Musings from CFP '14

Earlier this week I had the opportunity to muse conceptually at the 2014 Computers, Freedom, and Privacy conference in Warrenton, VA.  Kudos to co-chairs Nuala O'Connor and Amie Stepanovich and the CFP '14 program committee for a fantastic event!

During a 10-minute late afternoon Fire Talk, I offered some brief thoughts about resilience and autonomy in cyberspace. Specifically, I wondered if the evolution of communications technology (and its associated trends and/or architectures) truly is empowering society or transforming it back to a more centralized, more dependent, and potentially more authoritarian environment -- and if so, does that mean individuals, organizations, movements, and cultures are becoming less autonomous and/or resilient?

By way of background, I first explored these transdisciplinary (technical, legal, cultural) concerns back in 2001-2003 during periodic guest lectures at the National Defense University. In the years since, as a self-declared cyber-contrarian, they've never been far from my mind -- and in recent months, I've considered the prospect of revisiting them more formally.  As such, this week's informal CFP Fire Talk was the ideal place to begin that process.