Keynote: The Price of Waiting | Surveillance Pricing & Wages: The Expanded Frontier of Exploitation

Stephanie Nguyen Room: USC 3rd Floor - Grand Ballroom 21:00-22:00 Abstract: Surveillance pricing – the practice where companies obtain and use extensive troves of personal data, often obtained covertly through a variety of techniques to target different prices to specific consumers for the same goods or services to generate greater profits – is proliferating across industries, with similarities to the earlier rise of surveillance advertising. While we failed to respond promptly to the harms of targeted advertising, we cannot afford the same delay with surveillance pricing and wages. This talk examines the historical evolution and parallels of surveillance ads and pricing, tracing four phases: (1) mass media and crude group segmentation, (2) more granular, identity based targeting (3) social media platformization, and (4) commercial surveillance. As these targeting systems become more opaque, widespread, and challenging to avoid, we need researchers, technical experts, and investigators to help uncover evidence, identify harms, and build the foundation for public scrutiny and policy action. In particular, three areas of research include: starting at the harms stemming from surveillance, going upstream to focus on infrastructure, and then examining the pricing methods that are used to target consumers and workers differently. We regulated commercial surveillance too late – after the infrastructure was entrenched and the harms widespread. Let’s not make the same mistake with surveillance pricing. Bio: Stephanie T. Nguyen is a senior fellow researching the intersection of tech, artificial intelligence and regulation at the Vanderbilt Policy Accelerator and the Georgetown Tech and Society Initiative and was most recently the Chief Technologist at the Federal Trade Commission under Chair Lina M. Khan. She built, designed, and executed the first Office of Technology and recruited, hired, and led a team of tech experts focused on competition and consumer protection enforcement matters, led compelled research studies on AI investments & partnerships and surveillance pricing, and strengthened digital capacity building across regulatory agencies. In the U.S. Digital Service under the Obama administration, Nguyen served in critical roles to build, design, deploy technological services to millions of people spanning migrant youth reunification, healthcare access, and student loan repayment programs. She led investigative research as a Research Scientist at the MIT Media Lab and at Consumer Reports – surfacing predatory fees across food delivery services during the pandemic, discriminatory automobile insurance pricing, and health app data privacy. Nguyen was a Gleitsman Fellow from Harvard’s Center for Public Leadership and received a Masters in Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School and a Bachelors in Digital Media Theory & Design at the University of Virginia.

Keynote: Future Challenges of Internet Censorship, and How to Meet Them

Dave Levin Room: USC 3rd Floor - Grand Ballroom 21:00-22:00 Abstract: Every day, billions of users around the world are subjected to Internet censorship. A cat and mouse game between censors and the Internet freedom community has engaged for decades, with steady progress towards a more open Internet. However, recent advancements threaten some of the fundamental ways we measure and combat censorship. In this talk, I will describe what I believe to be the future challenges facing the Internet freedom community, and the technical—and not so technical—steps we can take to address them. Bio: Dave Levin is an Associate Professor of Computer Science at the University of Maryland. Dave studies network security, and his work has been recognized with the IEEE Cybersecurity Award for Innovation, an NSF CAREER award, multiple IETF Applied Networking Research Prizes, and multiple best-paper awards. He also serves on the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine Forum on Cyber Resilience. Dave is dedicated to expanding undergraduates' exposure to research, for which he received an NCWIT Undergraduate Research Mentoring Award.

Keynote: Who Gets to Design Our Technological Future?

Paul Ohm Room: USC 3rd Floor - Grand Ballroom 21:00-22:00 Abstract: Those who design the technologies we use to work, communicate, and play increasingly get to shape the rules that govern society, policy, and law. Professor Ohm argues that recent advances in how software is developed and deployed may fundamentally change who gets to participate in these design decisions. Emerging tools lower the barriers to entry, potentially moving technologists out of the center and inviting new voices--experts in sociology, philosophy, and law--into the process. They also reduce the cost of experimentation, removing a long-standing objection to involving outsiders like NGOs and governments. The way forward is full of challenges, but if we navigate it wisely, we just might create a more participatory, transparent, humane, and just technological future. Bio: Paul Ohm is a Professor of Law at the Georgetown University Law Center in Washington, D.C. In his research, service, and teaching, Professor Ohm builds bridges between computer science and law, utilizing his training and experience as a lawyer, policymaker, computer programmer, and network systems administrator. His research focuses on information privacy, computer crime law, surveillance, technology and the law, and artificial intelligence and the law. Professor Ohm has published landmark articles about the failure of anonymization, the Fourth Amendment and new technology, and broadband privacy. He has served in numerous roles in government, for the U.S. Department of Justice, Federal Trade Commission, Office of the Colorado Attorney General, and Commission on Evidence-Based Policymaking.

Keynote: From Party App to Pentagon Sniffer: Tracing the Commercial-to-Government Data Pipeline

Byron Tau, Associated Press 22:00–23:20 Abstract: This talk examines the technical and business mechanisms through which consumer applications become nodes in government surveillance networks, using the case study of X-Mode Social (formerly Drunk Mode). Through detailed analysis of SDK integration, data flows, and commercial relationships, we trace how a University of Virginia student's party safety app evolved into a collection platform for the Defense Department. The presentation reveals the surveillance supply chain architecture: how Software Development Kits (SDKs) embedded in hundreds of consumer apps create a distributed sensing network capable of collecting location data, Bluetooth identifiers, and wireless signals from millions of devices daily. We examine the technical capabilities that transform smartphones into persistent surveillance tools, the business incentives driving app developers to integrate data collection SDKs, and the regulatory gaps that enable these arrangements. Bio: Byron Tau is an author and journalist. He’s currently an investigative reporter in the Washington, D.C. bureau of the Associated Press, where he focuses on reporting stories about national security, law enforcement, technology and government accountability. He previously worked at The Wall Street Journal, NOTUS and Politico. With over 15 years of experience in Washington, Byron has covered numerous beats across all three branches of the federal government.