Privacy issues arise, according to the traditional analysis,
when computers are used to capture and circulate individually
identifiable information. Unfortunately, this theory leads to
intractable political controversies because it only offers two
extreme options: complete identification and complete anonymity. It
is well known that new cryptographic protocols provide a complicated
space of options between these two extremes. Before we can
make reasoned political and technical choices about the adoption
of these technologies, however, we need a much fuller understanding
of the "natural history" of identity in face-to-face
and computer-mediated interactions as they already exist. In
this talk, I will sketch some of the cognitive and institutional
aspects of identity. Then I will apply this analysis to
various questions of economics and Internet architecture.
Phil Agre
teaches in the Department of Communication at UC San Diego. He
is perhaps best known as the creator and editor of the popular
on-line information source, the Red
Rock Eater, which provides a wide range of material on computing,
technology, and society. He is also the author of Computation
and Human Experience (Cambridge University Press, 1997),
co-editor with Doug Schuler of Reinventing Techonology, Rediscovering
Community (Ablex, 1977) and co-editor with Marc Rotenberg
of Technology and Privacy : The New Landscape (MIT Press,
1997).