Notable

Steve Worona, special assistant to the vice president for information technologies and co-director of the Cornell Computer Policy and Law Program, was the keynote speaker at the Resnet '99 Symposium held at Kent State University in late June.

Nearly 300 computing professionals from 160 American and Canadian universities attended the symposium to discuss the computer networking of campus residence halls. Worona's address, "Managing Chaos: Policy Issues for Residence-Hall Networking," dealt with the social and legal consequences of student access to computer networks.

"Every dorm-room computer is a printing press, TV station, video store, music catalog and performance-art stage. On the Internet, everyone's a publisher, but no one is an editor. Our challenge in higher education is to preserve the benefits of the most participatory form of mass speech yet developed while addressing such abuses as harassment, privacy violations and theft of intellectual property," Worona said. "Neither our legal system nor the technology itself yet provides us the answers we need, so we're left to our own creativity. This conference reviews some of our options and warns that the one law certain to be obeyed is the law of unintended consequences."