IP: Barbara Simons on (1) Copyright wars (2) Surveillance (4/10 UMBC)

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

------ Forwarded Message
From: tim finin <finin () cs umbc edu>
Organization: HTTP://UMBC.EDU/
Date: Mon, 08 Apr 2002 18:28:47 -0400
To: farber () cis upenn edu
Subject: Barbara Simons on (1) Copyright wars (2) Surveillance (4/10 UMBC)

IPers in the Baltimore-DC area might be interested in these two talks
by Barbara Simons (Stanford University, ACM) on Wednesday, April 10,
which are part of the Women in Science and Engineering (WISE) lecture
series.  For more information contact the host, Dr. Marie desJardins,
mailto:mariedj () cs umbc edu, for directions see
http://www.umbc.edu/aboutumbc/directions.html.

                         Dr. Barbara Simons
             Stanford University

      THE COPYRIGHT WARS: COMPUTER SCIENTISTS ON THE FRONT LINES
     1:00pm, Room 210-I, Engineering and Computer Science
           University of Maryland Baltimore County

During the past year we have seen a Princeton computer science
professor (Felten) threatened and a Russian computer scientist
(Sklyarov) arrested because of research they and their colleagues had
done to break copyright protection schemes.  The legislation behind
these actions is the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).  The
DMCA criminalizes technologies and technological devices that can be
used to circumvent "a technological measure that effectively controls
access to a [copyrighted] work."  The law does not address issues such
as the robustness of a technological measure.  The publication of an
analysis of flaws in a very weak and poorly designed technology that
is supposed to control access to a copyrighted work could be
considered a violation of the DMCA.

Worse yet, the intent to circumvent copyright is not a requirement for
being found in violation of the law.  In other words, someone who has
made no illegal copies of a copyrighted work and who intends for his
or her work to be used only to better understand some aspect of
science could be charged under the DMCA.  I will discuss the DMCA and
three legal cases: Felten, Sklyarov, and the 2600/DVD case, which is
the first conviction under the DMCA.  If there is time, I will also
discuss two legislative proposals that are likely to come up in the
next session of Congress: the database bill and a proposal to require
hardware and software implementation of copyright protection mechanisms.

           SURVEILLANCE -- PAST AND PRESENT
      4:00pm, Skylight Room, 3rd floor University Commons
           University of Maryland Baltimore County

The recently passed USA-PATRIOT Act significantly increases the
capability of law enforcement to monitor communications within the
United States.  According to President Bush, the PATRIOT Act "will
help law enforcement to identify, to dismantle, to disrupt and to
punish terrorists before they strike." He went on to say that "This
new law that I sign today will allow surveillance of all
communications used by terrorists, including e-mails, the Internet and
cell phones." Civil libertarians and privacy advocates are concerned
that the surveillance will not be limited to terrorists.  In addition
to allowing detention of non-U.S. citizens for seven days (and
sometimes longer) without being charged with commission of a crime,
the law as applied to citizens and non-citizens alike:

  o expands the ability of law enforcement to conduct electronic
    surveillance;
  o reduces privacy protections accorded to university students under
    the Family Education and Privacy Rights Act (FERPA);
  o allows government monitoring (without judicial authorization) of
    communications of "computer trespassers," even in some circumstances
    where the affected user has permission to use the computer system;
  o authorizes searches without notification to targeted individual so
    long as law enforcement has "reasonable cause to believe" that
    providing notice "may" ... "seriously jeopardize an investigation," in
    effect allowing police break-ins to private homes and offices.

In addition to reviewing some of the provisions of the PATRIOT Act, I
shall discuss some historical examples of inappropriate monitoring by
federal and state officials.

--

Barbara Simons was President of the Association for Computing
Machinery (ACM) from July 1998 until June 2000.  She founded and
co-chairs ACM's US Public Policy Committee (USACM).  She is on the
Board of Directors of the U.C. Berkeley Engineering Fund, Public
Knowledge, and the Electronic Privacy Information Center, as well as
the Advisory Board of Zeroknowledge.  Simons earned her Ph.D. in
computer science from U.C. Berkeley, worked at IBM Research for many
years, holds several patents, and has authored numerous technical
papers.  She is currently a consulting professor at Stanford
University.

Simons is a Fellow of ACM and of the American Association for the
Advancement of Science.  She received the Alumnus of the Year Award
from the Berkeley Computer Science Department, the Norbert Wiener
Award from CPSR, the Outstanding Contribution Award from ACM, and the
Pioneer Award from EFF.  She was selected by c|net as one of its 26
Internet "Visionaries" and by Open Computing as one of the "Top 100
Women in Computing."  Science Magazine featured her in a special
edition on women in science.

Simons served on the President's Export Council's Subcommittee on
Encryption and on the Information Technology Sector of the President's
Council on the Year 2000 Conversion.  She has testified before both
the U.S. and the California legislatures and at government-sponsored
hearings.  She was runner-up in the first election for the North
America seat on the ICANN Board.


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