Comp 317-001/417-001, Csed 417:

Social, Ethical and Legal Issues in Computing

Peter Dordal, Loyola University CS Dept

Fall 2013: Thursdays 7:00-9:30,  Corboy 422.

In this course we will be using sakai instead of blackboard. I guess everyone is supposed to do that now.

Text: The textbook will be A Gift of Fire, 4th Edition, by Sara Baase, Prentice-Hall, 2012. This is also available in an e-book format.

There will be three writing assignments during the semester; the first writing assignment will likely have a rewriting component, as you resubmit your first draft. There may or may not also be some more traditional form of exam; in the past I've used a takehome midterm.




My general course groundrules are here. Loyola's academic integrity rules are here.

You are expected to be familiar with the rules for quoting other sources in papers.



Notes and Readings

Course notes

Week 1: August 29 Week 2: Sept 5
Week 3: Sept 12
Week 4: Sept 19)
Week 5: Sept 26 Week 6: Oct 3
Week 7: Oct 10 Week 8: Oct 17
Week 9: Oct 24 Week 10: Oct 31
Week 11: Nov 7 Week 12: Nov 14
Week 13: Nov 21 Week 14: Dec 5

Readings

Before the Week 1 class, read 1.1-1.3 and at least 4.1 (preferably 4.2 as well)

Before the Week 2 class, read all of chapter 1 and 4.1-4.3.


Paper topics

Paper 1: IP-address subpoenas / music sampling.
              First draft due Friday, Sept 20, rewrite due Friday Oct 25

Paper 2: Reasonable Expectation of Privacy / Defamation Policy
              Due Friday Nov 8

Paper 3: Software Patents / Computer Crime
              Due Thursday Dec 6


We will consider some of the topics listed below.

Articles, references, and links


General

Don't Talk To Cops, Part 1, James Duane, Regent University Law School

Organizations

Association for Computing Machinery -- The professional organization for computer professionals (oriented towards programmers). See their USACM subgroup for public-policy issues. See also the ACM Code of Ethics.

Electronic Frontier Foundation -- Founded to fight for citizens' rights in the areas of privacy, cyberspace freedom (specifically, freedom of speech), copyrights, and encryption.

American Civil Liberties Union -- Not specifically concerned with cyberspace law, but nonetheless very involved in the fight against the Communications Decency Act. The ACLU has long fought against censorship in any form, and for personal liberties in general.

Electronic Privacy Information Center -- They are concerned with both government surveillance (directly and by searching your records), the scope of government databases, and encryption.

Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility -- "CPSR is a public-interest alliance of computer scientists and others interested in the impact of computer technology on society." Includes privacy issues but also professional responsibilities of programmers and workplace empowerment issues.

Ethics Center for Engineering and Science A useful compendium of ethics case studies and other information pertaining to science and engineering.

US Copyright office home page All sorts of information on copyright legislation, including the Digital Millenium Copyright Act.

2600, the Hacker Quarterly, leader in the fight for DeCSS.