'Computing in the Cloud' workshop hosted by Princeton University – January 14-15

Marc Hedlund and I will be speaking at the ‘Computing in the Cloud’ workshop hosted by the Center for Information Technology Policy at Princeton on January 14-15. The sessions look very interesting and registration is free.

Panel 1: Possession and ownership of data – In cloud computing, a provider’s data center holds information that would more traditionally have been stored on the end user’s computer. How does this impact user privacy? To what extent do users own this data, and what obligations do the service providers have? What obligations should they have? Does moving the data to the provider’s data center improve security or endanger it?

Panel 2: Security and risk in the cloud – How does the move to centralized services affect the security and reliability of users interactions with technology? What new threats are likely to emerge? How might provider behavior, user behavior, or government policy need to change in response to those threats? How does the open source ethos work in a cloud computing environment?

Panel 3: Civics in the cloud How and where can cloud computing best improve public knowledge and engagement in political issues? What has been achieved so far? What is possible in the long run? What moves by private actors, and what policy changes, might do the most to harness the power of cloud computing for civic engagement?

Panel 4: What’s next? What new services might develop, and how will today’s services evolve? How well will cloud computing be likely to serve users, companies, investors, government, and the public over the longer run? Which social and policy problems will get worse due to cloud computing, and which will get better?

Updated on 1/21/08. Here is the the video of my panel:

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