CS 4883 SOCIAL ISSUES IN COMPUTING

Group Projects:

• Marketing Violence to Underage Users, Bob Harvey and Kristin McKelroy
• Implanted ID Chip Joe Ewing and Michael Ira Winger
• Behavior of Male vs. Female Online Shoppers, Tian Ching Lin and Denkenesh G. Woldya
• Ethics And Open Source Movement, Russell Hilim and Mark Reed
• Ethics in Hacking, Rick Runowski, Matt Parsel and Rebekah Stallings
• Issues In Software & Intellectual Property Piracy, Charles Joyce and Syed Rehman
• Electronic Crimes Task Force, David Crandell and Bryan Smith
• Computers Monitoring Human Behavior, Eric Oyler and Demian DeHoet
• Internet and E-mail Privacy, Samer Al-Shwayat and Mohammad Faraz Yaqoob
• Social Impact of AI, Neal Nation and Maciej Kmieciak
• Security Risks of Banking and Buying Online, Matthew Byrne and Randin "Destry" Wright
• Security Around the World, Jarod Mendez and Jeremy Hillshafer
• Computers and Society: the Negative Impact, Chris Hase and Jack Bell
• Pornography in the Workplace, Micah Burdge and Moses Onwu
• Manners in the Online World, Justin Owen and Joel Yearous
• Influence of IT in Pakistan, Barry Roberts and Mohammad Shah
• Computer Viruses: Problem, Business or both? , Anas Almaghrabi and Jesus Lugo
• Brainwave Monitoring Technology, Navid Amiryeganeh and Tim Potteiger
• Senior Citizens and Computers, Sean O'Banion and Chad Ferguson

Interesting link(s):

• A global approach to ethics, text by G. L. Engel, IEEE Spectrum, November 1995, new
• Help for those who need it, text by S. H. Unger, IEEE Spectrum, December, 1995, new
• Ethics hotline and other EC activities, text by S. H. Unger, IEEE Spectrum, April, 1997, new
• Reflections - and the future, text by G. L. Engel, IEEE Spectrum, June, 1997, new
• An ethics hotline, text by G. L. Engel, IEEE Spectrum, August, 1997, new
• A bit of tonque-in-cheek warning about attending college!
• Journal of Information, Communication and Ethics in Society
• Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility
• Ethical decision-making and Internet research, working document prepared by the Associations of Internet Researchers
• 'cyberphil-l' discussion list - you may want to consider subscribing
• Information Ethics Group, Oxford University
• Institute for Business Technology & Ethics
• Presentations Magazine WWW Site
• Palladium Project

MID-YEAR EVALUATION !!!NEW!!!

Material covered:

1. Selection of handouts that were distributed one year ago during this class:

• S. Petersen, Music Firms Still Don't Get It, E-week, 2001
• D. S. Wallach, Copy Protection Technology is Doomed, IEEE Computer, 2001
• E. Foster, It's a Sneakwrap World, Infoworld, 10/22/2001
• A. Kaplan, Cyber-donations -- Philanthropy or Theft?, E-week, 2001
• J. Taschek, Security at Odds with Personal Freedom, E-week, 2001
• L. Weinstein and P. G. Neuman, Risk of Panic, CACM, 44(11), 2001
• S. Sanborn, O. Linderholm and C. Moore, Privacy Concerns Raised, Infoworld, 9/17/01
• B. N. Meeks, Blanking on Rebellion: Where the Future is "Nabster," CACM, 44(11), 2001
• S. Brander, The End of the Free World?, NetworkWorld, 9/17/01

2. A few current cases of socio-ethical issues in computing

3. Do we need computer ethics, or should we just have ethics?

• argument for having just ethics -- everything else is only a part of it
• argument for discipline oriented ethical reflection -- technology introduces enormous amount of issues that standard ethics has not dealt with so far; therefore further reflection is necessary

4. Ethical Issues Resulting from the Computer Use; brief overview

• speed of change (changes in the real-world occur much faster than the law can adjust)
• effort reduction (you can do things now that you could not in the past)
• areas of impact
  • socio-economic issues
  • individual practice
  • software development
  • management vs. employees
  • workplace (e. g. monitoring and ergonomics)
  • data collection, storage, access
  • e-mail and internet
  • resource utilization
  • vendor-client relations
  • computer crime

5. Making ethical decisions

• "right vs. wrong"
• degrees of right
• degrees of wrong
• law vs. ethics
• Case study: Goodearl and Aldred vs. Hughes
• ethical principles
  • rights and duties
  • consequentialism
  • Kant's categorical imperative

6. Critical thinking

• nine rules of critical thinking and how they can be applied in ethical reasoning / analysis of ethical situtions.
• application of critical thinking to analysis of real-life cases
• • The case of the Dean of Harvard School of Divinity
  • The case of the MIT Bulletin Board

7. Professional Codes of Ethics

• Association of Information Technology Professionals (AITP) Code of Ethics
• Association of Computing Machinery (ACM) Code of Ethics
• Computer Society of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE-CS) Code of Ethics
• ACM and IEEE-CS Joint Code of Ethics for Software Engineers

