INFO 1200 Preliminary Exam Terms

technology narratives

definition: a viewpoint on technology

example: technological neutrality, technological determinism

significance to Info ELP: shows different viewpoints people important to the development and regulation of technology may have, and therefore can help predict how they would choose to regulate technology

technological neutrality

definition: the belief that technology is not inherently good or bad, and that the good or bad that comes from technology is just a matter of how people choose to use it

challenged by Langdon Winner: technology shapes our form of life

example: iPhone was created for communication, and it made people more interconnected

hammer?

significance to Info ELP: viewpoint on technology that enables people to act in regards to technology

technological determinism

definition: Langdon Winner: technological development is deterministic and inevitably causes social transformation. therefore, we aren’t in control, technology is

technological somnambulism

challenged by Nancy Baym: especially pervasive when technology is new

produces both utopian and dystopian views

absolves powerful actors from building safeguards

example: Socrates thinks the alphabet will “create forgetfulness in learners’ souls” because they will use it to write things down and forget how to remember things

Google is “making us stupid” by sapping our intelligence and getting rid of patience

significance to Info ELP: viewpoint on technology that positions people as powerless to stop changes in technology; lawmakers with this perspective will not implement laws regulating technology

the social construction of technology (SCOT) narrative

definition: Nancy Baym: focuses on various actors and institutions involved in making technology (eg: engineers, investors, regulators) and looks at ways users and non-users give meaning to technology

considers material constraints (and features) as resulting from prior social choices

technology is the product of social forces

example: creation of computer → different paths of development depending on who needs them (government for surveillance, Facebook changes because of Twitter’s competition, etc)

people in the US didn’t text until texting plans became less expensive, and now they text a lot

significance to Info ELP: viewpoint on technology; those with this viewpoint will be mindful of the many different actors and institutions involved in making technology

domestication of technology

definition: Nancy Baym: follows social shaping in considering both affordances and practices, but concerned with the phase when technology goes from noteworthy to mundane

social shaping of technology: middle ground between technological determinism and SCOT

explains why deterministic narratives are so pervasive in the early stages of technological adoption

example: the Internet → the internet

significance to Info ELP: helps understand how the viewpoints of a technology have changed over the life of the technology

public values

definition: moral and social values that are widely accepted in society

Phillip Brey proposes a set of values that disclosive computer ethics should focus on

example:

includes justice, autonomy, privacy, and democracy

don’t use the internet to spread child pornography (?), don’t hack into things (?)

significance to Info ELP: “an emphasis on public values makes it more likely that analyses in disclosive ethics can find acceptance in society and that they simulate better policies, design practices, or practices of using technology”

modes of regulation

definition: Lawrence Lessig: law, norms, market, and architecture that work together to regulate something

example:

law: copyright, defamation, obscenity

norms: set of understandings that constrain behavior (eg: don’t say that, don’t do that)

market: pricing structures, online services, advertisements

architecture: code: passwords, traces that link transactions, encryption

smoking

significance to Info ELP: technology can be regulated in many different ways, and therefore focus should not just surround lawmaking but also norms, market, and architecture (code)

technology can undermine norms and laws, but can also support them

Capital-P vs lowercase-p policy

definition:

Capital-P: the formal laws and rules that govern technology, developed by law-makers, regulatory agencies, judges, international standard orgs. follows well-defined procedure

lowercase-P: de facto policy as enacted by the actors who control the technology we use, developed by private companies, engineers, and online communities. procedures for development are not always transparent or public, and can be enforced formally or informally

example:

Capital-P: the GDPR

lowercase-p: news companies deciding what to report on

significance to Info ELP: technology can be regulated in different ways, not just through law

balancing trade-offs

definition: trade-off between implicated values (moral and non-moral)

example: Phillip Brey: VSD (value-sensitive design) technology takes into account the idea that computer systems harbor values and proposes an investigation into those values and designs

steps: identify topic of investigation, identify direct and indirect stakeholders, identify benefits and harms for each group, map benefits and harms, conduct a conceptual investigation, identify potential value conflicts, and integrate these considerations

significance to Info ELP: important to understand all perspectives of a situation

glitch

definition: technological breakdown

happens again and again

can be due to systemic biases and act as markers of exclusion and subordination

example: Ruha Benjamin: “Malcom X” being read as “Malcom Ten”

significance to Info ELP: important to question innovation as a straightforward social good and to look again at what is hidden by an idealistic vision of technology

noticing technology through breakdown

definition: technology as “infrastructure” = something we only notice when it breaks

look at Langdon Winner, Ruha Benjamin

example: “Malcom X” being read as “Malcom Ten”

look at predictive policing

significance to Info ELP: it is important to view technology from the perspective of minorities to see how it is prejudiced against certain groups

“law lag” narrative

definition: technological change is persistently outpacing societies and their institutions

obscures the important role of human actors, institutions, and policies in creating novel, transformative technologies

lose a clear understanding of social and technological change, as well as opportunity for public debate regarding AI

Tess Doezema & Nina Frahm’s article

example:

for: open letter published by the Future of Life Institute saying that AI is a big change in life and the management of it is not happening, demand that there is a six-month pause in AI development past GPT-4 to “catch up”

against: US National Science and Technology Council is among the first to create norms for “Preparing for the Future of Artificial Intelligence” in 2016

