Talks

Gig Work and the Digital Security Divide

USENIX Enigma 2018

This talk was a joint work with Elizabeth Anne Watkins.

Computer security often takes place in an institutional context: large organizations in fields like finance, healthcare, law, and journalism set best practices and provide critical training for non-experts. Many tools used to protect users assume that security is administered by benevolent overlords who can set appropriate permissions, answer questions, and in general save workers from themselves. However, as the future of work shifts towards contingent labor models and precarious employment, institutions may no longer play such a primary role. What then?

Beyond Legal Talismans

Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society, October 11th, 2016

Speech on the Internet is often viewed as unregulated, yet platforms still have Terms of Service that prohibit defamation and community guidelines that prohibit incitement. How do we reconcile the reality of online life with the legal meaning of those terms? What do we lose when we try to adapt words torn from centuries-old American jurisprudence to online spaces? In this talk, Kendra Albert explores how introducing legal terms of art invoked for their weight but often divorced from law, known as “legal talismans”, impacts online platforms and how we can move beyond legalities to systems that are more considerate of all users.

The Angry Birds in the Coal Mine

RIT MAGIC Invited Speaker Series, March 3rd, 2016

The popularity of video games, and the sprawling fandoms they create have engendered massive battles over who controls these artistic works. What digital rights measures are appropriate as protection against unauthorized copying or use? And whose rights should trump when there is conflict between digital rights management and a fan’s ability to play games? This talk will show how early efforts by Blizzard to prosecute rogue Warcraft server admins and World of Warcraft botters shaped the law.