The CPSR Compiler - September 2002 - 1.3

COMPUTER PROFESSIONALS for SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY

Turning Thoughts to Actions

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

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UPCOMING EVENTS

Join us at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University in Cambridge, MA for CPSR's "SHRINKING WORLD, EXPANDING NET" and the WIENER AWARD DINNER honoring Karl Auerbach on Saturday, Oct.5, 2002 to examine the state of CPSR as a global organization, and information and communications technologies as a global force.

See http://www.cpsr.org/conferences/annmtg02

SHRINKING WORLD, EXPANDING NET

Given the expansion of the net and the shrinkage of the world, how can actions of computer professionals combine the ethical and practical? Design of information and communications technology is art as well as engineering. The combination of art, science, and engineering yields systems and devices with economic and political implications.

The day will include break-out groups to better understand how CPSR members can use our voices, our technical skills, and our organization to make a difference.

Patrick Ball, the conference keynote speaker, recently received a Special Achievement Award from the American Statistical Association for his work using statistics to analyze human rights violations data.
See http://shr.aaas.org/news/220802_amstat.htm

NORBERT WIENER AWARD DINNER

CPSR Honors Karl Auerbach:
A Pioneer of Democratic Internet Governance

Over the past half decade Karl Auerbach has both fought for and demonstrated the importance of openness in Internet governance.

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The updated CPSR Chapter and Working Group Guidelines are at http://www.cpsr.org/cpsr/GroupGuide.html

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ESSAY CONTEST 2002-2003

Thank you to all who have helped with the Essay Contest by sponsoring, submitting, or reviewing papers.

In the near future, we will be sending an email notice of the 2002-2003 Essay Contest to students, professors, and staff members (past and current) at schools, and to graduate programs in computer science, library science, communications, law, business, and public policy.

The Goals Of The Essay Contest Are:
* To further the program work of CPSR.
* To instill a sense of social responsibility in the next generation of computer scientists and knowledge workers.
* To raise awareness of CPSR and its mission of furthering the socially responsible use of information technology.

In order to develop focus and facilitate judging, we need Working Groups now to discuss topics/titles/subjects for the contest, that we will post when we send the mailing to give guidance and focus to professors and students.
The guidelines and subjects from 2001-2002 are at http://www.cpsr.org/essays/2002/contest.html

Please post your suggestions for topics to the group list,discuss, decide on one or two, and get back to cpsr@cpsr.org by September 30th. And please let me know if you would like to be a reviewer this year.

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PDC 2002 Proceedings Available

Participation and Design: Inquiring Into the Politics, Contexts and Practices of Collaborative Design Work.
Malmo, Sweden
June 23-25, 2002.

Researchers, designers, and other practitioners from diverse design fields such as architecture, urban planning, engineering,interaction design and others (such as the fine arts) focused on understanding collaborative design work. The PDC 2002 Proceedings give a sense of the variety of perspectives and discourse on participation and design, point to creative new directions and innovative approaches, and highlight challenges confronting design practiioners concerned with the art of participatory design in connection to longstanding political concerns with user participation and democracy.

The Proceedings were printed in limited quantity and are available from CPSR for $28 (a 20% discount) to CPSR members, and $35 for non-members.

Previous PDC Proceedings are also available.See http://www.cpsr.org/publications/publications.html

Postage is additional and noted on the order form at http://www.cpsr.org/publications/order-form.html
Pre-payment is needed.

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EXPERTISE SOUGHT AND SHARED

Robert Guerra, CPSR Board Member, posted a summary of his panel presentation at the World Civil Society Forum in Geneva in July at http://www.mcart.org/wcsfonlinenews/en/17-jul-02/summ_17.21.cfm

As a result of CPSR's role in Geneva, CPSR is now hosting the mailing list for civil society to prepare for future WSIS meetings at http://lists.cpsr.org/wsis-prep1/

Robert will be speaking at the Global Congress on Community Networking in the Digital Age conference in Montreal, Oct. 7-12. See http://www.globalcn.org

Katitza Rodriquez, CPSR Board Member, spoke at a conference in Peru about the digital divide. See http://www.utp.edu.pe

Cal Lee is the first recipient of the Paul Evan Peters Fellowship for graduate study in the information sciences or librarianship. See http://www.cni.org/pepfellowship

Joi Ito has been asked to join the board of Japan's National ID committee to be in charge of privacy.

