A workshop on Public Design was held on September 13-14, 2002, at the NYU Law School, dedicated
to the pragmatic challenge of shaping computer and information systems to reflect public values.
The Workshop consisted of a small group of participants representing diverse disciplinary
and professional fields whose work is devoted, in some way or other, to the social and human dimension of computer and
information systems. It included researchers in academia and corporate settings in technical areas
(including standards setting), law and policy, and the philosophical and social study of technology.
At the intellectual core of the workshop was the idea that values may be embodied in computer and information systems,
which has surfaced in important recent work in several disciplines. With this as a starting point, the workshop
focused on pragmatic questions of whether active and systematic attention to public values can yield devices and
systems better able to promote the public good, and if so, what forms such interventions could take.
In order to study the process of design and the potential loci of normatively informed intervention, we used
the workshop to explore the trajectory of a design process and the critical junctures at which public considerations
can be brought to bear. We invited the participants to chart the complex journey traveled from earliest ideas
to the completion of a system or device, taking note not only of scientific and engineering steps but also social,
political and economic ones. (Of course, we concede that the task of identifying public values in diverse societies
is itself a thorny problem.)
We gave special attention to technologies of security and privacy, both to lend a focus to our discussions
and to acknowledge their increased prominence in the wake the World Trade Center attacks and aftermath. This focus,
however, did not preclude attention to general theories of the shaping of technology, including historical discussion.
The idea was to build on the relevant knowledge and know-how of diverse fields of study and practice.
PARTICIPANTS LIST FOR PUBLIC DESIGN CONFERENCE:
Gaia Bernstein (gb425@nyu.edu)
New York University School of Law
666 Greenwich St. #228
New York, NY 10014
Phone: (646) 336-1489
Michael D. Birnhack (michaelb@research.haifa.ac.il)
Visiting Assistant Professor, George Washington University, School of Law
1922 F. Street. NW
M414F
Washington DC 20052
(202) 994-9981
Geoffrey Bowker (bowker@ucsd.edu)
Department of Communication
University of California, San Diego
9500 Gilman Drive
La Jolla, CA 92093-0503
858-534-4410
Scott Bradner (sob@harvard.edu) [Area Director in Transport Area of IETF]
Harvard University
University Information Systems
Pierce Hall 407
Cambridge, MA 02138
617-495-3864
Philip Brey (p.a.e.brey@wmw.utwente.nl)
University of Twente - WWTS
Postbox 217
NL-7500 AE Enschede
The Netherlands
++31 53 489 4393
Jean Camp (jean_camp@harvard.edu)
Kennedy School of Government
L 213 79 JFK Street
Cambridge, MA
617-496-6331
Julie E. Cohen (jec@law.georgetown.edu)
Georgetown University Law Center
McDonough Hall, Room 558
600 New Jersey Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20001
202-662-9871
Lorrie Cranor (lorrie@research.att.com)
AT&T Labs - Research
Shannon Labs
Room A205
180 Park Ave
Florham Park, NJ 07932
973-360-8607
Niva Elkin-Koren (elkiniva@research.haifa.ac.il)
Faculty of Law, Room 353b
University of Haifa
Mount Carmel
Haifa 31905
Israel
+972-4-8240638
Patrick Feng (fengp@rpi.edu)
Department of Science and Technology Studies
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Troy, NY 12180-3590
518-276-6413 (Main Dept. Number)
Michael J. Freedman (mfreed@MIT.EDU)
New York Universtiy
Computer Science Department
715 Broadway, Room 715
New York, NY 10003
(212) 998-3485
Alex Galloway
(alex@rhizome.org)
Department of Culture and Communication
New York University
239 Greene Street, 7th Floor
New York, NY 10003
Natalie Jeremijenko (nat@cat.nyu.edu)
Center for Advanced Technology
New York University
719 Broadway - 12th Floor
New York NY 10003
Phone: 212 998 3382
Fax: 212 995 4122
Deborah Johnson (dgj7p@virginia.edu)
Olsson Professor of Applied Ethics
Technology, Culture and Communication
University of Virginia
P.O. Box 400744
351 McCormick Road
Thornton Hall
Charlottesville, VA 22904-4744
434-924-7751
Susan Landau (susan.landau@sun.com)
1 Network Drive
Burlington, MA 01803
781-442-0006
David Mazières (dm@scs.cs.nyu.edu)
715 Broadway, Room 708
New York, NY 10003
(212) 998-3492
Helen Nissenbaum (helen.nissenbaum@nyu.edu)
Department of Culture and Communication
New York University
239 Greene Street, 7th Floor
New York, NY 10003
212-998-5251
Fred Schneider (fbs@cs.cornell.edu)
Department of Computer Science
4130 Upson Hall, Office 4115C
Ithaca, NY 14853-7501
607-255-9221
Steven Shafer (stevensh@microsoft.com)
Microsoft Research, Vision Technology Group
Microsoft Corporation
One Microsoft Way
Redmond, WA 98052-6399
425-703-1298
Marc Waldman (waldman@cs.nyu.edu)
Department of Computer Science
New York University
Weaver Hall
251 Mercer Street, #405
New York, NY 10003
Daniel Weitzner (djweitzner@w3.org)
MIT Laboratory for Computer Science
200 Technology Square
Room NE43-358
Cambridge, MA 02139
MIT : 617-253-8036
DC: 202-364-4750