Week 5

Please mail the instructors a one-paragraph description of the paper or project topic you would like to do, so we can begin the process of working with you to refine the topic. Remember, as explained in class:

• You can do a paper of a project, although even a project should result in some writing.
• You can work alone or in a group of two or three. If you work in a group, each person in the group should mail the (same) project description, and say who you want to work with.

Monday Class at Harvard: Commercial and Government Surveillance, Part I (Zittrain)

People answered a pre-9/11 Gallup Poll with the claim that loss of privacy was more worrisome to them than the prospect of nuclear war. More and more personal information and communications exist online, and ever more effective government surveillance technology takes advantage of this source of knowledge. Frequently the government can easily access information online that would not be available offline or would at least require a warrant. Commercial surveillance is also purported to be extremely effective. Online tracking and data collection allow many companies to amass very specific consumer profiles.

These two sessions explore just how much we care about privacy, understanding that this area is most susceptible to temporal and cultural differences.

Readings:

• W3C - read the Background, Mission, Goals, and Roles sections.
• P3P and Privacy on the Web FAQ
• Skim FTC, "Online Profiling: A Report to Congress," June, 2000.
• Jonathan Zittrain, Welcome to Second Class.

Thursday Class at MIT: Free Software and Open Source

Guest: Ben Adida, CEO of OpenForce

Before class, read the following:

• Read chapters 14 and 15 of Lessig's The future of ideas.
• Read the Free Software Foundation's The Free Software definition.
• Read Eric Raymond's "The Cathedral and the Bazaar", which is the classic piece on Open Source.
• To help you keep the politics and definitions straight, read Joe Barr's column Live and let license from May 2001 Lunixworld.