CFP95 review

[Dave Farber <farber@central.cis.upenn.edu>]

Lorrie Faith Cranor's CFP95 Conference Report


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Copyright 1995 by Lorrie Faith Cranor.  Permission to distribute this
report electronically is granted, provided you do not distribute it
for direct commercial advantage.  This report is a description of
CFP95 as I experienced it.  The unattributed opinions liberally
sprinkled throughout are, of course, my own.
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I attended the Fifth Conference on Computers, Freedom and Privacy
(http://www-techlaw.stanford.edu/CFP95.html) March 28 through 31 at
the San Francisco Airport Marriott Hotel.  Having thoroughly enjoyed
the previous two CFP conferences, I had been looking forward to CFP95
for quite some time -- and I was not disappointed.  


The conference began on March 28 with a full day of tutorial programs.
I arrived too late to attend the tutorials, but in time to enjoy an
evening ice cream reception and meet some of the other attendees.  The
informal discussions I began that evening and which I continued
between sessions throughout the conference proved to be as valuable as
the formal sessions.  


The main part of the CFP95 program got off to a slow start on March
29 with keynote speaker John Morgridge, chairman of the board of Cisco
systems.  Morgridge described the current status of computer networks
as "the era of use," in which we will have to address more difficult
issues than we faced while we were just concentrating on "the
plumbing."  But he failed to shed much light on what these issues are
or how we might face them.


The next session, "Student Databases: For Education and For Life,"
proved more enlightening and quite controversial.  Barbara Clements,
Council of Chief State School Officers, outlined the advantages of
electronic student records databases over the traditional paper filing
systems.  She argued that electronic systems are more accurate, take
up less space, and are more secure.  In addition, if these systems
follow standard conventions they can make it much easier for
information to be transfered between schools.  But panelist Anita
Hoge, was quite critical of standardized student information
databases, especially those that contain information obtained through
standardized tests.  She described an exam given to her son in a
Pennsylvania public school.  Hoge said this "Educational Quality
Assessment" was designed to measure predispositions of students
towards certain types of behaviors.  For example, the exam described a
hypothetical situation in which the student's friends were planning an
outing to spray paint graffiti around town.  The student is asked
whether he or she would go along.  A negative response is interpreted
as a predisposition towards anti-social behavior.  According to Hoge,
the results of this exam can be used to identify students with mental
and behavioral disorders, classify them as special education students,
send this information to the government, and make the students
eligible for Medicaid.  While most of the audience probably agreed
with Hoge that such exams are inappropriate, many people were not
convinced by Hoge's conclusion that the use of standardized exams and
standardized student information databases was the first step in the
government's effort to sneak socialized health care through the back door.


Stanford Law Professor Margaret Jane Radin gave an interesting lunch
time presentation that inspired fish jokes throughout the rest of the
conference.  Radin described two property rights paradigms and
discussed the advantages and disadvantages of applying them in
cyberspace.  Traditionally, intellectual property has been considered
a form of economic property that could be bought and sold in a free
market.  However, land (especially the land on which the family home
is built) has been considered a form of property that has
personal value beyond the monetary value that can be obtained by
selling it.  She also speculated that as more people flock to
cyberspace, the Internet may evolve into something similar to what
broadcast TV has become.  She described the TV audience as "potential
customers delivered to advertisers for a fee."  Thus, she explained,
the TV broadcast industry is a giant commercial fishing industry.  "It
would be good if cyberspace doesn't turn us into fish," she concluded.


A panel discussion on Intelligent Transportation Systems raised some
important privacy considerations, but was not nearly as provocative as
the next two sessions of the day: "Transaction Records In Interactive
Services" and "A Case Against Computers."  The transaction records
panelists debated a variety of issues including who owns personal
information records (the person who provides them or the organization
that collects them), the merits of "opt-in" and "opt-out" privacy
protection systems, and where the responsibility for privacy
violations should rest.


