Fall 2019: Mondays 4:15-6:45, Corboy 208
Text: The textbook will be A Gift of Fire, 5th
Edition, by Sara Baase and Timothy Henry, Prentice-Hall, 2017.
This is also available in an e-book format.
There will be three writing assignments during the semester; the first writing assignment will have a rewriting component, as you resubmit your first draft.
There will also be one debate/presentation assignment. It is graded on a pass/fail basis; pretty much the only way to fail is to not do it.
There will not be any exams.
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.
Trust and Licensing: week 13
Tech and Antitrust: week 14
| Week 1: Aug 26 |
Sep 2: Labor Day |
| Week 2: Sep 9 |
Week 3: Sep 16 |
| Week 4: Sep 23 |
Week 5: Sep 30 |
| Oct 7: Fall break | Week 6: Oct 14 |
| Week 7: Oct 21 |
Week 8: Oct 28 |
| Week 9: Nov 4 |
Week 10: Nov 11 |
| Week 11: Nov 18 |
Week 12: Nov 25 |
| Week 13: Dec 2 |
Paper 1: Music Sampling or Sci-Hub, due Tuesday Sept 24. Editable Word-type formats (.odt, .docx, .doc, .rtf, ...) only; no pdf!
Paper 2: Facebook portability and privacy or Section 230 changes, due Tuesday Nov 12.
Paper 3: Software Patents or Computer
Crime, due Wednesday Dec 11.
Two brief (one-paragraph) examples of essay writing (good and not as
good) are here.
Learning outcomes:
Understanding of laws and issues in areas such as privacy, encryption,
freedom of speech, copyrights, patents, computer crime, and
computer/software reliability and safety; understanding of philosophical
perspectives such as utilitarianism versus deontological ethics and basics
of the U.S. legal system.
And an interesting followup: Reminder: Please Shut Up (advice from an attorney)
Don't
Call Yourself A Programmer, by Patrick McKenzie
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.