joining us now is edward felten, the chief technologist at the federal trade commission. >> i am seniorisor to the chairman and commissioners at the ftc. i am an internal consultant on technology in policy issues. i do some liaison and an ambassador to the technical community and the tech industry and the help the other technologists within the agency to be more effective. >> but as the ftc needed chief technologist? >> the ftc is doing an increasing amount of work in areas like online privacy and competition and so on. the leadership in the agency decided they wanted to have more access to technical advice. if you are going to be working in this area, and helps to have people in house to speak the language. >> what is your background when it comes to on-line privacy and what is your general philosophy? >> i am a computer scientist. i have been a computer science professor at princeton for 17 years. my technical research in teaching has been largely in online security and privacy. i come from a long background in the technical aspects of this. i have also worked on some public policy is