The Case Against Computers session, dubbed the "luddite session,"
featured four panelists critical of computer technology.  Jerry Mander
began by reminding everyone that people used to get along just fine
without computers.  He suggested that contrary to what electronic
activists claim, computers help people feel more powerful, but are not
actual instruments of empowerment.  Rather, he argued, computers
enforce centralized power structures that take power out of the hands
of individuals.  In addition he was critical of the fact that computer
professionals do not receive training on how to critique computers.
Finally, he expressed dismay at the way computers and other new
technologies have been accepted by the public without debate or
consideration of their downsides.  Panelist Ted Roszak then discussed
the fact that most computer users are not computer experts -- and
don't wish to be.  He urged computer experts to remember that when
designing computer systems.  Panelist Chet Bowers gave a very academic
presentation that was probably lost on most of the audience.  The
point of his presentation seemed to be that we were not properly
considering the cultural impact of computers.  Richard Sclove, the
only panelist with an email address (or at least the only one who
mentioned it), reminded us that information technology effects
everyone, even people who don't use computers.  Although the panelists
raised some excellent points, I don't think this panel did a very good
job of addressing their audience.  The panelists came across as a
bunch of middle-aged (or older) academic luddites, a characterization
that won them little respect or credibility with the techies in the
audience.  In fact, during the Q & A period one audience member (who
seemed to have missed the point of the presentation entirely) asked
the panel, "Are you guys not getting it?  What are you missing?"


The day's panel discussions were followed by the Electronic Frontier
Foundation (http://www.eff.org) Pioneer Awards presentation, an
EFF-sponsored reception, and dinner.  At dinner each table was given a
question to discuss and answer, with prizes being awarded for the best
answers.  Some tables took this quite seriously while others resented
being told what to talk about and submitted answers more humorous than
insightful (my own table taking the latter approach).


The next day of conference sessions began with a panel titled "Defining
Access Paradigms: Libraries, Rural Areas, and International Aspects."
While not particularly controversial, the panel addressed some
interesting problems.  Karen Coyle of the University of California
described the free lending library as a product of the print
world.  She explained that libraries generally purchase books but
lease electronic materials -- sometimes on a per-use basis.  If
libraries had to pay per-use fees on all their materials, they would
likely have to pass some of these fees onto their patrons.  In
addition libraries face problems in distributing electronic
information to patrons who want to take the information with them.
Panelist Christine Borgman's warning against causing a situation in
which only the elite have access to knowledge, led one audience member
to question whether technology really widens the knowledge gap.  He
cited as evidence the fact that he as access to as much information as
a millionaire has.  Apparently it didn't occur to this gentleman
(probably a member of the middle class) that he is a member of the
information elite, not the information poor.


The next session, "A Net for All: Where Are the Minorities?", featured
an interesting discussion of efforts to bring the Net to minority and
underprivledged populations.  Art McGee of the Institute for Global
Communications described the famous New Yorker cartoon featuring one
dog introducing another dog to the Internet.  The cartoon caption
reads, "On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog."  This led McGee to
comment that the second dog should have asked, "What's wrong with
being a dog?".  He added that technology gives people the power to
express themselves in their own voices, without having their messages
spun by the media.  But he reminded the audience that there are still
a lot of illiterate people and "all the computers in the world won't
help them if they can't read."  Panelist Barbara Simons added that the
computer revolution has had a negative impact on uneducated people
because there are now fewer unskilled jobs.


An afternoon of discussion on "Freedom and Responsibility of Electronic
Speech" followed lunch, an address by Esther Dyson, and a panel
discussion on online activism.  The electronic speech discussion began
with presentations from three individuals who have been involved in
freedom of electronic speech disputes.  Brock Meeks, who was sued for
defamation because of something he posted as part of an online
newsletter (http://cyberwerks.com:70/1/cyberwire), discussed his case.
Because the case was settled out of court, it sets no legal precedent,
but Meeks proposed that people who enter into a discussion on the
Internet should be considered "public figures" who cannot be easily
libeled.  He suggested the public figure characterization is
appropriate because Internet discussion participants have easy access
to the same public forum as those who might try to defame them.  Jean
Camp (http://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs/user/jeanc/www/home.html), a
doctoral student at Carnegie Mellon University discussed CMU's
censorship of sexually explicit Usenet newsgroups
(http://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs/user/kcf/www/censor/index.html).  Roger
Karraker, a journalism professor who maintained an electronic
conferencing system at Santa Rosa Junior College, described a case in
which a female student filed a sex discrimination complaint against
him after hearing that derogatory remarks had been made against her on
a men-only discussion group.  Karraker said one of the mistakes he
made with the conferencing system was in describing it as an extension
of the student newspaper, because newspaper publishers are responsible
for their content.  Karraker said individuals should be responsible
for their own speech in electronic discussion groups.


