Contemporary Issues in CS

Who is this Person and Why do we Care?

Immense Potential for Good

http://gigaom.com/2011/01/12/social-networks-mobile-haiti/

Scary Stuff

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/08/24/AR2010082406154.html?nav=rss_email/components

Scarier Stuff

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/16/world/middleeast/16stuxnet.html

The Stuxnet Worm targets Siemens industrial controllers.

When Technologies Collide

When Technologies Collide

And Another OneAttack on Tuesday, 9/27/2013: Mark Frons, chief information officer of The New York Times, issued a statement saying the disruption "was the result of a malicious external attack by the Syrian Electronic Army or someone trying very hard to be them." 

Then, on Wednesday morning:

This Class

Goals:

• You’re a professional.

• You’re an informed citizen.

This Class

Why do we need you?

http://gizmodo.com/why-californias-new-web-wide-delete-button-for-teens-w-1377730365

This Class

Why do we need you?

This Class

http://userweb.cs.utexas.edu/users/ear/

Practical stuff:

Contemporary Issues in Printing

Term: Spring, 1460

Instructor: Mr. Gutenberg

Professional Ethics

Your first job after graduation is system administrator for a 200 person

privately held manufacturing company.

The president/owner sends this message to the employees:“I want to encourage each of you to make comments to me about any facet of our operation you care to. Your response should be made through our anonymizer program so that your identity will not be disclosed”

The president/owner finds one response saying:“This company sucks. The only way I find to retaliate for the way I have been treated is sabotage. Every tenth part I turn out is defective.”

The president/owner insists that you examine the computer usage records to determine the identity of the alleged saboteur.

What should you do?

Do these factors affect your decision?• The security of your job

• Your hope for promotion

• The impact of the sabotage (the company make party favors – the company makes pacemakers)

• The consequences for the alleged saboteur

• A belief that even if you refuse to assist in the identification, someone else could do it instead

• The message instead is:

“A coworker says this company sucks. He says the only way he can find to retaliate for the way he has been treated is sabotage. He claims every tenth part he turns out is defective.”

• You believe you know the alleged saboteur and that person is your friend (your enemy)

Do You Ask?

• What is the effect on you?

• What is right and what is wrong?

• What is the greater good for the company?

• What is the greater good for the employees of the company?

• What is the greater good for your community?

Computer Ethics

The analysis of the nature and the social impact of computer technology and the corresponding formulation and justification of policies for the ethical use of such technology.

James Moor, 1985

Computer Ethics

Why are computers special?

Computer Ethics

• Logical malleability

• Impact on society

• Invisibility factor

Why are computers special?

Computer Ethics

• Logical malleability

• Impact on society

• Invisibility factor

Why are computers special?

• Invisible abuse

• Invisible programming values

• Invisible complex calculation

Old Customs Meet New Technology

http://www.cnn.com/2012/11/25/world/meast/saudi-arabia-women/index.html?c=&page=2

The Bits Are Changing How We Study Ourselves

"There is a lot of information that will be available and ready to mine like never before," he said. "When do the family arguments start? How many people watch the football games? How much do people drink?”

The Bits Are Changing How We Study Ourselves

But who owns the bits? Will Google and Facebook be the arbiters of who can do this research? Should they give the date to researchers:

•Are the data proprietary?

•What about the privacy of users?

The Bits Are Changing How We Study Ourselves

But you can do some research yourself:

www.google.com

http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/ear/cs349/GoogleQueryResearch.html

Vacuums and Muddles

• Conceptual muddles

• Policy vacuums

Vacuums and Muddles

• Computer programs become economically significant assets.

• Policy vacuum: How should this intellectual property be protected?

• Conceptual muddle: What is a program? • Is it text? • Is it an invention? • Is it mathematics?

Vacuums and Muddles

• Email

• Policy vacuum: Should the privacy of email communication be protected?

• Conceptual muddle: What is email? Is it more like a:• letter, or a • postcard?

Vacuums and Muddles

Is there a muddle here:

What is stealing?

