Chapter 1 The Need for Contextually Appropriate Technology1.1A goal is to conduct cross-disciplinary research1.2Interdisciplinary, Multidisciplinary, Transdisciplinary1.3Computer science has always engaged different disciplines in isolation1.4Today’s computational systems need integrated research methods1.5A goal is to assume responsibility for the viability of resulting technologies1.6Example: Computer science research and privacy1.7Funding sources want effective research involving multiple disciplines1.8Technology Dialectics offers a unified approachTechnology Dialectics: a paradigm for cross-disciplinary research and development *DRAFT* v0.4-12 Fall 2008Technology DialecticsA Paradigm for Cross-disciplinary Research and DevelopmentbyLatanya Sweeney, Ph.D.DRAFTFall 2008How does an engineer or computer scientist make sure the technology she creates will be viable? How does she construct technology that is “provably appropriate” for a given personal, societal, organizational, and/or legal context? This writing introduces Technology Dialectics as a new research and development paradigm in which an engineer or computer scientist identifies and assesses potential barriers to technology approval and overcomes them through technology design. To accomplish this, an engineer or computer scientist harnesses cross-disciplinary knowledge. Scientific research methods (naturalistic observation, survey, interviews and experimentation) describe existing phenomena. Legal reasoning and policy interpretation situate phenomena in a socio-political framework. And, traditional computer science research involves methods for constructing new phenomena (that accomplishes a given task efficiently). Technology Dialectics blends different research traditions into a unified approach for developing technology such that the resulting technology is “provably appropriate” for a given context, and the basis of “proofs” are discipline specific. The approach of Technology Dialectics stems from lessons learned in constructing technologies that address real-world privacy problems. Examples come primarily from that venue, but this writing applies broadly to other application domains. Topics addressed within the Technology Dialectics paradigm include formulating problem statements, modeling real-world constraints, including end-user participation, determining validity, assessing generalizability, generating guarantees, and providing provably appropriate solutions.Copyright © 2004-2008 Latanya Sweeney. 1Technology Dialectics: a paradigm for cross-disciplinary research and development *DRAFT* v0.4-12 Fall 2008This book is dedicated to my son in the hopes he will always seek truth, no matter where it leads.Copyright © 2004-2008 Latanya Sweeney. 3Technology Dialectics: a paradigm for cross-disciplinary research and development *DRAFT* v0.4-12 Fall 2008AcknowledgementsOne never achieves an accomplishment alone but does so in environments and communities of people that help make it possible. This work is no exception. The Data Privacy Lab, the PhD Program in Computation, Organizations and Society, the students in the COS Lab course, the Center for the Quality of Life Technology, and family and friends all played supporting roles. Much gratitude goes to the students, faculty, staff and corporate partners of the Laboratory for International Data Privacy (“the Data Privacy Lab”)1 for providing an environment in which privacy technology was explored, regardless of discipline – policy, law, technology – and with the dogma of delivering provably appropriate solutions to real-world problems. The rigor students demanded of themselves and the vision we all shared fostered a transdisciplinary environment that provided fodder for this book, as the examples within give witness. In alphabetical order, specific gratitude goes to: Edoardo Airoldi, Sylvia Barrett, Guy Blelloch, Lenore Blum, Manuel Blum, Samuel Edoho-Eket, Aarthi Gopal, William Gronim, Ralph Gross, Ponnurangam Kumaraguru, Yiheng Li, Sherice Livingston, Kishore Madhava, Bradley Malin, William Malloy, Elaine Newton, Raj Reddy, Rebekah Siegel, Michael Shamos, Brooke Singer, Ben Vernot, and Marshall Warfield. Tremendous gratitude goes to my colleagues in the PhD Program in Computation, Organizations and Society at Carnegie Mellon University’s School of Computer Science for their unwavering confidence in my pursuing this endeavor as part of the research training of their students. Appreciation goes to Kathleen Carley, Norman Sadeh, William Scherlis, Mary Shaw, Raj Reddy, Michael Shamos, and Lorrie Cranor.Many thanks go to the students in the PhD Program in Computation, Organizations and Society who worked through and commented on earlier versions of this writing. In alphabetical order, thanks to Virginia Bedford, Michael Benisch, Eric Daimler, George Davis, Serge Egelman, Ian Fette, Il-Chul Moon, and Michael Schneider.Appreciation goes to the NSF Center for Quality of Life Technologies for extending this work beyond privacy technology into robotics, rehabilitation engineering, and general engineering. Particular appreciation goes to Kate Seelman, Rory Cooper, Takeo Kanade, and Jim Osborn. Last but not least, here is a word about family and personal advisors. From the conception of this work, my family whole-heartedly believed in this effort and sacrificed personal time for its completion. The earliest seeds for this work stem from conversations with Henry Leitner at Harvard University and the late Herb Simon at Carnegie Mellon University many years ago. Thank you all.Multiple groups contributed to funding this work. While all contributions were important, two deserve particular recognition. The Intel Corporation made a donation through Lab Partnership 50526. Special thanks to David Hoffman, Director of Privacy and Security Policy, and Claire Vishik, Trust/Security Standards and Regulations Manager. The National Science Foundation gave support, in part, through grant EEC-0540865. 1 More information on the Data Privacy Lab is available at privacy.cs.cmu.edu.Copyright © 2004-2008 Latanya Sweeney. 4Technology Dialectics: