WEIS 2007

The best conference Pangloss went to last year was not a law conference, not even a policy conference, but the Workshop on the Economics of Information Security, which presents actual empirical work by economists and information seciurity specialists on what factors in the real world affect privacy and security. What a joy to actually encounter "evidence based" policy in the wild!!

So this year's papers are now up at http://weis2007.econinfosec.org/program.htm . Sadly i couldn't make it this time but my attention has already been drawn to "
The Effect of Online Privacy Information on Purchasing Behavior: An Experimental Study
Janice Tsai, Serge Egelman, Lorrie Cranor, Alessandro Acquisti, Carnegie Mellon University , in which researchers found that if information about privacy advantages and disadvantages of a range of products was displayed to consumers, the privacy pros and cons did affect their decision on which to buy; but only up to the point of paying a maximum of about 60 cents - or 30 p - on items worth up to about £7, for better privacy.

Many more papers also available, on how far law enforcement does deter hacking; on the sale of zero day exploits; on strategies to manage phishing attacks - and much more as they say. I fervently hope this annual event comes back to the UK soon.

EDIT: Aha, a simpler BBC version at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6729565.stm .