On September 24 and 25 of this year, Purdue University hosted the second Dawn or Doom symposium. The event — a follow-up to the similarly-named event held last year — was focused on talks, movie, presentations, and more related to advanced technology. In particular, the focus has been on technology that poses great potential to advance society, but also potential for misuse or accident that could cause great devastation.

I was asked to speak this year on the implications of surveillance capabilities. These have the promise of improving use of resources, better marketing, improved health care, and reducing crime. However, those same capabilities also threaten our privacy, decrease some potential for freedom of political action, and create an enduring record of our activities that may be misused.

My talk was videotaped and is now available for viewing. The videographers did not capture my introduction and the first few seconds of my remarks.The remaining 40 or so minutes of me talking about surveillance, privacy, and tradeoffs are there, along with a few audience questions and my answers.

If you are interested, feel free to check it out. Comments welcome, especially if I got something incorrect — I was doing this from memory, and as I get older I find my memory not not be quite as trustworthy as it used to be.

You can find video of most of the other Dawn or Doom 2 events online here. The videos of last year's Dawn or Doom event are also online. I spoke last year about some of the risks of embedding computers everywhere, and giving those systems control over safety-critical decisions without adequate safeguards. That talk, Faster Than Our Understanding , includes some of the same privacy themes as the most recent talk, along with discussion of security and safety issues.

Yes, if you saw the news reports, the Dawn or Doom 2 event is also where this incident involving Barton Gellman occurred. Please note that other than some communication with Mr. Gellman, I played absolutely no role in the taping or erasure of his talk. Those issues are outside my scope of authority and responsibility at the university, and based on past experience, almost no one here listens to my advice even if they solicit it. I had no involvement in any of this, other than as a bystander.

Purdue University issued a formal statement on this incident. Related to that statement, for the record, I don’t view Mr. Gellman’s reporting as “an act of civil disobedience.” I do not believe that activities of the media, as protected by the First Amendment of the US Constitution and by legal precedent, can be viewed as “civil disobedience” any more than can be voting, invoking the right to a jury trial, or treating people equally under the law no matter their genders or skin colors. I also share some of Mr. Gellman’s concerns about the introduction of national security restrictions into the entire academic environment, although I also support the need to keep some sensitive government information out of the public view.

That may provide the topic for my talk next year, if I am invited to speak again.