Vacuums and Muddles

Aaron Swartz

Vacuums and Muddles

http://www.jstor.org/

Vacuums and Muddles

1986 Computer Fraud and Abuse Act

• Computer Espionage• Computer tresspassing, and taking government, financial, or commerce info• Computer tresspassing in a government computer• Committing fraud with a protected computer• Damaging a protected computer (including viruses, worms)• Trafficking in passwords of a government or commerce computer• Threatening to damage a protected computer• Conspiracy to violate (a)• Penalties• Miscellaney

Vacuums and Muddles

You are the MIT CIO. What do you do?

A. Plug the hole and forget it.

B. Do what they did to catch him but don’t call the police.

C.Call the police.

D.Something else.

Vacuums and Muddles

Can we back up and start over and find a better solution?

Vacuums and Muddles

Can we back up and start over and find a better solution?

Vacuums and Muddles

Is there a vacuum here:

Swartz faced:

•35 years in prison•$1 million in fines

A rapist may face:

•7 years in prison

Vacuums and Muddles

Then

Yes

No

Now

????

More Examples of Questions We Will Consider

Who Owns That Song?

Oct. 2007 - In the first RIAA suit against an individual to reach a courtroom, the court found in favor of the RIAA. Jammie Thomas, a 30 year-old single mom, has been ordered to pay $220,000 to the RIAA for sharing 24 music files on Kazaa ($9,250 per song).

Sept. 24, 2008 – Judge ordered new trial.

Capitol v. Thomas

At issue: “making available”

The Next Trial Verdict

The playlist

On Thursday, June 18, 2009, a federal jury in Minneapolis, MN returned a $1.92 million ($80,000 per song) verdict against Jammie Thomas-Rasset

On Appeal

On Jan. 22, 2010, a U.S. district court slashed the amount of the penalty to $54,000, or $2,250 per song.

On Jan. 27, the RIAA offered Thomas-Rasset a settlement: $25,000, if she agreed to ask the judge to "vacate" his decision of the previous week. The RIAA said that the $25,000 would go to a musician’s charity. Thomas-Rasset declined the offer.

The RIAA appealed again.

On Further Appeal

On Nov. 3, 2010 Thomas-Rasset lost another round in court. A jury in Minneapolis decided that she was liable for $1.5 million in copyright infringement damages to Capitol Records, or $62,500 for each song she illegally shared in April 2006.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-20021735-93.html#ixzz1B23XH5Ct

And Then …

In July 2011, the court again reduced the $1.5 million jury award to $54,000, or $2,250 per song.

In August, the RIAA filed another appeal.

And Then …

In early 2012, Thomas-Rasset agreed to drop the making-available issue and accept an injunction against further making-available of copyrighted works to the public, but asked the court to explicitly state that no decision had been reached on the issue and that it was merely being set aside.

On September 11, 2012, the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the District Court's reduction of the award, and reinstated the award of $222,000, which was the amount awarded by the jury in the first trial.

Two distinct legal issues:•Is “making available” “distribution”?•Is it constitutional to award large statutory damages that bear no relationship to real damages?

The End

March 18, 2013 U.S. Supreme court refused to hear the case.

Supreme Court Refuses Similar Case

• 2009: Jury awards damages of $675,000 ($22,500/song).

• 2010: Judge reduced award to $2,250/song, saying the original award was “constitutionally excessive.”

• 2011: Appellate court reversed judge.

• 2012: Supreme court let that opinion stand.

• 2013: First circuit upheld the award after another appeal.

• Tenenbaum’s petition claimed that Congress did not intend “unrestrained discretionary jury damage awards against individual citizens for copyright infringement.”

• Another argument: huge awards like this are unconstitutional.

Joel Tenenbaum downloaded 30 songs.

U.S. Copyright Act allows for statutory damages up to $150,000/song.

What do you think?

By the Way …

The RIAA is no longer pursuing a policy of going after individuals. Instead, it is trying to work with internet providers to stop illegal file sharing.

How Much IP Protection is Good?

Stephan Kinsella

How Much IP Protection is Good?

Stephan Kinsella

What Do They Have the Right to Do?

Warrant-less demands for cell location data:

Is raw location data protected by your right to privacy in the same way that the content of what you say on your phone is?

What Do They Have the Right to Do?

Warrant-less demands for cell location data:

Is raw location data protected by your right to privacy in the same way that the content of what you say on your phone is?

