Date: Mon, 12 Feb 1996 17:02:39 -0500 (EST) From: Paul Resnick <presnick@research.att.com> To: gnu@eff.org Last July, we started a new Public Policy Research department at AT&T. We're writing to ask if you have friends, students, or colleagues who could contribute to this new enterprise. We are looking both for software hackers and for Ph.D. level researchers who are comfortable with software but bring expertise in economics, politics, law, or sociology. There is also an opening for a senior researcher with strong management skills to head the department. We're very excited about the prospects for this department. The fundamental premise is that communication systems can provide the glue that holds society together, in many cases more effectively and less intrusively than governments can. We will explore the interplay of software tools, rules, and rewards, as means of governance in electronic markets and other virtual public spaces. In other words, how can we make it safe, fun, and profitable to interact with people you do not know very well? Throughout the company, there is untapped energy that lingers from the days when AT&T had a clear public mission of universal telephone service for everyone in the United States. This department can offer a new public-oriented mission. The enclosures briefly describe some sample projects. In spite of, or perhaps because of the recent breakup, the company is continuing to invest in research. About 300 technical staff from the old Bell Labs, mostly computer scientists, are part of the new AT&T Research organization. Research areas include databases, programming languages, software engineering, speech, cryptography and security, human factors, collaborative applications, and more. Many departments will be hiring. Like the former Bell Labs, the work environment is informal but intense and intellectually rigorous. External publication is encouraged. We measure success by leadership and impact, in the academic research community, in AT&T's business, and in the world. Please feel free to send us suggestions or pass this letter on to anyone you think may be interested. In addition to permanent positions, there are also opportunities for sabbaticals, post-docs, and summer employment. Thanks in advance for any assistance you can provide. Sincerely, Paul Resnick Member of Technical Staff Public Policy Research Department presnick@research.att.com Eric Sumner Director, Network Services Research Laboratory ees@research.att.com P.S. You may also receive this message by paper mail: we're trying to make it as easy as possible for you to pass it along to people who might be interested. ----------------------------------- Public Policy Research Department The department creates rules and tools that enhance the common wealth in electronic markets and other virtual public spaces where people may interact with others they do not know very well. Traditionally, enhancing the common wealth has been the government's purview, but advanced communication services offer new opportunities for governance without government. Areas of interest include: privacy, security, anonymity, freedom and responsibility in cyberspace rating and reputation services intellectual property universal service electronic markets pricing and provision of public goods trust and other forms of social capital Sample Projects PICS: The Platform for Internet Content Selection With its recent explosive growth, the Internet now faces a problem that confronts all media that serve diverse audiences: not all materials are appropriate for every audience. For each new medium, society has had to balance the value of free speech against the social costs of distributing materials to inappropriate audiences. While most media are regulated by blanket rules, on the Internet it is possible to reconcile those goals through individual choices in a marketplace of ideas. In other words, the Internet can regulate itself. PICS, the Platform for Internet Content Selection, is designed to enable supervisors-- whether parents, teachers, or administrators-- to block access from their sites to certain Internet resources, without censoring what is distributed to other sites. It draws on two unique features of the Internet. First, publishing is instantaneous, world-wide, and very inexpensive, so it is easy to publish rating and advisory labels. Labels and ratings already help consumers choose many products, from movies to cars to computers. Such labels are provided by the producers or by independent third parties, such as consumer magazines. Similarly, labels for Internet resources could help users to select interesting, high-quality materials and could help supervisors to block access to inappropriate ones. Second, access to Internet resources is mediated by computers that can process far more labels than any person could. Thus, parents, teachers, and other supervisors need only configure software to selectively block access to resources based on the rating labels; they need not personally read them. This project is a consortium of 23 companies, under the auspices of MIT's World Wide Web Consortium. It has received significant attention in the press as an alternative to government-mandated blanket rules that would restrict the distribution of indecent materials. Details can be found at http://www.w3.org/PICS. Markets for IP Addresses The 32-bit numbers used for Internet addressing and routing are a limited resource. As this resource becomes scarcer, political considerations are likely to creep into allocation decisions made through existing administrative processes, leading to suboptimal allocations. By granting transferable property rights to addresses, allocation decisions can be removed from the political realm into the economic realm, so that addresses are allocated to those who value them most. This project seeks to develop consensus in the Internet community for a move to market-based allocation, and investigates alternative designs for an electronic market to coordinate the exchange of IP addresses. Electronic Support for Entry-Level Labor Markets Entry-level labor markets in several professional fields, including law, medicine, and psychology, share the characteristic that a large cohort of new employees are available at approximately the same starting date each year. The hiring processes in these fields,however, differ significantly. Medical residents "match" with hospitals through a centralized process embedded in a computer algorithm. Law students are hired in a far more decentralized process. This project explores whether computer mediation of the process can combine the advantages of both the centralized and decentralized approaches. Reputation Services In the physical world, trust and reputations play critical roles in commercial and social interactions. If word travels fast in a community, the consequences of unethical or antisocial behavior may be sufficient to deter such behavior. Moreover, there is an incentive to engage in good behavior, because it will be recognized and rewarded. In on-line environments with a dispersed base of casual users, word may not get around so fast. Reputation services will help spread the word: they can automatically keep track of good and bad behavior and make that history available in useful ways. Since it is easy to assume new identities and start new businesses on-line, leaving old reputations behind, positive reputations are likely to be far more important than negative ones. ------------------------------------------------------------ Paul Resnick AT&T Research Public Policy Research Room 2C-430B 908-582-5370 (voice) 600 Mountain Avenue 908-582-4113 (fax) P.O. Box 636 Murray Hill, NJ 07974-0636