Taking a break

The PAIT workshop is now four months away and we have not had any new registrants for two weeks. This week we launched a LISTSERV e-mail lists for current (and future) registrants for pre-workshop conversations in the hope of making our face time as productive as possible.

My focus for the next few months will be on working with the people who will be at the workshop, rather than recruiting more. Thus I will be taking a break from updating this blog, probably until after the workshop.

Ken Pimple, PAIT Project Director

"What will talking power meters say about you?"

The October 9 entry on Bob Sullivan's MSNBC blog, "The Red Tape Chronicles," asks:

Would you sign up for a discount with your power company in exchange for surrendering control of your thermostat?  What if it means that, one day, your auto insurance company will know that you regularly arrive home on weekends at 2:15 a.m., just after the bars close?

The potential benefits of Smart Grid technology are many, including more efficient use of energy, fewer blackouts and brownouts, and lower energy costs. But utility companies will collect enormous amounts of data on consumers hooked up to the Smart Grid. Utility companies might sell that data to companies that will use it to protect themselves - like the hypothetical auto insurance company that might raise your premium or cancel your policy (or notify the police?) based on thin evidence that you drink and drive most weekends.

Strong data privacy laws in Europe may protect EU consumers, but the U.S. does not have such laws. Utility companies have financial incentives to adopt Smart Grid technology, and also to sell the data. Is there any force in the United States stronger than money, a force that can get laws implemented to protect consumers at some financial cost to business? If there is, it isn't Congress.

Thanks to Donald Searing of Syncere Systems for drawing my attention to this story.

Ken Pimple, PAIT Project Director

Noel Sharkey to speak at PAIT workshop

Noel Sharkey, Professor of Artificial Intelligence and Robotics, Professor of Public Engagement, and EPSRC Senior Media Fellow at the University of Sheffield, is the third speaker to be added to the roster of the PAIT workshop. He joins Fred H. Cate, Distinguished Professor and C. Ben Dutton Professor of Law, IU School of Law, and Director of the Center for Applied Cybersecurity Research at Indiana University Bloomington, and Helen Nissenbaum, Professor of Media, Culture, and Communication and Senior Fellow of the Information Law Institute at New York University.

In addition to formal presentations by these three distinguished scholars, the workshop will feature panel presentations and small-group breakout discussions. We already have an outstanding group of registrants and look forward to welcoming more.

Two quick notes:

1. Today (September 28, 2009) is the deadline for travel subsidy applications.
2. We have added a link on our Web site for reserving hotel rooms at the workshop.

Ken Pimple, PAIT Project Director

"Nationwide Warnings of Faulty Transit Sensor"

This news story from the New York Times (September 22, 2009) cites a recent report from the National Transportation Safety Board about the June 22, 2009, Metro crash in Washington, D.C., in which nine people died and dozens were injured. The NTSB has not yet come to a conclusion about the cause of the crash, the report notes that "a critical part of the sensing system was replaced days before the accident and that the subway’s managers did not respond aggressively to earlier system failures that did not result in death or injury."

Whatever the cause of this deadly accident, it stands as yet another reminder that technology is only as safe as the people who use and maintain it, the people who oversee them, the policies that guide the overseers (when they follow the policies), and numerous other links in an all-too frail system.

Ken Pimple, PAIT Project Director