David Thaw University of Maryland Department of Computer Science 3239 A.V. Williams Bldg. College Park, MD 20742

Yale Law School Information Society Project P.O. Box 208215 New Haven, CT 06520

Bio

David Thaw is a (Postdoctoral) Research Associate at the University of Maryland Department of Computer Science and the Maryland Cybersecurity Center. He is also an Affiliated Fellow of the Information Society Project at Yale Law School. David's research examines the effect of regulation on information security practices, issues in practical (usable) cybersecurity, and issues related to the intersection of law and technology more broadly. David received his Ph.D. from UC Berkeley's School of Information in 2011. His dissertation examined the effects of U.S. information security regulations on cybersecurity practices at large organization in the United States. He received his J.D. from Berkeley Law (Boalt Hall) in 2008, his M.A. in Political Science from Berkeley in 2004, and his B.S. in Computer Science and B.A. in Government from the University of Maryland in 2003. David is admitted to practice in New York, Connecticut, and the District of Columbia. David's primary expertise is in information privacy and data security law. He has worked on several research projects in this area, including studies both of Chief Privacy and Chief Information Security Officers in which he conducted in-depth interviews of key executives in these areas at large U.S. firms. David has also examined how notification affects users' choices about installing applications which include programs other than primary application (e.g., both spyware and legitimate ad-supported software).

Background and Experience

My full curriculum vitae is available here.

Works in Progress

• Comparing Management-Based Regulation and Prescriptive Legislation: How to Improve Information Security Through Regulation (working paper, job market paper) (extension of dissertation research)


• Examining the Effects of Information Security Regulation on Information Security Practice: Views from Chief Information Security Officers (working paper) (extension of dissertation research)


• "Privacy-Friendly" Design for Online Behavioral Advertising Systems (under submission)

Selected Papers

• Priscilla Smith, Nabiha Syed, David Thaw, and Albert Wong, When Machines Are Watching: How Warrantless Use of GPS Surveillance Technology Terminates The Fourth Amendment Right Against Unreasonable Search, 121 Yale L. J. Online 177 (2011)
   
• David B. Thaw, Characterizing, Classifying, and Understanding Information Security Laws and Regulations: Considerations for Policymakers and Organizations Protecting Sensitive Information Assets (May 12, 2011) (forthcoming Ph.D. dissertation, University of California, Berkeley (on file with the University of California))
   
• David Thaw, Neha Gupta, and Ashok Agrawala, Proposal for a "Down-the-Chain" Notification Requirement in Online Behavioral Advertising Research and Development, W3C Workshop on Web Tracking and User Privacy (Apr. 28, 2011)
   
• Thaw, D., Feldman, J., Li, J. (2008). CoPE: Democratic CSCW in Support of e-Learning. In proceedings of the International Workshop on Collaborative E-learning Systems and Application (CESA 2008) (pp. 481-486). Barcelona, Spain. IEEE Computer Society. ISBN: 0-7695-3109-1/08
   
• Jerome Feldman, Daniel Lee, and David Thaw. "Communities of Practice Environment." The Internet and Society, Morgan, Bebbia, and Spector (eds.). Southampton: WIT Press, 2006
   
• Nathaniel Good, Jens Grossklags, David Thaw, Aaron Perzanowski, Deirdre Mulligan, and Joseph Konstan (2006) "User Choices and Regret: Understanding Users' Decision Process about Consensually Acquired Spyware," I/S: A Journal of Law and Policy for the Information Society, Vol. 2, No. 2, pp. 283-344
   
• Jerome Feldman, Daniel Lee, and David Thaw. "Communities of Practice Environment." The Internet and Society, Morgan, Bebbia, and Spector (eds.). Southampton: WIT Press, 2006
   
• Stopping Spyware at the Gate: A User Study of Privacy, Notice, and Spyware (Good, Dhamija, Grossklags, Thaw, Aronowitz, Mulligan, Konstan 2005)
   
• David Thaw, Toward an Understanding of the Politics of Internet Regulation (Apr. 13, 2003) (unpublished M.A. thesis, University of California, Berkeley (on file with author))
   
• David Thaw, The Effects of Monopoly in Information Technology on Democracy: A New Perspective on Microsoft's Monopoly (May 12, 2003) (unpublished joint B.A./B.S. thesis, University of Maryland, College Park (on file with the University of Maryland Department of Computer Science)), available at http://www.cs.umd.edu/Honors/reports/ThesisDavidThaw.pdf
   

Last Modified: August 22, 2011 (please note: I am currently in the process of updating several items on this site.)