Reagle on Parade: "Social Protocols" @ DCSB

Rohit Khare (rohit@godzilla.ICS.uci.edu)
Sat, 14 Feb 1998 12:53:13 -0800


Go, Speed Racer!

You know, even being a founding member of DCSB and all, I never actually
gave a talk, which leads to the consequent humiliation: I've always had
to pay for lunch. Congrats on scamming a free pasta dish at the Harvahd
Club :-)

Fascinating abstract, well-spun narrative arc for weaving together lots of
W3C threads into a common fabric.

Good luck, wish I were there, give my regards to Bob,
Rohit Khare

------- Forwarded Message

The Digital Commerce Society of Boston

Presents

Joseph Reagle Jr.
World Wide Web Consortium

"Social Protocols":
Meta-data and Negotiation
in Digital Commerce

Tuesday, March 3, 1997
12 - 2 PM
The Downtown Harvard Club of Boston
One Federal Street, Boston, MA

On the foundations of basic network, meta-data, and negotiation protocols, a
"new" set of protocols, "social protocols," are being built. They are in
fact applications of meta-data and negotiation in order to mimic the social
capabilities people have in the real world: capabilities to create rich
content, make verifiable assertions, create agreements, and to develop and
manage trust relationships. Furthermore, governments realize that a
significant portion of their constituencies and markets are moving on-line.
Consequently, as the sophistication of one's interactions on the Web
increase through the development of social protocols, so does the
regulators' interest in extending their "real world" mandates on commerce
and culture to the Web. Mr. Reagle will detail the development of "social
protocols" and their ability to create and maintain spontaneous, emergent,
social structures versus their ability to propagate "real world" norms on
the Web.

Joseph Reagle Jr. joined the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) at MIT in
October of 1996 to focus on policy issues related to the development of
global technologies and their relationship to social and legal structures.
Specifically, how to promote "good" engineering when applied to a
multifaceted and often contentious policy environment; one result of this
activity is the W3C Statement on Policy. Mr. Reagle received a Computer
Science degree from University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC) and
continued on to the S.M. Technology and Policy program at the Massachusettes
Institute of Technology (MIT). While at MIT he worked with the Research
Program on Communication Policy on IPR, eCommerce, security, and
cryptographic policy. During the summer of '95, he worked at Open Market on
electronic commerce protocols. Before joining the W3C at the Laboratory for
Computer Science (MIT), Mr. Reagle consulted on Internet and interactive
media for McCann-Erickson, and Internet gambling for go-Digital.

This meeting of the Digital Commerce Society of Boston will be held on
Tuesday, March 3, 1997, from 12pm - 2pm at the Downtown Branch of the
Harvard Club of Boston, on One Federal Street. The price for lunch is
$32.50. This price includes lunch, room rental, various A/V hardware, and
the speaker's lunch. ;-). The Harvard Club *does* have dress code: jackets
and ties for men (and no sneakers or jeans), and "appropriate business
attire" (whatever that means), for women. Fair warning: since we purchase
these luncheons in advance, we will be unable to refund the price of your
lunch if the Club finds you in violation of the dress code.

We will attempt to record this meeting for sale on CD/R, and to put it on
the web in RealAudio format, at some future date.

We need to receive a company check, or money order, (or, if we *really* know
you, a personal check) payable to "The Harvard Club of Boston", by Saturday,
February 28th, or you won't be on the list for lunch. Checks payable to
anyone else but The Harvard Club of Boston will have to be sent back.

Checks should be sent to Robert Hettinga, 44 Farquhar Street, Boston,
Massachusetts, 02131. Again, they *must* be made payable to "The Harvard
Club of Boston", in the amount of $32.50. Please include your e-mail
address, so that we can send you a confirmation

If anyone has questions, or has a problem with these arrangements (We've had
to work with glacial A/P departments more than once, for instance), please
let us know via e-mail, and we'll see if we can work something out.

Upcoming speakers for DCSB are:

April Adam Shostack Digital Commerce Security:
Beyond Firewalls
May Jeremey Barrett Digital Bearer Certificate Protocols

We are actively searching for future speakers. If you are in Boston on the
first Tuesday of the month, and you would like to make a presentation to the
Society, please send e-mail to the DCSB Program Commmittee, care of Robert
Hettinga, <mailto: rah@shipwright.com>.

For more information about the Digital Commerce Society of Boston, send
"info dcsb" in the body of a message to <mailto: majordomo@ai.mit.edu> . If
you want to subscribe to the DCSB e-mail list, send "subscribe dcsb" in the
body of a message to <mailto: majordomo@ai.mit.edu> .

We look forward to seeing you there!

Cheers,
Robert Hettinga
Moderator,
The Digital Commerce Society of Boston