• Conceptual muddle: what is cell location?

• Policy vacuum: Can the police get it without a warrant?

Your Data or Someone Else’s?US Supreme Court

UNITED STATES v. MILLER, 425 U.S. 435 (1976) 425 U.S. 435 UNITED STATES v. MILLER.

CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT.

No. 74-1179. Argued January 12, 1976.

Decided April 21, 1976.

Respondent, who had been charged with various federal offenses, made a pretrial motion to suppress microfilms of checks, deposit slips, and other records relating to his accounts at two banks, which maintained the records pursuant to the Bank Secrecy Act of 1970 (Act). He contended that the subpoenas duces tecum pursuant to which the material had been produced by the banks were defective and that the records had thus been illegally seized in violation of the Fourth Amendment. Following denial of his motion, respondent was tried and convicted. The Court of Appeals reversed, having concluded that the subpoenaed documents fell within a constitutionally protected zone of privacy. Held: Respondent possessed no Fourth Amendment interest in the bank records that could be vindicated by a challenge to the subpoenas, and the District Court therefore did not err in denying the motion to suppress. Pp. 440-446.

The subpoenaed materials were business records of the banks, not respondent's private papers. Pp. 440-441.

Conceptual Muddle/Policy Vaccuum

• Conceptual Muddle:

• Policy Vacuum:

Conflicting Legal Answers on CSLI Data

July, 2011, New York Appellate Division First Department in People v. Hall, 926 N.Y.S.2d 514, (1st Dept. 2011). The Court briefly addressed the constitutional issues presented and then concluded that access to three days of location surveillance in the absence of a warrant was permissible: “Obtaining defendant’s CSLI without a warrant did not violate the Fourth Amendment because, under the Federal Constitution, defendant had no reasonable expectation of privacy while traveling in public.”

August, 2011, U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New (In the Matter of  an Application of the United States of America for an Order Authorizing the Release of Historical Cell-Site Information, 10-MC-897 (NGG)). After an extensive constitutional analysis, U.S. District Judge Nicholas Garaufis concluded that a probable cause warrant issued by a judge is required before law enforcement can obtain a customer’s CSLI data: “This court…seeks to resolve the question before it: whether the request for at least 113 days of cumulative cell-site-location records for an individual's cell phone constitutes a search under the Fourth Amendment…The court concludes that it does. Consequently, the information sought by the Government may not be obtained without a warrant and the requisite showing of probable cause.” 

Converging on an Answer

http://bgr.com/2013/07/31/cellphone-location-data-tracking-ruling/

July, 2013. United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit has decided that the government doesn’t need to get a search warrant before tracking citizens’ location data on mobile phones. Specifically, the court ruled that the Constitution’s Fourth Amendment “protects only reasonable expectations of privacy,” which it says don’t include cell phone location data because “a cell phone user makes a choice to get a phone, to select a particular service provider, and to make a call, and because… he voluntarily conveys his cell site data each time he makes a call.”

The Legal Wrangling over GPS Tracking

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/01/warrantless-gps-monitoring/

Fred Robinson, 69, is accused of:•Stealing more than $250,000 of public money from the Paideia Academy charter school to start a day-care business, and •Taking as much as $175,000 from his job in Treasurer Larry Williams' office, where he was allegedly a no-show.

The Legal Wrangling over GPS Tracking

Here, installation of the GPS tracker device onto defendant Robinson’s Cavalier was not a ‘search’ because defendant Robinson did not have a reasonable expectation of privacy in the exterior of his Cavalier. Agents installed the GPS tracker device onto defendant’s Cavalier based on a reasonable suspicion that he was being illegally paid as a ‘ghost’ employee on the payroll of the St. Louis City Treasurer’s Office.

January, 2012, Federal Judge David Noce, in case against Fred Robinson accused of stealing public money.

The Supreme Court’s Ruling in a Similar Case

January 23, 2012

United States v. Antoine Jones

“We hold that the government's physical intrusion on the Jeep for the purpose of obtaining information constitutes a 'search' .”

