Rights and Responsibilities of Participants in Networked Communities (1994)
Chapter: B Workshop Schedule and Session Descriptions
APPENDIX BWorkshop Schedule and Session Descriptions
SCHEDULE
Thursday, November 5, 1992 | |
8:00 a.m. | Continental Breakfast |
8:30 | Welcome |
8:45 | Session 1—Internet |
10:30 | Break |
10:45 a.m. | Session 2—Commercial Information Services |
12:30 p.m. | Lunch |
1:30 | Session 3—Grass-roots Networks |
3:15 | Break |
3:30 | Session 4—Mapping Different Network Services Onto Different Metaphors |
5:30 p.m. | Reception and Buffet Dinner |
Friday, November 6, 1992 | |
8:15 a.m. | Continental Breakfast |
9:00 a.m. | Session 5—Content, Censorship, Accuracy, Defamation |
Noon | Lunch |
1:00 p.m. | Session 6—Privacy and Proprietary Interests |
4:15 p.m. | Session 7—Summary and Wrap-up |
SESSION DESCRIPTIONS
The first three sessions are to be devoted to examining user, provider, and outsider perspectives on different types of networked communities. Sessions 1 to 3 will address the following questions:
What policies, laws, regulations, or ethical standards apply to the use of these services, who sets them, how are they developed, and how are they enforced?
What are users' expectations regarding privacy and protection of other proprietary interests?
What are the rights, responsibilities, and liabilities of providers or operators of these services?
What are the rights, responsibilities, and liabilities of users of these services?
What problems arise from connecting systems offering these services to systems that operate under different policies?
Sessions 5 and 6 are to be devoted to examining important issues that cut across different networked communities.
Session 1—Internet
Chair: Stephen Kent
Presenters:
Jeffrey Schiller (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)
Susan Estrada (FARNET)
David Farber (University of Pennsylvania)
The Internet is the largest network in the world, connecting over a million users through thousands of subnetworks running through universities, industry, government agencies, and other organizations. This session will identify the rights and responsibilities of the Internet community, including the organizations that offer Internet nodes or gateways and the people who use electronic mail and other Internet services.
Session 2—Commercial Information Services
Chair: George Perry
Presenters:
Stephen Case (America OnLine)
Murray Turoff (New Jersey Institute of Technology)
Patrick Lanthier (Pacific Bell)
Eberhard Wunderlich (AT&T)
Commercial information services (including enhanced services to be offered by common carriers) offer (or will offer) the general public on-line information, bulletin boards, electronic mail, and conferencing facilities, and consumer services to their subscribers. This session will focus on the rights and responsibilities of the providers of such services and members of the public who use them.
Session 3—Grass-roots Networks
Chair: Mitchell Kapor
Presenters:
Tom Grundner (Cleveland FreeNet)
Jack Rickard (Boardwatch)
William Dutton (University of Southern California)
Grass-roots networks encompass efforts like FreeNet and local community bulletin board systems such as those operated by Santa Monica or by libraries; they are characterized as being generally small in scale (compared to the Internet) and have a populist flavor.
Session 4—Mapping Different Network Services Onto DifferentMetaphors
Chair: Anne Wells Branscomb
Presenters:
Davis Foulger (IBM)
David Johnson (Wilmer, Cutler, and Pickering)
Henry Perritt (Villanova University)
A number of metaphors (e.g., printing presses, corner soapboxes, telephones) have been used to describe electronically networked communications. But all such metaphors break down at some point. This session addresses what is special about electronic communication and how the metaphors generally used to understand electronic communication succeed and fail.
Session 5—Content, Censorship, Accuracy, Defamation
Chair: George Perry
Presenters:
Sara Kiesler (Carnegie Mellon University)
Carl Kadie (University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign)
Allan Adler (Cohn and Marks)
Jean Polly (NYSERNet)
Questions to be addressed in this session:
Given the global but largely selective reach of networks, what characterizes the judgments of a given networked community regarding content?
On what basis are policies regarding acceptable use formulated?
What policies, laws, and ethical standards establish acceptable content?
What is the impact on various stakeholders of violating acceptable use policies?
What is—and should be—the operator's responsibility for user violations of acceptable use policies?
Session 6—Privacy and Proprietary Interests
Chair: Dorothy Denning
Presenters:
William A. Bayse (Federal Bureau of Investigation)
Steven Metalitz (Information Industry Association)
Lance Rose (Attorney)
Alan Westin (Columbia University)
Marc Rotenberg (Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility)
Questions to be addressed in this session:
What is the nature of the proprietary interests held by the various stakeholders in networked communities?
What considerations should be taken into account to determine the legitimacy of asserted proprietary interests?
How can these proprietary interests be protected?
How have different networked communities acted to safeguard or deny these interests?
What are the responsibilities of a service provider to protect the privacy and proprietary interests of the users?
What should be the obligations of providers (or communities) to assist law enforcement or other officials (with or without court orders) in providing access to electronic communications (contents, addresses, and so on)?
What government controls, if any, should be placed on the use of cryptography?
Session 7—Summary and Wrap-Up
Since this workshop will provide the intellectual underpinning for the next event (i.e., the forum in Spring 1993), it will be important to summarize what the group learned during these two days and what types of questions would be relevant for the forum. The committee chair will summarize key points and then invite discussion from committee members and other workshop participants.
