessary infrastructure of secure computing, cryptography and massive processing power may be impractical or unattainable. Where then, are we heading? Technology for its own sake or for political expediency? A society in which surveillance becomes the norm and identity a mathematical construct?

Should responsible Computer Professionals resist this technology or do we have an important role to play? Join us for an informative look at the technology, politics and public policy of surveillance and identity in the new millennium.

2:30-3:30 Information Warfare and the Role of Governments and Military Establishments

Chris Hables Gray, Alessandro Lofaro
"Information warfare" is now the subject in newspaper headlines, the reason for noticeable expenses by the pentagon and suggestions to give to military concerns an influence in the design of commercial products, but it's often difficult to see what is "information warfare" all about. Through a fast introduction to the argument, interactive examples and a combined explanatory/question and answer session the panel aims to make the audience grasp the basic concept and what can be practically Information Warfare and give some elements to understand what it can imply for the role of the traditional state-nations and military establishments.

3:30-3:45 Break

3:45-4:00 Silicon Valley: The Solution to American Economic Malaise or the "Valley of Toxic Fright" (Best Paper from Student Essay Contest)

James Richard Sheldon, introduced by Netiva Caftori

4:00-5:00 Subjectrights in the Cyborg Age

Steve Mann
Informed by twenty years experience with wearable computers, Steve Mann will address some of the philosophical issues of being one with the machine, focusing on the notion of Subjectrights, in which the individual can operate as if he or she were a large corporation. Mann will also discuss self-corporatization, self-bureaucratization, and self-demotion as means for dealing with bureaucratic organizations, as well as his research results in social responsibility and social desponsibility. You may like to read Can Humans Being Clerks make Clerks be Human?.

Saturday, October 20, Wiener Award Dinner

6:30-7:00 Social time

7:00 Norbert Wiener Award Dinner

Honoring Nira Schwartz and Theodore Postol. Dinner will be held at the Cottage Inn (512 E. Williams St)