CAREER: Values and Protocol Design

Harvard University, Cambridge MA

Investigators

Abstract

The research supported by this proposal addresses all stages of communications technology development - from protocol design through implementation -- identifying hard-wired technical biases and predicting emergent biases. Hypotheses of biases in protocols from the physical to the applications layer are based on examinations of the protocols including the relevant regulatory regimes, economic distributions, and design processes. Hypotheses are tested using the extensive body of data on the use of emerging (e.g., pointcast, the web, real time interactive services) and adopted (e.g., telephony, broadcast, email, print) communications technologies as well as current conceptualizations of security and privacy. Enumeration of the values embedded in popular protocols, in addition to alternatives to these proposed protocols as appropriate, will be the result. This research will achieve the following goals: 1) amelioration of the problem of unwitting design of values by publication in technical forums, particularly in quality of service technologies; 2) prevention of the adoption of policies via unexamined technology by presentation in policy forums; and 3) integration of the methods considered, including evaluation of their efficacy in various situations, into teaching not only at Harvard but also in the curricula at several European universities.