The second half of the electronic speech discussion took the form of a
"Socratic forum" (somewhat like a TV talk show) led by Stanford Law
Professor Kim Taylor-Thompson.  Taylor-Thompson described hypothetical
situations and posed questions to the nine panelists.  The discussion
was animated and brought out some interesting ideas.  However, too
much of the debate was between the lawyers on the panel.  CMU student
Donna Riley -- whose introduction as the founder of the feminist
Clittoral Hoods
(http://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs/user/kcf/www/censor/misc/clitoral-hoods-announ
ce.html)
organization brought a startled reaction from the audience -- and Ira
Kaufman of the Anti-Defamation League could hardly get a word in.


The second day of the conference concluded with a dinner speech by
Roger Wilkins and an evening of Birds of a Feather sessions.  Probably
the most well-attended BOF was the public forum on cryptography
policy.  Members of the National Research Council cryptography
committee listened and took notes as conference attendees expressed
their concerns. 


The final day of CFP95 began too early in the morning with an 8 am
talk by Willis Ware.  The audience was sparse and sleepy from two
nights of BOFs which ran until midnight (followed by informal
discussions which ended early in the morning).  Most of the conference
attendees had dragged themselves out of bed in time for the next
session: Can We Talk Long Distance?  Removing Impediments to Secure
International Communications.  This panel was of particular
interest to many of the audience members.  While most of the
discussion centered around issues which have been brought up
repeatedly over the past few years, Cypherpunk Tim May summed things
up nicely by characterizing the encryption controversy as a debate
between those who feel that their communication is "none of your
damn business" versus those who ask, "What have you got to hide?".


A session on copyright and the Net included an interesting discussion
about how copyright should be enforced in cyberspace.  In response to
often-repeated claims that it is not possible to enforce copyright
laws on the Net, Attorney Lance Rose pointed out that intelligent
software agents that can be programmed to search the Net for certain
types of news can also be programmed to search the Net for copyright
infringements.  Michael Kepplinger of the U.S. Patent and Trademark
Office and Law Professor Pamela Samuelson debated the "Green Paper"
produced by the Working Group on Intellectual Property Rights.
Samuelson criticized the Green Paper authors for assuming that there
will not be any useful content on the Internet until Congress passes
strict intellectual property laws.  However, she said that people are
already finding useful information on the Internet.  She was also
critical of the Green Paper for suggesting that online service
providers should be held strictly liable for copyright infringement.
Kepplinger denied that the Green Paper included strict liability
language.  Brad Templeton of ClariNet Communications Corp. followed up
by asserting that most people respect copyright, regardless of whether
or not it is enforced.  Templeton, whose company provides Associated
Press and other news feeds over the Internet, said that ClariNet
has been profitable under the current copyright laws.


Lenny Foner (http://foner.www.media.mit.edu/people/foner/), a graduate
student at the MIT Media Lab and the winner of the CFP95 Student Paper
Competition, presented his research on agents during lunch.  Foner
described a "matchmaker" system he is developing that is designed to
demonstrate the feasibility of a large scale distributed system in
which it is essential to build in privacy.  Lenny's research is
interesting for its technological goals as well as its political
goals.


By the afternoon of the last day of the conference, a large portion of
conference attendees had migrated from their chairs to the floor in
the back of the conference hall.  Students, journalists, long-haired
hackers, and libertarians camped out with backpacks and laptops on
the audio platform and the surrounding floor space.  One gentleman
fell asleep, but was woken by a journalist when he started to snore.
At one point Conference Chair Carey Heckman pointed out that there
were plenty of empty seats towards the front, but nobody in the back
moved forward.


