Presence and IntComm WG

[Deke Kassabian <>]

--On Wednesday, February 4, 2004 2:44 PM -0500 Jeremy George 
<> wrote:

> All,
>
>   Until last Wednesday I had not had the good fortune to hear Dave
> Clark (www.lcs.mit.edu/people/bioprint.php3?PeopleID=81) speak.
> He's an accomplished lecturer, witty, urbane, and best of all, he's got
> something to say that's worth hearing, IMO.  His slide set is available
> at www.voice.yale.edu/tip2004/clark.ppt.

Interesting slides.  I'm sorry I missed hearing him deliver them.

>   Dr. Clark's basic point is that the next iteration of the Internet
> needs to be socially aware.  The original Internet architecture was
> pretty much of the geeks, by the geeks and for the geeks.  No more.
>
>   In our little corner of the world it means that we should be aware
> of social concerns and public policy issues as they relate to PIC/ALS.

One of these (and I think it has gotten in-person conversation among
some of us from time to time) is how location services and privacy
relate to each other.  There are some nice on-topic articles in the
IEEE journal Pervasive Computing from last year.

A related topic was discussed by Joe, Jiri, Jamey, Jeremy and me on the
evening the pic.internet2.edu photo was taken.  It has to do with the
nature of the data exchanges involved when designing for location
based services.  Does a provider of goods or services need to know
*who* you are in order to recognize you as a potential buyer or
interested party?  I think the answer is "no" since all that really
needs to take place is that (1) your agent needs to assert your hunger
pangs for a Chicken McGrill, and (2) the vendor of fine foods needs to
recognize that and the fact that it has some of this haute cuisine
warming under the heat lamps in order to extend the invitation.

It seems to me that it's possible to write use cases for this scenario
in which the hungry party is either anonymous or identified.  Guess
which one the products and services people want?

And while that's not often what *I* want, some compromises may be
necessary in order to get broad enough interest to get some of the
technology to catch on.  Likely result?  Many new kinds of spam  :(


> There might even be a benefit to the PIC group.  There might be an
> opportunity for some folks who see casting a type as a cinema notion to
> get involved.  Alright, alright, stop booing.
>
>   The general explanation of PIC/ALS I put out for JT is nowhere near
> the white paper I'd like to see us produce.  For one thing I'd like to
> add the clever and interesting use cases posted on this list a while
> ago and include them.

For a while now I've been meaning to write a use case for us that plays
up the possibilities for meaningful services that leverage presence
and location information while maintaining a level of anonymity that
an individual might choose.


> I'd like us to confront the issues relating
> to privacy and spam.

Cool.  Seems like that's the stuff I just ranted about.

> We might discuss regulatory issues, E911, USF,
> lawful intercept and much more.  We might, in short, frame the social
> context in which PIC/ALS is formed.  I think making sense of PIC/ALS
> would be a significant value to the membership.

Sounds good to me.  I'd like to hope we could find some good online
resources and point to them.  I don't personally feel smart enough to do
the heavy-thinking it would take to do this in a vacuum.  I do believe
that we could contribute to a good body of work.

>   I'd also like to kick around the possibilities of gathering
> (sponsoring?) a panel relating to Dr. Clark's notion of a social tussle.
> How about some lawyers on the edge talking to some engineers in the
> middle?  We probably don't have all the answers to the questions PIC/ALS
> raise, and we don't have to.  Maybe, though, we can help get some folks
> together who might have some good ideas to express.

Sounds like fun.  I'd attend a panel session like that. :)

>   If any of this resonates with you, please send note, either to the
> group or me.  If there enough like-minded souls maybe we can try a call
> and talk about some deliverables.

I'm in, at least for an initial call.

Thanks!
^Deke

> - Jeremy
>
> --



-------
Deke Kassabian,  Senior Technology Director
Information Systems and Computing, Networking and Telecommunications
University of Pennsylvania   <URL:http://www.net.isc.upenn.edu/~deke>