The session that made the greatest impression was the speech "Liberty by Design: the Public Interest in Code" by Alan Davidson of The Center for Democracy and Technology. These are the notes I made on the talk.
The problem: technical standards are boring, but they can have big effects on society.
For example, Open Pluggable Edge Services (OPES). OPES will allow servers in the centre to change internet content on-route. There are many possible beneficial uses for these, such as translation, virus screening and caching. There are also more worrying possibilities: censoring by the government (without an end user being aware), monitoring use, inserting adverts. Following consultation on this standard, a rule was introduced: the public must be notified if OPES is being invoked, and at least one of the parties involved (content owner or user) must agree to its use.
There are many obstacles to getting social issues considered when standards are being developed. Some of the key ones are:
- not all decisions about them are made in the open
- lack of public awareness of what the issues are
- lack of understanding of the technologies
- lots of different bodies making decisions
- long time horizons from design to impact (2-5 years)
- inertia: once a standard is set it's very hard to change it
- standards set in one country can have global impact
But, with planning, we can lock-in the desired effects
How can we do this?
- get public and NGOs more involved in technical development
- create systematic mechanism's in technical development (e.g. a "policy impact assessment")
- more research on what the issues are and what to promote
- bridge the divide between technology and policy
A full programme and MP3s of the presentations can be found on the Politics of Code 2003 event website (follow the link to "proceedings").
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