Overview
Practical philosophy on the relationship between law and society
Some observations on the evolution of services on the Web
Design patterns we may infer from what we know of the law and the Web.
Facing the Challenge of the Web and Policy (public and otherwise):
General view (amongst those who 'get' the Web): law has
to catch up with new technology.
General question: how will laws catch up?
My question: how will the Web catch up with the
time-tested relationship between the Law and Society?
Quiz
- How many believe you are subject to law (any law)?
- How many of you follow (most) laws? [exclude speed limits]
- How many of you read all the laws to which you believe you are
subject?
- How many have been to a court of law?
Setting expectations for social layer of the semantic web
How will the Web finally catch up with the 'real world'?: in everyday
life, the vast major of 'policy' problems get worked out without recourse to
legal system.
Design goal: instrument the Web to provide seamless social interactions
which allow us to avoid legal system the way we do in the rest of life
Punch line: In the shift from centralized to decentralized information
systems we see a general trend:
ex ante policy enforcement barriers -> policy description
with late binding of rules for accountability
Privacy -- The challenge of web-scale profiling
 |
“Authorities in the Washington region spotted the same faded blue
1990 Chevrolet Caprice and recorded its New Jersey tags on at least
10 different occasions this month….
Each time, however, they let the driver go after finding no record
that it had been stolen or that its occupants were wanted for any
crimes.
|
| ’We were looking for a white van with white people, and we ended
up with a blue car with black people,’ said D.C. Police Chief
Charles H. Ramsey”
Washington Post 26 October 2002, p.A01
|
 |
Privacy shifts -- from collection limts to use limits
Most intrusive practices are from inferences drawn, not individual quanta
of information collected:
- Credit card transactions -> profiling
- Web logs -> Web search patterns
- Instantaneous location -> travel patterns
collection barriers -> usage description with
accountability (after the fact) to rules:
Departure from information hiding as a privacy protection
mechanism -> transparency and accountability
Provenance
editorial (or algorithmic) barriers -> individual
description with trust inferencing;
Departure from centralized editorial control -> ad
hoc, customized reasoning over large volume of description
Property
Departure from Hollywood content (centralied production)
-> Blogs, Flickr and Livejournal (decentralized content we all make)
Property
Move from up-front enforcement barriers (DRM) -> open
description of licensing terms (CC) with after-the-fact enforcement
as needed
2 Models of Personhood (aka 'identity management')
| Trusted Third Parties |
De-referenceable 2nd
Partes |
| Liberty Alliance & Microsoft
InfoCard |
FOAF & Open ID |
- multiple ID info bundles held by trusted 3rd parties
- accessible through common WS* stack
- named by End Point References
|
- individually-published personal info
- web of Knows: links
- URI-based
- accessible through Web and Semweb stack
|
|
 |
How to Represent Personhood?
- first class object -- yes
- trusted 3rd parties (banks, governments, etc.) -- vital in the world
now and in the future
- super first-class status -- ?
Conclusion - Privacy, Provenance, Property and Personhood
|
old barriers... |
replaced by policy
description... |
| Privacy |
collection limits |
transparent usage rules with
accountability |
| Provenance |
centralized editors as opaque barriers |
transparent description with trust-based
reasoning |
| Property |
DRM for centrally-produced content |
transparent license rules (seeking, but not
demanding compliance) with enforcement after-the-fact |
| Personhood |
?? |
?? |
Semantic Web design goal: provide lots of description and just enough
reasoning in order to:
- make policy compliance commonplace without more than tacit notice by
users, and
- support enforcement with human/legal system intervention when
necessary.
The Semantic Web offers many of the tools do achieve these goals, but
we've got to use them.
Benchmark: In any well-instrumented social system policy compliance is an
emergent property.
Links and Acknowledgements
For more information see:
Work described here is supported by the US National Science Foundation
Cybertrust Program (05-518) and ITR Program (04-012).