A session titled "It Oughta Be a Crime" kicked off an afternoon filled
with some of the most interesting sessions of the conference.  Scott
Charney of the Justice Department opened his remarks by reminding the
audience that "there is always a percentage of the population up to no
good."  Although only a small percentage of those up to no good are
currently computer literate, 30 years from now everyone is likely to
be computer literate, he said.  He added that there are some types of
behavior -- such as extortion and wire fraud -- that is clearly
criminal conduct, however, there are other types of behavior that fall
into grey areas.  For example, some people don't think breaking into a
computer system to look at files should be considered criminal if the
intruder does not change or remove any of the files.  However, Charney
pointed out that companies that discover break-ins end up spending a
lot of time checking all their files to make sure none have been
changed or removed.  This can be both inconvenient and quite
expensive. Santa Clara District Attorney Ken Rosenblatt discussed
statements by some people (including writer Bruce Sterling) that
police have no business on the Net because electronic conflicts are
more a "cultural war" than criminal behavior.  However, Rosenblatt
said that all laws are an expansion of cultural norms.  Panelist Mark
Traphagan of the Software Publishers Association concluded the session
with a discussion of copyright infringement.  He claimed that China
has a 99 percent piracy rate making it "virtually a one-copy country."
This session brought much disagreement from the audience members, some
of whom interrupted the speakers.  This prompted CFP founder Jim Warren
to remind the audience that all sides need to be heard.


Many conference attendees anticipated that the session titled "Who
Owns the Law? The Debate Over Legal Citation Form and What It Means"
would only be interesting to lawyers.  However this session proved to
be the most animated of the entire conference.  After the four
panelists gave their opening statements, Glenn Tenney of Fantasia
Systems Inc. gave each of them five minutes in which to question the
other panelists.  This format provoked a lively debate about the
U.S. legal citation system.  Jamie Love of the Taxpayers Assets
Project complained that West Publishing's page numbers must be
used when citing most court opinions.  Because one cannot determine
the West pagination from the official court documents, one must visit
a law library or pay online charges to West to find the complete
citations.  With an increasing amount of legal research being
conducted online, this can get very expensive.  However, West argues
that they spend a lot of time verifying the accuracy of the opinions
they publish and should be compensated for their work.  Besides, they
say, it is not their fault that the courts do not provide accurate
copies of their opinions that can be cited in legal proceedings.


The final CFP95 session featured several presentations about
anonymity, pseudonyms, and the technologies that make such things
possible.  To illustrate the use of pseudonyms, some of the panelists
replaced the names on their name badges and exchanged name cards.
Leading moderator Roger Clarke to introduce panelists Gary Marx and
Kent Walker as "Kent and or Gary."  David Chaum described the
electronic cash products being developed by his company, DigiCash.
Writer Steven Levy then gave an excellent presentation on anonymous
remailers.  Science Fiction Writer David Brin wrapped things up with
some thoughts on the conference as a whole.  After this session, the
chairs of all five CFP conferences commented on the past and future of
CFP.


Plans are already underway for CFP96 (http://web.mit.edu/cfp96) to be
held March 27-30, 1996 in Boston.


                    -- Lorrie Faith Cranor (lorracks@cs.wustl.edu)
                       April 3, 1995




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Lorrie Faith Cranor                 Engineering and Policy, Computer Science
Washington University                    http://dworkin.wustl.edu/~lorracks/
1 Brookings Dr Box 1045  
St. Louis, MO 63130        "UNLESS someone like you cares a whole awful lot, 
lorracks@cs.wustl.edu   nothing is going to get better. It's not." -Dr.Seuss  


Look for the Crossroads special issue on computers and society,
available May 1 from http://info.acm.org/crossroads/


Students: Are you doing interdisciplinary research related to
computers and society?  Are you interested in joining an 
online discussion group to exchange ideas with other students?
Send me email for more information.


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