Computer Ethics, Spr 2015

Corboy 301, Thursdays 4:15

Class 1

Week 1 Readings

Before class, read the first three sections of chapter 1 and at least the first section of chapter 4, especially:
    kill switches in 1.2.1
    cellphone case-study in 1.2.2
    What is intellectual property?: §4.1.1

Before Week 2, finish reading chapter 1 and read the first three sections of chapter 4.

The main course notes are in the Notes Organized by Topic section on the main web page. Reading assignments, comments on the class discussion and occasional special notices are in these week-by-week notes.

A couple questions

1. Several recent crackdowns on file-sharing have had a definite impact on ordinary users. Most recently, Github has been receiving takedown notices for open-source projects from publishers who have not bothered to verify that their content is not actually present: https://torrentfreak.com/google-porn-takedowns-carpet-bomb-github-150107/. Chillingeffects.org has agreed to self-censor the DMCA takedown notices it publishes because those very notices contain a list of URLs of pirated content: http://searchengineland.com/anti-censorship-database-chilling-effects-censors-removing-domain-search-212567.

How much power should content providers have in their fight to prevent file-sharing?

2. The NSA has been collecting call records from just about everyone, for some time now. This is based on the Supreme Court case Smith v Maryland, in which the court ruled that the police do not need a search warrant to obtain one person's calling records. In addition, the police in that case had reasonable suspicion that plaintiff Michael Lee Smith was guilty of robbery and of using his phone to make abusive calls.

Should the NSA be allowed to collect records from everyone? What about the police?

3. Ross Ulbricht's trial started this week for running the Silk Road website. On that side (accessible only by the Tor anonymizing browser), people could buy illegal drugs using narcotics. Some (though not all) of the government's case against Ulbricht is simply about his running the site. Should that be illegal?

Assignments

There will be three papers. For the first paper, you will be given an opportunity to rewrite it.

Plagiarism rules: be sure ALL quotations are marked as such, and also cited.

When you write, be sure you organize your points clearly and address the question. Grammar and style count for MUCH less!

We will not have exams.


Goals:
Example: is file-sharing stealing, if nobody lost anything?

Overview of some of the issues we will discuss this semester:
         
  
Michael Eisner's June 2000 statement to Congress (edited, from Halbert & Ingulli 2004).