Category: Uncategorized
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How to constructively review a research paper
Any piece of research can be evaluated on three axes: Correctness/validity — are the claims justified by evidence? Impact/significance — how will the findings affect the research field (and the world)? Novelty/originality — how big a leap are the ideas, especially the methods, compared to what was already known? There are additional considerations such as…
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Roundup: My First Semester as a Post-Doc at Princeton
As Princeton thaws from under last week’s snow hurricane, I’m taking a moment to reflect on my first four months in the place I now call home. This roundup post shares highlights from my first semester as a post-doc in Psychology, CITP, and Sociology. So far, I have had an amazing experience: The Paluck Lab…
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What does it mean to ask for an “explainable” algorithm?
One of the standard critiques of using algorithms for decision-making about people, and especially for consequential decisions about access to housing, credit, education, and so on, is that the algorithms don’t provide an “explanation” for their results or the results aren’t “interpretable.” This is a serious issue, but discussions of it are often frustrating. The reason,…
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RIP, SHA-1
Today’s cryptography news is that researchers have discovered a collision in the SHA-1 cryptographic hash function. Though long-expected, this is a notable milestone in the evolution of crypto standards. Kudos to Marc Stevens, Elie Bursztein, Pierre Karpma, Ange Albertine, and Yarik Markov of CWI Amsterdam and Google Research for their result. SHA-1 was standardized by…
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Smart Contracts: Neither Smart nor Contracts?
Karen Levy has an interesting new article critiquing blockchain-based “smart contracts.” The first part of her title, “Book-Smart, not Street-Smart,” sums up her point. Here’s a snippet: Though smart contracts do have some features that might serve the goals of social justice and fairness, I suggest that they are based on a thin conception of…
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CITP Call for Visitors and Affiliates for 2017-18
The Center for Information Technology Policy is an interdisciplinary research center at Princeton that sits at the crossroads of engineering, the social sciences, law, and policy. We are seeking applicants for various residential visiting positions and for non-residential affiliates. For more information about these positions, please see our general information page and yearly call for…
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In Partial Defense of the Seahawks' Play Calling
The conventional wisdom about last night’s Super Bowl is that the Seahawks made a game-losing mistake by running a passing play from the Patriots’ one yard line in the closing seconds. Some are calling it the worst Super Bowl play call ever. I disagree. I won’t claim it was the right call, but I do…
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After the Facebook emotional contagion experiment: A proposal for a positive path forward
Now that some of the furor over the Facebook emotional contagion experiment has passed, it is time for us to decide what should happen next. The public backlash has the potential to drive a wedge between the tech industry and the social science research community. This would be a loss for everyone: tech companies, academia,…
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FOIA: When the Exemptions Swallow the Rule
I’ve been researching and writing over the last few years on privately ordered—what the government calls “non-regulatory”—approaches to online IP enforcement. The gist of this approach is that members of trade groups representing different types of online intermediaries (broadband providers, payment processors, ad networks, online pharmacies) agree in private contracts or less formal “voluntary best…
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“E agora José?” The current status of Marco Civil da Internet
I hope non-Brazilian readers will forgive me, but I could not find a better expression to summarize the current situation of the Brazilian Marco Civil da Internet. “E agora, José?” The expression can be translated into English as “What now, José?”, and is quite popular in Brazil, having its origin in a famous poem by Carlos…