Surveillance poses a tremendous potential for abuse. The serious problems in this area arise from new ways of using the technology. For example, one could have a program that went around and scanned all the message traffic and all the content of private group conferences. No human would illegally observe these communications. The program would have an expert system that examined the content to determine if there was some reasonable probability that the communications were discussing an illegal act and report that fact to a law-enforcement group that could then seek a court order to actually obtain and read those communications.
Predictor: Hiltz, Starr Roxanne
Prediction, in context:In a 1992 paper they presented at a workshop titled “Rights and Responsibilities of Participants in Networked Communities” for the Computer Science and Telecommunications Board of the National Research Council, researchers Starr Roxanne Hiltz and Murray Turoff say:”Surveillance poses a tremendous potential for abuse. The serious problems in this area arise from new ways of using the technology. For example, one could have a program that went around and scanned all the message traffic and all the content of private group conferences. No human would illegally observe these communications. The program would have an expert system that examined the content to determine if there was some reasonable probability that the communications were discussing an illegal act and report that fact to a law-enforcement group that could then seek a court order to actually obtain and read those communications. This program would be a sort of ‘informer.’ We have no idea if this would be legal, but it does not seem to be covered under the current concepts of the laws governing monitoring of communications. From a technological viewpoint, it would be a straightforward surveillance package to develop. With verbal communications it is difficult to monitor all communications. With digital communications we can in principle monitor all communications. What about a surveillance intelligent user agent to determine a likely customer for a certain product? Where do we stop?”
Biography:Starr Roxanne Hiltz, the co-author of a seminal book about the electronic frontier, “The Network Nation: Human Communication Via Computer” (MIT Press), was a professor of computer and information science at the New Jersey Institute of Technology and the author of many Internet research studies. In 1994, Hiltz received the “Pioneer Award” from the Electronic Frontier Foundation for her “significant and influential contributions to computer-based communications and to the empowerment of individuals using computers.” She was among the first to note that computer conferencing could form the basis of new kinds of communities. (Research Scientist/Illuminator.)
Date of prediction: November 1, 1992
Topic of prediction: Getting, Sharing Information
Subtopic: General
Name of publication: Rights and Responsibilities of Participants in Networked CommunitiesComputer science and Telecommunications BoardNational Research Council (NRC)
Title, headline, chapter name: A Normative View of Networking Applications
Quote Type: Direct quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
http://web.njit.edu/~turoff/Papers/dcgov.html
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Anderson, Janna Quitney