PITTSBURGH - FTC Commissioner Mozelle W. Thompson will join some of the nation's leading privacy and security experts, academic authorities and Internet security specialists when they meet May 29-30 for the Carnegie Mellon University Security Workshop on "The Relationship between Privacy and Security."

This two-day, invitation-only event will address the issues surrounding public perception that any increase in security comes with a corresponding decrease in privacy.Commissioner Thompson, the keynote speaker, was born in Pittsburgh and has long been active in international consumer protection enforcement. He is currently chairman of the Consumer Policy Committee of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, which is composed of 30 industrialized nations that produce internationally agreed-upon rules of the game in a globalized economy.This event, which is one of a series of security workshops being held at Carnegie Mellon, will address the day-to-day realities of privacy and security where a computer is involved. Topics will include how privacy and security go hand-in-hand; social, technical and usability issues; global dimensions of privacy, economic issues and standardization.

Drummond Reed, founder of XNS.org, will present the first public demonstration of the XNS Public Trust Organization's eXtensible Name Service (XNS) as an open, independent infrastructure for Web identity."The need for personalized, protected and persistent Web identity has become more important than ever," said Reed, who will address the workshop at 9:15 a.m., May 30. "Web services architectures require an open method for identifying and authenticating users independent of location, network or device. Corporations need a workable way to manage user experience across multiple portals. Individuals require simplified personalization and strong privacy protection as they interact with sites and services across the Web."

The global issues debate will include input from the European Directorate-General, Joint Research Centre Institute for the Protection and Security of the Citizen, as well as the chairman of the World Wide Web Consortium's P3 privacy project. P3P was designed by a working group composed of privacy advocates, Web technology leaders, data protection commissioners and global e-commerce companies. The World Wide Web Consortium is a group of more than 500 member organizations that develops common protocols for the Internet to further its evolution and interoperability.

"Web site privacy policies are good, but understanding privacy policies is better," remarked Tim Berners-Lee, W3C director. "P3P serves as the keystone to resolving larger issues of both privacy and security on the Web." Berners-Lee is widely recognized as the founder of the World Wide Web.

Chris Israel, deputy assistant secretary, Office of Technology Policy in the Commerce Department, will present the Commerce Department's vision of the convergence of privacy and security and its impact on individuals' relationship with the networked world in which they live. Israel, who was previously deputy director of international public policy at AOL/Time Warner, Inc., represents the only office in the federal government whose mission is to develop and advocate national policies and initiatives that use technology to build America's economic strength.

The first workshop on trust infrastructures took place in November 2001. The second, held in March, dealt with state security issues. Upcoming workshops in 2002 will cover health care, mobile and wireless, and trust infrastructures. For information on future workshops, as well as white papers and downloadable video from previous events, see www.security.scs.cmu.edu.

Carnegie Mellon's Security Workshop Series is a central component of the Security Research Consortium, part of the Institute for Software Research International (ISRI) in Carnegie Mellon's School of Computer Science. The Security Research Consortium addresses issues of security where a computer is involved in an interdisciplinary environment on one of the most technologically sophisticated campuses in the world. Sponsors of the Security Research Consortium are able to take advantage of this world-class resource. For more information on becoming a Consortium sponsor, contact John Bourgein at (925) 376-8772 or email bourgein@cs.cmu.edu.