Upcoming Events: Data and Goliath (3/25); Data, Privacy & Navigating the Change from a (Relatively) Unrecorded to a Recorded World (3/31); Love the Processor, Hate the Process (4/2)

Data and Goliath: The Hidden Battles to Collect Your Data and Control Your World

[Today] Wednesday, March 25, 6:00PM ET, Harvard Law School. Reception to follow.

Join the Berkman Center for a special event celebrating the release of Bruce Schneier's new book, Data and Goliath: The Hidden Battles to Collect Your Data and Control Your World.

About the book:

You are under surveillance right now.

Your cell phone provider tracks your location and knows who’s with you. Your online and in-store purchasing patterns are recorded, and reveal if you’re unemployed, sick, or pregnant. Your e-mails and texts expose your intimate and casual friends. Google knows what you’re thinking because it saves your private searches. Facebook can determine your sexual orientation without you ever mentioning it.

The powers that surveil us do more than simply store this information. Corporations use surveillance to manipulate not only the news articles and advertisements we each see, but also the prices we’re offered. Governments use surveillance to discriminate, censor, chill free speech, and put people in danger worldwide. And both sides share this information with each other or, even worse, lose it to cybercriminals in huge data breaches.

Much of this is voluntary: we cooperate with corporate surveillance because it promises us convenience, and we submit to government surveillance because it promises us protection. The result is a mass surveillance society of our own making. But have we given up more than we’ve gained? In Data and Goliath, security expert Bruce Schneier offers another path, one that values both security and privacy. He shows us exactly what we can do to reform our government surveillance programs and shake up surveillance-based business models, while also providing tips for you to protect your privacy every day. You’ll never look at your phone, your computer, your credit cards, or even your car in the same way again.

Bruce Schneier is an internationally renowned security technologist, called a "security guru" by The Economist. He is the author of 12 books -- including Liars and Outliers: Enabling the Trust Society Needs to Thrive -- as well as hundreds of articles, essays, and academic papers. RSVP required. more information on our website>

Data, Privacy & Navigating the Change from a (Relatively) Unrecorded to a Recorded World

Tuesday, March 31, 12:00pm ET, Harvard Law School. Hosted by the HLS Dean's Office and co-sponsored by the Berkman Center.

Join us for a talk about "Data, Privacy & Navigating the Change from a (Relatively) Unrecorded to a Recorded World" with Chris Kelly, Harvard Law School Steven and Maureen Klinksy Professor of Practice for Leadership and Progress; Former Chief Privacy Officer of Facebook.

Chris Kelly is a Silicon Valley attorney with a long track record of representing innovative companies and making the Internet a safer place for kids and adults alike. As the first Chief Privacy Officer, General Counsel, and Head of Global Public Policy for Facebook, Chris helped the company grow from its college roots to the ubiquitous communications medium that it is today. Chris’s development of the site’s safety and security policies around real world identity and deployment of a highly-trained staff for rule and law enforcement are credited as critical elements in the company’s success. more information on our website>

Love the Processor, Hate the Process: The Temptations of Clever Algorithms and When to Resist Them

Thursday, April 2, 5:00pm ET, Harvard Law School.

On the occasion of his appointment as the George Bemis Professor of International Law at Harvard Law School, Jonathan Zittrain will give a lecture entitled, “Love the Processor, Hate the Process: The Temptations of Clever Algorithms and When to Resist Them.”

Jonathan Zittrain is the George Bemis Professor of International Law at Harvard Law School and the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, Professor of Computer Science at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Vice Dean for Library and Information Resources at the Harvard Law School Library, and co-founder of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society. more information on our website>

The Black Box Society

Tuesday, April 7, 12:00pm ET, Berkman Center for Internet & Society, 23 Everett St, 2nd Floor. This event will be webcast live.

Does the increasing velocity, variety, and volume of data make regulators' jobs harder or easier? Some say we are entering a "golden age of surveillance," enabling perfect enforcement of laws. But Frank Pasquale's book "The Black Box Society" argues that, at least in areas like privacy, antitrust, and financial regulation, big data can also enable obfuscation, stonewalling, and even fraud. At this talk, Pasquale will discuss the risks and opportunities that arise out of the new information environment.

Frank Pasquale’s research addresses the challenges posed to information law by rapidly changing technology, particularly in the health care, internet, and finance industries. He is a member of the NSF-funded Council for Big Data, Ethics, and Society, and an Affiliate Fellow of Yale Law School’s Information Society Project. He frequently presents on the ethical, legal, and social implications of information technology for attorneys, physicians, and other health professionals. His book The Black Box Society: The Secret Algorithms that Control Money and Information (Harvard University Press, 2015) develops a social theory of reputation, search, and finance. RSVP Required. more information on our website>

Distributed and Digital Disaster Response

The citizen response to 2012's Hurricane Sandy was in many important ways more effective than the response from established disaster response institutions like FEMA. New York-based response efforts like Occupy Sandy leveraged existing community networks and digital tools to find missing people; provide food, shelter, and medical assistance; and offer a hub for volunteers and donors. In this talk Willow Brugh -- Berkman fellow and Professor of Practice at Brown University -- demonstrates examples ranging from Oklahoma to Tanzania where such distributed and digital disaster response have proved successful, and empowered citizens to respond in ways traditional institutions cannot. video/audio on our website>