We skip Chapter 4 of the book Hacking and Cracking as this is the exact topic of the research done by one of the teams (but you should still read it

8. Encryption, Law Enforcement, and Privacy

• The need for data encryption and the early attempts at creating a secure infrastructure for electronic communication.
• • Raise of DES
  • Fall of DES
  • Double and triple DES vs. computational reality of today (how the machines beat DES to DES'th)
• Privacy -- is this a righ?
• • Olmstead case
  • Katz case
  • Privacy vs. security
  • Today according to the book
  • Today -- after 9/11 and the search for more security
• Public key encryption
• Encryption software -- world as the context
• Privacy vs. security today and tomorrow

9. Safety-critical systems

• What is the safety-critical system?
• Safety-critical systems in a historical context
• Increasing role of software in safety-critical systems
• Software system complexity as a factor affecting safety -- simplistic example
  • part A is well tested and works in many systems that do not involve part B
  • part B is well tested and works in many systems that do not involve part A
  • combination of parts A and B in one system leads to accidents

10. Whistle Blowing

• What is "whistle Blowing"?
• Seven stages of whistle blowing process
• Establishing the case for whistle blowing
• • Is there a potential for whistle blowing?
  • Seriousness test
  • Reality check
  • The "big picture"
• Trying to deal with the case inside of the organization
• • Taking the case to the immediate management (and forcing them to recognize the problem)
  • Taking the case to upper management
• Whistle blowing
• • Going outside of the organization
  • Living with the results
• Case study: GE in Israel

11. Catching up with reading

• J. White, B. Simons, ACM's Position on the Licensing of Software Engineers, CACM, November 2002, 45(11), 91
• S. Bradner, Sadly Predictable, NetworkWorld, 10/7/02, 22
• E. Messmer, Is biometrics ready to bust out?, NetworkWorld, 10//7/02, 24
• C. Carlson, Feds Pitch Cyber-fence, eWeek, 09/09/2002, 18
• C. Carlson, Bush to U.S. Colleges: Send in the CIOs, eWeek, 09/02/02/ 16
• J. Taschek, Hollywood Bill and the Media, eWeek, 09/16/02, 49

12. Guest lecture by Professor Ajith Abraham

13. On November 13^th we have guest lecture by Professor Ellen Martin she is a lawyer and will be talking about intelectual property and related issues.

Textbook, Chapters 9 and 10

NEXT CLASS -- Wednesday, December 4^th, final group presentations

Presentations for these who could not do them due to the weather on Wednesday are on Saturday, at 4pm. Let us get together in front of my office.

HOMEWORK 1 (team)
First, discuss with me the topic of your proposed WEB-site. I expect you to have a topic approved by Wednesday (August 28^th) class time. Second, (real homework) have the initial iteration of the team topic-WEB-site ready by Wednesday, September 4^th at class time. The same grade will be given to all team members.

HOMEWORK 2 (team)
Prepare a 10 minute presentation summarizing your project. This presentation is to be delivered on Wednesday, September 4^th during class time. Presentation will be judged both on its content and form. The same grade will be given to all team members.

HOMEWORK 3 (individual)
Textbook, page 7, worksheet: "Urgency of Ethical Standards Intensifies"
replace questions 5 and 6 with:

• 5. Which approaches to defining ethical behavior (ethical principles) out of these discussed in class are mentioned in the text. Justify your answer (you cannot just list them, but have to argue that this is really the case).
• 6. What should George do? What would you do in his situation?

Due by, class time, next class, September 11^th.

HOMEWORK 4 (individual)
Textbook, page 35, worksheet: " Who Should Do What About Cheating?"
Due by, class time, next class, September 25^th.

HOMEWORK 5 (individual)
Textbook, page 64, worksheet: " What Ethics Help Should a Society Provide Its Members ?"
Due by, class time, next class, October 2^nd.

HOMEWORK 6 (team)
Update the team topic-WEB-site to include the results of your research up to this point. Due by, class time, next class, October 2^nd. The same grade will be given to all team members.

HOMEWORK 6 (individual)
Textbook, page 154, worksheet: " The Importance of Not Being Different"
Due by, class time, next class, October 9^th.

HOMEWORK 7 (individual)
Textbook, pages 169-170-171-172, worksheets: " Review of Safety-critical Software" and three related to the Therac-25 accident(s)
Due by, FRIDAY, October 18^th midnight.

HOMEWORK 8 (team)
Evaluate WWW-project-sites of two groups listed on the class www site above AND two groups listed on the class www siste below your group project (in case when your group is on the top or bottom -- use modular approach). For each group write an evaluation and give a grade form the range 1-10. You will be graded on the evaluation Due by: Wednesday, October 23^rd. Homework has to be e-mailed to me by midnight (Tulsa time) of that day.

HOMEWORK 9 (team)
Pick-up evaluations of your class-WWW site. Available on the door of my office on Friday, November 1^st, in the evening. Use other student comments to update your class-WWW site. Due by: Friday, November 8^th at midnight (Tulsa time).

NEXT CLASS -- Wednesday, December 4^th, final group presentations

Reading assignment - handouts plus textbook pages xv-260

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