European Commission’s AI Act, proposed in 2021

significance to Info ELP: not real, prevents the critical discussion of AI governance

the “privacy paradox”

definition: Nora Draper and Joseph Turow: the idea that although people say they care about information privacy, they often behave in ways that contradict those claims

example: people are convinced that surveillance is inescapable, and therefore allow their data to be taken and used

2018 report that Facebook is selling user data to Cambridge Analytica for politics

significance to Info ELP: prevents action against companies taking people’s data, which may be impactful to law and policy decisions

digital resignation

definition: Nora Draper and Joseph Turow: people have come to accept that they have little control over what marketers can learn about them lone, and no longer care

don’t believe that companies can be trusted to use their data

example: “opt-in” to privacy policies they don’t understand or haven’t read

Draper and Turow study about Americans and collecting data: 58% of respondents were deemed resigned

significance to Info ELP: prevents action against companies taking people’s data, which may be impactful to law and policy decisions

government vs commercial surveillance

definition:

government: “nothing to hide” argument that if a person is protecting their privacy, they are hiding something

commercial: the industry collects everything so they can better understand you

example:

government: Underground Railroad article

commerical: companies using your data to see what they should advertise to you

significance to Info ELP: investigates different forms of surveillance, which will require different law and policy decisions

the 4th Amendment

definition: “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”

limits surveillance by law enforcement and security agencies

example:

Olmstead v US (1928) → Supreme Court rules you don’t need to get a warrant to wiretap a telephone

Katz v US (1967) → Supreme Court reverses itself → need to get a warrant to wiretap

Smith v Maryland (1979) → if we didn’t wiretap a phone, but just collected records of who called who at what time → not a search (called the Third Party Doctrine)

Riley v California (2014) → when someone is pulled over by the cops, they cannot search your smartphone

Carpenter v US (2018) → Court re-thinks Third Party Doctrine, says collecting cell-site location information counts as a search

significance to Info ELP: can see how information law started out in the US and how is has evolved over the years

sectoral approach vs omnibus approach

definition:

sectoral: smaller, more specific privacy laws that regulates one industry

omnibus: wide, overarching privacy law that regulates all industries

example:

sectoral: American Privacy Patchwork: American Privacy Acts, such as

the Family Education Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) (1988)

omnibus: the GDPR

significance to Info ELP: different forms of law and policy in regards to privacy, with different pros and cons

notice and consent

definition: way to protect privacy by informing people about how their personal data is being used and getting their permission to collect it

example: Terms and Conditions

Cambridge Analytica

significance to Info ELP: large part of current technological policy, has many holes

GDPR

definition: The General Data Protection Regulation

omnibus law passed in 2016 by the EU, but affects companies anywhere that processes data about EU citizens

tries to strengthen “notice and consent”

example: raises privacy floor standards, have to opt-in instead of opt-out; strong data minimization and purpose limitation principles; creates more meaningful “notice and consent” procedures; imposes significant penalties

Meta is fined for breaking the GDPR

significance to Info ELP: one of the strongest forms of privacy policy currently around, something that can be improved upon in future policy

contextual integrity

definition: argues that new technologies don’t enter into ethical vacuums

we have existing expectations about how information should flow, which are attached to particular social contexts

the ethical burden is on data collectors to respect those norms, not on individual data subjects to police them

rejects “notice and consent”

example: you wouldn’t tell your doctor the same things you tell your banker

significance to Info ELP: another perspective to the privacy debate

the “going dark” debate

definition: What if so many devices and services are encrypted that law enforcement/intelligence agencies can’t access important information to fight crime?

example: San Bernardino Terrorist Attack

cannot get into iPhone because it is encrypted

significance to Info ELP: factor policymakers use to encourage the passing of laws that allow them to encourage the creation of backdoors to encryption, not entirely accurate

escrowed encryption

definition: similar to public key: private key never shared with anyone, public key shared with everyone

however: private key deposited with trusted third party

example: example in class with the lockbox?

proposed during the 1990s “Crypto Wars” → the US wants to limit the public and foreign nations’ access to cryptography strong enough to thwart decryption by national intelligence agencies

significance to Info ELP: form of encryption that has been becoming increasingly common, and therefore increasingly discussed in the privacy debate (see: the “going dark” debate)

end-to-end encryption (E2EE)

definition: encryption occurs on sender and recipient’s devices, with private keys held by users (not companies)

the platform/service cannot access the data

all three models (symmetric, public-key, and escrowed) can be considered E2EE, but sometimes only public-key (asymmetric) is considered truly E2EE

example: WhatsApp, iMessage, Apple Products

significance to Info ELP: a form of encryption that has been discussed in the encryption debate

Apple vs FBI

definition: companies must comply with court orders that they turn over customer data IF THEY CAN

they aren’t required to build their systems to make this possible

sometimes they don’t comply anyway

example: San Bernardino Terrorist Attack

FBI gets a court order to make Apple write a code to override their password and phone-wiping features and break encryption (a backdoor/golden key)

Apple challenges this in court, says a backdoor is “too dangerous”

FBI withdraws request because they find someone else to hack into the phone

significance to Info ELP: court case that has a large role in the “going dark” debate due to its debate over if the government should be able to access encrypted technology

digital watermarking

definition: invisible signals (in the context of AI) built into AI-generated images and videos that would identify the image as such when posted

often coupled with a labeling requirement that would render the watermark visible to a viewer

example: idk man its an invisible symbol

significance to Info ELP: way to adapt to technological change