2005 Police install tracking device while car in parking lot.

What Can Other People Do?

http://ezinearticles.com/?Cell-Phone-GPS-Surveillance&id=510569

Who Tracks Your Searches?

http://www.google.org/flutrends/

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/128993.php

Privacy You Thought You Had

Yellow dots: http://www.instructables.com/id/Yellow_Dots_of_Mystery_Is_Your_Printer_Spying_on_/

What about your printer? http://www.eff.org/pages/list-printers-which-do-or-do-not-display-tracking-dots

Real Anonymity?

Massachusetts Group Insurance Commission releases “anonymized” medical data.

Voter registration lists can be bought for $20.00.

Governor Weld’s medical records are suddenly public.

How Bad is the Problem?

Data from the 1990 US Census show that 87% (216 million out of 248 million) of the United States population provided data that likely make them unique based on only the three attributes of zip code, date of birth, and gender.

Latanya Sweeney, k-Anonymity: A Model for Protecting Privacy

Anonymous Social Network Data?

http://www.technologyreview.com/web/22593/?a=f

Work here at UT shows that de-anonymizing isn’t that hard.

In tests involving the photo-sharing site Flickr and the microblogging service Twitter, the Texas researchers were able to identify a third of the users with accounts on both sites simply by searching for recognizable patterns in anonymized network data. Both Twitter and Flickr display user information publicly, so the researchers anonymized much of the data in order to test their algorithms.

Taking Google and Everyone Else Out of the Picture

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2013/08/15/heres-how-iran-censors-the-internet/

Wrecking Havoc on the Internet

Lori Drew

Megan Meier

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megan_Meier

Why Did Lori Drew Get Off?

• The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act• The Terms and Conditions of MySpace

What tools were available:

Why Did Lori Drew Get Off?

• The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act• The Terms and Conditions of MySpace

What tools were available:

• Policy vacuum

resulting from a

• Conceptual muddle

Why weren’t the right tools available:

What’s Changed?

• November, 2007: Board of Aldermen for the City of Dardenne Prairie, passed an passed an ordinance that makes any harassment that utilizes an electronic medium, including the Internet, text messaging services, pagers, and similar devices a misdemeanor, with fines of up to $500 and up to 90 days imprisonment.

• May, 2008: Missouri updated its existing harassment law to cover bullying via the internet. The new law removes the requirement for illegal harassment to be either written or over the telephone. These changes make the law applicable to harassment from computers, text messages, and other electronic devices.

• Since then, over twenty states have enacted legislation to address bullying that occurs through electronic media. These laws include statutes that mandate that school boards must adopt policies to address cyberbullying, statutes that criminalize harassing minors online, and statutes providing for cyberbulling education.

• Clarify the muddle.• Fill in the legal vacuum.

But It’s Complicated

• 2009: Megan Meier Cyberbullying Prevention Act introduced in U.S. Congress, but never passed.

• But “you can’t legislate against meanness”.

Risk and Reward – A Case StudyLinear Accelerator Radiation Machines

• Social Benefit• Risk• Software Quality• Security• Ethics• Free Speech• Privacy• Law• Government Policy

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/24/health/24radiation.html?pagewanted=1&partner=rss&emc=rss

What Can Machines Do Today?

How does Watson win? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_yXV22O6n4

Watch a sample round: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFR3lOm_xhE

From Day 1 of the real match: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=seNkjYyG3gI

Introduction: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FC3IryWr4c8

Bad Final Jeopardy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwkoabTl3vM&feature=relmfu

Jobs

There will be huge job losses by 2040 or 2050 as robots move into the workplace. For example:

• Nearly every construction job: ~6 million jobs. • Nearly every manufacturing job: ~16 million jobs lost. • Nearly every transportation job: ~3 million jobs lost. • Many wholesale and retail jobs: at least 15 million lost jobs. • Nearly every hotel and restaurant job: ~10 million jobs lost.

If you add that all up, it's over 50 million jobs lost to robots. That is a conservative estimate. By 2050 or so, it is very likely that over half the jobs in the United States will be held by robots.

From Marshall Brain, Robotic Nation

Is it Already Happening?

The Rich Get Richer … Until …

The Rich Get Richer … Until …

… Until All the Customers Have No Money

Who Cares?

• Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility (CPSR)

• Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF)

• Online Ethics Center at the National Academy of Engineering