Joel Wolfson is looking for interest in a new CPSR Nanotechnology Working Group. Contact wolfson@blankrome.com

James Sheldon is looking for interest in a new CPSR Computers and the Economy Working Group. Contact jsheldon@cats.ucsc.edu

CPSR Japan held their 1st Annual Meeting on August 23rd.

CPSR/Pittsburgh hosted a September 10th forum - Strings Attached?: Academic Freedom and Career Realities- featuring Theodore Postol, CPSR's 2001 Wiener Award winner and David Farber. See http://www-2.cs.cmu.edu/~cpsr/events/2002_09_10_academic_freedom/

CPSR/Research Triangle Park met on September 12th

Information Week has approached us for information about computer professionals and social responsibility.

The New York Times quoted Karen Coyle about FasTrak, the San Francisco Bay Area's traffic tracking system and concerns for privacy, on August 26th.

Karen was also quoted in the Ventura Star Free Press about Digital Angel's tracking device for kids.

Andy Oram's summary of changes in computing and Internet policy springing from the September 11 attacks is in the online newspaper American Reporter at http://american-reporter.com

Bernard Poole provides a great resource for teachers at http://www.pitt.edu/~edindex/WebQuests

The program and abstracts for ITiRA 2002 - Information Technology for Regional Areas - are available. See http://itira.cqu.edu.au/

ICT, Social Enterprise and Sustainable Development virtual conference Powerpoint presentation archives available at: http://www.hcln.net/socent/ppt.archives.htm

UNESCO has a new portal about its World Summit on the Information Society-related activities. See http://www.unesco.org/wsis

A PhD student has asked for help from CPSR members for researching the impact of computer networks on organizational records - the use of electronic communications by and the record keeping practices of computer professionals. See http://rhollinger3.server101.com/survey_2e.htm

Steve Teicher resigned from the Board on September 2.

The CPSR Board is pleased to announce the election of Stuart S. Shapiro, effective September 16, to fill the position left vacant by Steve Teicher's resignation. Since Steve's position had less than two years to run, ending in 2004,

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The Public Sphere Project's Patterns are now included on http://www.pliant.org/personal/Tom_Erickson/InteractionPatterns.html

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CPSR SIGNED ON TO

EFF's amicus brief urging a federal court to prevent the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) from forcing Internet Service Provider Verizon to identify a customer the RIAA has accused of offering infringing music on a peer-to-peer system. See http://www.eff.org/Cases/RIAA_v_Verizon/20020830_eff_riaa_pr.html

Comments to the Federal Trade Commission regarding the Microsoft Passport Consent Order. See: http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2002/08/microsoft.htm http://www.epic.org/privacy/consumer/microsoft/passport.html

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The CPSR Compiler is a monthly notice with short updates on recent activities of our members and opportunities to engage in the development of the public voice through CPSR projects.

To report news for future issues, send a sentence or two (and URL if available) to cpsr@cpsr.org

CPSR provides a discussion and project space where individuals can contribute to the public debate and design of our global digital future. Through CPSR's chapters and working groups, members focus on regional and civic issues developing the public voice. To insure a democratic future in a time of intense globalization, the voice of the public must command a prominent position on the world stage. CPSR frames and channels the public voice.

(c) Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility 2002.

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Susan Evoy * Managing Director
Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility
P.O. Box 717 * Palo Alto * CA * 94302
Phone: (650) 322-3778 * (650) 322-4748 (fax)
Email: evoy@cpsr.org
http://www.cpsr.org/